Henry dreamed. It was an old dream. And a new. He saw England, His England - stretched before him. He saw a great land, at peace, green, fertile and bountiful. And he saw himself - a king in glory.
It changed. He saw battle. War. Death. Prestige. Old lands in France retaken. His place in history assured. The Battle of the Spurs. He lived it again. The sound and smell of battle. The French in retreat. Victory. His victory - though why did it feel hollow?
He saw two men before him. Each great and powerful. Armies and gold at their backs. Francis and Charles. Besides them his own kingdom looked small, HE looked small. This was not right. He should be a great king. He was King of England.
His brother’s voice. Arthur. Whispering to him. Doubts, so many doubts. The brother who had been meant to be king. Then his father’s. Disappointed. So disappointed. Failures, divisions, the dynasty ending. Where was the golden age? Where was Camelot? Henry’s dreams and ambitions.
His brother’s voice again. Telling him to be better, be stronger, be great. Glory and prestige. His lost son, Henry. Dead six years back. The memory scarred him. Heartbroken of the loss of his son, his heir. Mary. Catherine. Another woman. All came to him. His father again: where was the Camelot he had dreamt off? He lost his Arthur - could Henry be that? Could he ensure one?
Henry was woken suddenly. A page. The queen was in labour. They hadn’t been sure this time. A miscarriage had threatened before*, but none came. He was taken to her. The doctors were there, the priests, the sycophants. It seemed to drag on. Hours. He went inside, came out again, paced. Prayed. Then came the news, the blessed news. A son. Catherine had born him a son. A name? Henry was the obvious choice - but no the memories of the lost son. Edward? The dream. His father, brother. Camelot.
Arthur, Prince of Wales, was born to Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon on November 10th 1517. The pregnancy had been a difficult one but the prince had been born safely and healthily and Catherine too delivered the child without suffering anymore than usual for a woman in that time.
King Henry was ecstatic about the birth of a child, but wary too following the death of his son Henry in 1511. The king took great pains to ensure the safety of the prince and attended a special session of Mass to thank God for his son and to ensure his continuing health. The bells were rung out across England and a great tournament was held by Henry organised by his chief minister and adviser Cardinal Thomas Wolsey. The birth of a healthy son re-enamoured Henry with his wife and saw the end of his ongoing affair with Elizabeth Blount. Though Henry would of course have other mistresses in his time as king his committed in marriage to Catherine would remain unbroken until her death. There was now renewed hope for further children.
Following the birth of the prince and his naming, Henry VIII took on his father’s dream to create a new Camelot in England. Henry VIII had long been obsessed with stories of chivalry and knightly virtue. A long admirer of the joust and its heroes as well as taking seriously his membership as a member of both Order of the Garter and Order of the Bath. These ceremonies and honours he received as a child left a great imprint on the young king. Henry was determined to create an era of peace and prosperity at home during his reign, which when compared to the religious disorder of the continent in this period he did indeed achieve. He was committed to handing over to his son a kingdom united and at peace. If there were battles to be fought, and there always would be, they would be abroad. In France. As the never ending conflict between Valois and Habsburg would soon once more flare into life.
This is just a little aside on my view of butterflies in an alternate history.
Everyone when they write or think has a different view of them. Some use what I call the zero-sum butterfly effect wherein everything that happens the second after the point of divergence (POD) is suddenly up in the air. Others have almost no change outside of the area immediately affected. Harry Turtledove's work comes to mind for this one. This is in my mind the most unrealistic.
My view and the one that I used in Disaster at Leuthen and will use here is of a ripple effect. Change emanates from the source of the POD over time. Roughly akin in my mind to almost a walking speed of travel. Consequently it will take several years for the changes brought about by Arthur's birth in 1517 to spread. In my mind it will take 4-5 years for any butterflies to hit western Europe and then a few more to reach eastern Europe and then decade(s) to hit the rest of the world. Consequently unless otherwise explicitly stated consider all OTL events to take place in the first decade or so after the POD.
First venture abroad as the butterflies begin to flap their wings. Next will revisit England and the changes there. Parts of the below are OTL to give people unfamiliar with this period a brief. Though there are some big changes..
Italian Wars Continued: 1521-1527
The latest incarnation of the perpetual squabbles between the Valois and Habsburgs broke out in 1521. Charles V’s election as Holy Roman Emperor had once more tilted the balance of power in Europe. Combine this with the continued French interest and ambition in the Italian peninsula and a resumption of hostilities was inevitable. Francis’ own, inevitable, failure to secure the Imperial crown for himself in 1519 further soured relations. England would also enter the conflict. Though Cardinal Wolsey had attempted to arrange a series of talks between England and the continental powers to increase England’s (and his own) influence these had been not progressed as he had hoped. Though there had been a productive and amicable meeting between Henry VIII and Charles V in early 1520 (wherein diplomatic and political plans had been drawn up and ideas of possible marriage pacts mooted) a follow up meeting in France with King Francis never materialised. The success of the meeting with Charles, Henry’s own increasing ambitions against France and the reasserted influence of Queen Catherine (always in favour of a Spanish rather than French arrangement) prevented any formal meeting of the two kings taking place; though plenty of low level talks did occur.
The fighting would begin in earnest in 1521 with two French efforts: one against the recently Spanish occupied Kingdom of Navarre and the other east on the Meuse River. Both of these attempts would end in relative failure. Meanwhile French territorial aggression and more importantly the Lutheran Heresy in Germany had forced a rapprochement of sorts between Emperor Charles and Pope Leo, both now turned their attentions to the French. Henry of Nassau would lead an Imperial army in an attack on France directly in the northeast but were delayed by committed French resistance. A series of sieges and skirmishes continued until November when a formal alliance was signed between the Pope, Charles and Henry committing themselves fully against France. The situation for France grew graver following the fall of Milan in early 1522 and the subsequent defeat of a French army supported by Swiss mercenaries in Lombardy in April. These reverses resulted in Imperial troops securing Genoa a month later and leaving the French position in Italy close to collapse with only the recently occupied Savoy under their control.
Francis I of France
England entered the war in earnest not long after following another meeting between Henry and Charles. Here Anglo-Spanish plans against France were outlined and a marriage contract between Charles and Princess Mary were agreed - though Charles would later renege on this agreement. English force struck at Brittany and Picardy with moderate degrees of success. They were soon contained however by French forces led by King Francis and Charles, Duke of Bourbon[1]. Venice however would leave the war in July 1523 depriving France of its only major ally. The war in Italy and Germany continued to go poorly for France therefore, however a victory over the English near Rouen a few months later by a large French force led by Duke Bourbon over the Duke of Suffolk secured the French northern front. Duke Bourbon would now remain in northern France leading the French efforts against the Anglo-Imperial forces in the region. In the south meanwhile Charles had invaded France across the Pyrenees and was the focus of King Francis’ efforts. This area remained relatively inconclusive so in late 1523 Francis led an army into Lombardy in an attempt to reassert France’s position in Italy.
