Queen Elizabeth's successor

[Filuwaúrdjan]

As Lord Halifax notes, Wales was a principality, and so was ruled by a Prince.

Well, it was a little more complex than that. It was a series of petty kingdoms rather than a single polity, though periodic attempts were made to unify it, never with any long-term success. After the Norman invasion many of the petty kingdoms were replaced with brigand lordships ruled by Norman barons, which which theoretically part of the Kingdom of England but which were, in practice, as functionally independent as the remaining petty kingdoms which, to add to this confusion, became feudal vassals of the Anglo-Norman Crown at first de facto and later officially. The title 'Prince of Wales' emerged as a result of the expansionist campaigns of successive rulers of Gwynedd: a way of claiming lordship over the other remaining petty kingdoms without upsetting the wider political balance too much. None of these Princes of Wales ever controlled all of Wales and only very occasionally did they even control all of the parts not under the control of the Marcher Lordships. Eventually the expansionist ambitions of the House of Aberffraw collided with the expansionist ambitions of the Plantagenets, and Gwynedd was rather messily conquered and placed (along with the other now former petty kingdoms) under the direct control of the English Crown. The title 'Prince of Wales' was then given to the heir to the English throne as a not especially effective means of reinforcing the Crown's legitimacy over both the parts of Wales ruled directly by the Crown and the parts controlled by the Marcher Lords. Wales, of course, remained extremely unstable and a source of frequent serious political trouble until the events of 1485 and the subsequent full integration of Wales into an English polity now under the control of a Welsh dynasty. But the title stuck around, by this point out of tradition and habit.

[Torie]

The Tudors were Welsh? Who knew?

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

Why is there a 'Prince and Princess of Wales' royal title (and designated heir to the throne), but not an equivalent for Scotland?  I know 'Prince and Princess of Scotland' sounds strange at first, but I am sure it that novelty will wear off over time. 

As Lord Halifax notes, Wales was a principality, and so was ruled by a Prince. After England and Wales were unified into a single kingdom, the title of Prince of Wales was revived as a title subservient to the King of England & Wales.

When the England and Scottish crowns were unified, the two kingdoms were ruled as one. William, as heir to the British crown, does hold the title of Prince and Steward of Scotland, but this is subsidiary to his other Scottish titles, most notably Duke of Rothesay, and the much cooler Lord of the Isles, which comes from a 12th-15th century domain comprised of the Hebridean Isles, that mostly fell under the MacDonald lordship:

And in some respects, the present day IoM is the final remnant of this.

Might be a bit off topic, but why isn’t the Isle of Man part of what we think as the UK? I get that IoM is a crown dependency (as with the Channel Islands), but why haven’t they become separate nations as part of the Commonwealth or joined the UK proper (and get like one seat each in parliament lol)? Is it sort of like Puerto Rico’s relationship with the US?

[YL]

Might be a bit off topic, but why isn’t the Isle of Man part of what we think as the UK? I get that IoM is a crown dependency (as with the Channel Islands), but why haven’t they become separate nations as part of the Commonwealth or joined the UK proper (and get like one seat each in parliament lol)? Is it sort of like Puerto Rico’s relationship with the US?

It has a long history of quasi-independence and has resisted annexation in the past.  I also presume that aligning its tax system to ours would be unpopular in certain quarters.

[Coldstream]

The Tudors were Welsh? Who knew?

I met a history teacher who once said  “Aye a penny pinching miserable excuse of a man was Henry Tudor - and I’m Welsh!”

He referred to the man commonly known as Henry VII, but as with most devout Ricardians he only named him Henry Tudor.

[LabourJersey]

The Tudors were Welsh? Who knew?

I met a history teacher who once said  “Aye a penny pinching miserable excuse of a man was Henry Tudor - and I’m Welsh!”

He referred to the man commonly known as Henry VII, but as with most devout Ricardians he only named him Henry Tudor.

those people still exist?

[Coldstream]

The Tudors were Welsh? Who knew?

