Tudor 'Might-have-been' thread

[Prince_Lieven]

Hi everyone!  

I thought this would make for an interesting thread - a place to discuss the many 'what ifs' of Tudor history. I can think of thousands!

Of course, when considering a 'what if', it is usually useful to say 'supposing X happened but all deaths still happened when they did in reality' etc, unless of course 'X' has a direct bearing on a death.

So let your imagination run wild! Post some what ifs and what you think might have happened!  

[SonjaMarie]

Ok.

What if Lady Jane Grey remained Queen of England.  Mary was captured and either put to death or sent to a convent or left in the Tower.

Would Jane take control of her rule from her father-in-law or still be his puppet?  Would Jane and Guilford have children or die childless?  Would she have eventually abdicated and live the life she wanted?

Would Elizabeth have survived it and still become Queen eventually?  Or die and the throne goes to either Jane's children if she had any creating the Dudley Dynasty or to one of her sister's, or would the Stuarts still end up on the throne.

If the Stuarts never did inherit the throne of England, their line of descent would have never happened, and today who knows who would be on the throne of England assuming it even survived to our age.

Despite my love of Jane, I think Elizabeth was the greatest monarch of England and if there had been some why that Jane didn't have to die I still would have rather had Elizabeth as Queen then Jane.

Sonja Marie

[Prince_Lieven]

Oooh, thanks for that great post Sonja Marie!!

Well, let's begin - let's say Mary is dead. There is no way Northumberland would have let her live.

I think, personally, once Jane was a little older, she would have shrugged off Northumberland with ease. To speak of it as if it was real history:

In 1558 the Duke of Northumberland was arrested on the orders of Queen Jane and sent to the Tower. After a put-up trial, he was executed. From this point on, Queen Jane continued with vigor the religious reforms of her predeccessor Edward VI. Penal Laws against Catholics were introduced, and eventually Catholics were being burned with alarming regulqarity. This succeeded in making an enemies of both France and Spain, and before long Queen Jane was hopelessly outflanked.

Now, as to she and Guilford - I don't think he would have been made King; more likely Duke of Clarence, as Jane said. He would have had virtually no part to play in state matters once Jane began to rule for herself.

As to whether or not she and Guilford would have had children is impossible - they consummated the marriage in reality, but Jane did not conceive. This does not neccessarily mean conception was impossible for the couple, of course. So I'll continue my little 'narrative' as if Queen Jane is childless.

The Lady Elizabeth had wisely kept her head down during the chaos of Jane's early reign, remaining at her houses at Hatfield and Hunsdon. Northumberland, before his fall, urged Jane to execute her, but the Queen refused to sign the death warrant of her cousin, a good Protestant. Lady Elizabeth eventually returned to court and swore fealty to Queen Jane. From then, she was accepted at court, though still regarded as a bastard. She was never spoken of as Jane's heiress - her sister Katherine occupied that spot.

Jane, always delicate, died in 1562 in the smallpox epidemic.  And so the 29 year old daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn rose splendidly to the occassion, aided by people sick of the Grey regime. Katherine Grey's claim received little support, and Elizabeth was firmly on the throne before long.

OK, obviously, some of this is just the product of my over-fertile imagination, but I honestly think Jane wouldn't have lasted long, even if she had not been executed - she was described as a small delicate child, and given how young her sisters died, it is likely she would have followed suit.

Tell me your opinions!  

[SonjaMarie]

I think your "narrative" has definte plausibility.

Jane probably would've become "Bloody Jane" doing the  opposite of Mary, killing Catholics.  I've long come to terms she was a religious bigot. but if she had been allowed to live out her life the way she wanted and not drawn into the plot to make her Queen it wouldn't have become an issue.  We probably wouldn't have even really heard of Jane except as a minor footnote of history as a Tudor cousin.

Jane might have concieved eventually, I don't think she and Guildford had much time for consummation in their brief marriage to make a successful go at having children.  She might have even died in childbirth if she managed to carry to full term.

