So, the challenge is: the Kingdom of England must become a vassal country of the Holy Roman Empire in an ATL 1194, timeline in which Henry the Lion was executed by Frederick I Barbarossa and in which the Crusaders established a Kingdom of Jerusalem after the Third Crusade ended. Richard the Lionheart must still be King of England by the ATL 1194.
AHC: England becomes a HRE vassal.
- Thread starter coldblood11
- Start date
GdwnsnHo
Banned
I .. uh .. what?
What sort of political LUNACY would there need to be for that to happen?
I mean, Kingdom of Jerusalem being made is difficult at best.
You'd need some serious political jiggery-pokery to make England a HRE member, as it become one of the largest.
And... If Henry the Lionhearted is EXECUTED?!
AHC? More the AHC-Beyond-Belief.
All I can consider is maybe a Kingdom of Jerusalem is created as a HRE vassal. John tries to usurp england with Frederiks help in exchange for becoming a vassal - and then Richard (still in the Levant) tries to overthrow whomever is the King of Jerusalem, fails, it captured, and then executed after... excommunication by the Pope?
Seriously mental times to pull that off. Perhaps have john actively 'support' his brother by sending Richards supporters to the holy land so he has dominance - a easier PoD - but eeps
I .. uh .. what?
What sort of political LUNACY would there need to be for that to happen?
I mean, Kingdom of Jerusalem being made is difficult at best.
You'd need some serious political jiggery-pokery to make England a HRE member, as it become one of the largest.
And... If Henry the Lionhearted is EXECUTED?!
AHC? More the AHC-Beyond-Belief.
All I can consider is maybe a Kingdom of Jerusalem is created as a HRE vassal. John tries to usurp england with Frederiks help in exchange for becoming a vassal - and then Richard (still in the Levant) tries to overthrow whomever is the King of Jerusalem, fails, it captured, and then executed after... excommunication by the Pope?
Seriously mental times to pull that off. Perhaps have john actively 'support' his brother by sending Richards supporters to the holy land so he has dominance - a easier PoD - but eeps
I think I either phrased it wrongly, or you didn't understand the first post. I said make England a vassal of the HRE, not a part of it.
It's Henry the Lion, the head of the House of Welf, not Richard the Lionheart, the King of England, who is executed.
As for the Kingdom of Jerusalem, I tried to justify it by averting Barbarossa's death and making his retinue big enough for a Siege of Jerusalem against the Ayyubids to be possible.
What about have Anne of Bohemia, Queen of England, wife of King Richard II, not die in 1394, but live to have a child in 1398, called Prince Charles after her father Emperor Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor.
In 1400, Richard II dies in a battle with Henry, Duke of Hereford, fearing for her life, Anne writes to her half brother, Emperor-elect Wenceslaus IV King of Germany and Bohemia, asking for his support.
Wenceslaus IV sent his 32 year old, half brother, Sigismund over to England with a reasonable army. Defending his sister and nephew, he will become Regent to Charles I of England.
When Charles I came of age in 1416, he pledged allegiance to his uncle, Sigismund, who had been elected Emperor of the HRE in 1410. On 25th March 1420, the two leaders asked for Pope Martin V's blessing to unite their two nations.
Fearing this would restart the Western Schism, he denied this but suggested that he would bless the Kingdom of England becoming a vassal country of the Holy Roman Empire.
If Hungary, a country right on its border, ruled by the same line of Emperors for nigh on 400 years , and something that has alot more in common with the HRE than England does, especially needing defense form the Turk, didnt want to join, there's no chance they'd ever get England to come in, least past a election of a English Monarch as HREmperor...but even then, would never last past said personage
GdwnsnHo
Banned
No, I understood - but being a vassal and being part of the HRE is pretty much the same thing - it is a feudal institution after all.
Remember that HRE was a name first applied to Charlemagne's empire, and was originally meant to be coterminous with (western, at least) Christendom. yes, the name quickly became attachedvto the eastern, German and Italian, part. But I could see some Emperor successfully (re)including various Christian nations one way or another. While England was never part of the HRE iotl, I could imagine it joining as part of a powerplay to isolate France as being 'not properly Christian'. Almost entirely as a political move, but still.
Richard of Cornwall, succeds in getting his "king of the Romans" count for something, and Henry III dies without male heirs (or prehaps more likely, all his male heirs dies doing youth), leaving the throne to his younger brother.
Best thing, no Habsburg Emperor (at least at this point in time)
Best thing, no Habsburg Emperor (at least at this point in time)
No problem, i love trying to do AHC - especially when its a period i dont know and have to do extra home work
I already plan on making the Habsburgs practically unimportant ITTL, so that's covered.
Empress Matilda has a son or two from her first marriage. Perhaps the oldest becomes the Holy Roman Emperor and the younger becomes King of England and Duke of Normandy.
I'm sure I can remember someone posting on the old soc.history.what-if newsgroup that there was a small school of thought that the oath of allegiance Emperor Henry VI forced King Richard I to give alongside his ransom effectively made him a vassal and which argued it de facto added England to the Empire. Now since the English never acknowledged the whole oath of allegiance thing or took a seat in the imperial diet I think it was a load of rubbish and very much a fringe theory even at the time, it does however give you something potentially to play with though.
If we could have an earlier PoD_
Keep the Franks more united, so that the HRE "always" includes what we'd now think of as France as well as Germany [etc]. There's still a Duchy of Normandy established, and a subsequent Norman conquest of England, but a stronger Emperor is able to insist -- possibly as quid pro quo for aid in that invasion -- on the Norman duke holding England as a part of the Empire rather than as a separate kingdom.
Keep the Franks more united, so that the HRE "always" includes what we'd now think of as France as well as Germany [etc]. There's still a Duchy of Normandy established, and a subsequent Norman conquest of England, but a stronger Emperor is able to insist -- possibly as quid pro quo for aid in that invasion -- on the Norman duke holding England as a part of the Empire rather than as a separate kingdom.