Background
The application of the concept of heir presumptive became increasing problematic, and less relevant, as Elizabeth's reign progressed. Until her death in 1568, it fitted quite well the claim of Lady Catherine Grey to the throne, under the terms of the will of Henry VIII. Mary Queen of Scots had a leading dynastic claim to represent the House of Tudor, until her execution in 1587. Her son James VI of Scotland became then the most obvious successor, in terms of practical politics, but it was supposed that there might be legal arguments against his coming to the English throne. Such arguments had previously been developed against the claim of the Catholic Queen Mary; they could be applied to King James.
A Conference was intended as an intervention in the debate on the succession. It set out a large number of genealogical facts, suggested that other criteria should be used, and hinted at the risk of a return to the instability of the Wars of the Roses. It hit at King James's claim to the extent that it depended on the House of Lancaster. Reaching back to the end of the 14th century, it traced his descent from an illegitimate son of Katherine Swynford. [4]
There had been a "succession crisis" in France from 1589, and from 1590 the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia had been the Spanish claimant. [5] James VI has been taken as well-informed about the Gallican position on church and state, in his works on monarchy, and the French example remained significant for him to the later allegiance oath controversy. [6]
Political context of the work
Catholic political theory developed from the De iusta reipublicae christianae in reges impios et haereticos authoritate of William Rainolds (as Guilielmus Rossaeus, and perhaps writing with William Gifford), [9] which was aimed at the French situation. The same general principles were then applied to England, probably by Persons, with Richard Verstegan and perhaps others. [10]
The Conference proved divisive for English Catholics, since the invocation of resistance theory appeared treasonous to some. This point arose during the Appellant Controversy. The Jesuit inclusion of a Spanish claimant identified the work as pro-Spanish. [11] Some lay Catholics and secular priests were strongly opposed to the work, as became manifest during the Controversy; and so the initial issue from about 1598, the appointment of an archpriest in England, became bound up with attitudes to the succession to the English throne. [12]
James VI of Scotland was concerned by the work. According to the English diplomat in Edinburgh, George Nicholson, James VI employed Alexander Dickson to write a treatise answering Doleman's work and advancing his title to the English throne. Dickson was going through letters from Queen Elizabeth to James to help the argument. Dickson's treatise was titled Of the Right of the Crowne efter Hir Majesty. [13]
Elizabeth I was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last monarch of the House of Tudor and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen".
Henry V, also called Henry of Monmouth, was King of England from 1413 until his death in 1422. Despite his relatively short reign, Henry's outstanding military successes in the Hundred Years' War against France made England one of the strongest military powers in Europe. Immortalised in Shakespeare's "Henriad" plays, Henry is known and celebrated as one of the greatest warrior-kings of medieval England.
Henry VI was King of England from 1422 to 1461 and again from 1470 to 1471, and disputed King of France from 1422 to 1453. The only child of Henry V, he succeeded to the English throne at the age of nine months upon his father's death, and succeeded to the French throne on the death of his maternal grandfather, Charles VI, shortly afterwards.
The House of York was a cadet branch of the English royal House of Plantagenet. Three of its members became kings of England in the late 15th century. The House of York descended in the male line from Edmund of Langley, 1st Duke of York, the fourth surviving son of Edward III. In time, it also represented Edward III's senior line, when an heir of York married the heiress-descendant of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, Edward III's second surviving son. It is based on these descents that they claimed the English crown. Compared with its rival, the House of Lancaster, it had a superior claim to the throne of England according to cognatic primogeniture, but an inferior claim according to agnatic primogeniture. The reign of this dynasty ended with the death of Richard III of England at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485. It became extinct in the male line with the death of Edward Plantagenet, 17th Earl of Warwick, in 1499.
Robert Persons, later known as Robert Parsons, was an English Jesuit priest. He was a major figure in establishing the 16th-century "English Mission" of the Society of Jesus.
James VI and I was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 March 1603 until his death in 1625. Although he long tried to get both countries to adopt a closer political union, the kingdoms of Scotland and England remained individual sovereign states, with their own parliaments, judiciaries, and laws, both ruled by James in personal union.
John Rainolds was an English academic and churchman, of Puritan views. He is remembered for his role in the Authorized Version of the Bible, a project of which he was initiator.
