Wars of the Roses, Edward V and Prince Richard survive?
- Thread starter noturaveragejoe0316
- Start date
If King Edward V has fertility issues (although considering who his parents are.....) - what kind of alt-Great Matter could we envision?
Pretty ASB seeing something like the OTL Great Matter as Edward V would NOT have too troubles in securing the Crown to his eldest daughter if necessary (Edward IV and Henry VII had less stable kingdoms and had not been worried by the possibility). Either Edward has his own child as heir or will be followed by his brother/nephew as King.
John Fredrick Parker
Donor
First, he won't (as you point out, his parents); second, even if he does, his brother is more than capable as a spare; third, even if both of them somehow shoot blanks, there's still their sister Elizabeth and whoever she marries; and finally, the political-religious context is very different under a continued York dynasty than it was OTL under the Tudors, for reasons I discussed above.
Henry VIII wouldn't have either but he went to all those lengths to avoid exactly that
Henry VIII felt he would have troubles and most important the possibility who his Scottish nephew would inherit England was his greatest nightmare. His father had a different opinion on the matter, while Edward IV when Elizabeth had been his heiress presumptive had arranged for her matches who would reinforce her rights to the Crown or reinforced her hold on it
Last edited:
He would NOT wind up in the church. It's about as likely as Henry VIII becoming a priest. Warwick's third or fifth in line to the throne (depending on whether he's regarded as ahead of Dickson and Edward of Middleham or after. And Edward V will do well to clarify the succession after EoM dies - if he does, his cause of death is usually unreported, although since mom died of TB, it's generally assumed that EoM did too - or at least once Edward V's first kid is born.
Warwick is in Dorset's household, but I doubt anyone would want him to marry Dorset's daughter if Margaret of Clarence is marrying Dorset's heir. A likely match for Warwick is a half-Wydeville Stafford/Bourchier girl. Stafford might be likelier since most of Clarence's lands were near the Stafford ones IIRC. Also Eleanor Percy, OTL Duchess of Buckingham wouldn't be a bad shout for him or a surviving EoM. Margaret Broughton (granddaughter of the Earl of Oxford) the richest heiress in England might be an option as well.
@RedKing
I always wondered about the fate of the Woodvilles with Edward V surviving. I have the feeling that their greed and their obsession about rising higher and higher would damage the figure of the king, unless he managed to put some distance between he and the Woodvilles.
Edward V might or might not mind all that much. If he ends up falling for a Woodville cousin....
Wydeville greed was mostly a justification for Richard III's coup and the Tudors continued it. The main beneficiaries of Edward IV's largesse were Clarence, Gloucester, Anne of York. If the Wydeville truly were as greedy as portrayed, how come the majority of Elizabeth Wydeville's brothers got nothing? Antony got their dad's earldom, John got a marriage to the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, the rest? Surely Lionel would've been able to use royal backing in his clerical career to get a better post than chancellor of Oxford? And Edward, Lord Scales? Marriage to an heiress to expand the Wydeville powerbase should' ve been on the cards if they were truly as greedy and powerhungry as often shown.
@isabella
That was mostly bad PR done against them by people who had reasons for hating them. Elizabeth’s sisters had been used as proxies by Edward IV and her eldest son was married to two heiresses (and at least the first match was extremely convenient for both the women who arranged it). The most outrageous grant done by Edward IV were in favour of Warwick‘s brother (the Earldom of Nortumberland, later restored to the Percys) and his own brothers Clarence and specially Gloucester. The Exeter‘s lands were given to Anne of York and her daughters by both marriages AFTER her first husband had been attainted meaning who Anne St. Leger was legally entitled to get the inheritance of something who belonged to her mother, for whatever reason that grant had been originally made
Agred and is worth to be noted who Elizabeth’s second son by Grey also had not received anything (and an heiress or rich wife for him plus lands of his own would have been quite natural if Elizabeth and her family were truly so greedy)
Last edited:
John Fredrick Parker
Donor
@Kurt_Steiner @Kellan Sullivan @isabella
Even so, some of the Woodville’s fates would certainly be affected - - like Edward V’s half brother, Sir Richard Grey, who doesn’t die defending him in the coup; or his uncle Anthony, Earl of Rivers, who isn’t executed; and is just me, or did the Bishop of Salisbury die at a pretty young age around this time?
