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...but not much more. A bit like candy-floss or cotton-candy – there's not much substance and I wouldn't like to over-indulge. Britain’s Real Monarch is an example. It's been on before, but last night was the first time I've actually watched it with any care. After it was over, I realized why...
The premise put forward by Tony Robinson (Blackadder's Baldrick, and Time Team's long-time presenter) is that Edward IV, King of England near the end of the Wars of the Roses, was illegitimate, thus not "the real King." Because of this, the present royal descent through his daughter Elizabeth, wife of Henry VII, is also "not real" and the genuine Monarch of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and its Commonwealth is a chap living in Australia. It's an amusing theory, but I can't see Elizabeth II vacating Buckingham Palace on the strength of something with enough holes in it to drive several coronation coaches through without touching the sides.
The right-to-rule of medieval monarchs had as much to do with who had the biggest army and the most support, as it did with what side of the blanket he was born. It didn't concern William I very much: he was known as The Bastard before he was The Conqueror, and by all accounts continued to be a right bastard afterwards. Like William and Edward, Henry VII gained the crown by force of arms; in fact his very dodgy claim to the throne (he was descended from Edward III by an extremely distant illegitimate line) was also straightforwardly based on de jure belli: the right of conquest.
He was a Lancastrian, and his marriage to Edward IV's daughter Elizabeth, a Yorkist, was a peacemaking gesture, a demonstration that the old wars were over, not something to make his own claim to the throne any more secure. After all, he was already sitting on it, the previous occupant had died in open battle, and he had the support of any number of important nobles who were just happy that the country seemed to be stable again.
Incidentally, Elizabeth herself had been declared illegitimate a few years earlier, during the same business that removed her brother Edward V in favour of Richard III. If Elizabeth was re-legitimized to make her a suitable wife for the new King Henry, it also applied to young Edward. Just as well for Henry that the lad and his young brother were both dead, murdered in the Tower by their wicked uncle Richard. He must have been really, really certain of that, because otherwise reversing the illegitimacy in order to marry Elizabeth would have put Edward V back on the throne. Given that their deaths never had solid proof, just gossip and rumour, I’ve often wondered how Henry knew for sure...
(Which prompts another documentary idea, based on Josephine Tey's 1951 novel The Daughter of Time - thoroughly dated, but a fun read for all that. It would show how Richard III was innocent of his most famous crime, how Henry VII was the actual murderer of the "Princes in the Tower" and how the commonest proofs of Richard's guilt – Shakespeare's play and Thomas More's "history" – were propaganda fabrications. Processed footage of re-enactor groups, sound-bites from favourable historians, judicious editing of anything else (I wonder if it's possible to edit something said by Alison Weir so it had a pro-Richard slant? Now that would be a challenge...) and there you go. In terms of accuracy, just the ticket for Histovery Channel - or, from the look of Britain’s Real Monarch, Channel 4.)
Robinson's show claims that the "real" Royal line of England descends through Margaret Pole, daughter of Edward's brother George, the Duke of Clarence who, "it is said" (or "according to legend" – two phrases common in this sort of documentary before a recitation of dodgy factoids) was famously drowned in a butt of wine. Never mind the method, he was definitely executed for High Treason, and the Bill of Attainder that comes with a treason verdict barred his descendants from the succession. That's just the succession to his noble title – it went double for any hope of succeeding to the throne. There’s no mention if that Attainder was ever reversed, but a potential threat that was merely barred from the succession was never enough for a Tudor monarch. Margaret's brother, the last legitimate male Yorkist heir, was beheaded at the orders of Henry VII, and his son Henry VIII cleaned up the last loose end by doing the same to her.
The documentary also ignores other blips that mean "descent by Blood Royal" is hypothetical at best. When the last crowned Tudor died, she was replaced by a Stuart from Scotland; when the last crowned Stuart's religious views became a problem, he was replaced by an Orange from Holland. When the Orange produced no seedlings, and his successor Queen Anne left little but furniture, the German state of Hanover supplied the next King of England. Despite some dilution over the years, the Royal Family got a new injection of German genes when Albert von Saxe-Coburg-Gotha married Victoria, and has remained quite German ever since. Diplomatic name-changes at the start of the 20th century didn't mean a thing. Calling a Battenburg a Mountbatten or a Saxe-Coburg a Windsor is like deeming a cat to be a firearm. It’s just a convenient label.
