But what had long been propagated in secret, soon became familiar to the public ear; that the duke of York laid claim to the throne. He was unquestionably heir general of the royal line, through his mother, Anne, daughter of Roger Mortimer earl of March, son of Philippa, daughter of Lionel duke of Clarence, third son of Edward III. Roger Mortimer's eldest son, Edmund, had been declared heir presumptive by Richard II.; but his infancy during the revolution that placed Henry IV. on the throne had caused his pretensions to be passed over in silence. The new king however was induced by a jealousy natural to his situation to detain the earl of March in custody. Henry V. restored his liberty; and, though he had certainly connived for a while at the conspiracy planned by his brother-in-law the earl of Cambridge and Lord Scrope of Masham to place the crown on his head, that magnanimous prince gave him a free pardon, and never testified any displeasure. The present duke of York was honoured by Henry VI. with the highest trusts in France and Ireland; such as Beaufort and Gloucester could never have dreamed of conferring on him if his title to the crown had not been reckoned obsolete. It has been very pertinently remarked that the crime perpetrated by Margaret and her counsellors in the death of the duke of Gloucester was the destruction of the house of Lancaster.[445] From this time the duke of York, next heir in presumption while the king was childless, might innocently contemplate the prospect of royalty; and when such ideas had long been passing through his mind, we may judge how reluctantly the birth of prince Edward, nine years after Henry's marriage, would be admitted to disturb them. The queen's administration unpopular, careless of national interests, and partial to his inveterate enemy the duke of Somerset;[446] the king incapable of exciting fear or respect; himself conscious of powerful alliances and universal favour; all these circumstances combined could hardly fail to nourish those opinions of hereditary right which he must have imbibed from his infancy.