he Tudors.

For the first time, since the Norman Conquest, a king of decisively
British blood sat on the English throne. His lineage was, indeed,
English in only a minor degree; but England might seem to have lost at
the battle of Hastings her right to native kings; and Norman were
succeeded by Angevin, Angevin by Welsh, Welsh by Scots, and Scots by
Hanoverian sovereigns. The Tudors were probably more at home on the
English throne than most of England's kings; and their humble and
British origin may have contributed to their unique capacity for (p. 008)
understanding the needs, and expressing the mind, of the English
nation. It was well for them that they established their throne in the
hearts of their people, for no dynasty grasped the sceptre with less
of hereditary right. Judged by that criterion, there were many
claimants whose titles must have been preferred to Henry's. There were
the daughters of Edward IV. and the children of George, Duke of
Clarence; and their existence may account for Henry's neglect to press
his hereditary claim. But there was a still better reason. Supposing
the Lancastrian case to be valid and the Beauforts to be the true
Lancastrian heirs, even so the rightful occupant of the throne was not
Henry VII., but his mother, Margaret Beaufort. England had never
recognised a Salic law at home; on occasion she had disputed its
validity abroad. But Henry VII. was not disposed to let his mother
rule; she could not unite the Yorkist and Lancastrian claims by
marriage, and, in addition to other disabilities, she had a second
husband in Lord Stanley, who might demand the crown matrimonial. So
Henry VII.'s hereditary title was judiciously veiled in vague
obscurity. Parliament wisely admitted the accomplished fact and
recognised that the crown was vested in him, without rashly venturing
upon the why or the wherefore. He had in truth been raised to the
throne because men were weary of Richard. He was chosen to vindicate
no theory of hereditary or other abstract right, but to govern with a
firm hand, to establish peace within his gates and give prosperity to
his people. That was the true Tudor title, and, as a rule, they
remembered the fact; they were _de facto_ kings, and they left the _de
jure_ arguments to the Stuarts.

Peace, however, could not be obtained at once, nor the embers of (p. 009)
thirty years' strife stamped out in a moment. For fifteen years
open revolt and whispered sedition troubled