The Royalist - The Right To Wear White: What If A Catholic Could Succeed?

The Right To Wear White: What If A Catholic Could Succeed?

Written by Dr. Janice Seto

Monday, 10 September 2007

Page 3 of 4

The resultant warming-pan scandal saw James II and family flee England forever in the middle of the night to Paris, whereupon they sought refuge with King Louis XIV, prior to the arrival of 26-year-old Protestant daughter Mary and her husband, William, from the Netherlands to the British throne.

True or not, the scandal worked to get rid of James. And centuries later, it is a moot point.

Was it unlawful for the Beaufort descendants of John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford to stake claims to the throne when the succession laws of Henry IV forbade such an act?

Was Anne Boleyn fairly tried and condemned for incest with her brother?

And jumping to the present day, should Paul Burrell have ever been put through the stress of a trial?

These are all examples, spanning the centuries, of truth not being the determining factor in political matters.

The story of James II could be deemed to be little more than a footnote in history.

All of his legitimate adult descendants – Mary, Anne, James, and a Princess Louise born in Paris – left no living legitimate issue or descendants. As such, the line of succession would have bypassed him anyway, as would have been the case with King Henry VIII.

We therefore have to go back a generation of Jacobeans to find a Catholic line with legitimate descendants.

Mary Queen of Scots' only child, King James I of England and VI of Scotland, fortunately sired fecund children, including Charles I.

In the same way that Parliament had to search back through James I’s lineage for a Protestant heir, we have to tap the same tree to find the Catholic with the highest claim.

For a Protestant heir, genealogists were forced to return to the lineage of the eldest sister of Charles I, Princess Elizabeth, (known fondly as the Winter Queen of Bohemia through marriage with the German Palatine and titular king of Bohemia). Their castle in Heidelberg, the ruins of which continue to attract toursists to this day, was trashed by Louis XIV.

From this union came the Hanoverian Georges.

The oldest Catholic line comes from the daughter of James I’s eldest surviving son, Charles I and his wife, Princess Henrietta-Maria of France, daughter of Le Roi Galante, Henri IV himself, and his wife, Maria di Medici.

In other words, when the line of James II came to an end with the Young Pretender Bonnie Prince Charlie and his brother, Henry, Cardinal of York, the Catholic Stuart claim fell to the line of James II’s sister, Princess Henrietta-Anne.

This pretty Stuart princess was married at the age of seventeen to her French cousin Philippe, Duke d’Orleans, brother of Louis XIV of France, and whose line is carefully documented by Jacobean supporters.

<< Start < Prev 1 2 3 4 Next > End >>

< Prev		Next >

[ Back ]

Main Menu

Latest Puzzles