Wars of the Roses.

Had Edward III's son Lionel, Duke of Clarence, had a son, could this have made the wars a struggle between 3 rather than 2 rival houses? This son would have been the legal heir of Richard II, rather than Henry of Lancaster.
 
Had Edward III's son Lionel, Duke of Clarence, had a son, could this have made the wars a struggle between 3 rather than 2 rival houses?

No, because the House of York didn't draw their claims from the direct male line going back to Edmund of York; they drew it through the female line, which lead back to Lionel.

The thing is, Henry Bollingbroke was Richards heir if you went by strict salic, male-line inheritance. Roger Mortimer, as you will be able to discern from the name, was not a Plantagenet. So if you had a true, direct descent, Plantagenet, male line heir, then Bollingbroke's claim would have been substantially weaker - nay, he wouldn't have had a claim.

In all likelihood, if there had a been a usurpation of Richard here, then it would have been from Lionel's hypothetical son, who would have been Richard's actual heir in this situation - ergo, no Wars of the Roses. Or at least, not a flying fig of a real claim by anyone else to the throne.

If Bollingbroke or Gaunt or anyone else still usurped the throne with Lionel's son still around, then they would be in big, big trouble, probably with an imminent civil war on their hands.
 
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I'm not an expert on this, but as far as I know, no. Edmund of York was most definetley lower down the line of succession than the Lancastrians. (He was Gaunt's younger brother.) As I say, by strict male-line inheritance, the Lancastrians had the superior claim.
 
Originally it was Lionel's line that they trumpeted, but by the time of Henry VI's later years, Richard Duke of York was also the ONLY male-to-male heir remaining (well, along with his children of course and Henry's own son Edward)

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
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