onial and dynastic problems.[516] If the Princess
Mary succeeded, was she to marry? If not, her death would leave (p. 181)
the kingdom no better provided with heirs than before; and in her weak
state of health, her death seemed no distant prospect. If, on the
other hand, she married, her husband must be either a subject or a
foreign prince. To marry a subject would at once create discords like
those from which the Wars of the Roses had sprung; to marry a foreign
prince was to threaten Englishmen, then more jealous than ever of
foreign influence, with the fear of alien domination. They had before
their eyes numerous instances in which matrimonial alliances had
involved the union of states so heterogeneous as Spain and the
Netherlands; and they had no mind to see England absorbed in some
continental empire. In the matrimonial schemes arranged for the
princess, it was generally stipulated that she should, in default of
male heirs, succeed to the throne of England; her succession was
obviously a matter of doubt, and it is quite certain that her marriage
in France or in Spain would have proved a bar in the way of her
succession to the English throne, or at least have given rise to
conflicting claims.

[Footnote 516: Professor Maitland has spoken of the
"Byzantinism" of Henry's reign, and possibly the
objection to female sovereigns was strengthened by
the prevalent respect for Roman imperial and
Byzantine custom (_cf._ Hodgkin, _Charles the
Great_, p. 180).]

These rival pretensions began to be heard as soon as it became evident
that Henry VIII. would have no male heirs by Catherine of Aragon. In
1519, a year after the birth of the Queen's last child, Giustinian
reported to the Venetian signiory on the various nobles who had hopes
of the crown. The Duke of Norfolk had expectations in right of his
wife, a daughter of Edward IV., and the Duke of Suffolk in right of
his Duchess, the sister of Henry VIII. But the Duke of Buckingham was
the most formidable: "It was thought that, were the King to die
without male heirs, that Duke might easily obtain the crown".[517] (p. 182)
His claims had been canvassed in 1503, when the issue of Henry VII.
seemed likely to fail,[518] and now that the issue of Henry VIII. was
in even worse plight, Buckingham's claims to the crown became again a
matter of comment. His hopes of the