So how can he stay king until the 1420s. The POD is 1377 or after.
Who would succeed him if he didn't have any children, or if he didn't have any sons?
The adherence to male line succession has always puzzled me. For Edward III to claim the French throne through the female line, then decide his English throne should not be inherited this way, seems rather odd...By strict primogeniture the kingship should go to Edmund Mortimer (if alive) as he is descended from Lionel of Antwerp (second son of Edward III). However Edward III had decided that it should be agnatic succession and unless Richard II changes that then it is whichever of Henry Bolingbroke and his sons survive (male to male descendants of John of Gaunt Edward III's third son). Then there are Langley's descendants (the Yorks). It could well be a messier civil war than the wars of the Roses!
The adherence to male line succession has always puzzled me. For Edward III to claim the French throne through the female line, then decide his English throne should not be inherited this way, seems rather odd...![]()
By strict primogeniture the kingship should go to Edmund Mortimer (if alive) as he is descended from Lionel of Antwerp (second son of Edward III). However Edward III had decided that it should be agnatic succession and unless Richard II changes that then it is whichever of Henry Bolingbroke and his sons survive (male to male descendants of John of Gaunt Edward III's third son). Then there are Langley's descendants (the Yorks). It could well be a messier civil war than the wars of the Roses!
The adherence to male line succession has always puzzled me. For Edward III to claim the French throne through the female line, then decide his English throne should not be inherited this way, seems rather odd...![]()
In his book Medieval Intrigue, Ian Mortimer noticed that if the (no longer surviving) inheritance laws of Henry II were the same as the contemporary ones in Scotland then Henry IV would be the rightful heir of both Richard II of England and Charles IV if France, which would explain why Henry stressed that he claimed the throne as the heir of Henry II.
If I remember correctly those laws said that if a daughter already had a son when her father died then he would be in line to inherit his grandfather's titles, but any sons born after grandad died were excluded from inheritance.