HE Lancastrian princes, who were three in number, and ruled for above sixty years, were without hereditary right to the crown, and possessed it only by virtue of a parliamentary settlement, which set aside a formal declaration of Richard II. in favour of Roger Mortimer, earl of Marcha, and which had been assented to by the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, in the face of a claim made in the name of his son by John of Gaunt, and supported by the production of what were considered forged documents. Some years later, when the unhappy king was a prisoner in his hands, Henry of Lancaster again brought his rejected claim forward; but not choosing to trust to it alone, he mixed it up with complaints of Richard's misgovernment, and even some mention of conquest", a See vol. i. p. 409. b See his claim, as appearing on the Rolls of Parliament, vol. i. p. 418 of this work. and was declared king on no intelligible principle, by his triumphant faction. Some years later he obtained a parliamentary recognition, [7 Hen. IV. c. 2,] in which the unquestionable right of the Mortimers is passed over in silence; and he transmitted the crown to his son, whose warlike achievements promised to give him a second kingdom in France; but these expectations were frustrated by his premature death. Both these princes were able men, well fitted to preserve their acquisitions; their successor was of a totally different character, and his weakness proved the ruin of his House. His ambitious uncles struggled for power during his long minority, and so neglected foreign affairs, that the French were enabled not only to recover their recent lost provinces, but also to regain others which had long been in the hands of the English, and the few that remained were alienated on the king's mar • The Lancastrian "claim by blood" is shewn in the annexed table. HENRY III. |