(42) The will of Henry the Eighth is fully discussed by Hallam, i. 34, 288, 294; Lingard, vi. 213. There are two Acts of Henry’s reign bearing on the matter. In the earlier one, 28 Henry VIII. c. 7, the Crown is entailed on the King’s sons by Jane Seymour or any other wife; then on the King’s legitimate daughters, no names being mentioned; the Act then goes on to say, “your Highnes shall have full and plenar power and auctorite to geve despose appoynte assigne declare and lymytt by your letters patentes under your great seale or ells by your laste Will made in wrytynge and signed with your moste gracious hande, at your onely pleasure from tyme to tyme herafter, the imperiall Crowne of this Realme and all other the premisses thereunto belongyng, to be remayne succede and come after your decease and for lack of lawfull heires of your body to be procreated and begoten as is afore lymytted by this Acte, to such person or persones in possession and remaynder as shall please your Highnes and according to such estate and after such maner forme facion ordre and condicion as shalbe expressed declared named and lymytted in your said letters patentes or by your said laste will.” The later Act, 35 Henry VIII. c. 1, puts Henry’s two daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, into the entail, but in a very remarkable way. The Acts declaring their illegitimacy are not repealed, nor is the legitimacy of either of them in any way asserted; in fact it is rather denied when the preamble rehearses that “The king’s Majesty hath only issue of his body lawfully begotten betwixt his Highness and his said late wife Queen Jane the noble and excellent Prince Edward.” The Act then goes on to enact that, although the King had been enabled to “dispose” the Crown “to any person or persons of such estate therein as should please his Highness to limit and appoint,” yet that, in failure of heirs of the body of either the King or his son, “the said imperial Crown and all other the premises shall be to the Lady Mary the King’s Highness daughter, and to the heirs of the body of the same Lady Mary lawfully begotten, with such conditions as by his Highness shall be limited by his letters patents under his great seal, or by his Majesty’s last will in writing signed with his gracious hand.” Failing Mary and her issue, the same conditional entail is extended to Elizabeth and her issue. The power of creating a remainder after the issue of Elizabeth of course remained with Henry, and he exercised it in favour of the issue of his younger sister Mary. Mary and Elizabeth therefore really reigned, not by virtue of any royal descent, but by virtue of a particular entail by which the Crown was settled on the King’s illegitimate daughters, as it might have been settled on a perfect stranger. It was an attempt on the part of Edward the Sixth to do without parliamentary authority what his father had done by parliamentary authority which led to the momentary occupation of the throne by Lady Jane Grey.