What has MKJ started?

If you watched Channel Four on the first Saturday evening in January 2003, then you will probably remember Michael K. Jones and Tony Robinson discussing Edward IV‘s possible illegitimacy, followed by Britain’s Real Monarch, an investigation into the King or Queen of England if Edward had not existed or been debarred, leading through the Poles to Michael Abney-Hastings, the late Earl of Loudoun who lived in Australia.

There are several other relevant hypotheses that bear investigation – who would be King of Great Britain under Jacobite rules, King of France, Tsar of the Russias, King of Germany (i.e. Holy Roman Emperor). On the other hand, there hasn’t been an Emperor of Rome for over fifteen centuries so that is a hypothesis too far, I think. Probably the best of these, because it follows so soon after Richard III’s era, is Henry VIII‘s will which, in the failure of Edward VI and his half-sisters to reproduce, left the throne to the Brandon/ Grey descendants of his sister Mary ahead of the Stewart descendants of his sister Margaret, who did inherit in 1603. It leads through the Seymour and Grey lines, involving Arbella Stuart and the Dukes of Buckingham and Chandos, with the Stanleys among those in reserve, to two passive “claimants”.

Here is the YouTube (sorry, WeTube in the royal plural) piece on the subject. Warning: “Matt Baker” isn’t the ex-gymnast.

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