j2∏ Conxtihdional History. [chap.
de jure. Notwithstanding the sacred character impressed on
him by unction at his coronation, notwithstanding oaths taken
to him, and perfect legitimacy of title, he is easily set aside
when the stronger man comes. Richard II believed in the
virtue of his unction as later kings have believed in the divine
right of legitimacy; and, when he surrendered his crown,
refused to renounce the indelible characters impressed by the
initiatory rite ɪ.
Doctrineof 458. If the clergy were disinclined to sacrifice themselves,
legitimacy , ,
and. of the WitharcIibishop Scrope, for a posthumous sentiment, the lawyers
of hereditary had little scruple in setting up or putting down a legitimate
claimant. Yet the idea of legitimacy, the indefeasible right
of the lawful heir, was also growing. Edward III in his
claim on France ; archbishop Sudbury in his declaration that
Richard II succeeded by inheritance and not by election 2 ; the
false pedigree by which the seniority of the house of Lancaster
was asserted on behalf of Henry IV3 ; the bold assumption of
indefeasible right put forth by duke Richard of York4; the
outrageous special pleading of Richard III5 ; the formal claim
of a just title by inheritance which Henry VII made in his
first speech to the commons, not less than the astute policy by
which he avoided risking his parliamentary title and acknow-
ledging his debt to his wife 6—all these testify to the growing
belief in a doctrine which was one day to become a part of the
creed of loyalty, but was as yet an article of belief rarely heard
of save when it was to be set aside.
Peisonai 459. Apart from the hold on the people which this growing
the MrJ, ° sentiment gave the king independently of his personal qualifi-
cations, rank those individual qualities which, as we have said,
the Plantagenet kings, by their public lives, set before the
nation : their strength, eloquence, prowess, policy and success.
ɪ See above, p. 14. 2 See above, vol. ii. p. 464.
ɜ See above, p. 12. 4 See above, p. 190. s See above, p. 230.
c t Subsequenterque idem dominas rex, praefatis communibus ore suo
proprio eloquens, ostendendo suum adventum ad jus et coronam AngIiae
fore tarn per justum titulum hereditanciae quam per verum Dei judicium
in Iribuendo sibi Victoriam de suo inimico in campo,’ &c. ; Rot. Parl.
vi. 268 : compare the politic silence of the Act of Settlement, Stat, ɪ
Hen. VII, c. ɪ.
XXI.]
Crown Properiy.
529
Combined with these were the local influence exercised by the and his other
1 . . , , - - v sources of
king in his royal or personal demesne, and the legal and moral influence,
safeguards sought in the securities of fealty, homage, and
allegiance, and in the still more direct operation of the laws
of treason.
460. The first of these, the extensive influence exercised by importance
, , . . . of the king
the king as a great landowner, scarcely comes into prominence as a land-
before the reign of Richard II ; for during the preceding reigns owner,
the royal demesnes had been so long removed from the imme-
diate influence of the king that they had become, as they became
again later, a mere department of official administration. John,
who had, before his accession, possessed a large number of
detached estates, continued when he became king to draw both
revenue and men from them, although by his divorce he lost
the hold which he had once had on the great demesnes of the
Gloucester earldom. Henry III had given to his eldest son
lands in Wales and Cheshire as well as a considerable allow-
ance in money; but Edward ɪ had had no time to cultivate
personal popularity in those provinces ; and his son, who before
his accession had possessed in the principality itself a settled
estate of his own, sought in vain, during his troubles, a refuge
in Wales. The earldom of Chester, however, which had been Theearidom
settled by Edward I as a provision for the successive heirs
apparent, furnished, after it had been for nearly a century in
their hands, a population whose loyalty was undoubted. Richard
II trusted to the men of Cheshire as his last and most faithful
friends ; he erected the county into a principality fox’ himself ;
and the notion of marrying him to ‘ Perkin s daughter o'Legh,’
the daughter of Six’ Peter Legh of Lyme1, was scarcely needed
to bring them to his side in his worst days. It was with
Cheshire men that he packed and watched the parliament of
1397 2. Still more did the possession of the Lancaster heritage τho<xuc⅛r
contribute to the strength of Henry IV. Although the revenue ^rJjaaoaa'
was not so great as might have been imagined, the hereditary
support which was given to him, his sons and grandson, was
1 Chr. Kenilworth, ap. Williams, Chronique de la Trahison, p. 293.
2 Ann. Kic. p. 208.
VOL. HI. M IH