A series of running battles in 1523/1524 would see little change in the Italian theatre. Though continued effectiveness of Spanish/Imperial arquebusiers showcased the changing nature of warfare in Europe. The fighting would change again when the main French forces arrived and Charles gathered an Imperial army to meet them. Francis’ focus was retaking Milan, the strategic and political heart of northern Italy. The city was retaken in September 1524 and soon the French advance continued. The two main armies would clash at the end of September at the Battle of Pavia. The fighting would in fact be a series of small battles over a week and would end inconclusively with both sides eventually forced to withdraw but Milan remained in French hands.[2]
Pavia, September 1524
The war would now drag on in this attritional style for the next few years. Imperial forces were able to retake Milan in 1525 but any and all attempts to drive the French out of Savoy met in failure. French moves against Naples and in an attempt to support the new relatively pro-French Pope Clement VIII were also largely unsuccessful. The Franco-Navarrese forces under Henry II of Navarre were able to drive the Spanish out of the small country entirely, though any further efforts in Spain were not forthcoming. Charles, desperate for the financial means to continue the war, broke his marriage pact with Henry VIII and married Isabella of Portugal, who came with a large and timely dowry. This betrayal enraged Henry who, with his coffers emptying and his army still rebuilding from Rouen, began to talk of leaving the war. King Francis for his part was eager to remove England from the coalition against him and offered peace with the allowance that England would retain control of the city of Boulogne in northern France that Suffolk had taken a year earlier. Henry, under pressure from Wolsey and Parliament, saw this is a face-saving way to withdraw from the financially ruinous conflict and did so in 1526. He bestowed upon Prince Arthur the additional title of Duke of Boulogne to cement England’s hold on the region.
France, now free of any English threat, went on the attack in Italy. Yet more inconclusive battles followed and both sides now began to tire[3]. French funds and means to continue the war now running out and Francis’ feared that the war would soon turn against him. Charles meanwhile was under pressure from the Pope and the Italian states to restore the legitimate ruler of the Duchy of Milan and was also increasingly concerned about the Great Peasant Rising in Germany which was still at large. In 1527 the two sides came together for the Treaty of Genoa. Charles originally called for the expulsion of France from Italy, the surrender of all French claims in the peninsula and the end of the French union with Burgundy. Francis, still in a strong negotiating position, laughed this off. In the end a compromise peace was reached. Francis abandoned all French claims to Milan and Naples and agreed to recognise Charles V’s position as the dominant power in this region (at least for the time being..). In exchange French control over the Duchy of Savoy, a fait accompli since the beginning of the war, was begrudgingly recognised with Francis having a claim to the territory through his wife - and it was annexed to France. Navarre’s independence under Henry II was also guaranteed. Although France was also obligated to pay a large indemnity to Charles as part of the peace, on paper as a ‘show of common unity against the heresy in Germany’ but in reality a bribe as part of negotiations. Both France and Spain would emerge strong from this war. France, though now without Boulogne, had been strengthened greatly with the formal annexation of Savoy whilst Spain’s position as the dominant power in the rest of Italy had been secured. England too had done well. Not that peace in Europe would last of course.
[1] One of the first butterflies to hit Europe does so in 1521. Charles of Bourbon’s wife Suzanne does not die in 1521 preventing the estrangement between King Francis and Duke Charles which preoccupied French domestic politics in this period and fatally undermined the French war effort when Duke Charles defected to the Empire.
[2] Another result of the butterflies. France’s war effort is much more unified without the Bourbon defection and the result of the Battle of Pavia is not the catastrophic French defeat it was OTL.
[3] Like most wars in this period this one is ended due to mutual exhaustion.
The birth of Prince Arthur in November 1517 re-energized King Henry, and through him the court and then onto the kingdom at large. The end of the emerging rift between Henry and Catherine also helped to heal any possible divide within the court. The energy, excitement and sense of splendour that had been prevalent in the early few years of Henry VIII’s reign began to return to the Court in Henry’s new Camelot. The king would continue his practice of leaving the day to day administration of the country to his advisors and the Privy Council, in effect meaning that England would continue to be ruled by Cardinal Wolsey - who in 1518 was made an official Papal Legate. Instead, with his mistressing currently abated, the king devoted himself to three principal tasks: his son, his faith and his wars. Arthur, a healthy boy, was kept close for the first few years of his life before being given his own household at the King’s manor at Windsor Manor, out of London, but close. The king was ever protective of his son. Arthur would soon grow into an intelligent, well mannered and handsome young prince.
The spread of the Lutheran Heresy in Germany and the rapid rise of the Protestant movement in parts of Europe alarmed King Henry, himself a devout Catholic. In response to Luther’s attacks on the Papacy Henry had written a rebuttal in 1521 entitled In Defence of the Seven Sacraments, in which the King attacked Luther and denounced him as a heretic. Martin Luther responded in an attack and defamation of the King, ever after Henry was particularly hostile to Lutheran ideals. The Pope would honour King Henry with the title Defender of the Faith in recognition for his piety - a title the king took very seriously. Henry would encourage however new academic and theological studies and pursuits in his reign. An element of his new Camelot was to create a court of learned intellectuals and study. The King, as evident by his composition of the denouncement of Luther, fancied himself a scholar and was, at least as much as it was possible for a monarch to be, an adherent to Humanist thinking and study. Thomas More, one of the great Catholic scholars of the period and a personal friend and influence on the king regarded himself a humanist, as for that matter did Wolsey. Other similar thinkers were made welcome at court and supported by the king, such as John Colet, William Grocyn and others. This intellectual revolution combated the failing monastic art of scholasticism and represented a shift in the European community of science and philosophy. By the late 1520s the court of Henry VIII had become the center of humanist and scholarly thinking in northern Europe. The great thinker Erasmus too was lodged for much of this period in Cambridge. Both Princess Mary and Prince Arthur would receive education in Humanism and the new academia. Though More and indeed Wolsey had some influence on the Prince’s education, Arthur’s first official tutor was William Grocyn (a friend of More who had recommended him to the king) before being followed upon his death by William Latimer. Mary too was well educated and began appearing regularly at court by the late 1520s. The universities too were well supported and funded. Not so much by the King, but by Wolsey and Queen Catherine, who supported the university at Cambridge, in particular St John’s College.
Cardinal Thomas Wolsey
Henry’s desire for war with France would cumulate in English intervention in the Habsburg-Valois conflict of 1521-7 and the gaining of the important town of Boulogne. The war would showcase the great talents and influence of Thomas Wolsey. Wolsey was the chief organiser of the campaign, not only in overseeing the logistical elements but its financing. In March 1522 Wolsey had set about a national inquiry to determine the wealth of the nation’s individuals and their military capacity - aimed at better raising more efficient taxes to fund the war. Wolsey’s efforts and the spoils taken in France allowed the war to be supported efficiently. The end of England’s commitment to the war in late 1525/26 came fortuitously as the royal treasury had been running out and plans for a forced loan, nick-named the amicable grant, which was bound to be unpopular could now fortunately be dropped. Whilst also overseeing the king’s foreign affairs the Cardinal also was busy at home. First he helped the king remove rivals, specifically orchastring the fall and arrest of the Duke of Buckingham in 1523 on slightly exaggerated charges of treason. He also pushed through many efforts to reform the English Church. ‘Visitors’ were sent to monasteries suspected of misdeeds or corruption and these were closed or suppressed, in addition new constitutions and statutes in were brought in for the Church’s servants in England. These reforms not only helped advance the Church but also enhanced the wealth of not only the king through seizures, but also of course of the Cardinal. Wolsey would remain Lord Chancellor and the King’s chief advisor throughout this period. Richard Pace the King’s efficient secretary was also one of Wolsey’s men. Though the Cardinal’s continuing enrichment and ambitions were creating many enemies, notably amongst the nobility and some leading church figures, and indeed the Queen.
