History of the English line of succession the crown in 1376. On his death, on 21 June 1377, the line of succession to the English throne was: The throne passed smoothly to the first person in line, who became Richard II. On the day of Richard II's abdication, 29 September 1399, the line of succession to the English throne was as follows (following primogeniture, according to Richard II's entail in 1399): However, upon Richard's abdication the throne was taken by Henry Bolingbroke as Henry IV. Henry had justified his usurpation by emphasizing his descent in the male line. Thus, the Lancastrian line of succession is agnatic, similar
Margery Byset the daughter of a great northern lord", and retained a memory of his face. After she had come to reside with John in the Isles, the contemporary Scottish poet Andrew of Wyntoun tells of her recognition of a man whom she believed to be the deposed king travelling [dressed] as a poor man. Although Richard is widely believed to have starved to death in captivity in Pontefract Castle in early 1400, Margery vouched for the man, whomever he may have been, and the Scots believed her. He was naturally dismissed as an impostor by Henry IV, but had a kind