Failed Royal Marriages and Pregnancies.

[USRL87]

I've always been fascinated by the failed royal marriages and pregnancies that would have changed history. I'm curious what peoples favorite scenarios are, especially if they are non-western European. My favs:

If King Frances II of France hadn't died he and Mary Queen of Scots would have united France and Scotland.

If Mary Queen of England had gotten pregnant with King Philip of Spain we'd have had English/Burgundian Habsburgs.

If Mary Queen of Scots had been successful in negotiations with Carlos Prince of Asturias, Scotland, and eventually England would be part of the Habsburg Kingdom of Spain.

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And most personal favorite, if little baby Miguel of Avis and Trastmara would have survived, he would have united all of Iberia and their empires without the baggage of constant German, French and Italian wars.

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[Delvestius]

The empire of Charles V was already too big, so much so that he gave Spain to his son and Austria to his brother after he took to the cloth shortly before his death in 1556 (will check this date).

That said it would have unlikely for a single heir to maintain rule over both kingdoms, let alone England as well.

EDIT: 1556 is when charles abdicated, 1558 is when he died

EDITEDIT: Welcome to the site, it's a great place to learn all sorts of cool stuff.

 

[USRL87]

Welcome to the site, it's a great place to learn all sorts of cool stuff.

Thank you.

Also I know full-well that Habsburg lands could not have been affective governed as one unit and even Philip II tried twice to divide his own realm, once banking on Mary Queen of England having a King who would rule both England and the Netherlands and again giving his Daughter the Netherlands in hope she and her husband would have issue.

My interest would have been if either of the plans would have been successful. A Northern Habsburg branch would have helped tremendously in Habsburg dominance of Europe. A Habsburg pseudo-Union even.

 

[Monter]

Habsburg-wank is always sweet (even though I detest unified Iberia)

A failed marriage a while before the Habsburgs: HRE Henry V and Matilda of England.

 

[Booster Gold]

If Jane Seymour had survived, would Edward have been raised Catholic and could the combined efforts of he and Princess Mary brought England back into communion with Holy Mother Church?

If so, do Scotland and England remain separate? Does Ireland go Protestant to defy England? Do the English still help the Dutch revolt? If not, does the Dutch revolt then fail? Do the Dutch then become reintegrated into the HRE? Could this lead to a united Germany including all of the Netherlands?

 

[Monter]

Weren't the Dutch allied to the French?

There is the Swedes too.

 

[USRL87]

If Jane Seymour had survived, would Edward have been raised Catholic and could the combined efforts of he and Princess Mary brought England back into communion with Holy Mother Church?

I doubt it, Queen Mary was a hardcore Catholic and she couldn't undo Protestantism. Maybe if a Catholic monarch had reigned earlier but the reformation was a brush fire and hard to contain.

If so, do Scotland and England remain separate?

Probably, England would still have enemies happy to help Scotland preserve its independence to check England.

Do the English still help the Dutch revolt? If not, does the Dutch revolt then fail? Do the Dutch then become reintegrated into the HRE? Could this lead to a united Germany including all of the Netherlands?

Well France was perfectly fine with assisting and aligning with protestants, even muslims, against Habsurgs. I guess it would depend on English relations with the Spanish, maybe wanting to weaken them by supporting the Dutch like the French.

A hostile relationship might have led to the Habsburgs pursuing a match with Mary Queen of Scots.

 

[Ricard (i.e. Rdffigueira)]

I've always been fascinated by the failed royal marriages and pregnancies that would have changed history. I'm curious what peoples favorite scenarios are, especially if they are non-western European. (...)

I don't mean to derail the thread, but damn... the combined lands of the Austrian Habsburgs (Austria, Bohemia and Hungary) looks like a sitting frog with his hand raised and throwing some grains on Franche-Comté

Anyways, on-topic, from the top of my head I remember that Charlemagne after being crowned Roman Emperor sought a marriage tie with Empress Irene, and some have posited a (extremely unlikely, IMO) union between the Carolingian realm and the Eastern Roman Empire.

Also, if Charles the Bold of Burgundy managed to have a male heir (IOTL he only had one daughter)... then perhaps they could have avoided the whole dispute regarding the division of the Burgundian domains between France and the Habsburg-led HRE, which, according to the Wiki, sparked most of the Western European wars for two centuries.

 

[Monter]

Should the Burgundian Line lived on, once the main Valois line died the very possibility of a France spanning from Spain to Lower Saxony would enough to cause 200 years of Franco-Habsburg warfare.

 

[USRL87]

Should the Burgundian Line lived on, once the main Valois line died the very possibility of a France spanning from Spain to Lower Saxony would enough to cause 200 years of Franco-Habsburg warfare.

The Netherlands were the cause of most issues in Western Europe. France coveted the lands of course, but mostly just wanted friendly power to their north. During the French-Austrian alliance before the French Revolution, France tolerated the Habsburg netherlands though always schemed for France annexation or creation of a satellite state under philip duke of parma.

How history would have changed without that conflict.

 

[Booster Gold]

I doubt it, Queen Mary was a hardcore Catholic and she couldn't undo Protestantism. Maybe if a Catholic monarch had reigned earlier but the reformation was a brush fire and hard to contain.

Mary came along after what, 30 years of hardcore anti-papism? As well, Jane Seymour was a Catholic, and Henry's anti-Catholicism was egotistical not philosophical and if he loved her as much as it is claimed, she might have been able to talk him around or at least limit the changes of the reformation. And without either of these, then Edward would likely not have been the hardcore Protestant he was. England was still pretty Catholic when Jane was queen, as evinced by the Pilgrimage of Grace. It took decades for Protestantism to entrench.

That being said, the rest of northern Europe went Protestant, so I have a hard time seeing England buck that trend. It might end up with some wars of religion a-la France or an English civil war on steroids as the middle classes went protestant and fought against the Catholic nobility and the lower classes thrown to whomever won (despite their Catholic leanings)

 

[Just a Rube]

If we're talking about 16th century English royal marriages, there were negotiations to marry Henry VIII of England to either Claude of France (future Queen of France and Duchess of Brittany) or Margaret of Angouleme (future Queen of Navarre, and sister of Francis I of France). Both fell through and he ended up marrying Catherine of Aragon instead, but think of the butterflies. Claude was also more or less perpetually pregnant (died at age 24 after having given birth to 7 kids), which would obviously affect Henry VIII's marriage issues.

Also, Claude was instead at one point betrothed to the future Charles V, who would have thus added Brittany to the miscellaneous Hapsburg lands if that marriage had gone through.