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(Asked this question a couple of years ago in a different sub but never got a response. Have now discovered this wonderful sub).
I've been re-reading Hillary Mantel's Thomas Cromwell trilogy. Throughout the books she repeatedly refers to the de la Pole and Courtenay families as a threat to Henry because they are "Plantagenets" and often suggests that they might be considered to have superior claims to the throne over the Tudors. But when I look at the family trees I don't see it. How were the Poles and Courtenays anymore "Plantagenet" then Henry VIII? All of them descend from Edward III through the female line. Reginald Pole through his mother Margaret of Salisbury who was a daughter of George Duke of Clarence, whose line goes up to Edward III (House of York), Henry Courtenay through his mother Catherine, who was a daughter of Edward IV. Henry VIII has royal blood on both sides through his mother Elizabeth of York, oldest daughter of Edward IV, and through his father's mother, Margaret Beaufort, whose line goes back to Edward III through John of Gaunt. So unless I have something wrong they are all equally "Plantagenets" (actually none of them are?) and Henry would seem to have superior claims to the throne. Is Mantel historically accurate here?
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A couple of things made Henry Tudor’s claim weak.
His mother’s line was illegitimate. And although they were legitimized when John of Gaunt married their mother, Henry IV made sure the Act of Parliament said they weren’t in the line of succession. So no matter what Margaret Beaufort’s claim was weaker.
Henry was claiming the Lancaster mantle. And the Lancaster’s were descended from a younger brother than the Yorks. They came from John of Gaunt. The York’s came from Lionel Duke of Clarence, Edward III’s second surviving son, and Edmund of Langley.
The Lancasters threw the descended from a women argument, the line from Lionel was through a woman, but it wasn’t too convincing. Because their claim to France was through the female line.
3) Henry VII’s father was also of questionable legitimacy as Catherine, his grandmother and former queen, needed permission to marry and didn’t get it. Henry VI embraced his brothers when he found out about them. But he was a push over.
That being said Henry VIII was also a descendant of York and Edward IV’s grandson. His claim was at least better than the Courtneys. He was just increasingly paranoid as he got older. But Mantel is historically accurate in this case that those were arguments thrown around.
No, this is not true.
The Beauforts were legitimized three times over -- by the pope, by letters patent issued by the king (then Richard II), and by parliament. This is fairly unusual and I suspect it is because John of Gaunt had finally realized that his kingly nephew could not be trusted in any way and so gave his legitimized children a sort of triple insurance policy.
The act of parliament matches the letters patent issued by Richard word for word. The succession is not specifically mentioned, but the laws unconditionally award "all honours, dignities, pre-eminences, estates, degrees and offices public and private whatsoever" to the Beauforts. A broad read of this would include the crown if, for whatever reason, everyone ahead of them in line dropped dead. (Of which there were many at the time.)
Nothing else is said on the matter until 1407, when John Beaufort, 1st earl of Somerset, requested a copy of the law from his brother, who was by this time King Henry IV. This was issued by the chancellory with the added words "excepta dignitate regali" -- "except royal status."
Richard II's letters patent were law, but the letters patent of a future monarch would supercede them ... except in this case, there was also an act of parliament from Richard's reign saying the same thing, and parliament never acts on it in Henry's reign. The relative power of the crown and parliament changes quite a lot over the medieval era, but it is specifically in Henry's reign that parliament is recognized as having the power to determine the succession. (It literally recognizes Henry as king in 1399 and twice changes the line of succession based on his and his eldest son's recommendations -- first putting brothers over daughters, then reversing that decision.) So Henry of all kings in this era would have recognize that his own letters patent were trumped by an act of parliament. Thus the Beauforts are eligible to inherit.
But ... all of this legal hair-splitting is probably for naught. A recent Beaufort biography notes that "excepta dignitate regali" never once comes up before the 19th century, IIRC. That is to say that is likely that John Beaufort requested his copy of the statute, received it, and then probably put it in a trunk for safe keeping without reading it in full, with the added clause only to be discovered when some historian dug it up centuries later. So even if "excepta dignitate regali" was meant to be the law of the land, it seems no one knew about it anyway.