Though Wolsey was the dominant political actor in England, except the king, others too would have a voice and a part to play. Thomas More, the Humanist, theologian and influential scholar would be another. More would be a leading voice in the Humanist movement and was a personal friend of Erasmus. He would also publish his arguably most influential and famous work, Utopia in 1516. It was his role as a royal councilor in dealing with the growing threat of heresy however that More would devote himself in service. Lutheranism and other Protestant sects had been filtering into England for years, converts forming clubs and sects throughout the country. One of the more famous of these were those who met at the White Horse Tavern in Cambridge - amongst its numbers were Thomas Cranmer, William Tyndale, Nicholas Ridley and Matthew Parker. Though Tyndale himself would of course be burned in 1527 following his publication of an English language translation of the Bible; the others are some of the recognisable names of the English Protestant exiles of the 1530s-50s. With the blessing of the King, Queen and Wolsey: More would oversee the imprisonment, suppression and when necessary execution of heretics throughout England. Many who could fled. Most to Scotland or the Low Countries. Others to the English held territories in France around Boulogne and Calais which were still technically English but far enough away to escape direct intervention from More. And still others such as Thomas Cromwell for the moment went about their work and keep their religious beliefs secret. By 1530 Protestantism was present in England but ostracized by most and suppressed by the state. Catholicism was still the dominant and established religion of England.
An artists representation of the burning of English Lutherans
In 1522 the King and Queen celebrated the birth of another daughter, Elizabeth - named for Henry’s mother. This would be the last child of the two as another miscarriage a year later would result in serious complications from which the Queen would never fully recover. The question in the late 1520s would turn to marriages for the young children. The most important from a dynastic perspective was the match for Arthur. But over the match for his only son, King Henry would prevaricate and nothing firm would be in place by 1530. Mary the oldest was arranged a match however. A French match was not possible due to the constant Anglo-French tensions and Catherine’s insistence. There were no overly suitable Spanish candidates and an alliance with Spain was secured already by Henry and Catherine’s wedding. Instead Henry, and his council, wanted to secure an alliance with Portugal. The country was friendly to England and together England and Portugal could be a voice not to challenge the Emperor but enough to be heard. It would also reaffirm the Treaty of Windsor, and as Henry was keen to show, make clear that though England was an ally of Spain and the Emperor, she was still an independent actor. Mary was in 1525 betrothed and later married to Luis Avis, Duke of Beja. He was the second son of the King of Portugal, and with his elder brother John still childless there was all the chance Mary could end up Queen. Elizabeth had no match finalised by 1530 but the King and Council were looking increasingly at a Scottish marriage. The country however was for the moment unified, prosperous and at peace.
On the 31st of October 1517 Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-five Theses to the door of the All Saints Church in Wittenberg. Within a few years Germany would be ablaze, as the decades of social tensions and mounting dissatisfaction with the Catholic Church was unleashed by the Reformation. Luther’s criticisms of the Church laid out in the Theses - specifically the sale and abuse of indulgences, were soon published and printed in German and spreading like wildfire. Luther continued to preach, and write, and argue attacking the hypocrisies and abuses that were (in his eyes) endemic in the Church. The recent spread and development of the printing press allowed Luther’s works to spread rapidly and affordably for Germans everywhere to digest. Fairly soon Martin Luther was emerging as a celebrity figure and Wittenberg became the destination for travelers, pilgrims and students across Germany who sought to hear from the man himself.
Luther was sheltered and protected by Frederick the Wise, Elector of (Ernestine) Saxony, who supported and aided Luther in the early years of the Reformation. A protection rendered even more necessary by the Pope’s excommunication of Luther in 1520. In that same year Luther published one of his most influential writings An Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation. Luther here called for the secular rulers of Germany to make efforts to help reform the Church as the Church itself was too corrupt to do so itself. Further, Luther urged the German nobility to take over administration of the local churches. In addition he outlined the need for a German national church, the outcasting of the Pope from German affairs, the right of the clergy to marry and the end of the cult of saints amongst other revolutionary reforms. Adding to the fire Luther next put forward On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church - a direct and damming attack on the corruption and vices of Rome and the Catholic Church. It was in this turmoil that Martin Luther was summoned to face the Emperor at the Diet at Worms.
Martin Luther
The Diet was an extraordinary event and the details of it are worth reading but are not the subject here [all events so far are OTL] - the key takeaway from the Diet was that Luther had faced the Emperor and the massed nobility of the Holy Roman Empire and had not been cowed by it. The Emperor in turn denounced Luther but he and the agents of the Church present were shocked by the support Luther had generated from the inhabitants of the city itself. For Luther’s safety Elector Frederick arranged for him to be ‘kidnapped’ for his own safety and taken into custody - though in the process Luther was thrown from a horse and had his leg broken[1]. Not life threatening but the wound would not heal properly and Luther would never properly regain full use of his leg. The Catholics called the wound a judgement from God and the Reformists saw it as yet another trial Luther must overcome in his struggle for the Reformation. Luther would remain a voice in the Reformation but his injury and exile at Warburg Castle meant he would increasingly take a backseat to events. In his absence however the Reformation kept up the pace as ‘the collapse of the Catholic Church in parts of Germany was due to an enormously complex and diverse movement in which Luther played a key symbolic role...Swirling all around the Wittenberg professor [Luther] were forces that sprang from the same discontent that he had tapped but had more democratic and egalitarian aspirations’[2].
While Luther remained a guest of Frederick the action in Germany did not abate. Other figures took up the fight. One Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt would push the Reformation further. He would target Catholic symbols, rituals and icons in attempt to purify the new German Church. In December 1521 Karlstadt’s preaching and writings triggered Christmas Eve riots by students - Karlstadt then followed this by conducting a public radical evangelical communion in Wittenberg. In 1522 Elector Frederick under the sway of the Reformists oversaw the first official evangelical reforms in Wittenberg. The Reformation was gathering pace. Frederick the Wise's brother John, who succeeded him in 1526, established the first official Lutheran Saxon state church the same year. Karlstadt now moved south through Germany preaching his reforms and the wave of reform went with him. In 1526 the Diet of Speyer met headed by the Emperor's brother Ferdinand with Charles engaged in the latest Italian War with France. Speyer saw the restrictions on Lutheranism established at Worms temporarily lifted. Though divisions between the German princes were growing, fast.
In 1524 all the boiling tensions exploded in what is known as The Great Peasant Rising. The Rising was triggered by the Reformation and the breakdown of social hierarchy it caused but its roots were far deeper. Various forms of rural and agrarian discontent had been brewing in Germany for a century before Luther’s reformation began. The increasing taxation, replacement of German law with Roman, the rise in levies and autocratic landlords had caused a bubbling cauldron of discontent amongst the German peasantry. Luther may have been the match but the rising had many voices one of whom was Thomas Müntzer.[3]
Though the Rising would spread across Germany from Alsace to Saxony and had diverse groups and leaders a few would be better remembered by history. Müntzer would be one of these. Müntzer was one of the great ‘radical’ reformers of the period who believed Luther did not go far enough and whose religious beliefs were only part of his overall designs: social and political change too was demanded. Müntzer also pushed for radical social upheaval, the end of existing hierarchical structures all wrapped up in a near apocalyptic end of days religious fervour. Luther and he would in many ways personify different ends of the Reformation spectrum and would spend as much energy dencouning one another as the Papacy. With Luther unable to travel or speak publicly effectively due to his injury (though through his writings he denounces strongly the peasant uprisings)[4] Müntzer became one of the key faces of the Rising, and would lead his “Eternal League of God” throughout Thuringia. Elsewhere other peasant groups published the Twelve Articles in Swabia calling for radical social reforms. Müntzer’s force massed with other peasant groups near the town of Frankenhausen in May 1525. Achieving some key successes on May 14 which they exploited to attack the supply train of the combined princely army opposed to them[5]. This small victory delayed the main attack by the armies of Hesse and Saxony for a further two days allowing Müntzer and around 2,000 of his followers to escape before the main peasant army was massacred on the 16th. Müntzer would spend another six months gathering followers and moving throughout Thuringia and the surrounding regions setting up his new radical social order as he went. His forces would eventually be crushed near Kassel at the end of the year - though Müntzer’s body would never be recovered. Though his rebellion would be short lived his legacy would not be. The other peasant forces throughout Germany would all be wiped out within a year of the Battle of Kassel. Though the peasants and their causes had been crushed, The Reformation would continue, now in the hands of the Princes.[6]
Müntzer addressing his followers in late 1525
[1] First change. No immediate major changes occur but it has small ripples as we go on.
