A Shakespeare WI: Lear and Cordelia survive

Not sure if this is the right forum to put this in but here it goes...

In Shakespeare's play King Lear near the end both Lear and his Daughter Cordelia die, my question is what if they both live.

In the play by this time Lear has gone insane more or less and is too old and crazy to run the kingdom, Cordelia is his daughter and the queen of France now. Both of Cordelia's sisters Goneril and Regan are dead and Lear has no other relatives as far as the play shows.

Cordelia becomes the ruler of Britain (Yes Britain, that is what it is refereed to in the play) and she is also married to the King of France.

This i figure would most likely mean that France and Britain would be united in Personal union.

The time period is some time in the middle ages but it is never directly stated, they never show guns or canons if that is any time period indication.

Now what does this do to the world?
 
I think you answered your own question. :)

I will repeat what i told you on steam:

9:33 PM - JKM94 8.0: i want to know the effects too
9:34 PM - JKM94 8.0: or if the french or british people would even accept it
9:34 PM - JKM94 8.0: given that the Brits saw the French Rescue of lear as an invasion
 
The time period is some time in the middle ages but it is never directly stated, they never show guns or canons if that is any time period indication.


Well the play does take place in Pre-Christian Britain. This explains why they keep saying "Gods" in the play.
 
Well the play does take place in Pre-Christian Britain. This explains why they keep saying "Gods" in the play.
Leir is taken from Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae (Book II, ch. 11) which places him around 700 BC or so. Given that date, there's plenty of time for Britain and Gaul to unite and then fall apart again. Remember, most kings in that era would realistically be "first among equals" at best.

Now Geoffrey doesn't give the story a happy ending:
Now, when Cordelia had governed the kingdom in peace for five years, two sons of her sisters began to harass her, Margan, to wit, and Cunedag, that had been born unto the Dukes Maglaunus and Henvin, both of them youths of notable likelihood and prowess, Margan being son of Maglaunus and Cunedag of Henvin. These, after the deaths of their fathers, had succeeded them in their dukedoms, and now took it in high dudgeon that Britain should be subject to the rule of a woman. They therefore assembled their hosts and rebelled against the Queen, nor were they minded to put an end to their outraged after laying waste a number of provinces, they had defeated her in several battles, and had at last taken her and put her in prison, wherein, overwhelmed with grief for the loss of her kingdom, she slew herself. Forthwith the youths divided the island between them...
 
Leir is taken from Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae (Book II, ch. 11) which places him around 700 BC or so. Given that date, there's plenty of time for Britain and Gaul to unite and then fall apart again. Remember, most kings in that era would realistically be "first among equals" at best.

Now Geoffrey doesn't give the story a happy ending:

But yet France and Burgundy exist...
 
Dude, it's Shakespeare. He thinks Verona is a major port city.

And yet people insist that his knowledge of Italy means he must really be a nobleman who visited it.
 
Dude, it's Shakespeare. He thinks Verona is a major port city.

Not to mention the seacoast of Bohemia, or the real sorcerer in Bermuda.

Though if you want, you could say he's just translating the geographical terms for his audience.
 
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