Even so, some of the Woodville’s fates would certainly be affected - - like Edward V’s half brother, Sir Richard Grey, who doesn’t die defending him in the coup; or his uncle Anthony, Earl of Rivers, who isn’t executed; and is just me, or did the Bishop of Salisbury die at a pretty young age around this time?
Lionel did die young, but there's (in theory) no reason he couldn't live longer and succeed as archbishop of Canterbury or York/Cardinal Bourchier as "Cardinal Protector of England" (or whatever the title was). Antony living longer will almost certainly leave heirs by his second wife
John Fredrick Parker
Donor
Actually, now that you mention it, the question of who succeeds Bourchier as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1486 TTL, and how that shifts around the rest of the church hierarchy in England, is a fairly interesting question in itself. My guess would be that Rotherham, Bishop of York, has a good shot of succeeding to the top post TTL, meaning Morton stays where he is, and now someone else (maybe Salisbury?) needs to fill the York position.
Anthony may be remenbered for his translations and his relation with Caxton.
Lionel was 38, so he should live a bit more with some butterflying.
Richard needs some wars to be remenbered. Foreign ones, if possible.
He can go fight with Uncle Edward, Lord Scales at Granada after fighting in TTL war of the Breton Succession?
John Fredrick Parker
Donor
Let’s look at the proposed Edward-Anne marriage for a moment -- from a purely military angle, what are the prospects for a Breton victory in their war against the Valois? And if they can prevail, how does this affect French power in Europe in the following generations? And how does that affect European history as a whole?
I'm not sure what the chances for an Anglo-Breton victory would be. However, if Anne's engaged to Edward, the French will certainly react as they can't afford to have the English kings hold a whole duchy on the continent again. I suppose Francis II himself would probably try to have a marriage contract similar to Anne and Louis XII's OTL one so Brittany is inherited by the second son, to avoid antagonising the French.
Last edited:
John Fredrick Parker
Donor
Would he though? Assuming Louis XI still dies later in 1483 as OTL, you're still going to get the regency of Anne, the subsequent Valois-Orleans/Angeloume power struggle, and Brittany's desire to maintain autonomy in the face of this. So that forces that led OTL to Francis seeking an alliance with the Hapsburgs, and subsequently the Mad War, are still likely to happen TTL, only now he also has the option of forming an alliance with England.
From what I gather of Brittany's marriage negotiations for Anne with various prospective allies, what strikes me is that each change seems to be driven by necessity of changing circumstances -- if not for Gloucester's coup, there's no reason to think the proposed marriage to Edward V wouldn't have gone through, but since the coup happened this deal obviously had to be scrapped; when Louis XI died months after said coup, Brittany had a new opportunity, and entered talks to marry Anne to the Duke of Orleans; when the result of aforementioned coup saw England fall further into chaos, and a new dynasty headed by Henry Tudor looked to be in the cards, Brittany switched sides again, looking to renew the Anglo-Breton Alliance under a new regime; and when England fell through, and an alliance with Emperor Maximillian proved necessary, that naturally led to marriage talks with him as well.
Point of the above being, if Edward IV had lived just a little longer, and Edward V was able to securely succeed his father, I can't see any reason why Duke Francis would change plans of allying with England to secure Breton autonomy against France; if the Valois were to oppose that, naturally Brittany would fight as well, and whether it went better than OTL would likely come down to whether they did a better job of securing allies. And I tend to think a Anglo-Breton-Burgundy-Hapsburg Alliance, properly bound together with a series of marriages, would stand a very good chance of doing that.
---consolidate---
Just as we can't seem talk about marriage prospects of Prince Edward without also getting into the Breton War, we can't really talk about prospects for Cecily without talking about Scotland. Any thoughts there -- about how Edward IV would resolve this situation had he lived a few more years?
Last edited:
What is to say France won't have found their own allies to counter this?