Succession to Elizabeth I of England

The succession to the childless Elizabeth I of England was an open question from her accession in 1558 to her death in 1603, when the crown passed to James VI of Scotland. While the accession of James went smoothly, the succession had been the subject of much debate for decades. It also, in some scholarly views, was a major political factor of the entire reign, if not so voiced. Separate aspects have acquired their own nomenclature: the "Norfolk conspiracy", and Patrick Collinson's "Elizabethan exclusion crisis".

The topics of debate remained obscured by uncertainty. The male line from Henry VIII of England had failed with the death in 1553 of Edward VI. Elizabeth I baulked at establishing the order of succession in any form. The dynastic position of the House of Tudor was therefore not clarified.

The legal position was held by a number of authorities to hinge on such matters as the statute De natis ultra mare of Edward III, and the will of Henry VIII. Their application raised different opinions. Political, religious and military matters came to predominate later in Elizabeth's reign, in the context of the Anglo-Spanish War.

Descent from the two daughters of Henry VII who reached adulthood, Margaret and Mary, was the first and main issue in the succession.

Mary I of England had died without managing to have her preferred successor and first cousin, Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox, nominated by parliament. Margaret Douglas was a daughter of Margaret Tudor, and lived to 1578, but became a marginal figure in discussions of the succession to Elizabeth I, who at no point clarified the dynastic issues of the Tudor line. When in 1565 Margaret Douglas's son Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, married Mary, Queen of Scots, the "Lennox claim" was generally regarded as consolidated into the "Stuart claim".

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