crown, but that Henry the ſon of Maud ſhould ſucceed him; as he afterwards accordingly did.
Henry, the ſecond of that name, was (next after his mother Matilda) the undoubted heir of William the conqueror; but he had alſo another connexion in blood, which endeared him ſtill farther to the Engliſh. He was lineally deſcended from Edmund Ironſide, the laſt of the Saxon race of hereditary kings. For Edward the outlaw, the ſon of Edmund Ironſide, had (beſides Edgar Atheling, who died without iſſue) a daughter Margaret, who was married to Malcolm king of Scotland; and in her the Saxon hereditary right reſided. By Malcolm ſhe had ſeveral children, and among the reſt Matilda the wife of Henry I, who by him had the empreſs Maud, the mother of Henry II. Upon which account the Saxon line is in our hiſtories frequently ſaid to have been reſtored in his perſon: though in reality that right ſubſiſted in the ſons of Malcolm by queen Margaret; king Henry’s beſt title being as heir to the conqueror.
From Henry II the crown deſcended to his eldeſt ſon Richard I, who dying childleſs, the right veſted in his nephew Arthur, the ſon of Geoffrey his next brother: but John, the youngeſt ſon of king Henry, ſeiſed the throne; claiming, as appears from his charters, the crown by hereditary right[1]: that is to ſay, he was next of kin to the deceaſed king, being his ſurviving brother; whereas Arthur was removed one degree farther, being his brother’s ſon, though by right of repreſentation he ſtood in the place of his father Geoffrey. And however flimſey this title, and thoſe of William Rufus and Stephen of Blois, may appear at this diſtance to us, after the law of deſcents hath now been ſettled for ſo many centuries, they were ſufficient to puzzle the underſtandings of our brave, but unlettered, anceſtors. Nor indeed can we wonder at the number of partizans, who eſpouſed the pretenſions of king John in particular; ſince even in the reign
- ↑ “Regni Angliae; quod nobis jure competit haereditario.” Spelm. Hiſt. R. Jeh. apud Wilkins. 354.
