WI: He had died without a male heir? I assume that his eldest daughter would have succeeded him (or maybe not).?
Precedent seems to justify his brother.
Is there a clear precedent? After Henry I, there were two claimants and a civil war. The final ad hoc settlement worked out well, but it didn't determine who originally had the right to the throne.
Is there another precedent we could use?
I was more thinking precedent in the sense we see males taking the throne over females.
That would be more difficult (though not impossible) for the Hoiuse of York, since their claim to the throne passed through two females, and if the male line took precedence their Lancastrian rivals were the rightful kings.
I also str from one of Michael Hicks' books that Elizabeth's name had appeared on certain legal documents as heir presumptive during her father's first reign.
And pardon my gross ignorance, but who is Michael Hicks?
Michael Hicks is a leading expert on the period having written books about Richard III, Warwick the Kingmaker, Anne Neville and George of Clarence. Along with Horrox and Pollard he's one of the top current scholars on the WOTR.
Michael Hicks is a leading expert on the period having written books about Richard III, Warwick the Kingmaker, Anne Neville and George of Clarence. Along with Horrox and Pollard he's one of the top current scholars on the WOTR.
There's a difference between a claim through the female line and a woman ruler herself being accepted on the throne, though.
Hicks has some strong biases. For example, in his book on Anne Neville, Hicks says "One must deplore the immorality of the match. A custodial sentence and registration as a sexual offender would result today for any man like Duke Richard guilty of sexual intercourse with a fifteen-year-old girl...."
And "[FONT="]The match between Anne and the future Richard III, apparently contracted when she was fifteen, would today label Richard as a sex offender, guilty of sexual relations with a minor or, in American parlance, of statutory rape...."
[/FONT]Note that Hicks does not say anything like this about Anne's first husband, who married Anne when she was a thirteen. He doesn't say anything like this about Henry VII's father, who married Margaret Beaufort when she was twelve and got her pregnant before she turned thirteen.
Hicks also claims Richard's marriage to Anne was incestuous. Note that Hicks does not say anything like this about the marriage of Richard's brother George to Anne's sister Isabel.
before Anne married Richard.
Agreed, but Elizabeth was 16 in April 1483, and by contemporary standards eminently marriageable. By the time her father died she might well be already married, and her husband (esp if of royal blood himself) would probably be seen as having a right to rule.
Things are more complicated if she's still single at the time, but it could still make make matters harder for Richard as every magnate with a marriageable son will be weighing his chances.
I agree Hicks has some biases in his work and by no means do i agree with him on everything, but he is still seen as one of the leading historians of this time, at least he is on the reading list for the Wars of the Roses on my degree course and my supervisor spoke quite highly of some of his ideas too.
Michael Hicks on the marriage of Richard and Anne:
A "decade of illicit unmarried fornication."
"Certainly Anne went along with Warwick's choice of partner, shacked up with Duke Richard and operated as his wife and queen as he wished, went along with his accession, and remained with him through all the unsavoury scandals of his reign."
"Of incest Richard was a serial practitioner. To coin a phrase, he was a 'serial incestor'."
That author sounds less than inspiring. Since when is marrying a cousin = fornication?