2021 Turtledoves - Best Early Modern Timeline Poll

The Best Early Modern Timeline Is...

  • A Thousand Stars: Christopher Marlowe Survives ; @Lady Kate

    Votes: 33 15.2%

  • A Queen Twice Over: Mary Tudor the Elder Marries Francis I of France; @FalconHonour

    Votes: 54 24.9%

  • Audentes Fortuna Iuvat; @pandizzy

    Votes: 23 10.6%

  • The Queen is Dead!: Katherine of Aragon dies in 1518; @FalconHonour

    Votes: 54 24.9%

  • There and back again: The English journeys of Catherine of Aragon; @Awkwardvulture

    Votes: 30 13.8%

  • Cessa o Nevoeiro: O Surgir do Quinto Império - A Portuguese Timeline; @RedAquilla

    Votes: 27 12.4%

  • Henry Tudor, Heretic and Father of Kings; @Cate 13

    Votes: 54 24.9%

  • The Sun of Rocroi TL- A better Grand Condé; @Comte de Dordogne

    Votes: 38 17.5%

  • English Canada/French Carolina: A Timeline; @Gabingston

    Votes: 30 13.8%

  • Three Sisters' Brother (aka the Franco-Haudenosaunee Alliances); @Ibn Chaldun

    Votes: 24 11.1%

  • A Britain of Panthers and Lions: House of Oldenburg Britain; by @VVD0D95

    Votes: 54 24.9%
  • Total voters
    217
  • Poll closed .
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Gwrtheyrn Annwn

Gwrtheyrn Annwn

A Thousand Stars: Christopher Marlowe Survives ; @Lady Kate

A Queen Twice Over: Mary Tudor the Elder Marries Francis I of France; @FalconHonour

Audentes Fortuna Iuvat; @pandizzy

The Queen is Dead!: Katherine of Aragon dies in 1518; @FalconHonour

There and back again: The English journeys of Catherine of Aragon; @Awkwardvulture

Cessa o Nevoeiro: O Surgir do Quinto Império - A Portuguese Timeline; @RedAquilla

Henry Tudor, Heretic and Father of Kings; @Cate13

The Sun of Rocroi TL- A better Grand Condé; @Comte de Dordogne

English Canada/French Carolina: A Timeline; @Gabingston

Three Sisters' Brother (aka the Franco-Haudenosaunee Alliances); @Ibn Chaldun

A Britain of Panthers and Lions: House of Oldenburg Britain; by @VVD0D95
 
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FalconHonour

FalconHonour

We did this last year, so I thought I would do it again:

A Brief Introduction to my Timeline:

Queen Is Dead was born out of one very simple question: What if Henry VIII had married Mary Boleyn instead of Anne Boleyn?

I then started thinking about what it would take for that to happen. Mary Boleyn doesn’t seem to have been cut from the same cloth as her younger sister, historically, so she wasn’t going to be able to hold Henry’s attention for the years it would take to have an ATL Great Matter. Hence, Katherine of Aragon was going to have to clear the way somewhat more easily. The first chapter more or less sprang into my head fully-formed.

Queen Is Dead begins with Katherine’s body simply giving out on her during her final labour on the 10th of November 1518 and follows Henry VIII and his court through the 1520s to the beginning of the 1530s, tracking the changes that the death of their beloved Queen brings to England. As I said above, Henry takes the other Boleyn sister as his second wife, and that in turn, sets the butterflies flapping…

Queen Is Dead was never a big project in terms of scale. I can’t write on a global or even European scale, and I make no bones about that. I’ve always been more interested in the personal side of history, and my TL reflects that. What it was, however, was a labour of love, an AU I spent seven years crafting, on and off, and I am absolutely thrilled that it has been nominated for a Turtledove again! Thank you so much for coming along for the ride!

(I'll do another post for Queen Twice Over shortly)
 
Jonathan Edelstein

Jonathan Edelstein

All these stories are great, but I'm going to put in a particular recommendation for A Thousand Stars: Christopher Marlowe Survives by Lady Kate. Alternate cultural and intellectual timelines are among the hardest to do, and A Thousand Stars is one of the best I've ever seen - it delivers a whole catalog of vividly-realized alternate Marlowe plays along with subtle hints of a longer-lived Marlowe's influence on language and ideas. It's a compact timeline that can be read start to finish in a couple of hours, but it has a huge concept and is written well and imaginatively.
 
RedKing

RedKing

Jonathan Edelstein said:
All these stories are great, but I'm going to put in a particular recommendation for A Thousand Stars: Christopher Marlowe Survives by Lady Kate. Alternate cultural and intellectual timelines are among the hardest to do, and A Thousand Stars is one of the best I've ever seen - it delivers a whole catalog of vividly-realized alternate Marlowe plays along with subtle hints of a longer-lived Marlowe's influence on language and ideas. It's a compact timeline that can be read start to finish in a couple of hours, but it has a huge concept and is written well and imaginatively.
Click to expand...
Agreed that timeline is underrated! Unfortunately it’s going to need a lot more support to win.
 
FalconHonour

FalconHonour

An Introduction to my Timeline: Queen Twice Over.

Abbeville, October 1514. On her way to meet her new stepmother, Claude, Duchess of Valois and Brittany, dies of a miscarriage brought on by an overturned litter.

Paris, January 1515. Louis XII dies of gout, leaving behind a young, beautiful widow, twenty-two-year-old Mary of England.