[2] A direct quote from Reformations by Carlos M. N. Eire, which served as a major research point for me
[3] I will focus on Müntzer here as his legacy will be important. There is much more to the Peasant War as in OTL but the changes are minor and in the end the rising is crushed as it was doomed to be.
[4] In OTL Luther toured and spoke out heavily against the rising which may have diluted its support
[5] These small openings are not exploited in OTL leading to the savage defeat the day after.
[6] Most of this entry is OTL as there are no major changes to the future of the Reformation at this stage - they are to come in 1529 and after.
In 1516 Vladislaus II, King of Hungary and Bohemia, died and was succeeded by his son Louis II. Louis inherited a Hungary in a precarious situation both domestically and externally. His father’s rule had seen the decline of the authority of the crown in both Hungary and in Bohemia. Abroad the country was in an on again, off again war with the Ottoman Turks which was very soon about to flare into life again. Only ten on his father’s death, Louis’ initial years as king were controlled by a regency and power rested with the noble magnates. A large peasant uprising in the final years of Vladislaus’ reign and increasing political factionalism had left Hungary greatly weakened. Louis, though eager to reassert the authority of the monarchy, lacked the political capital and loyalty of the aristocracy to do so. The war with the Turks started up again in the early 1520s as Louis was coming into legal adulthood. In 1521 the Turks took several key settlements and fortifications in the south of Hungary, including Nandorfehervar (Belgrade). The border defences of Hungary had been left criminally undermanned by the preceding years of neglect. An expedition was mounted to retake Nandorfehervar but had to be abandoned when the Hungarian army dispersed due to failing to bring food along with them[1]. This lack of readiness and cohesion on the part of the Hungarians was not lost on the Turks, now led by their new sultan, Suleiman I. In 1526, Suleiman and a large Ottoman force set out from Constantinople.
Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia
King Louis’ call to unite in the face of the Ottoman assault went largely unheaded. Eventually, and agonisingly slowly, the forces of Hungary started to gather. By the time Suleiman and his force had crossed the border the Hungarians had assembled three armies, one in Transylvania led by the powerful local noble John Zápolya, the main army led by the king and another smaller Croatian force. The Hungarians were originally uncertain of the target of Suleiman’s advance, so by the time the Turkish army’s course was known the Croatian and Transylvanian armies would not have time to arrive before battle began. The Hungarian War Council, despite apparent hesitation on behalf of the king himself, opted to give battle to the Ottomans in the field, apparently to give an advantage to the Hungarian cavalry. Despite the fatigued nature of the Ottoman army, the Hungarians did not immediately engage. This gave the Rumelian forward forces of the Turks time to take position on the field of Mohacs.
The Battle of Mohacs (August 1526) would begin well enough for the Hungarians with the rout of the Rumelian forces in the opening stages. The Hungarian right-wing tore through the Rumelians and drove deep into the Ottoman lines. The rest of the army too began a steady assault. The discipline and artillery of the Ottoman army combined with the relentless fire of the Janissaries began to take their toll however and the Hungarian army’s assault slowed and they began to fallback. Fate however smiled on the Hungarians as some small elements managed to break through and kill Suleiman himself[2]. Though the Hungarian attack was cut off and destroyed, uncertainty spread through the Turkish lines. Claiming the Sultan was still alive Malkoç Bey, the Turkish military commander managed to hold the army together to a credible degree. Maintaining some sort of cohesion, Bey was able to use the superiority of the Ottoman artillery and infantry to force the Hungarians and Louis to retreat from the field.
Though the Battle of Mohacs was technically a tactical victory for the Turks, the outcome of Suleiman’s death and the fact that the Hungarian army (though forced off) remained relatively intact meant that the aftermath of Mohacs was a clear strategic success for Hungary. The news of the Sultan’s death could no longer be kept quiet and this discovery sent waves of shock and despair throughout the Turkish army. Most of the nobles and key political leaders fled back to the capital to secure what influence they could in the ensuing political chaos. Bey, determined to defeat the Hungarians and thus fulfill the late Sultan’s wishes (and of course secure fame and influence for himself in the struggles to come), moved his increasingly shrinking and demoralised army north after Louis. The two armies clashed once again in early September at Kalocsa. The Hungarians, boosted by news of the Sultan’s death and now joined by the Transylvanian forces under Zápolya, achieved a decisive victory. Though Zápolya himself died in the fighting due to a lucky (or unlucky) cannon shot, the Hungarians were able to shatter the weakened and shaken Ottoman force. In the next few weeks the remaining Ottoman forces were driven south out of the country and Nandorfehervar was besieged.
As the Ottoman Empire now began to slip into a crisis around the succession and a period of political instability, the exact opposite was happening in the Kingdom of Hungary. With the Turks defeated, Zápolya dead and his own political stock at an all time high, the young King Louis began a concentrated effort to reassert his authority. Taking full command of the army, which he did not disband, Louis proceeded to quell any internal dissent to his rule. Most nobles fell in line behind the “hero” king - whose defeat of the Turks had won great praise for the Pope and the title “Shield of Christendom”. Backed by prestige, papal support and his loyal army, Louis spent two years reasserting the authority of the monarchy in Hungary. This spilled over into Bohemia too which now began to fall into line. The liberation of Belgrade and the plunder of Turkish territories in the northern Balkans would help ease the troubled state of the royal treasury.
In 1527 on a hunting trip Louis II's wife Mary died in a freak accident after her horse was scared by a supposed tamed bear brought along by the King of Poland. The young king, though saddened moved to secure a new match. Though the Habsburgs were keen to present a new wife for Louis, the king was eager to reassert the independence of his realm - and with the Turks in turmoil it was Vienna that was the chief rival for the kingdom. Instead Louis II married Susanna Wittelsbach, of the line of the Bavarian dukes. Her own husband Casimir had died the same year whilst campaigning in the final stages of the Great Peasant Uprising in Germany - apparently trampled by cows. The union was a profitable one with Susanna providing a son for Louis (Stephen) in 1530 and acting as a moderating and supportive influence on the king as his mental health began to decline in the 1530s (a result of complications around his birth). Nevertheless by 1530 Hungary was a nation united and triumphant. But the Turks too were regrouping.
A long one but I'm going on holiday for two weeks on Thursday so wanted to get this done.
Switzerland and Germany: 1520-1545
Though Luther and Germany were the birthplace of the Reformation, it quickly spread beyond the traditional German lands. Switzerland, like its northern neighbour, was ripe for the spread of new ideas and fertile breeding ground for the Reformation. The Swiss Confederacy, like the Holy Roman Empire as a whole, was a loose collection of semi-independent constituent members: or cantons. By 1520 there were thirteen such cantons in the Confederacy, though much of the power was centred in the original eight. A mix of French, German, Italian and Romansh speakers/cultures made the Swiss one of the most diverse groupings in Europe. Despite this they had managed to form a semblance of pan-Swiss unity and identity - content to ignore and be ignored by the larger world barring the odd mercenary expedition. This sense of separateness brought the Swiss some breathing room and allowed their own Reformation and internal conflicts to pass by unmolested - at least in the beginning.
