””'{{lang|la|Titulus Regius}}””’ (“royal title” in [[Latin]]) is a statute of the [[Parliament of England]] issued in 1484 which confirmed the title of [[List of English monarchs|King of England]] which was given to [[Richard III of England|Richard III]] in 1483.
””'{{lang|la|Titulus Regius}}””’ (“royal title” in [[Latin]]) is a statute of the [[Parliament of England]] issued in 1484 which confirmed the title of [[List of English monarchs|King of England]] which was given to [[Richard III of England|Richard III]] in 1483.
The act ratified the declaration of the Lords and the members of the House of Commons six months earlier that the marriage of [[Edward IV of England]] to [[Elizabeth Woodville]] had been invalid and so their children, including [[Edward V of England|Edward]], [[Richard of Shrewsbury, 1st Duke of York|Richard]] and [[Elizabeth of York|Elizabeth]], were illegitimate under Church law and thus debarred from inheriting the throne. Their uncle Richard III had been proclaimed as king, being the next legitimate successor. Since the Lords and the Commons had not been officially convened as a Parliament at the time of this determination, the Act of Succession, Titulus Regius, was placed by the same Lords and Commons before their next official session of Parliament in January 1484 so as to eradicate any doubts as to the validity of the king’s title and to confirm the succession of his heirs.
The act ratified the declaration of the Lords and the members of the House of Commons that the marriage of [[Edward IV of England]] to [[Elizabeth Woodville]] had been invalid their children, including [[Edward V of England|Edward]], [[Richard of Shrewsbury, 1st Duke of York|Richard]] and [[Elizabeth of York|Elizabeth]], were illegitimate under law debarred from inheriting the throne. had , being the next legitimate successor. Since the Lords and the Commons had not been officially convened as a Parliament at the time of this determination, the Act of Succession, Titulus Regius, was placed by the same Lords and Commons before their next official session of Parliament in January 1484 so as to eradicate any doubts as to the validity of the king’s title and to confirm the succession of his heirs.
Following an introduction explaining this purpose, the Act enshrined in its body text the full wording of the petition framed by the Lords and Commons in June 1483 requesting Richard to accept the crown by reason of the circumstances that rendered the offspring of Edward IV illegitimate. The reason stated was that when King Edward had secretly married Elizabeth Woodville in 1464 he had already secretly wed ‘and stood married’ to Lady Eleanor Butler (nee Talbot) who was still living at the time of his ‘pretensed marriage’ to Elizabeth. The offspring of this bigamous union were illegitimate under Church law (canon law) and the overall effect of bigamy combined with two illicit secret marriages made it impossible for the Church to rectify their status.
After the death of Richard III at Bosworth Field (August 1485), the Act was repealed by Henry VII in January 1486. This has given rise to speculation that the repeal may have rendered the children of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville as ‘legitimate’ again. However, it was the flouting of Church law by Edward IV that determined their illegitimacy, which Titulus Regius merely reaffirmed and placed on record. To repeal the Act did not reverse Church law, and Henry VII did not appeal to Rome for any such reversal. Nor would he have wished to have all Edward IV’s several offspring made into legitimate rivals for his throne.
After the death of Richard III at Bosworth Field (August 1485), the Act was repealed by Henry VII in January 1486. This has given rise to speculation that the repeal may have rendered the children of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville as ‘legitimate’ again. However, it was the flouting of Church law by Edward IV that determined their illegitimacy, which Titulus Regius merely reaffirmed and placed on record. To repeal the Act did not reverse Church law, and Henry VII did not appeal to Rome for any such reversal. Nor would he have wished to have all Edward IV’s several offspring made into legitimate rivals for his throne.
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== Contents ==
[[File:Richard III portrait.jpg|thumb|[[Richard III of England|Richard III]] held Parliament in 1484 which placed on record the ”{{lang|la|Titulus Regius}}” which confirmed the legitimacy of his succession to the throne. [[Society of Antiquaries of London]].]]
[[File:Richard III portrait.jpg|thumb|[[Richard III of England|Richard III]] held Parliament in 1484 which placed on record the ”{{lang|la|Titulus Regius}}” which confirmed the legitimacy of his succession to the throne. [[Society of Antiquaries of London]].]]
