alternatehistory.com

Vienna, around 15/20 June 1483 (just a little special, the rest of the story will follow the format of the first post)



After the death of his mother and specially after he married his first wife, taking the government of her lands Archduke Maximilian pretty much hated being in company of his father, Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III but for once the reasons for which that journey to Vienna, for presenting him his new bride, the English princess Elizabeth, was totally ruined were not related to his father or their strained relationship and different vision of the things... No, the reasons for his fury, incredulity and rage, totally mirrored by his father, were the last bad news just arrived from London, who had also reduced in tears the poor Elisabeth and Max was unable to blame the girl: between the journeys of the last six months - they had married just days before her seventeenth birthday - her state, as Elizabeth was already pregnant, and the succession of bad news from home that reaction was fully understandable. Edward IV’s death was a disgrace but he was unable to find adequate words for describing the action of his brother after that: first he had captured his nephew, the new King, together with his maternal uncle and half-brother, then had the latter two executed (so Elisabeth was crying for the deaths of her father, maternal uncle and half-brother and full of terror for the sort of her brothers, mother and sisters), then had incarcerated the young King in the Tower and persuaded - only God knew how - the Dowager Queen to consign him her other son who was sent in the Tower together with his brother, and after that had that damned bishop of his declaring who King Edward had taken another wife before the mother of his children! The confused Englishmen had believed their words and now the bastard had declared Archduchess Elisabeth and her siblings as illegitimate AND crowned himself as King. Margaret would have to listen him about her beloved brother once he would be back in the Netherlans - soon and likely without Elisabeth who would be safer in Vienna at this point. Luckily his father was angry at least as him and if he knew him well was already planning something and for once he was impatient to hear that: pushing his wedding to Mary of Burgundy was the only good thing his father had done for him, until now (at least in his mind).
-That Usurper and his bishop friend had done badly their maths if they think we will accept their declaration without doing nothing.- proclaimed the Emperor - I will send a message to His Holiness in Rome and we will see what the Holy See, who is the only one to have competence in that matter, will say about the validity of King Edward’s wedding and the legitimacy of his children. Someone will have soon a very bad surprise- finished the Emperor before calling his secretary and then a messenger for sending a very urgent and important letter in Rome.
Letter who would make the King Edward’s Great Matter an international case and change a lot of thing in Europe...