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  1. The House of York

    This seems to hint at Edward V as a contrast to OTL Henry VIII, though 15 years earlier - a 'young virile King' who is NOT interested in warlike showboating in France.

  2. WI Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII's wife, gives birth to a son? A Catholic England??

    The antidote to butterflies is the spider web of momentum. In OTL England went through several changes of official religion and religiously tinged rebellions. But it had no full blown war of religion, and fewer than 1000 people were executed for religion, including Elizabethan executions...

  3. Latin Surviving as Major Language

    You could say that Italian IS modern Latin. Is modern demotika Greek any closer to classical Greek than Italian is to Latin? (I really don't know.) If classical Greek had given rise to half a dozen major modern languages, we might well call modern Greek 'Romaic,' or some such and regard it as...

  4. Henry IX

    Wolsey had already done some dissolutions of monasteries before the divorce became an issue, so the precedent was there. And Henry does not have to formally break with Rome to cash in on church property, or for that matter to exercise a 'Gallican' sort of authority over the church. The papacy...

  5. Henry IX

    Standard AH 1: The English Reformation happens, and the resulting English Reformed Church is Calvinist, leading to a sternly Puritan England. Standard AH 2: The English Reformation is suppressed, leading to a backward England under the thumb of the Church (per Kingsley Amis' The Alteration)...

  6. Ah Challenge: Shortest Possible Age of European Dominance

    Interesting possibility!

  7. Ah Challenge: Shortest Possible Age of European Dominance

    A smashing Ottoman victory at Lepanto in 1571. Ali Pasha dies bravely, holding out just long enough for Ulj Ali's flanking maneuver to come off, rolling up the Christian center. Don John of Austria also dies bravely after his short lived triumph. The Marquis of Santa Cruz makes a fighting...

  8. Henry IX

    The survival of Prince Henry obviously butterflies the entire familiar story of Henry VIII. He never dumps Catherine of Aragon and probably remains a strong Catholic. Does he descend into anything like the gross excess of OTL, or is his popular image entirely different? An interesting...

  9. Possible husbands for Elizabeth I?

    Not entirely true. There was intermarriage between the English nobility and Anglo-Irish nobles into the 16th century - I seem to remember that Wolsey (to his later regret) stiffed an early love affair of Anne Boleyn because the guy was slated to marry the Earl of Ormonde's daughter. As for...

  10. Pax Eboraca: Richard III Wins at Bosworth

    But short of producing the boys alive and well, nothing is going to keep suspicion from hanging on Richard - because everyone takes for granted the fate of ex-kings. What happened to Richard II? Henry VI? I don't know what happened to the boys, but their absence is heavy baggage for Richard and...

  11. Clavis Angliae

    Excellent bit of analysis.

  12. Bismarck builds up a political tradition

    Interesting to note that the buildup of the US Navy at this same time caused vastly less anxiety in Britain. The difference, so far as I can see, that TR did not go around using anti-British rhetoric every chance, so the USN was not seen as aimed at Britain.

  13. Would a surviving Byzantium matter?

    My bias, they need to revitalize their maritime and commercial sector. The whole thing of using cut glass in place of jewels in their ornaments is poignant, people with almost nothing but their dignity. But it is also pathetic, because these people were sitting on the friggin Golden Horn, like...

  14. Would a surviving Byzantium matter?

    This is the big one I thought of, because it would be an extremely difficult nut for the Ottomans to crack. Also, my sense is that if Byzantium is stabilized, the Ottomans, or an alternate Turkish power, is likely to look for more opportunities in other directions. If a Great Siege or two...

  15. Would a surviving Byzantium matter?

    And details of how it plays out. But broadly I agree. All I know about the interplay you mention is what you just said, but I'll take a stab and guess that this is the trigger point for what reached western Europe as the Renaissance neoplatonic challenge to the Aristotelianism of the schoolmen...

  16. Would a surviving Byzantium matter?

    A petty Byzantium would not require a huge change - I'm pretty sure bits of Greece were Venetian right till the Republic fell in 1797, so a vest pocket Byzantine state might survive under Venetian protection, then British protection. The minimum Byzantium that can stand on its own, more or...

  17. Would a surviving Byzantium matter?

    My bad! My only excuse is that the Ottomans are who need to be butterflied - or at least them, or a synologue the butterflies release, jumping the firebreak, since I see that as the minimum butterfly needed to give Byzantium a chance. But my knowledge of the Paleologans is sketchy. It isn't...

  18. Would a surviving Byzantium matter?

    I like your term 'more reliable.' On the face of it, a pre-Manzikert POD raises Byzantine survival prospects in general; on the other it produces a more unrecognizable world. Perhaps the way to phrase the desired effect is, what is the best POD for a significant surviving Byzantium in a...

  19. WI Both Henry Tudor and Richard III die in battle?

    I see the English throne as somewhere intermediate - the perfect OTL example being Henry VII's comedy with Liz of York. He had it both ways. On the one hand he claims the throne explicitly by right of conquest, not marriage. On the other hand he plasters the Tudor Rose on every possible surface...

  20. WI Both Henry Tudor and Richard III die in battle?

    Yes, they do. My queasy niggle is that some of them also have a personal stake in being king. All of their claims are presumably weaker than Henry Tudor's was, and his was awfully weak. The biggest factor IMHO would be Grey's force of personality, or someone's. You're trying to convince a bunch...
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