I met a history teacher who once said  “Aye a penny pinching miserable excuse of a man was Henry Tudor - and I’m Welsh!”

He referred to the man commonly known as Henry VII, but as with most devout Ricardians he only named him Henry Tudor.

those people still exist?

Oh yeah the Ricardian society is pretty big - most people with an interest in the subject tend to think Richard III got a raw deal at least.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yes, they exist and are some of the maddest people you could ever meet.

most people with an interest in the subject tend to think Richard III got a raw deal at least.

Got what was coming to him if you ask me.

[Alcibiades]

If you ever want a good laugh, I recommend watching The King in the Carpark documentary, in which Horrible Histories’ Simon Farnaby plays an appropriately bemused and passive-aggressive straight man to the crazy Ricardian lady. Top-notch comedy.

FWIW, my view on Richard III is that he was an able administrator with much of the same genuine enthusiasm for making improvements to the running of his kingdom as his elder brother, but that I’m not sure what else he was really expecting other than his fate after how thoroughly he alienated almost everyone who mattered. That he had the Princes in the Tower killed, if not quite as exceptionally vile a crime for the time period as might appear to us, seems plainly obvious.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

Might be a bit off topic, but why isn’t the Isle of Man part of what we think as the UK? I get that IoM is a crown dependency (as with the Channel Islands), but why haven’t they become separate nations as part of the Commonwealth or joined the UK proper (and get like one seat each in parliament lol)? Is it sort of like Puerto Rico’s relationship with the US?

It has a long history of quasi-independence and has resisted annexation in the past.  I also presume that aligning its tax system to ours would be unpopular in certain quarters.

Ah yes, forgot about their lax taxes.

[CumbrianLefty]

The Tudors were Welsh? Who knew?

I met a history teacher who once said  “Aye a penny pinching miserable excuse of a man was Henry Tudor - and I’m Welsh!”

He referred to the man commonly known as Henry VII, but as with most devout Ricardians he only named him Henry Tudor.

those people still exist?

Most certainly. There are still some self-declared Jacobites too.

[EastAnglianLefty]

The fascinating thing about Richard III is that if he'd won at Bosworth, everybody would accept that he had killed the Princes in the Tower and just shrug about it. There's only a desire to morally rehabilitate him because he lost - I haven't seen much sign of people wanting to claim that actually Ivan the Terrible never hurt anybody, they just claim that he was good despite that.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Ricardians confuse me. If you're a true-blue Yorkist convinced that Henry Tudor was a usurper, fair, I agree with you. But then to turn around and claim Richard III was legitimate... how? Even if you want to give him the benefit of the doubt and claim he didn't kill Edward V, it's an attested fact that he had him imprisoned and declared illegitimate on highly flimsy grounds (if you buy into the bigamy accusations against Edward IV, the one successful Yorkist King, then can you really call yourself a Yorkist?). These are pretty clearly treasonous acts that should disqualify him from the line of succession.

From a strict Yorkist perspective, it's obvious what should have happened: Elizabeth of York should have become the reigning monarch. The Yorkist claim to legitimacy was already rooted in a belief that dynastic legitimacy can be passed down through women as well as men (as does all Planagenets' claim, for that matter), so if it can be passed down through women it's not much of a stretch to say it can be passed down to women. Indeed England was going to get its first reigning queen not so long after, so it's not too crazy to imagine Elizabeth reigning in her own right.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

It's okay to moun the Queen but we must recognize what it is, now the 3 day mourning is over it's an aristocracy different from the Pope inherited wealth, like much of Capitalism is today, we don't disregard Movie stars but we have dislike for celebrity athletes whom are just as rich

Athletes and Monarch are different disliked for their inherited wealth than Politicians, Movie stars and Pope

Like I like Bill Cosby but Hockey and Baseball players I watch but don't like

[EastAnglianLefty]

Ricardians confuse me. If you're a true-blue Yorkist convinced that Henry Tudor was a usurper, fair, I agree with you. But then to turn around and claim Richard III was legitimate... how? Even if you want to give him the benefit of the doubt and claim he didn't kill Edward V, it's an attested fact that he had him imprisoned and declared illegitimate on highly flimsy grounds (if you buy into the bigamy accusations against Edward IV, the one successful Yorkist King, then can you really call yourself a Yorkist?). These are pretty clearly treasonous acts that should disqualify him from the line of succession.

