longer.blue

The second modern myth - male entail To diminish the standing of the Lancastrian Myth, modern historians have it dismissed by Usk’s panel of learned doctors (see previous Longer Blue article) and then resort to ‘male entail’ to lend Henry IV’s claim to the crown legitimacy. This reliance on a male-only line of descent falls down quickly. Male entail, if operative, excluded Henry from the succession the moment his father died as the male entail would then pass to Edmund of Langley, the next living descendent of Edward III. Also, there is no evidence, beyond the claim in histories that this male entail ‘tradition’ that females were excluded from the line of succession (in cases where the male line failed. And, very interestingly, there is a Lancastrian chronicle that folds the tow issues – Lancastrian Myth and alternative succession – into one episode. The Eulogium Continuorum, aka Monk of Malmesbury, has John of Gaunt speaking to Richard II in the presence of the 4th Earl of March. Gaunt asks that Henry be made successor, in place of the 4th Earl of March, based on the Lancastrian Myth. March protests. Richard 2 shouts ‘Enough!’ which was the traditional final word in a chronicler’s fable. I believe this episode to be an insertion made to support later events, ie Henry’s claim based on the Lancastrian Myth and it is the only mention – at least the only one I’ve found - which specifies the 4th Earl of March as the nominated successor to Richard II. There is some material in Adam of Usk which is fulsome but not explicit. The Earl of March was Richard II’s successor despite Philippa of Clarence being female. What does that tell us about the modern historian’s eagerness to insist on a male-only entail which has never been proved to have existed?