Edward IV’s Woodville marriage had been invalid because Bishop [[Robert Stillington]] testified that the king had already secretly married [[Lady Eleanor Talbot|Lady Eleanor Butler]] and that she had been living when he secretly made a ‘pretensed marriage’ with Elizabeth Woodville:
Edward IV’s Woodville marriage had been invalid [[Robert Stillington]] that the king had already secretly married [[Lady Eleanor Talbot|Lady Eleanor Butler]] and that she had been living when secretly made a ‘pretensed marriage’ with Elizabeth Woodville:
<blockquote>And how also, that at the time of contract of the same pretensed Marriage, and before and long time after, the said King Edward was and stood married and troth-plight to one Dame Eleanor Butler, Daughter of the old Earl of Shrewsbury, with whom the same King Edward had made a precontract of Matrimony, long time before he made the said pretensed Marriage with the said Elizabeth [Woodville] Grey, in manner and form above-said.</blockquote>
<blockquote>And how also, that at the time of contract of the same pretensed Marriage, and before and long time after, the said King Edward was and stood married and troth-plight to one Dame Eleanor Butler, Daughter of the old Earl of Shrewsbury, with whom the same King Edward had made a precontract of Matrimony, long time before he made the said pretensed Marriage with the said Elizabeth [Woodville] Grey, in manner and form above-said.</blockquote>
The document also claimed that Elizabeth Woodville and her mother had used witchcraft to get the king to marry her. Since Richard’s brother [[George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence|George, Duke of Clarence]], had been executed and [[attainder|attainted]], his descendants forfeited all rights to the throne, leaving Richard the true heir. The wording used all possible means to stress Richard’s legitimacy, being “born within this land” and being “undoubted son and heir of Richard, late Duke of York”.<ref name=”act”>John A. Wagner, “Titulus Regius”, ”Encyclopedia of the Wars of the Roses”, ABC-CLIO, 2001, pp.268–70.</ref> This contrasted him with his brothers George and Edward (born in Ireland and Normandy, respectively) about whom there had long been rumours casting doubt on their legitimacy.
The document also claimed that Elizabeth Woodville and her mother had used witchcraft to the king to marry her. Since Richard’s brother [[George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence|George, Duke of Clarence]], had been executed and [[attainder|attainted]], his descendants forfeited all rights to the throne, leaving Richard the true heir. The wording used all possible means to stress Richard’s legitimacy, being “born within this land” and being “undoubted son and heir of Richard, late Duke of York”.<ref name=”act”>John A. Wagner, “Titulus Regius”, ”Encyclopedia of the Wars of the Roses”, ABC-CLIO, 2001, pp.268–70.</ref> This contrasted him with his brothers George and Edward (born in Ireland and Normandy, respectively) about whom there had long been rumours casting doubt on their legitimacy.
Edward’s reign was also criticised, he was said to have led by “sensuality and concupiscence” and delighted in “adulation and flattery” and to have been easily influenced by “persons insolent, vicious and of inordinate avarice”, a reference to the Woodville family. In contrast, Richard was said to have been a man distinguished by “great wit, prudence, justice, princely courage, and memorable and laudable acts in diverse battles.”<ref name=”act”/>
Edward’s reign was also criticised, he was said to have led by “sensuality and concupiscence” and delighted in “adulation and flattery” and to have been easily influenced by “persons insolent, vicious and of inordinate avarice”, a reference to the Woodville family. In contrast, Richard was said to have been a man distinguished by “great wit, prudence, justice, princely courage, and memorable and laudable acts in diverse battles.”<ref name=”act”/>
Act of the Parliament of England
Titulus Regius (“royal title” in Latin) is a statute of the Parliament of England issued in 1484 which confirmed the title of King of England which was given to Richard III in 1483.
The act ratified the declaration of the Lords and the members of the House of Commons in June 1483 that because the marriage of Edward IV of England to Elizabeth Woodville had been invalid under Church law, their children, including Edward, Richard and Elizabeth, were illegitimate and under English common law were debarred from inheriting the throne. The reason stated was that when King Edward had secretly married Elizabeth Woodville in 1464 he had already secretly wed ‘and stood married’ to Lady Eleanor Butler (nee Talbot) who was still living at the time of his ‘pretensed marriage’ to Elizabeth. The offspring of this bigamous union were illegitimate under Church law (canon law) and the overall effect of bigamy combined with two illicit secret marriages made it impossible for the Church to rectify their status. Edward IV’s brother, Richard Duke of Gloucester, being the next legitimate successor, had thus been petitioned to accept the crown and had been proclaimed Richard III on 26 June 1483. Since the Lords and the Commons had not been officially convened as a Parliament at the time of this determination, the Act of Succession, Titulus Regius, containing a copy of the petition, was placed by the same Lords and Commons before their next official session of Parliament in January 1484 so as to eradicate any doubts as to the validity of the king’s title and to confirm the succession of his heirs.
After the death of Richard III at Bosworth Field (August 1485), the Act was repealed by Henry VII in January 1486. This has given rise to speculation that the repeal may have rendered the children of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville as ‘legitimate’ again. However, it was the flouting of Church law by Edward IV that determined their illegitimacy, which Titulus Regius merely reaffirmed and placed on record. To repeal the Act did not reverse Church law, and Henry VII did not appeal to Rome for any such reversal. Nor would he have wished to have all Edward IV’s several offspring made into legitimate rivals for his throne.
