More loose ends

I was reminded last night that Warbeck was drawn, hanged and quartered i.e. executed as a commoner. Even in death, he could not escape Tudor spin.
Richard's sister Anne left a daughter and some other descendants who are not usually included in the list of "Yorkist heirs". Their claim is better than the Suffolks (the elder sister), except for Richard's choice of Lincoln as as an adult male heir, but behind Clarence's line after the attainder reversal but there is thought to be a problem with one of the marriages.
"Dynastic pruning" of the Yorkists seems to cease after 1547. I wonder why.

--- In , "Stephen LARK"
<smlark@t...> wrote:
> I was reminded last night that Warbeck was drawn, hanged and
quartered i.e. executed as a commoner. Even in death, he could not
escape Tudor spin.
> Richard's sister Anne left a daughter and some other descendants
who are not usually included in the list of "Yorkist heirs". Their
claim is better than the Suffolks (the elder sister), except for
Richard's choice of Lincoln as as an adult male heir, but behind
Clarence's line after the attainder reversal but there is thought to
be a problem with one of the marriages.
> "Dynastic pruning" of the Yorkists seems to cease after 1547. I
wonder why.
>
>
>

Indeed, this only reinforces my suspicion that Richard may have
regarded Lincoln as potential Protector in the event of his own
decease without further issue, not as his heir. Ignoring the
attainder (which was easy to reverse - Edward IV himself had been
under attainder when he became king), Clarence's issue had prior
claim over Richard's sisters and their issue.
There were several factors to be taken into account:-

1) The York family needed an adult king if they were to be able to
hold their own against both Lancastrian claimants and the Woodville
interest group. This almost certainly explains why Richard took the
throne himself in the dangerous world of the summer of 1483 rather
than reversing Clarence's attainder and setting up an alternative
child king; it also suggests Lincoln as his most suitable heir.
By the by, MKJ says Clarence's attainder was eventually reversed in
the 16th century, so that the objections that have been raised to
Michael Hastings' claim to the throne on the grounds of Clarence's
attainder are completely invalid.

2) A female was not considered a suitable candidate for the throne,
though her male issue was. This rules out the little Anne of Exeter
(daughter of the lowly St Leger, mind, not of the Duke of Exeter) as
Richard's heir, though in later times her male issue could have been
considered a problem. Henry VII wisely married the child off to a
complete nobody (George Manners), though their issue in the male line
were later enobled. I haven't followed their stories forward, so I
can't say why they never made the Tudor hit list, but that is a very
interesting question. It may be that since Anne St Leger was
conceived during the lifetime of Anne of York's first husband Exeter,
albeit they had a papal annulment, there might be a questionmark over
her legitimacy.

3) Ignoring tClarence's attainder - which Richard would, according to
all the evidence, have regarded as unjust - the direct male heir
would have been Warwick. So from Richard's point of view he the
drawback to choosing the adult Lincoln as his heir was that this
might disinherit Clarence's line forever. This would make for a
stronger regime in the short term but risk division in the house of
York when Warwick came of age & even later if Anne St Leger also
produced male issue. Lincoln's position may have been unstable anyway
as he was married but childless - having neither an heir nor the
ability to bolster his throne with a foreign alliance.
The Warwick problem Richard himself had to grapple with, but he
might have felt it could at least be solved in the event of his own
death without male issue by handing back to Clarence's line at that
point. In the event that Richard himself died but the House of York
remained in power, he would probably have trusted Lincoln as
protector during the minority of Clarence's son. That this was how he
was thinking is suggested by several things:-
a) Rous says he made Warwick his heir
b) Northumberland was imprisoned after Bosworth for saying that the
rightful monarch after Richard's death was neither Henry Tudor nor
Elizabeth of York, but Warwick
c) Lincoln claimed to be fighting to put Warwick on the throne, not
himself. More telling still, he co-operated in having him crowned,
albeit in Ireland, and was indeed furious when the Irish primate
refused to do the honours. Hardly a wise move if he was using Warwick
as a front for his own ambitions. Look how important Edward V's
coronation had been to the Woodville plans.
As regards Anne St Leger's possibilities as heiress of the House of
York, during the protectorate Richard gave orders for her to be
delivered to Buckingham, though apparently the order was thwarted. If
Buckingham intended her for his son, then it does indeed suggest that
he may have had dreams of a crown for his own line. All he would need
to do was to get rid of Richard and his small child, and he could use
Anne St Leger in preceisly the same way that Henry Tudor used
Elizabeth of York - and without the bother of having to reverse any
bastardy or suppress any Act of Parliament.

To any Woodville lovers out there, I should point out that before
Edward's death Dorset had obtained the wardships of both Warwick and
Anne St Leger. Most interesting.

Marie