¹⁶ For the excerpt from the play dealing with Cambridge's line of descent and his claim to the throne see Gurr, p.21

¹⁷ The following excerpt from Henry VI part two can shed the necessary light on the genealogical aspects related to Cambridge's claim and on the information that Shakespeare staged in his earlier plays but which he chose to ignore in Henry V.

York [the son of the Earl of Cambridge executed in Henry V]:

The third son [ the third son of Edward III], Duke of Clarence, from whose line

I claim the crown, had issue, Philippe, a daughter,

Who married Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March;

Edmund had issue, Roger Earl of March;

Roger had issue, Edmund, Anne, and Eleanor.

Salisbury: This Edmund in the reign of Bullingbrook,

As I have read, laid claim unto the crown,

And but for Owen Glendower, had been king,

Who kept him in captivity till he died.

But to the rest.

York: His eldest sister, Anne,

My mother, being heir unto the crown,

Married Richard Earl of Cambridge, who was To Edmund Langley, Edward the third's son

By her I claim the kingdom. She was heir

To Roger Earl of March, who was the son,

Of Edmund Mortimer, who married Philippe,

Sole daughter unto Lionel Duke of Clarence;

So if the issue of the elder son

Succeed before the younger, I am king.

Warwick: What plain proceedings is more plain than this?

Henry doth claim the crown from John of Gaunt,

The fourth son, York claims it from the third……(2.3.34-55)

¹⁸ I owe my insights into the relations between Henry V , Richard II and the Henry VI plays to professor Patricia Parker.