Sources
Help build the largest human-edited directory on the web.
Submit a site - Become an editor
Wikipedia. Licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Are you an expert in this subject? Join the discussion and share your knowledge at Wikipedia.org.
Titulus Regius
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Titulus Regius (the royal title in Latin) is a statute of the Parliament of England, issued in 1483, by which the title of King of England was given to Richard III of England.
It is an official declaration that describes why the Parliament had found (the year before) that the marriage of Edward IV of England to Elizabeth Woodville had been invalid, and consequently their children were illegitimate (and, therefore, debarred from the throne), and why Richard III was proclaimed the rightful king.
The act was repealed by the first parliament of the new king, Henry VII. Henry VII also ordered his subjects to destroy all copies of it (and all related documents) without reading them. So well were his orders carried out that only one copy of the law has ever been found. A copy of the law was transcribed by a monastic chronicler into the Croyland Chronicle, where it was discovered by Sir George Buck more than a century later during the reign of James I.
The 100-year gap during which Titulus Regius was censored coincided with the ruling period of the Tudor Dynasty. During this period, Richard III was portrayed as a usurper by writers such as William Shakespeare. (See Richard III (play)).