There were many key figures in the Swiss Reformation and each of them deserves to be discussed. But for the sake of clarity we will focus specifically on Ulrich Zwingli. Zwingli was an educated, experienced and religious man and a proud Swiss. He had served as a chaplain accompanying Swiss Mercenary forces in Italy. It was the brutal defeat to the French at the Battle of Marignano in 1515 however that seemed to have left a major impact on Zwingli and he soon left the military scene. This also made him become a fierce advocate against the mercenary system and the end to Swiss adventurism abroad. He soon returned to Switzerland and eventually became the Leutpriestertum or people’s priest, in Zurich. It was in this position that Zwingli’s influence would start to rise. And from here he would begin his efforts at Reformation.
Ulrich Zwingli
Over the next five years Zwingli and his followers would lead the call for reform in Zurich, gathering support and followers. Unlike in Germany, in Zurich Zwingli found support amongst many elements of the political and religious establishment - giving proof to the notion that there were many already dissatisfied with the Papacy and its church across Europe with or without Luther. Zwingli and his supporters challenged many aspects of the traditional Catholic order: from fasting to priest celibacy - Zwingli himself married and had four children. He found great support for these ideals and was soon attracting support from other cantons. The biggest and most dramatic display of the Zwinglite movement was its iconoclasm. This began in late 1523 and soon the attacks on Church icons and the trappings of Roman Catholicism exploded in an orgy of violence and destruction in Zurich, Basel and elsewhere. The spread and ferocity of the iconoclastic rampage scared those areas of the Confederacy that remained Catholic, and five cantons: Lucerne, Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden, and Zug formed a bloc to defend themselves and their traditions.
The countdown to conflict between the Reformed and Catholic cantons of Switzerland was now inevitable. Bern, Constance and Zwingli’s own Zurich were the principal Reformed cantons and were soon joined by others as Zwingli and the other leaders of the Swiss Reformation: such as Joachim Vadian and Ambrosius Blarer sought to consolidate their movement. They were soon joined by other cantons and cities such as Schaffhausen, Biel and crucially Basel. The Catholic cantons now felt encircled and formed an agreement with Ferdinand, serving as regent for his brother Charles V in Austria for their protection. The capture and execution of the Reformist preacher Jacob Kaiser in mid 1529 would serve as the trigger for conflict. Despite calls for peace from Bern, Zwingli and Zurich mobilized to do battle against the Catholic cantons. Zurich and its allies was able to raise a force of 30,000 men and marched south against the Catholics who, abandoned by Austria, were only able to gather a force of approximately 9,000 men. The two sides met at the Battle of Kappel in June 1529 wherein the outnumbered Catholics were crushed[1]. The Reformed army now pushed south and seized Schwyz (where Kaiser had been executed) and forcibly imposed the Reformation on the city. Terms were now discussed with the Catholic forces, with the more moderate Reformed city of Bern now convinced by the victory at Kappel to push for more forceful negotiations alongside Zurich[2]. The terms, who the Catholic cantons had really no option at this point but to accept were: the dissolution of the alliance between the Catholics and Austria, unhindered preaching by reformers in the Catholic states; prohibition of the pension system; payment of war reparations; the acceptance of the official conversion of the canton of Schwyz to the Reformed Church and compensation to the children of Jacob Kaiser[3]. Though this would not be the end of the issue Zwingli and his closest followers now had something else to attend to: Philip of Hesse had summoned the Protestant leaders to Marburg to discuss the formation of a unified front against the emperor and the forces that threatened their Reformation.
The Marburg Colloquy was a three day event in October 1529. It was attended by leaders of the three main Reformist groups: the Swiss (led by Zwingli and his friend and colleague Oecolampadius), the German Lutherans led by Melanchthon with Luther’s injury preventing him from travelling and a collection of the more ‘radical’ Reformists. The event had been organised by Philip of Hesse in response to the 1529 Diet of Speyer which had threatened the future of the Reformation. Philip hoped to reconcile the various Protestant subgroups into a unified belief system and movement. Despite differences the gathering (which was dominated by Zwingli and Melanchthon) managed to agree on fourteen key theological points. The only issue remained over the Eucharist: was Christ’s presence in the bread and wine real or symbolic? Luther was fierce in his belief (like in Catholicism) that Christ’s presence was literal and his followers supported this. The Swiss and Radicals disagreed: saying it was metaphorical. In the end Zwingli and his supporters triumphed[4]. The Lutherans split, half being convinced on the metaphorical nature of Christ’s presence and the other simply agreeing to disagree and accept compromise. The Marburg Declaration that followed outlined a unified Protestant theology - though there was a concession allowing for areas where a literal belief in Christ’s presence in the Eucharist to continue but that the future spread of Protestantism would be on the understanding of a metaphorical presence of Christ. Luther was incensed but his role in the Reformation had already begun to fade and his inability to attend Marburg and disagreement with the Declaration saw him and his diehard followers begin to slip into obscurity. Unified in faith, the Protestants would now look to be unified in politics.
Marburg Colloquy
Following the Marburg Declaration as the scholars and theologians went home, Philip of Hesse began to make efforts to form an alliance of Protestant Princes in Europe. In 1530 at a meeting in the Hessian town of Cassel, Philip and John Frederick of Saxony formed the Casselite League. Their aim was to form a power bloc to resist the Emperor and the Catholic states if they moved against them. A collection of smaller Reformed cities and states joined the League and although they did not formerly join - the Swiss Reformists worked alongside the League as part of the post Marburg agreements. In Switzerland meanwhile the Reformists, Zwingli first amongst them, returned from Marburg and continued their Reformation. Now free to enter the Catholic cantons and spread their word, Reformists preachers fanned out across the Confederacy. In some places they were met warmly, in others not so much. The southern Italian speaking cantons reacted violently to the Reformers and their message, leading to clashes. Regardless the Reformation spread steadily throughout Switzerland and then outside the Confederacy to the west and north. In 1535 however in the city of Altdorf in the Catholic Uri canton a Protestant preacher was attacked and gruesomely killed by Catholics. The Reformed cantons demanded reparations and began mobilizing troops - it looked like a second Kappel might be on the cards. This time however it would be different. In 1529 the Emperor had been distracted by Barbary raids in the Mediterranean. Not so in 1535. The Emperor Charles V and his brother Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, responded to the call for aid from the remaining Catholic cantons: they might not be ready for a full on confrontation with the Casselite League: but they would not simply abandon all of Switzerland to the Protestant heretics. In September 1535 two Imperial armies one from Milan and another from the Austrian Tyrol invaded Switzerland. The armed truce in central Europe had finally come to an end.
The Reformist Swiss forces were on the back foot almost immediately. They suffered twin defeats in late 1535 in the east at Davos and in the west near Meiringen before the weather worsened and the campaigning halted. Over the winter the Protestant cantons rallied and, having already been preparing for war since mid-1535 began to put organized armies in the field: the core of which made up of former Swiss mercenaries experienced from the fighting in Italy. As the new year began and the snows melted two Protestant Swiss forces struck out. Zwingli led an army which fought a bloody if inconclusive battle with Austrian Imperial forces near Chur whilst in the west the Spanish defeated the Protestant armies of Bern and Geneva on the Aare river. However they were unable to exploit this as events elsewhere came into play. In December the Duke of Milan, Francesco Sforza (restored to the Ducal throne in 1527) died. Charles V occupied Milan and brought it under his own control, exciting little protest from the Milanese or the neighbouring states. It did however greatly irritate Francis I of France - who despite abandoning any claim to Milan was not eager to see it fall under Spanish control. This kick-started another Italian conflict between Valois and Habsburg and drew Charles and Spain’s attentions away from Switzerland[5]. This new conflict allowed the Swiss to refocus their efforts and were able to stabilize the situation throughout the year. By 1537 the Reformist Swiss had regained most of the country save a few areas to the east and south. With Spain focused elsewhere and the Swiss apparently holding their own the Casselite League entered the conflict sensing an opportunity to assert their position in Germany. Ulrich Duke of Wurttemberg had been in exile since 1519 and the Duchy under Habsburg rule. Converting to the Reformed faith in exile Ulrich now made me a move to regain his Duchy - and the Casselite League stepped into support.