From a strict Yorkist perspective, it's obvious what should have happened: Elizabeth of York should have become the reigning monarch. The Yorkist claim to legitimacy was already rooted in a belief that dynastic legitimacy can be passed down through women as well as men (as does all Planagenets' claim, for that matter), so if it can be passed down through women it's not much of a stretch to say it can be passed down to women. Indeed England was going to get its first reigning queen not so long after, so it's not too crazy to imagine Elizabeth reigning in her own right.

I mean I absolutely buy that Edward IV would promise to marry anybody if it would get him laid, but I don't think that particularly matters. Succession law is much more about perception than about rigid strictures.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Ricardians confuse me. If you're a true-blue Yorkist convinced that Henry Tudor was a usurper, fair, I agree with you. But then to turn around and claim Richard III was legitimate... how? Even if you want to give him the benefit of the doubt and claim he didn't kill Edward V, it's an attested fact that he had him imprisoned and declared illegitimate on highly flimsy grounds (if you buy into the bigamy accusations against Edward IV, the one successful Yorkist King, then can you really call yourself a Yorkist?). These are pretty clearly treasonous acts that should disqualify him from the line of succession.

From a strict Yorkist perspective, it's obvious what should have happened: Elizabeth of York should have become the reigning monarch. The Yorkist claim to legitimacy was already rooted in a belief that dynastic legitimacy can be passed down through women as well as men (as does all Planagenets' claim, for that matter), so if it can be passed down through women it's not much of a stretch to say it can be passed down to women. Indeed England was going to get its first reigning queen not so long after, so it's not too crazy to imagine Elizabeth reigning in her own right.

I mean I absolutely buy that Edward IV would promise to marry anybody if it would get him laid, but I don't think that particularly matters. Succession law is much more about perception than about rigid strictures.

Oh yeah, I totally buy he promised it, but there is a huge gap between promising it and actually going through with it. I don't think we have any credible evidence for the latter, given that all the people who testified on the matter had clear, er, incentives to lie at that point.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Ricardians confuse me. If you're a true-blue Yorkist convinced that Henry Tudor was a usurper, fair, I agree with you. But then to turn around and claim Richard III was legitimate... how? Even if you want to give him the benefit of the doubt and claim he didn't kill Edward V, it's an attested fact that he had him imprisoned and declared illegitimate on highly flimsy grounds (if you buy into the bigamy accusations against Edward IV, the one successful Yorkist King, then can you really call yourself a Yorkist?). These are pretty clearly treasonous acts that should disqualify him from the line of succession.

From a strict Yorkist perspective, it's obvious what should have happened: Elizabeth of York should have become the reigning monarch. The Yorkist claim to legitimacy was already rooted in a belief that dynastic legitimacy can be passed down through women as well as men (as does all Planagenets' claim, for that matter), so if it can be passed down through women it's not much of a stretch to say it can be passed down to women. Indeed England was going to get its first reigning queen not so long after, so it's not too crazy to imagine Elizabeth reigning in her own right.

I mean I absolutely buy that Edward IV would promise to marry anybody if it would get him laid, but I don't think that particularly matters. Succession law is much more about perception than about rigid strictures.

Oh yeah, I totally buy he promised it, but there is a huge gap between promising it and actually going through with it. I don't think we have any credible evidence for the latter, given that all the people who testified on the matter had clear, er, incentives to lie at that point.

My memory is that on certain readings of canon law a promise to marry was taken as binding, thus Edward IV wasn't able to also marry Elizabeth Woodville due to the prior promise, thus their kids were illegitimate.

But yes, not really a question of law, just a question of who had the power to get their version of events treated as authoritative.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Wrong Richard, wrong century.