"What plain proceeding is more plain than this?" asks the Earl of Warwick in the Shakespearean play Henry VI, Part II. "Henry doth claim the crown from John of Gaunt, the fourth son; York claims it from the third. Till Lionel's issue fails, his [John of Gaunt's] should not reign."
Figure 1. Illuminated manuscript, ca. 1461, illustrates the complexity and political ramifications of royal genealogies. This 20-foot-long vellum roll purports to trace the lineage of King Edward IV of England back to Noah, thereby establishing Edward?s legitimacy as monarch. The manuscript is liberally decorated with symbols of the House of York, such as suns and roses. The portion of the roll shown here (roughly one-sixth of the roll, shown in full at right) extends from Edward III to Richard, Duke of York ('Ricardus,' bottom center). The multicolored border of Richard?s box indicates his ties to other ruling families of Europe; in fact, the feuding houses in the Wars of the Roses shared many common ancestors, so that their family tree displays the phenomenon called coalescence. By contrast, the plain yellow borders of the Lancaster Kings, Henry IV, V and VI, hint at their relative paucity of royal connections and their inferior claims to the throne.
Images courtesy of the Rare Book Room, Free Library of Philadelphia.
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