ine: enough, he did such deeds that the world's
abhorrence weighs justly on him.

But it was owing to the internal discord of the ruling family that
throughout the course of its history a path was made for political and
national development, and so it was now: these crimes opened a way out
of the disorders of the time. For as Richard, while continuing to
persecute the house of Lancaster, struck still harder blows against
the chief members of that of York, he gave occasion to the principal
persons of both parties, who were equally threatened, and had the
same interest in opposing the usurper, to draw nearer to each other.

The widowed Queen Elizabeth, who was lingering out her life in a
sanctuary, was brought into secret connexion through the mediation of
distinguished friends with the mother of the man who now came forward
as head of the Lancasters, Henry Earl of Richmond, and it was
determined that Henry and Elizabeth's daughter, in whom the claims of
both lines were united, should marry each other, a prospect which
might well prepare the way for the immediate combination of the two
parties. Henry of Richmond at their head was then to confront the
usurper and chase him from the throne. The fugitives scattered about
in the sanctuaries and churches called him to be their captain.[72]

The question arises--it has been often answered in the
negative--whether Henry was rightfully a Lancaster, and whether he had
any well-grounded claims on the English crown. He loved to derive his
family from the hero of the Welsh, the fabulous Arthur. His
grandfather, Owen Tudor, a Welshman, was brought into connexion with
the royal house by his marriage with Henry V's widow, Catharine of
France: for unions of royal ladies with distinguished gentlemen were
then not rare. And Owen Tudor of course obtained by this a higher
position, but there could be no question of any claim to the crown.
This was derived simply from the fact that the son of this marriage,
Edmund Tudor Earl of Richmond, married a lady of the house of
Somerset, descended by her father from John of Gaunt, the ancestor of
the Lancasters, by his third marriage with Catharine Swynford. It has
been said that this marriage, in itself of an irregular nature, was
only recognised as legitimate by Richard II on the condition that the
issue from it should have no claim to the succession--and so it is in
fact stated in the often printed Patent. But the original of the
document still e