Ferdinand I, Archduke of Austria
The opening of this second front was a blow to Ferdinand, who with his brother engaged against France, had taken on leadership of the war effort[6]. He had been unwilling to engage the German Protestants for fear of provoking a pan-German conflict - but was now left with little choice. Under pressure from Vienna, Duke William of Bavaria also entered the conflict on the Imperial side. The initiative was with the Reformists however. Wurttemberg was ‘liberated’ and restored to Ulrich’s rule while the Swiss won a major engagement near Werdenberg, successfully driving the Imperial forces out of the Confederacy. At the Battle of Werdenberg however Zwingli himself died in the fighting - cementing his position as a true Protestant martyr and Swiss hero. In 1538 the Duchy of Saxony, the part run by the Catholic Albertine branch of the Wettin family, was overrun by League armies. The tide would soon turn again however in the new year of 1539. Peace was agreed between Spain and France and the Spanish Imperial armies in Italy once more moved against the Swiss. Not long after the Imperial army defeated the League forces near Nuremeberg. The Protestant forces were now gradually driven back in Switzerland and Germany. Swabia in southwestern Germany was in chaos as various cities and towns declared for either side. Frankfurt, Augsburg and various Anhalt Princes joined the League and attempted to counter the Imperial advance, but the Habsburgs ground on relentlessly besieging several key cities.
That is until in 1540/1 when once again outside factors changed the situation once more. Ghent in the Habsburg Netherlands rose in revolt and war between Spain and France broke out once more. The Swiss with the Imperial armies once more distracted were able to regain territory. Ferdinand however was now far more concerned about reasserting Habsburg authority in Germany where the tide threatened now to turn against him. With Zwingli dead and much of the country feeling the effects of war the Swiss leaders were open to a compromise peace with the Empire, feeling themselves to be in a strong position. Ferdinand, acting on behalf of the Emperor, was inclined to agree: this would free up his forces to take on the League in Germany. In 1541 the Swiss Confederacy and Ferdinand of Austria agreed the Treaty of the Alps. The Reformed faith was accepted as the official religion of the Swiss Confederacy in exchange the Swiss would leave the war and cut aid to the League. More importantly those areas and cantons still Catholic and under Imperial rule would be detached from the Confederacy (now overwhelmingly Reformed). The Ticino and Valais regions of southern Switzerland were annexed to the Habsburg Duchy of Milan whilst the easternmost Swiss territories were ceded to Austria. Free from this distraction Ferdinand refocused his energies in Germany. The war here would now drag on for a further year before an armistice was called. Ferdinand and the Catholic forces had clearly triumphed if only just. The treaty would see Wurttemberg remain a Habsburg territory, the spread of the Reformed faith banned outside it's already existing territories, Catholicism consolidated in Swabia and the division of Saxony maintained: though the Elector title remained with John Frederick[7]. Imperial and Habsburg authority had been reasserted but the Protestants remained in the north and in the now religious unified (if smaller) Swiss Confederacy. It remained to see how long peace would last.
[1] This is the first major deviation from OTL. In our world the battle was prevented by one of Zwingli’s relatives, Hans Aebli, pushing for an armistice and this opportunity for the Swiss Reformists was squandered. Here Aebli is not at the battle and instead the Reformists score a crushing victory.
[2] Bern wanted to be more amicable in OTL but with Kappel going ahead and the triumph of the Reformists they are now inclined to follow Zurich and Zwingli’s lead.
[3] Barring the Schwyz issue these are the terms presented in OTL, now accepted en masse.
[4] This is another big change. With Zwingli and the Swiss in the ascendency after Kappel and critically with Luther unable to attend in person the Lutheran argument loses out.
[5] This conflict is OTL.
[6] Crucially unlike OTL Ferdinand does not also have the support of Bohemia and Hungary which here are still a separate Jagiellon realm
[7] The war is still a Catholic victory like OTL. But on different terms. The Protestants in North Germany and Switzerland are better off but all of southern and western Germany now firmly in Habsburg/Catholic grip.
This was originally supposed to be a post on France, Portugal and Spain but whilst writing it it became obvious they would be better suited as separate posts. So here we go. Welcome back.
New Horizons & Old Challenges: France 1520-1545
Francis I’s reign is one of the most important in the history of France. It is often seen now by historians as a ‘bridging’ period in the history of the country between two different eras. Francis I oversaw the final stages of the centralisation and expansion of the powers of the French monarchy and laid the foundations (either consciously or subconsciously) for the future of France. His reign would see the growth of French power both in Europe and abroad and would be reflected on as a period of stability, innovation and prosperity which would contrast quite dramatically with later years following the outbreak of the Civil War in the 1560s. These three decades that made up the majority of Francis’ rule would be dominated by two key issues/challenges: the rivalry and conflict with Charles V and the Habsburg Empire and the growing religious divide as the Reformation spread throughout France. The center of the Valois-Habsburg rivalry would of course be in Italy.
The Italian War of 1521-1527 would be one of the major events of the period. This conflict would result in a favourable outcome for France. Despite the tactical setback at Pavia the French were able to relatively hold their own in Italy, despite eventually being forced from Milan. The efforts of French forces, led by Francis and Duke Charles Bourbon would eventually result in France being able to bring Savoy under French control after the peace as well as maintain the independence of their Navarrese allies along the Pyrenees. On the negative side Francis was forced to renounce his claims in Italy and Burgundy as a consequence, but this can conveniently be ignored when necessary. The gain of Savoy and the anchoring of French influence in the region meant further confrontation between France and Spain in Italy was inevitable, and indeed war would soon restart between the two powers. It is worth remembering at this point that the 1521-7 conflict also saw Boulogne lost to England. The next struggle between the two would break out in 1536 over Milan. The death of the ruling Duke of Milan and Charles V’s moves to solidify his rule over the Duchy would trigger another conflict, this one lasting two years as Francis sought to prevent Spanish rule in Milan whilst Charles aimed to drive the French out of Italy completely. The conflict dragged in other powers as well as Venice supported France and a collection of smaller Italian states lined up alongside the Emperor - both the Papacy and England refrained from joining. The war would end in stalemate with Spain retaining control over Milan and France over Savoy - indeed the only major effect of this conflict was in preventing Spanish troops from intervening in Switzerland and Germany during the Casselite War and the Swiss Reformation.