Which means that two World Wars – the first one in particular – began as something of a family squabble. Not much change from the Wars of the Roses, then. Better to stay in Australia.
The premise put forward by Tony Robinson (Blackadder's Baldrick, and Time Team's long-time presenter) is that Edward IV, King of England near the end of the Wars of the Roses, was illegitimate, thus not "the real King." Because of this, the present royal descent through his daughter Elizabeth, wife of Henry VII, is also "not real" and the genuine Monarch of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and its Commonwealth is a chap living in Australia. It's an amusing theory, but I can't see Elizabeth II vacating Buckingham Palace on the strength of something with enough holes in it to drive several coronation coaches through without touching the sides.
The right-to-rule of medieval monarchs had as much to do with who had the biggest army and the most support, as it did with what side of the blanket he was born. It didn't concern William I very much: he was known as The Bastard before he was The Conqueror, and by all accounts continued to be a right bastard afterwards. Like William and Edward, Henry VII gained the crown by force of arms; in fact his very dodgy claim to the throne (he was descended from Edward III by an extremely distant illegitimate line) was also straightforwardly based on de jure belli: the right of conquest.
He was a Lancastrian, and his marriage to Edward IV's daughter Elizabeth, a Yorkist, was a peacemaking gesture, a demonstration that the old wars were over, not something to make his own claim to the throne any more secure. After all, he was already sitting on it, the previous occupant had died in open battle, and he had the support of any number of important nobles who were just happy that the country seemed to be stable again.
Incidentally, Elizabeth herself had been declared illegitimate a few years earlier, during the same business that removed her brother Edward V in favour of Richard III. If Elizabeth was re-legitimized to make her a suitable wife for the new King Henry, it also applied to young Edward. Just as well for Henry that the lad and his young brother were both dead, murdered in the Tower by their wicked uncle Richard. He must have been really, really certain of that, because otherwise reversing the illegitimacy in order to marry Elizabeth would have put Edward V back on the throne. Given that their deaths never had solid proof, just gossip and rumour, I’ve often wondered how Henry knew for sure...
(Which prompts another documentary idea, based on Josephine Tey's 1951 novel The Daughter of Time - thoroughly dated, but a fun read for all that. It would show how Richard III was innocent of his most famous crime, how Henry VII was the actual murderer of the "Princes in the Tower" and how the commonest proofs of Richard's guilt – Shakespeare's play and Thomas More's "history" – were propaganda fabrications. Processed footage of re-enactor groups, sound-bites from favourable historians, judicious editing of anything else (I wonder if it's possible to edit something said by Alison Weir so it had a pro-Richard slant? Now that would be a challenge...) and there you go. In terms of accuracy, just the ticket for Histovery Channel - or, from the look of Britain’s Real Monarch, Channel 4.)
Robinson's show claims that the "real" Royal line of England descends through Margaret Pole, daughter of Edward's brother George, the Duke of Clarence who, "it is said" (or "according to legend" – two phrases common in this sort of documentary before a recitation of dodgy factoids) was famously drowned in a butt of wine. Never mind the method, he was definitely executed for High Treason, and the Bill of Attainder that comes with a treason verdict barred his descendants from the succession. That's just the succession to his noble title – it went double for any hope of succeeding to the throne. There’s no mention if that Attainder was ever reversed, but a potential threat that was merely barred from the succession was never enough for a Tudor monarch. Margaret's brother, the last legitimate male Yorkist heir, was beheaded at the orders of Henry VII, and his son Henry VIII cleaned up the last loose end by doing the same to her.
The documentary also ignores other blips that mean "descent by Blood Royal" is hypothetical at best. When the last crowned Tudor died, she was replaced by a Stuart from Scotland; when the last crowned Stuart's religious views became a problem, he was replaced by an Orange from Holland. When the Orange produced no seedlings, and his successor Queen Anne left little but furniture, the German state of Hanover supplied the next King of England. Despite some dilution over the years, the Royal Family got a new injection of German genes when Albert von Saxe-Coburg-Gotha married Victoria, and has remained quite German ever since. Diplomatic name-changes at the start of the 20th century didn't mean a thing. Calling a Battenburg a Mountbatten or a Saxe-Coburg a Windsor is like deeming a cat to be a firearm. It’s just a convenient label.
Which means that two World Wars – the first one in particular – began as something of a family squabble. Not much change from the Wars of the Roses, then. Better to stay in Australia.