The Triumphs of Oriana is a book of English madrigals, compiled and published in 1601 by Thomas Morley, which first edition has 25 pieces by 23 composers for 5 and 6 voices. The first 14 madrigals are for 5vv, the last 11 for 6vv. It was said to have been made to honour Queen Elizabeth I. Every madrigal in the collection contains the following couplet at the end: “Then sang the shepherds and nymphs of Diana: long live fair Oriana” though some of the composers wrote variants of this refrain.
The Jacobite succession is the line through which Jacobites believed that the crowns of England, Scotland, and Ireland should have descended, applying primogeniture, since the deposition of James II and VII in 1688 and his death in 1701. It is in opposition to the legal line of succession to the British throne since that time.
James VI and I, King of Scots, King of England, and King of Ireland, faced many complicated religious challenges during his reigns in Scotland and England.
The Hundred Years' War was a series of armed conflicts fought between the kingdoms of England and France during the Late Middle Ages. It originated from English claims to the French throne. The war grew into a broader power struggle involving factions from across Western Europe, fueled by emerging nationalism on both sides.
The Wars of the Roses (1455–1487), known at the time and for more than a century after as the Civil Wars, were a series of civil wars fought over control of the English throne in the mid- to late fifteenth century. These wars were fought between supporters of two rival cadet branches of the royal House of Plantagenet: Lancaster and York. The wars extinguished the last male line of the house of Lancaster in 1471, leading to the Tudor family inheriting the Lancastrian claim to the throne. Following the war and the extinction of the last male line of the house of York in 1483, a politically arranged marriage united the Houses of Tudor and York, creating a new royal dynasty which inherited the Yorkist claim as well, thereby resolving the conflict.
The Westminster Conference of 1559 was a religious disputation held early in the reign of Elizabeth I of England. Although the proceedings themselves were perfunctory, the outcome shaped the Elizabethan religious settlement and resulted in the authorisation of the 1559 Book of Common Prayer.
Arminianism was a controversial theological position within the Church of England particularly evident in the second quarter of the 17th century. A key element was the rejection of predestination. The Puritans fought against Arminianism, and King James I of England opposed it before, during, and after the Synod of Dort, 1618–1619, where the English delegates participated in formulating the Calvinist Canons of Dort, but his son Charles I, favored it, leading to deep political battles. The Methodists, who espoused a variant of the school of thought called Wesleyan–Arminian theology, branched off the Church of England in the 18th century.
The Jacobean debate on the Union took place in the early years of the reign of James I of England, who came to the English throne in 1603 as James VI of Scotland, and was interested in uniting his Kingdoms of England and Scotland. With one monarch on the two thrones there was de facto a "regnal union", but since James was very widely accepted in England, the debate was not on that plane. A political union was more controversial and is often referred to as a "statutory union", underlining the fact that the legal systems and institutions involved were different, and had had distinct historical paths. That wider union did not in fact come about in the 17th century, but at the time of the Union of England and Scotland in 1707, arguments from the earlier period were again put into circulation.
The Convocation of 1563 was a significant gathering of English and Welsh clerics that consolidated the Elizabethan religious settlement, and brought the Thirty-Nine Articles close to their final form. It was, more accurately, the Convocation of 1562/3 of the province of Canterbury, beginning in January 1562.
The succession to the childless Elizabeth I was an open question from her accession in 1558 to her death in 1603, when the crown passed to James VI of Scotland. While the accession of James went smoothly, the succession had been the subject of much debate for decades. It also, in some scholarly views, was a major political factor of the entire reign, if not so voiced. Separate aspects have acquired their own nomenclature: the "Norfolk conspiracy", Patrick Collinson's "Elizabethan exclusion crisis", and the "Secret Correspondence".
Alexander Dicsone (1558–1603) was a Scottish writer and political agent. He is known also as the leading British disciple of Giordano Bruno. He used the pseudonym Heius Scepsius.
The will of Henry VIII of England was a significant constitutional document, or set of contested documents created in the 1530s and 1540s, affecting English and Scottish politics for the rest of the 16th century. In conjunction with legislation passed by the English Parliament, it was supposed to have a regulative effect in deciding the succession to the three following monarchs of the House of Tudor, the three legitimate and illegitimate children of King Henry VIII of England. Its actual legal and constitutional status was much debated; and arguably the succession to Elizabeth I of England did not respect Henry's wishes.