A rather romanticized image of Franco-Spanish fighting in Italy
Not that that would be the end of the affair. The two would clash yet again in 1541 resulting in the final conflict of Francis I’s reign. In 1540 Ghent had risen in (an ultimately unsuccessful) rebellion against Charles V and this combined with the ongoing war in Germany saw the Empire distracted. Francis, hoping to take advantage of this fact, invaded Italy citing Milan once again as reason. This time the French achieved more success winning a series of battles in Lombardy and further south (though Milan held out). This conflict became wrapped up with the ongoing issues in Florence where conflict between elements wishing to restore the republic and pro-Medici elements were ongoing as well as rising Anglo-French tensions when England joined the war in 1542. The French were unable to retake Boulogne but moved to successfully seize Luxembourg as a base with the idea of using it to move into Germany in support of the anti-Habsburg Casselite League. This plan however was rendered moot when Luxembourg was retaken by Imperial troops and the war in Germany ended. In 1543 the city of Nice was re-captured by the French after it had risen in revolt early in the war against 'foreign occupation' but the Italian adventure was dealt a blow when French forces sent to intervene in Florence were defeated in Tuscany. An English invasion was halted and repelled by Francis’ key ally Charles of Bourbon before the war gradually wound down. The result was a return once more to the status quo ante bellum but resulted in a few key developments. Firstly like the war over Milan this conflict prevented Spanish involvement in Germany during a crucial period. Secondly the successful defence of France brought great prestige to Francis I’s reign and would prevent Habsburg efforts to kick the French out of Savoy. Third, though this would only be truly apparent later, the failure of France to secure Luxembourg or retake Artois would allow the consolidation of the future Burgundian state under Duke Charles III following the abdications of his father the Emperor Charles V in 1559[1]. And finally this conflict confirmed the notion that France could not defeat the Anglo-Imperial bloc and would see Francis reach out to the Protestant German states to counter Habsburg power.[2]
Whilst the struggle for supremacy with the Habsburgs dominated (and would continue to dominate) the foreign commitments of Francis I there would be other achievements and developments closer to home. As with a study of all monarchies, especially in this period, it is always important to address the dynastic events and matches which always lay the foundation for all future developments. Francis did have several children with his queen Claude of Brittany, but only three would survive into adulthood: his son Francis (1518) and his two daughters Madeleine (1521) and Margaret (1525). Francis, the future Francis II, would be married to Marie, daughter of Charles, Duke of Bourbon[3]. Duke Charles was arguably the second most influential man in France and had been a key ally and commander for France in the Italian Wars - this match bound the greatest domestic rival to the Valois to their cause and would be pivotal for the future of France. Whilst his son was used to consolidate power domestically his two daughters would secure political alliances abroad. A natural strategic ally was found in Hungary. Though by no means hostile to the Habsburgs the Jagiellon Crown of Hungary-Bohemia represented a major power in Central Europe that could potentially threaten the Habsburg eastern flank. Consequently a match between Princess Margaret and the new heir to the Hungarian throne, Stephen, was agreed. With the Scottish heir already engaged to the Tudors and relations with England and Spain too acrimonious Francis sought to sure up his new German ties and Princess Madeleine was betrothed to William, heir to Philip of Hesse one of the leading Protestant German Princes. A second son, Henry, was originally set to marry into the Danish royal line but died at age eight.
Francis I was a true renaissance prince. He was a great patron of the arts and of music. His court was awash with poets, artists, writers etc. and was the envy of Europe. Francis himself dabbled and put out more than a few of his own writings. His reign also oversaw grand new construction projects (interrupted by the occasional war with Spain) such as various chateaus and a new city hall for Paris. His reign was and is seen as a golden age of French culture and art. Each of these new projects and buildings were lavishly decorated and ornamented and though Italy was the birthplace of the Renaissance - France was its greatest paragon. This flowering of science and arts was the cultural side of discovery that Francis pioneered, he also however encouraged and oversaw a far more literal form of discovery as France followed in the Iberian footsteps and planted its flag in the New World.
As Spain and Portugal continued their gradual conquest of the New World more and more of its riches and exotic goods began making their way back to Europe. And, crucially, other powers began to take note of the potential benefits of staking their own claims. The first of these, though far from the last, would be France. Francis I, not at all impressed with the Treaty of Tordesillas, had overseen the construction of the new port city of Le Havre and determined to establish bases and contacts of his own in the New World to counter his arch-rival Charles V. Francis helped support the expedition of Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano who chartered the eastern coast of North America which he named Nova Gallia and the region of New Angoulême [OTL New York].[4] Throughout the 1530s the French would sponsor a variety of expeditions (many led by Jacques Cartier) intent on finding the northwest passage to Asia and setting up French trading outposts in the region. Cartier mapped much of this region including exploring the mouth of the river Francesca [5] named for his king and sponsor. In the next few years the French tried to establish a variety of settlements in the area dubbed New France [Quebec and Newfoundland] but none lasted long. In the end it was decided that the attempted northern settlements needed a closer center for supply and aid as the search for the northwest passage continued; so in 1549 the first permanent French settlement was founded at the previously mapped New Angoulême. The colonial race had begun in earnest.
France would not be spared the Reformation and coping with the rising religious fracturing of his kingdom would be one of Francis’ greatest challenges, and one that extend far beyond his reign. Though a Catholic, Francis I did not treat the various Reformed sects with the same hostility shown by the Habsburgs and King Henry in England. Although he attempted to dissuade the spread of the Reformation he recognised the usefulness of the Protestant movement and how it undermined Habsburg influence in the Holy Roman Empire. The influence of his reformist sister Marguerite of Navarre also played a part. The German and Swiss revolts were useful distractions for his Imperial rival and hence Francis often aided the Protestants when possible and frequently granted them shelter in France (as long as they did not stay too long that is). Throughout the 1520s and 1530s a growing number of Protestant groups began forming in France. They grew increasingly ambitious and political. In September 1534 a few years after the unification of the Reformed churches at Marburg, Zwingli invited leading French reformers to Switzerland to help bring the French Protestants in line with the Swiss-German doctrine. Though there was some resistance to go, especially in Paris where some elements had begun planning a demonstration for the following month, the influence of Zwingli and the post-Marburg Reformed movement was too important so they headed to Zurich.[6]
French Reformer John Calvin
The French Reformed movements now broadly moved into line with the Marburg Doctrine agreed in Germany and Switzerland. Communication, travel and exchange between France and the (post-1541) religiously unified Protestant Switzerland saw the number of Reformed groups in France increase steadily. Like elsewhere there are many influential reformers in France during this period - but we shall focus on one: that of course being John Calvin. Calvin was a French lawyer and noted Humanist who gradually adopted more and more reformist beliefs before breaking with the Catholic Church fully in the early 1530s. He traveled frequently between Paris, Strasbourg and Switzerland and was one of the Frenchmen who met with Zwingli and the Swiss Reformers in 1534. Calvin soon returned to France, wherein he continued to write and preach and soon he emerged as the most famous of the French reformers. Eventually Francis I ordered him into exile (he tolerated Reformers up to a point but there were limits) and he fled to Basel wherein he continued to be in contact with his followers in France. Though the majority of support for Calvinism and the Reformation in France was contained to the merchant and emerging middle class - it also made inroads into the nobility especially in the south and east. It would be the inroads into the House of Bourbon (OTL the Bourbons were more sympathetic to the Reformation than other noble families) made by the Reformation that would have the most lasting impact. Charles III of Bourbon was a devout Catholic as was his son, but his daughter Marie had other voices in her ear and soon became a secret Calvinist. This same Marie would marry Francis I’s son and later become Queen of France in 1547. Marie would forge a secret Calvinist faction in the royal court. She soon made contacts with Protestant groups throughout France, including in the English territory around Boulogne-Calais which had become a haven of sorts for English Reformists ostracized under Henry VIII. Here printing, sermons and writers from all over Europe gathered and interacted. Whispers soon reached her of an able minded and religiously sympathetic Englishmen who had served as a key advisor to the Chancellor Cardinal Wolsey before his fall. This gentleman was invited to become Marie’s private secretary and later the chief tutor to her second son Louis - he of course was Thomas Cromwell.
[1] Charles V has a second son. So when he abdicates Philip is King of Spain and Ferdinand in Austria (as OTL) but a third separate realm is created in Burgundy for his son Charles (III of Burgundy). More on this when I talk about Spain.
[2] Due to the Ottoman distractions (recovery from the death of Suleiman) an alliance with the Turks is not possible or practical for France as a counterweight to Spain so Francis turns to Germany.
