Wars of the Roses a "sudden narrowing in the direct line of descent" near the end of his reign. His eldest son, Edward, the Black Prince, had died the year before. Edward III was succeeded on the throne by the Black Prince's only surviving son Richard II, who was only 10 years old. Richard's claim to the throne was based on the principle that the son of an elder brother had priority in the succession over his uncles. Since Richard was a minor, had no siblings, and had three living uncles at the time of Edward III's death, there was considerable uncertainty about who
Edward the Black Prince "Edward the Prince, cognomen: The Black"); in the other, in English to "the Blake Prince". In both instances, Leland is summarising earlier works – respectively, the 14th-century "Eulogium Historiarum" and the late 15th-century chronicle attributed to John Warkworth – but in neither case does the name appear in his source texts. In print, Roger Ascham in his "Toxophilus" (1545) refers to "ye noble black prince Edward beside Poeters"; while Richard Grafton, in his "Chronicle at Large" (1569), uses the name on three occasions, saying that "some writers name him the black prince", and elsewhere that he was "commonly called the