So brib'ry first with robbery combined To ride before, and treason rode behind. {182} Ambition, and the lust of rule prevail'd, And Robert's right, on Rufus' head entail'd. * Beau-Clerk next grasp'd his elder brother's crown, And, by his sword, maintain'd it was his own: The second ** Henry fights, and fighting treats, To own the prince's title he defeats; Consents to mean conclusions of the war, And stoops to be a base usurper's heir; Accepts the ignominious grant, and shows His right's as bad as Stephen's that bestows: The royal tricksters thus divide the prey, And helpless crowds the jugglers' swords obey. *** Then John, **** another branch of Henry's line, Jumps on the throne, in spite of Right Divine, Turn we to mighty Edward's deathless name; Or to his son's, whose conquests were the same; That mighty hero of right royal race, His father still alive, usurp'd his place. (v) * They were both usurpers, for the true right of descent was in Edgar Atheling. of the race of Edmund Ironside. ** Henry II. was obliged to compromise the dispute with his competitor Stephen; a prudent agreement, but in defiance of hereditary right. *** As at the death of Henry I. the main line of Normandy ended, so the succession has ever since proved so brittle, that it never held to the third heir in a right descent without being put by, or receiving some alteration by usurpation, or extinction of the male blood.--Churchill's Divi Britannici, p. 207. **** King John was the youngest son of Henry II., who had his eldest line deposed. Henry was the son of a usurper, a usurper himself, and the murderer of his own brother's son. (v) Edward III. reigned, his father, Edward II. being a prisoner, and was afterwards murdered. {183} As Edward on his parent's murder stood, So Richard's tyrant reign was closed in blood: Deposed and murder'd, Edward's father lies; Deposed and murder'd--thus the grandson * dies. Lancastrian Henry from his feeble head, The bauble wrench'd, and wore it in his stead; Three of his name by due succession reign, And York demands the right of line in vain. Thro' seas of slaughter, for this carnaged crown Edward, not went, but waded to the throne ** Three times deposed, three times restored by force, Priest-ridden Henry's title*** yields of course.