I think Elizabeth could've survived Jane's reign as she managed to survive Mary's, where she held on by the slimmest of threads.

But what if Mary of Scots saw Jane's reign as weak and a prime time to try to take the throne from her, and if she succeeded the Stuarts would've still ended up on the throne just nearly half a century earlier.  If Elizabeth wasn't killed, she'd either bide her time or she'd plot like Mary would do against her while Elizabeth was Queen.

Sonja Marie

[Prince_Lieven]

Thanks, SonjaMarie.  

If Mary Stuart, with French backing, had become Queen of England by deposing Jane, there would have been VERY far reaching consequences. Let's say Jane was deposed in . . . 1559, the year Mary became Queen of France. Mary would have been 17, Queen of Scots, France and England. Assuming her husband died as he really did, in 1560, she would not have united the British Isles with France.

Had Mary become Queen of England, Jane would of course have been executed both as a rival and a heretic, and the same goes for Elizabeth. Not even she could have survived that reign, IMO, unless she fled aborad.

[ilyala]

i don't think the english would have sit back and let mary stuart take over the throne. i'm thinking lots of rebellions and elizabeth on the throne  

[Elisabeth]

I think Mary might have been able to hold on to the English crown, but only as long as she was not also Queen of France. Any attempt to unite the two kingdoms under a French king would have been doomed to failure, given English patriotism (and xenophobia).

I have another "What If." What if the first child of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, Prince Henry, born on New Year's Day 1511, had survived infancy instead of dying seven weeks later? What if he had become King Henry IX at the ripe young age of 36? Can we guess which princess he might have married? Would the break with Rome still have occurred, if not during his father's reign, then during his own?

[Kimberly]

as a wife, how about Marguerite, Francois of France's daughter. As for the break with Rome, maybe it wouldn't have happened in his lifetime, particularly with him having such a stalwart catholic for a mother.

[Prince_Lieven]

Oooh, a wonderful new what if!

OK, Prince Henry as Henry IX . . . well, it seems likely that Catherine of Aragon still would have predeceased Henry VIII - she was 5 years his senior, so would have had to be 60 to outlive him: not impossible, but unlikely then. Still, she might have lived longer than 1536 and perhaps imbued her son with her own devoted Catholocism.

So, let's say England remains Catholic. Now, it seems the eligible princesses of Henry XI's generation were in short supply! There was, as Kim says, Princess Marguerite, who was 12 years Henry's junior, or her sister Madeleine, 3 years older . . .

[helenazar]

What if Elizabeth I married Philip of Spain and had a child? Or if she married Robert Dudley, or the Duke of Anjou and had a child?

[helenazar]

What if Anne Boleyn did not lose her last baby that was a boy and he lived to be the heir to the English throne?

[Prince_Lieven]

Now that is a toughie, Helen! For a start, Elizabeth would not have lasted as Queen, IMO, had she married Philip. She would have faced rebellion, and perhaps someone like Katherine Grey - or maybe her mother Frances - would have been placed on the throne, or a Plantagenet descendant.

As to marrying Dudley, it depends on when - if it was soon after the death of Amy Dudley, she might as well have kissed her crown goodbye!

[Kimberly]

WOW, what a child that would have been. If it was a girl, what if she then married James VI of Scotland?
( a child of Elizabeth, I mean)

[helenazar]

Now that is a toughie, Helen! For a start, Elizabeth would not have lasted as Queen, IMO, had she married Philip. She would have faced rebellion, and perhaps someone like Katherine Grey - or maybe her mother Frances - would have been placed on the throne, or a Plantagenet descendant.

As to marrying Dudley, it depends on when - if it was soon after the death of Amy Dudley, she might as well have kissed her crown goodbye!

What about Anjou then? That could have gone either way, I think....

[Prince_Lieven]

Well, Anjou was Catholic, but Elizabeth was firmly entrenched as queen by then, and the English were reassured to see Anjou attend a service with her in St Paul's . . . imagine what that child would have been liked though! Elizabeth Tudor as a mother and Catherine de Medici as a grandmother!