POLITICAL HISTORY 



months before, seized into his hands the duchy and all the other possessions 

 of the late duke.'" The recovery of his heritage served Henry as a pretext 

 for the invasion which placed him on the throne in September, 1399. 



Henry was careful not to incorporate the duchy of Lancaster and the 

 other estates inherited from his father with the old crown lands. He 

 provided that they should be kept distinct and separately administered, just as 

 if he had not become king, and should descend to his heirs specified in the 

 charters conferring the lands and rights."'* His motive in retaining them as 

 private possessions of his house is obvious. The future of the succession to a 

 crown upon which he had no hereditary right was uncertain. He did not 

 venture in the first place to do more than secure Parliamentary recognition of 

 his eldest son as heir apparent. Should circumstances oblige him to yield to 

 the superior hereditary claims of the earls of March, his paternal heritage 

 might be saved for his family."" As he could not himself be styled duke of 

 Lancaster, Henry arranged, with the consent of Parliament, that the title 

 should be borne by Prince Henry.'*^ The estates, however, remained in his 

 own hand. 



This settlement gave a new and wider meaning to the term, ' duchy of 

 Lancaster.' The old Lancastrian earldoms had been merged in the single 

 title ' duke of Lancaster,' and the duchy of Lancaster, hitherto identical with 

 the county palatine, henceforth comprised the whole complex of estates 

 scattered over England and Wales, which John of Gaunt had held.'" 



Of this wider duchy of Lancaster the county palatine was for the future 

 only a parcel — a subordinate regality. The duchy and the county now had 

 each its own seal and its own chancellor."" The central administration of 

 the duchy was vested in the chancellor and council of the duchy, and it 



"' On I March he gave the custody of the castle and honour of Lancaster, the castles and lordships of 

 LiTerpool and Clitheroe, the manor of Blackburnshire, the castle of Halton, &c., to his nephew, Thomas 

 Holland, duke of Surrey ; Fine R. 202, m. 1 1. For imprisonment of a Lancashire contemner of the king in 

 the Tower, see Rot. Pari, iii, 445. 



"' Hardy, Charters, 137-40 (14 Oct. 1399). The only point in which the status of the tenants was 

 changed, was in the enforcement of the crown prerogative of marriage outside the county palatine where it 

 was already enjoyed. Chief Justice Gascoigne decided in 1405, that in matters relating to the duchy of 

 Lancaster, the king could be sued like any common person ; Wylie, Hen. IF, ii, 187. 



"' Cf. Blackstone, Commentaries, i, 118. Sixty years later, after a long civil war, such a pacific arrange- 

 ment was impossible, but at an earlier date might have been conceivable. It should be noted that even if the 

 house of Lancaster had kept the crown, the duchy might have ceased to be held by the king. The first act of 

 settlement of 1 406, for instance, would have limited the succession to the crown to heirs male, while the 

 Lancaster estates cculd descend to females ; Rot. Pari, iii, 574. 



'™ Ibid. 428 (10 Nov. 1399). According to the peerage writers he was the last duke of Lancaster. 

 The notion that the crown as owner of the estates of the duchy is thereby ' Duke of Lancaster,' is 

 regarded by them as a popular error. It is at any rate an ancient error, and one that has received 

 some oificial recognition. In 1515, e.g. Henry VIII made a grant 'as Duke of Lancaster' ; L. and P. 

 Hen. nil, ii, 55. 



"" Cal. Pat. 1399-1401, pp. 434, 507, 527. Yet the term was still sometimes used in its old narrower 

 application. Thus John de Springthorp was in 1410 appointed by Henry IV, chancellor ' infra Ducatum 

 suum Palatinum Lancastriae' ; Towneley MS. CC. p. 129, No. 436. Henry V annexed to the duchy in 

 1414 the estates of the earldom of Hereford derived from his mother ; Hardy, op, cit. 151. 



"^ Hen. VI attests the existence of the two chancellors under his predecessors when abolishing (in 1460) 

 the third chancellor and other officials who had been created for the duchy lands committed to feoffees for 

 certain purposes ; Hardy, Chart. 258. Despite this the same person is sometimes described as chancellor of 

 the county and of the duchy. Thus in 1442 Walter Shirington appears as ' chancellor of our county palatine 

 of Lancaster' (Add. MS. 32108, No. 1657), and in 1443 as 'chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster' ; Proc. 

 Privy Council, v, 238. Is it the explanation of this apparent contradiction that the two offices were occa- 

 sionally (or always) united in one hand ? For the great seal of the county palatine in 1399 see De/i. Keeper's 

 Rep. xl, App. 527 ; for that of the duchy in 1404 (sig. Henrici regis Angliae . . . de ducatu Lancastriae), see 

 M. Bateson, Rec. of Leicester, ii, Ixxix (with facsimile). 



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