The Difference between an Absolute and a Limited Monarchy

PART 111.WRITINGS, OPINIONS, AND CHARACTER OF SIR JOHNFORTESCUE.Fortescue WE must now turn from Fortescue tlie lawyer, the judge,as a writer. the ardent and faithful adherent of the Lancastrian cause,to Fortescue the publicist and writer. But the politicaland the literary activity of Fortescue are closely connected.It was in the service of the house of Lancaster that he firstIlivisions wielded both sword and pen. His writings may be dividedof his writings.according to their subject into three classes :-l. Works onthe dynastic question of the rival claims of the houses ofLancaster and York. 2. Constitutional Treatises. 3. Miscellaneouswritings.The first class comprises several short tracts on theSuccession question, and the second book of the treatiseDe Natzird Legis Natzi~.~~. The second class comprises tbefirst book of that treatise, the De Latldib~is Legzinz A~zglic,and the present work. The third class comprises onegenuine tract and some others 'L, which the authenticity is,I think, extremely doubtful.Tracts 011 The class which I have placed first is also in the main thethe Sncces- first in order of composition. In it the first place belongsto the short tracts which Fortescue wrote in favour of theLancastrian Title. Of these there have come down to us,either in whole or in part, the following :-I. De Titzilo Edwardi Cognitis Marchiczl. (Latin. Complete.)2. Of the Title of the House of York2. (English.Fragmentary.)3. Defensio Yt'lrris Donztts Lancasl'Yicz3. (Latin. Fragmentary.)4. A Defence of the House of Lancaster: otherwisel Works, pp. 63"-74". MS. Cotton. Vesp. F. ix. f. 122.lb. 497-502. In Appendix D The tract is still however incom-I have printed what I believe to be plete.tlie beginning of this tract from Works, pp. 505-510.called, A replication to the claim of the Duke of York1.(English. Complete.)In the tract which he afterwards wrote to refute his own Otherwritingsarguments, Fortescue says that there were many writingsmade in Scotland by other men which were fathered upon Successionquestion.him without his consent and knowledge; others were drawnup by Henry's council, and passed by a majority of votes,though to some of them he himself was ' not well willing.'Others were his own composition2. Among the workswhich Fortescue denies to have been his was one embodyingthe absurd story, first set about at the time when Johnof Gaunt was thought to be aiming at the succession,that Edmund Crouchback was really the elder brother ofEdward 13. It is to Fortescue's credit that he rejects thisfable. But, on the other hand, he had no motive for acceptingit. Any claim derived from Edmund Crouchback musthave come through Blanche of Lancaster, the wife of Johnof Gaunt, and the whole of Fortescue's argument rests onthe exclusion of all claims derived through females4. Thereis however no reason to doubt the authenticity of any ofthe four tracts enumerated above. They are consistentwith one another, and with what we know from othersources to have been Fortescue's views, and the argumentswhich they contain are those which are refuted in his subse-quent recantation. Rut the fact that they and also thesecond part of the De Nntzrvd Lcgis Natzlre have only' Works, pp. 517-8, under the again (p. 4) says that there wasformer title ; below, Appendix C, an idea of marrying Edward IV'sunder the latter. This tract seems eldest daughter to the son ofclearly referred to in the ' De- Warwick's brother Montague ;claration,' &C., Works, p. 536. 'whiche, by possibylite, shuld belb. 523-4. kynge of Englonde.' Fortescue'sS Capgrave however accepted views are however confirmed byit. See Illustr. Henr., pp. xv, an entry on the Close Roll of 13107. Hen. 111, memb. I 5, dorso : ' non* That the idea of female suc- est consuetudo vel lex in terracession was not wholly strange nostra Angli~, quod filia fratrisin England at this time is proved alicujus primogeniti fratrem jubythe charges against Suffolk niorem patri sbo succedentemof intending to marry his son to hzreditarie super haereditate suaMargaret Beaufort with a view possit vel debeat impetere ;' citedto the succession to the crown; by Hardy, Preface to Close Rolls,Rot. Parl. v. 177 b. Warkworth p. xxxvi.