Contents
Following an introduction explaining its confirmatory purpose, the Act enshrined in its body text the full wording of the petition framed by the Lords and Commons in June 1483 requesting Richard to accept the crown by reason of the circumstances that rendered the offspring of Edward IV illegitimate. Edward IV’s Woodville marriage had been invalid according to the testimony of a senior bishop, Robert Stillington, Bishop of Bath and Wells, that the king had already secretly married Lady Eleanor Butler and that she had been living when Edward secretly made a ‘pretensed marriage’ with Elizabeth Woodville:
And how also, that at the time of contract of the same pretensed Marriage, and before and long time after, the said King Edward was and stood married and troth-plight to one Dame Eleanor Butler, Daughter of the old Earl of Shrewsbury, with whom the same King Edward had made a precontract of Matrimony, long time before he made the said pretensed Marriage with the said Elizabeth [Woodville] Grey, in manner and form above-said.
The document also claimed that Elizabeth Woodville and her mother had used witchcraft to induce the king to marry her. Since Richard’s brother George, Duke of Clarence, had been executed and attainted, his descendants forfeited all rights of inheritance, including succession to the throne, leaving Richard the true heir. The wording used all possible means to stress Richard’s legitimacy, being “born within this land” and being “undoubted son and heir of Richard, late Duke of York”.[1] This contrasted him with his brothers George and Edward (born in Ireland and Normandy, respectively) about whom there had long been rumours casting doubt on their legitimacy.
Edward’s reign was also criticised, he was said to have led by “sensuality and concupiscence” and delighted in “adulation and flattery” and to have been easily influenced by “persons insolent, vicious and of inordinate avarice”, a reference to the Woodville family. In contrast, Richard was said to have been a man distinguished by “great wit, prudence, justice, princely courage, and memorable and laudable acts in diverse battles.”[1]
Repeal
After Richard was killed in battle and the throne was seized by Henry VII, the new king in his first parliament ordered the repeal of Titulus Regius, its removal from the parliamentary record and its destruction unread. This was important to Henry and his supporters because they viewed Richard III as ‘king in fact but not by right’, therefore they wished to obliterate any record that confirmed his right to the succession. Also Henry VII’s prospective wife, Elizabeth of York, whom he had pledged to marry if he gained the throne, was the eldest daughter of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville and consequently one of their illegitimate children. He conveyed his displeasure at this situation by describing Titulus Regius to his Justices of the Exchequer as ‘the Act that bastardized’ Edward IV’s offspring, though in fact it was Church law that had rendered them illegitimate. Neither the Act nor its repeal had any effect on his wife’s illegitimate status which had been determined in June 1483, and indeed he married her five days before the repeal was enacted.
Henry also ordered the destruction of the Act itself and all copies of it together with all related documents without reading them. His orders were carried out to an extent, but the original parchment membranes were never removed and the Act remains stitched into the Rolls of Parliament exactly as it was engrossed in 1484 and may be seen in The National Archives at Kew (TNA, C65/114, mm. 2-3).
The repealing act was passed in the first Parliament of Henry VII, stating that the original Titulus Regius was…
void, adnulled, repelled, irrite [invalidated], and of noe force ne effecte[2]
…and that the original be destroyed, and that any copies should be either destroyed or returned to Parliament on pain of fine and imprisonment.
A law report from his reign stated:
that the said Bill, Act and Record, be annulled and utterly destroyed, and that it be ordained by the same Authority, that the same Act and Record be taken out of the Roll of Parliament, and be cancelled and brent [‘burned’], and be put in perpetual oblivion.[3]
Henry almost succeeded in suppressing the Titulus Regius.[4] The 100-year gap during which Titulus Regius was censored coincided with the ruling period of the Tudor dynasty. It was known that Richard had been offered the crown because a previous marriage invalidated the succession of Edward IV’s offspring by his Woodville queen, but no documentary source was known that identified Edward’s first wife by name. Thomas More wrote a flawed essay about Richard III in which he asserted that the lady concerned was Edward’s long-time mistress, the misnamed Elizabeth Lucy, a view that was repeated until a copy was found by William Camden, Clarenceux Herald, who published an abstract of Titulus Regius in 1607 in his Britannia. In 1611 the Act was first published in full by the antiquary John Speed in The Historie of Great Britaine, Booke 9, Richard III, p. 927..
Edward IV’s first son, though his right to inherit was set aside, is counted as Edward V. Thus Henry VII’s grandson was numbered Edward VI.
See also
Notes
References
- ^ a b John A. Wagner, “Titulus Regius”, Encyclopedia of the Wars of the Roses, ABC-CLIO, 2001, pp.268–70.
- ^ “Rotuli Parliamentorum A.D. 1485 1 Henry VII”. Archived from the original on 2 September 2013.
- ^ Year Book 1 Henry VII, Hil., plea 1
- ^ Bryce, Tracy. “Titulus Regius: The Title of the King” Archived 2013-09-01 at the Wayback Machine, Richard III Society of Canada, accessed 31 October 2014
