Henry VIII. enjoyed to the full the advantage of an undisputed succession. He restricted the rights of Queens Consort, as his father had ignored the rights of Queens Regnant. A strange Nemesis followed, foretold in the so-called prophecies of Merlin. That these really were talked of, before the events occurred, can be proved by MSS. among the uncalendared papers temp. Henry VIII. Public Record Office. There is in full “the Examination of John Ryan of St. Botolphs, Fruiterer, concerning discourses which he heard at the Bell on Tower Hill, Prophecies of Merlin, that there never again would be King crowned of England after the King’s son Prince Edward, 22nd August, 1538.” James V. of Scotland had sadly said on his death-bed, “The Kingdom came with a lass, and it will go with a lass.” So was it to be in England. The pale sickly youth who succeeded, third of the Tudors, died without wife or child, and on the steps of the throne stood four royal women, whose lives form the most interesting period of national history. Each of them had a special claim. Mary, pronounced illegitimate by the Protestant party, and by statute of Parliament, inherited through her father’s will alone; Elizabeth, pronounced illegitimate by the Catholic party, and by a similar statute, stood second in that will; Mary, Queen of Scotland and of France, showed flawless descent from Margaret, the elder sister of Henry VIII.; and Lady Jane Grey proved like flawless descent from Mary, Henry’s younger sister.

Henry, a despot even “by his dead hand,” had, failing Edward, left the crown to Mary, then to Elizabeth, then to Lady Jane Grey. Edward VI., not a minor by the laws of England that allowed Government to commence at fourteen years, considered both his sisters illegitimate under his father’s statutes, preferring of the two Elizabeth’s claim. But for the peace of the kingdom he left by will the crown to Lady Jane Grey, ignoring, as his father had done, the prior claims of Mary, Queen of Scotland and of France. The results of the complication are too well known to be here rehearsed.

The first act of Mary was to establish her own legitimacy, the honour of her mother, and the power of the Pope; her second was to establish the office of Queen Regnant “by Statute to be so clear that none but the malitious and ignorant could be induced and persuaded unto this Error and Folly to think that her Highness coulde ne should have enjoye and use such like Royal Authoritie ... nor doo ne execute and use all things concerning the Statute (in which only the name of the King was expressed) as the Kinges of this Realme, her most noble Progenitours have heretofore doon, used and exercised” (1 Mar., c. iii.)

Both she and her sister, at their coronations, were girt with the sword of State, and invested with the spurs of knighthood, to show that they were military as well as civil rulers. Fortunately for her country, and for herself, Elizabeth lived and died a maiden Queen. The bitter consequences of her sister’s Spanish alliance taught her the importance of independence as a ruler. Whatever we may individually think of her character, all must allow her reign to have been in every way the most brilliant in the history of our country, only equalled in our own times by that of a Matron Queen, who has held the reins of Government in her own hand and whose husband came to the land but as Prince Consort. Queen Anne’s reign is also worthy of note, and can bear comparison with that of most Kings, for its military successes, and its literary activities.

Queens Regent.—Selden argues against Bodin of Anjou, who upheld the Salic Law, “are not discretion and strength, courage, and the arts of Government more to be desired and required in those who have the tuition of kings in their minority, than in the kings themselves till they are come of age?” He considers the French use of Queens as Regents to be destructive of their own theories.

Queens as Regent-Tutors of young kings have not held the same position in England as they did in France or in Scotland. But as governing Regents and Viceroys they have often done good service. William of Normandy more than once left the country in charge of his Queen. Richard I., by commission, appointed his mother, Eleanor, to be Regent of the Kingdom in his absence, and wrote to her to find the money for his ransom when imprisoned abroad. She sat as Judge in the Curia Regis, taking her seat on the King’s Bench by right of her office. She granted concessions to the inhabitants of Oléron (to women as to men) even down to the reign of John (1 John; see “Rymer’s Fœdera”). Edward III. found his Queen Philippa a Queen Regent worthy of himself. Henry V. appointed his mother as Regent in his absence, and even Henry VIII., when he went abroad on his last French War, left his Queen, Catherine Parr, Governor of the Kingdom. I have gone through their correspondence in the Public Record Office, and it bears ample testimony to her capability and his trust in her judgment. In “Olive versus Ingram,” 1739, it is noted, “Queen Caroline was once appointed Regentor of the Kingdom.”

It was with little less than Vice Regal splendour and power that Joan, Dowager Countess of Pembroke, ruled the Palatinate for nine years in the reign of Edward I.; or Isabel de Burgo in that of Edward II., or Agnes de Hastings in that of Edward III.; ruling in the stead of their sons until the youths attained majority at the age of twenty-one.

CHAPTER IV.
NOBLEWOMEN.

“Noblesse Oblige.”