The new King, Francis I, knows a good thing when he sees one and wastes no time in wedding Mary, making her a Queen twice over.

From there, the butterflies just keep flapping. For, with his favourite sister safe on her throne, there’s no way Henry VIII is going to rescind on his French alliance, and that, in itself, is enough to alter the balance of power in sixteenth-century Christendom irrevocably…

Featuring:
  • A longer lasting Anglo-French alliance.
  • An extra Boleyn girl.
  • Several prominent courtiers of both the English and French courts on opposite sides of the Channel
  • A very different end to the Great Matter.

Queen Twice Over is a passion project, one that’s proving a great deal of fun to write. I am thrilled that it’s been nominated for a Turtledove so early in its development, and I’d love to see you over on the thread some time!
 

Cate13

An Introduction to my timeline: Henry Tudor, Heretic and Father of Kings

Henry Tudor, Heretic and Father of Kings started long ago as a “What if Arthur, Prince of Wales Lived” timeline. I’d played around with several different directions but it wasn’t really getting anywhere. Then I thought it would be funny if Henry still had six wives and was still a protastant. And if his desire for sons was fulfilled to the extreme. And everything just sorta snowballed from there.

As I continued to outline I spent a lot of time thinking about what kind of person Henry would be if he wasn’t King of England. How many of his darker aspects come from having so much power and his fear of being the last Tudor king? Without that, who would he be?

I tried to keep him recognizable: a love of music, a not inconsiderable ego, and a complete refusal to back down. Then I pretty much just let him, his six wives and many children loose on Europe to see what would happen.

The timeline’s pretty much done now, and I’ve really enjoyed it. I hope you do too!
 
Comte de Dordogne

Comte de Dordogne

An Introduction to my Timeline: The Sun of Rocroi- A better Grand Condé

The idea of my chronology was to imagine what a World much more influenced by a French model of society would look like.
My first old ideas were based on the 19th century with Napoleon III and then Napoleon II. Then I changed my mind again by discovering the reign of Louis XIV, before finally going back to Louis II de Bourbon-Condé: the Grand Condé.

The first point of divergence is an alternative birth of the Grand Condé in 1621. Although things don't change much at the beginning, they become more important with the butterflies. The Twenty-five Years War (the Thirty Years War in this chronology) is partly altered and leads to a crushing victory of Condé at Rocroi in 1643.
This incredible victory resulted in France obtaining the Spanish Netherlands and a much more favorable Europe of Westphalia.

Although being only at the beginning of my chronology, I try to play on originality by taking a POD that few seem to have already approached. I thus wish to build a coherent universe different from our reality as well as original (instead of a simple "French wank").

In addition to an alternative History, I wish to reflect on a development of different sciences, arts and ideologies. In the future I would also like to approach regions of the world and continents that are often forgotten, namely South America, Africa, South-East Asia.

I also try to write it as well as possible and to illustrate it with paintings, engravings and maps (the latter being mostly in my hand).

I hope that this description as well as the presentation of my objectives will make you interested in my work.
 
Lady Kate

Lady Kate

Jonathan Edelstein said:
All these stories are great, but I'm going to put in a particular recommendation for A Thousand Stars: Christopher Marlowe Survives by Lady Kate. Alternate cultural and intellectual timelines are among the hardest to do, and A Thousand Stars is one of the best I've ever seen - it delivers a whole catalog of vividly-realized alternate Marlowe plays along with subtle hints of a longer-lived Marlowe's influence on language and ideas. It's a compact timeline that can be read start to finish in a couple of hours, but it has a huge concept and is written well and imaginatively.
Click to expand...
Thank you so much! I’m blown away by everybody’s support.
 
Awkwardvulture

Awkwardvulture

An Introduction to my timeline: There and back again: The English journeys of Catherine of Aragon

The overall premise of my TL is what would happen if Catherine of Aragon did not marry Henry VIII. How does this happen? His older brother, Arthur, the Prince of Wales, recovers from the sweat long enough to consummate his marriage with Catherine of Aragon, but still dies of his illness. Catherine left a pregnant and distraught widow suffers a miscarriage and finds herself returning home to Spain, the domain of her parents; Ferdinand and Isabella. Once there she tries her best to comfort her ailing mother in her final months, and then help her father handle the chaos that gripped Castile following the passing of its Queen.

This also features another major character, Giovanna of Naples, niece of the aforementioned Ferdinand II of Aragon, who is wed to Henry VII following the death of Elizabeth of York, and attempts to mend the divide between father and son, as well as to raise his younger children.

One more main character will be Eleanor of Austria, daughter of Phillip, Duke of Burgundy, and Juana of Castile, who will one day be Queen of England through her marriage to Henry VIII.

Overall, this timeline aims to tell the stories of three women, who, though related, will have different lives and outlooks on life. I have been so humbled by the support that I have received in this, and, while I hardly expect to win the award, I am delighted to see that this has been nominated alongside the ten other excellent timelines that are featured here.
 
RedKing

RedKing

Wait so what happens if it's a tie in the polls? (Since Henry Tudor, heretic and Father of Kings and A Queen Twice Over tying and have been tying for a while)
 
RedKing

RedKing

isabella said:
Looks 4 way tie, unless votes changed and is pretty unlikely so close to the end (and I hope votes do not change now)
Click to expand...
You're right! I missed a Britain of Panthers and Lions, looks like there'll have to be a second poll to select a final winner!
 
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