The Wars of the Roses - Alison Weir [153]
Although the magnates quickly made it clear to York that they stood by their oaths of allegiance to Henry VI, he was determined to force the issue. On 16 October, sitting on the throne in Westminster Hall, he formally claimed the crown of England by right of inheritance and then submitted to the Lords in Parliament a genealogy showing his descent from Henry III. The Lords displayed few signs of approval and asked him why he had not put forward his claim before. He answered, ‘Though right for a time rest and be put to silence, yet it rotteth not, nor shall it perish.’
Next day, the Lords respectfully asked the King for his views on the matter, and he asked them to draw up a list of objections to York’s claim. The Lords then laid the matter before the justices, the serjeants-at-law and the royal attorneys, but all were extremely reluctant to express an opinion as to whether York’s claim was valid or not, saying that it was not within their competence to do so, but was a matter for the King and York to determine between them. In fact, it was such a high matter that it was above the law and beyond their learning, and they referred it back to a higher legal authority – the Lords in Parliament.
There then followed much debate and poring over yellowing genealogies, statutes and precedents. The Lords warned York that the matter was proving difficult to determine, the stumbling block being their oaths of allegiance to Henry VI and their recent oath recognising Prince Edward as the future king. They pointed out that York had also sworn these same oaths and referred him to ‘great and notable Acts of Parliament which be sufficient and reasonable to be laid against [his] title’. These Acts, they argued, recognised Henry’s title, and should be relied upon as the ultimate authority on the matter.
York answered that the oaths made to Henry VI by the peers were invalid because the nature and purpose of an oath was to confirm the truth, and the truth was that he was the rightful king, not Henry, and the Lords ought to help him claim what was rightfully his. God’s law, he said, governed inheritance, and that took precedence over all other laws.
Thomas Thorpe, Speaker of the Commons, later had some scathing words to say in Parliament about York’s claim. But even though York was not yet king, he still wielded great power, and Thorpe soon found himself incarcerated in London’s Fleet Prison, accused by York of trespass and theft. For this he was found guilty and fined, provoking protests in the Commons. It was to no avail, and the members had no choice but to elect another Speaker.
At length, the Lords grudgingly concluded that York did indeed have a better right to the crown than Henry VI, but by a majority of only five they decided that a change of dynasty was unthinkable at this stage. The Lords were now forced to a compromise, not so much because York had the better claim, but because they knew he had the power to make them acknowledge it.
On 31 October it was announced that the King and York were reconciled, and the next day, in St Paul’s Cathedral, ‘the King wore his crown and led a procession of dukes, earls and lords, as a symbol of concord’. Parliament now resolved that King Henry ‘should enjoy the throne of England for as long as he should live’, Prince Edward should be disinherited, and York should be proclaimed heir apparent and succeed to the throne on Henry’s death. This was not the best compromise that York could have expected, and it reflected the Lords’ antipathy towards him, for he was after all ten years older than the King and likely, in the natural course of things, to predecease him.
On 24 October an Act of Settlement – the ‘Act of Accord’, as it became known – was drawn up, enshrining the new order of succession in law. Four days later, Henry VI, under pressure from the few magnates who were present in Parliament – the rest having