158 Constitutional History. [chap,
shown good ability ; and in France especially his administra-
tion, which came to an end shortly after Henry’s marriage and
Rnairy before the loss of Normandy1Iiad been fairly successful. What-
betw een t v ’ ,
him and ever credit it really deserved, it shone conspicuously in contrast
Somerset . “ n
with the luckless administration of Somerset ; and York’s popu-
larity was in some measure the result of the mistrust inspired
by his rival. For the two dukes were rivals in more ways than
one. They were the nearest kinsmen of the king ; the male
line of Edward III had run into two branches ; of the posterity
of John of Gaunt, Somerset, after the king himself, was the male
representative, the duke of York represented the descendants
Uncertainty of Edmund of Langley. It is true that York, as representing
of succès- . ɪ
Siontothe the Mortimers, and through them the line of Lionel of Clarence,
had a prior claim to the crown, and, in case of the king dying
childless, the question of the rights of that line would have to
be decided. But precedent was by no means clear; and the
claim, ascribed to Henry IV, to succeed as heir of the house of
Lancaster, complicated a question which was obscure enough
already. If the inheritance after Henry VI belonged to the
male heir of Edward III, it would be difficult to set aside
Somerset ; if it belonged to the heir general of John of Gaunt,
the lady Margaret was not without real preten⅛jons; but the
Beauforts had no claim through Henry IV and the elder house
of Lancaster, and, although their legitimation by pope and par-
liament was complete, they wτere excluded from the succession
Questions of by Henry IV so far as he had power to do it. If on the other
hand the right of an heiress to transmit her claim to the crown
to her descendants were admitted, York had no doubt the prior
right: but*no such case had yet occurred in Englishhistoryj.
Henry IV had tried to entail the crown on his sons to the
exclusion of heiresses ; the recognition of the earl of March as
heir of Richard II in 1385 had little more significance than the
recognition of Arthur of Brittany by Richard I. If then the
Mortimer had long cultivated popularity ; ib. The duke’s mission to
Ireland was regarded by his friends as an exile; Gregory, pp. 189, 195.
l The right of Henry H, as successor of Henry I, is the only similar
case, and in it there were so many points of difference as to destroy any
real analogy.
XVIII.]
Claim of York.
ι59
Beauforts were excluded, York might claim as heir of Edmund Double
of Langley1 ; if the claims of the line of Clarence were ad- Y01k.
mitted he might inherit as heir of Lionel. But so long as the
house of Lancaster was on the throne, it was a delicate matter
to urge a claim which, on the only principle on which it could
he urged, was better than their own. And the conduct of the
Mortimers had been such as to lead to the conclusion that their
claim would not be urged. Edmund Mortimer, the ally of Position of
π. . 1. the Morti-
Owcn Glendower, had indeed broached the rights of his mers,
nephews, and Richard of Cambridge had conspired to place his
brother-in-law the young earl of March on the throne ; the
name of Mortimer had twice been mingled with deeds of treason
and insurrection ; but the heads of the house had been loyal
and faithful, even to self-sacrifice. The last earl had been on
the closest terms of friendship with Henry V ; and Richard of
York himself had been educated and promoted by the Lancas-
trian kings, as if they had no suspicion that he would ever think
of supplanting them. But now that Henry had been married
for five years without issue, the question of the succession could
not fail to be constantly before the minds of both competitors.
With Someiset it was more than a question of succession, it was Positionof
a question of existence ; the house of York would not be likely
to tolerate the continued influence of the bastard line. Per-
sonal emulation added another element to the causes of mutual
mistrust ; for Somerset had shown a signal contempt for the
first military aspirations of duke Richard, and his own early Popularity
, , ,' of the duke
brilliancy had paled before the more substantial glories of his of York,
rival, until it was entirely forgotten in the loss of Normandy.
Now that Somerset and the policy which he supported had be-
come odious, the nation looked kindly on the one sound adminis-
1 On the claim of duke Richard, as heir of Edmund, and the effect of
his father’s attainder, see Bailey, Succession to the English Crown (1879),
pp. 40 sq. On the constitutional character of the duke’s action Mr.
Plummer (Fortescue, pp. 33 sq.) has some important remarks in modifica-
tion of the -view taken in this chapter; and insisting too strongly, as I
think, on the legality of the attacks on Suffolk and Somerset, and the ille-
gality of the modes in which the court defended them. But the whole
episode is in danger of being treated commonly on principles more or less
antedated.