The Poles and Courtenays were also staunch Roman Catholics, which certainly colored some folks’ view of their claim to the Crown.
So, the Beauforts don't really count as royalty. They were born bastards, but legitimized, yet not to a royal extent. Their descent from John of Gaunt and the lack of many pureblooded Lancasters gave them a rise to power, but that can only go so far. Richard of York was always considered the legitimate heir apparent to Henry VI prior to his son's birth, despite the Beauforts being closer in relation. So, Henry VII's Plantagenet descent doesn't really count. It's there, but it's shaky.
That's why marrying Elizabeth of York was vital for his reign. By marrying the eldest scion of Edward IV, he was not only marrying her, but he was marrying her very strong claim.
The Tudor claim came through an originally illegitimate grandson of John of Gaunt, via Henry VII mother. Gaunt had never been a monarch in his own right (though he did have a failed run at the Spanish throne which is never not funny). So the Tudor claim was:
Through the female line
Of an originally illegitimate grandson
Of the third son of a king
All of this made it much weaker than the direct (albeit female) legitimate connection to the Yorkist kings the Poles and Exeter had. This was very much a problem at the time and the much stronger claims of these families gave enemies of the Tudor's a force to coalescence around. Although there is an argument that the extent of this treason was exaggerated by Cromwell as he wanted to remove the Courtney powerbase in the Southwest (Henry Courtney was a personal rival of Cromwell) and replace him with his own allies, John Russell and William Godolphin.
I can't say with 100% certainty this was Mantel's intention but I imagine she was using Plantagenet the way it would have been used in the Tudor period, which would be to identify Yorkists. The term Plantagenet was originally a nickname of the Count of Angou that Richard, Duke of York adopted as a dynastic name to highlight his claim to this line. So in Cromwell's time what we now call "the House of York" would have been "the House of Plantagenet" Subsequently this has then been retroactively applied to the descendants of Henry I by modern historiography. Again as direct descendents of Edward IV the Poles and Courtney's would have been the inheritors of the Plantagenet/Yorkist claim.
This all applies to Henry VII's claim, but Henry VIII had a much stronger claim to the throne from his mother Elizabeth of York, who was the daughter of Edward IV and therefore a direct descendant of Edward III's second son. Again, through the female line, but it was just as strong as the claim of the Poles afaik. There's a reason the threat to the Tudor line became much less when Henry VIII became king - the old joining of York and Lancaster really was important
Except he was still descended from the Beauforts so technically still had no claim at all.
He had a claim through his mother's line that had nothing to do with the Beauforts though? The De La Poles claim also came from the female line, so it's not like there was a strong male-only claim anywhere
But he was a Beaufort descendant so was unable to inherit the throne. His mothers line is irrelevant.
The proclamation says that any member of the House of Beaufort and their descendants shall have right to all honours and titles except that of the crown. By being descended from the Beauforts Henry VII and Henry VIII both fit this bill and have no claim, as do all subsequent monarchs.
Henry VII honestly had a weaker claim to the throne than the House of York did. York was descended from two of Edward III’s sons, as well as Richard II’s heir. Tudor, apart from being the heir to the questionably legitimate Beaufort line, was really only in power because Henry defeated Richard III on Bosworth Field. The male line was only royal by marriage, through Catherine of Valois. Their claim could’ve easily been challenged by a stronger line.
Mortimer was not Richard II's heir.
Beaufort descendants were not allowed to inherit the throne as part of their being legitimised by Henry IV, so anyone who wasnt descended from the Beauforts but was from the Plantagenets had a better claim than any Tudors, who had none.
The Beauforts weren't legitimized by Henry IV and the copy of the law issued during his reign is superceded by an act of parliament that includes no such clause barring them from the succession, as I say more about here. The Beaufort line was very much the rightful line.
The entire House of York was descended from the Beauforts. Cecily Neville was the daughter of Joan Beaufort.
So if merely being a Beaufort descendant through the female line is enough to disqualify you then it also applies to the entire House of York.