[3] I’ve referenced previously the importance of Charles III of Bourbon. In OTL Charles and Francis fell out following the death of Charles’ wife Suzanne. He would later defect to the Imperial cause, leading to divisions internally in France and indirectly the Sack of Rome (which does not happen ITTL). Here with his wife surviving the relationship between Francis and Charles does not collapse and with the marriage of Francis II and Marie the strength of the Valois monarchy is domestically solid.
[4] This voyage and its discoveries are OTL.
[5] The Saint Lawrence - Francesca was one of the names in OTL given to the area explored by da Verrazzano.
[6] In case it wasn’t clear I have butterflied the Affair of the Placards.
Portugal time. Only a few major changes from OTL. Bigger update on Spain/Habsburgs to come. Also update rate will increase now fingers crossed.
Empire and Exploration: Portugal (1520-1550)
Whilst France and Spain competed and battled for dominance in Western Europe and Germany was aflame with religious war, Portugal under John (João) III endured a period of great prosperity. Taking no part in the endless cycle of Habsburg-Valois wars, the Portuguese in the first half of the sixteenth century would focus their efforts on expanding their growing commercial and imperial reach. From Brazil in the west to the Indies of the east Portugal’s influence would spread far and wide as the world would become increasingly smaller and more interconnected.
The first and most important goal for John III, like any monarch, was to secure his dynasty and country. The best way to do this of course was through political marriage and securing a dynastic heir. Both of these objectives would be achieved early in this period. John himself married Catherine of Austria his cousin whilst his sister was already wed to the Emperor Charles V [both marriages OTL]. John’s diplomatic efforts were designed to forge secure alliances with his neighbours and rivals to guard Portugal’s rear and flank whilst it focused his energies elsewhere. To this end he also sanctioned and highly encouraged the match between his brother Luis, Duke of Beja, to Mary Tudor of England - a match that would have great lasting impact for the future of both nations. John and Catherine themselves were able to secure the country’s dynastic future with their own children, including the heir Manuel (1532) and several daughters. Prince Manuel would show signs of being an intelligent, charismatic and ambitious young man and would forge a strong childhood friendship with his younger cousin Henry (Henrique) the eldest son of Luis and Mary Tudor (born 1536). A story of the two young boys attempting to stow away on a carrack destined for Brazil may be apocryphal but shows the bond between the two and their mutual interest in the sea and the lands beyond the ocean. John succeeded in arranging the betrothal of Prince Manuel to Joanna daughter of Charles V [OTL] which he hoped would secure the future of the ruling House of Aviz beyond the next generation. With the diplomatic position of the country secured through alliances with Habsburg and Tudor, John turned to internal domestic objectives.
John III of Portugal
John III sought to continue the work of his predecessors in centralizing royal authority in Portugal in an early form of the Absolutist model that would come to dominate Europe in the 17th century. The Portuguese parliament or Cortes only met three times during his long reign and all major administrative, bureaucratic and judicial reforms and decisions were taken by either the King or a cabal of trusted ministers. In matters of religion, John, like all Catholic monarchs in Europe at this time, was concerned with the outbreak of the Reformation in Europe, and the chaos and violence that followed in its wake. This grew even more serious following the unification of the Reformed Church at Marburg and the subsequent conversion of Switzerland. Eager to combat the spread of this heresy before it reached Portugal, John III began to oversee the reforms of the domestic Catholic church - drawing on and being inspired by many of the changes in England where Henry VIII was overseeing the progressive reform of the English Catholic Church pioneered by Woolsey, Moore and others. Corrupt monasteries were closed (their assets used to aid the royal expenditure), the worst abuses and excess ended, new statutes implemented and a broad adoption of Humanist thinking took root. Consequently no major Protestant movement ever took root in Portugal.
Despite all these advances the most important developments of John III’s reign took place not in Europe, but across the seas. Brazil was the main area of Portuguese colonialism in the New World. Having established themselves there in the early 16th century the Portuguese under John III would cement and expand their influence in this area. Previously having set up temporary trading posts for the exploitation and trade of resources (specifically brazilwood and dye) the first permanent Portuguese settlement was founded at Sao Vicente in 1532 [otl]. This was followed by the ongoing establishment of the Captaincy Colonies of Brazil, organising and marking out the areas of Portuguese settlement and expansion in the region for the next few decades. These were eventually re-organised and subsumed into the Governorate General of Brazil as a more efficient system of colonial management. Trade between Portugal, Brazil and the African/Asian territories would fuel Portugal’s commercial growth in this period. Portuguese expansion continued further south including setting up small settlements in the River Plate region. As the rise in sugar cane industry began in the 1550s the rising demand for labour saw further Portuguese colonists arrive and the beginning large scale importation of African slaves. Whereas the Portuguese expansion in South America would be largely smooth sailing there was more difficulty in the East.
Portuguese trade, as their empire was driven by commercial desires and a genuine wish to Christianize natives, in Africa was centered around feitorias, factory outposts, along the coast of the continent. The fortresses in North Africa whilst those further south were used as bases for merchant ships en route to India and for exploratory missions into the African interior. Relations between the native kingdoms varied from hostile to co-operative as the slave trade began to rear its ugly head. Further east in India and the East Indies more bases were established and fortified feitorias were set-up. Goa was the key center of Portuguese power in India and would be the hub of their growing commercial activities. Ceylon was also secured for Portugal and bases were established in Gujarat with the backing (reluctant) of local rulers who wished aid to combat the Mughals. Raids and naval conflicts with the Muslim powers of the east would plague the Portuguese mercantile and imperial ambitions - there were plans laid to even withdraw from several African outposts as the costs of the strategic battle with the Turks and their satellites was draining Portugal’s resources. This however almost ceased to be a problem over night with the Ottoman defeat at Mohacs and the Empire’s internal conflicts that followed. This, temporary, removal of the Turkish threat allowed the consolidation and reinforcement of Portugal’s position in the Indian Ocean[1]. The Portuguese also capitalised on this period of Turkish internal trouble to begin establishing ties with the Christian Ethiopian Empire in east Africa. Portugal hoped to use Ethiopia as a check on Ottoman efforts in the Red Sea and as a useful strategic ally in the region, whilst for their part Ethiopia was happy to strengthen its position vis-a-vis the expansionist Turks. The relationship between Portugal and Ethiopia was in its infancy under John III but it would develop into a major partnership.
Though Portugal would also begin to develop its first ties with China in this period (eventually resulting in gaining the port of Macau) but the primary developments in this period would be further south in the spice islands. Portugal had explored and now claimed the Spice (Maluku) Islands - as did Spain, however. The two would bicker and compete over control of these islands which had been left in a relative grey area by the Treaty of Tordesillas. Both sides sent waves of explorers, cartographers, merchants and ships to make certain of their claims to the region. In the end the two sides signed the Treaty of Zaragoza [OTL] giving Portugal the better of the deal including most of the Spice Islands and the larger archipelago further north [OTL Philippines]. In the 1540s Portugal would secure control over these islands after a Spanish expedition was cancelled due to Spain’s military requirements in Germany and Italy[2]. [Name suggestions for a Portuguese Philippines would be welcome]. By 1550 the Portuguese colonial empire was profitable, stable and expanding and the future of the kingdom looked bright.
[1] This is the major difference from the period. In OTL the ongoing struggle and competition with the Turks caused great issue for Portugal and forced the Portuguese to withdraw from several bases, this does not happen here and Portugal’s overseas territories and efforts are stronger.
[2] Another change from OTL. In 1542 the Spanish took control over the Philippines with an expedition despite technically giving the claim to Portugal. Here due to the Casselite War and another Franco-Spanish conflict they don’t send the expedition so the Philippines fall to Portugal’s sphere. Note this also butterflies away the Portuguese mission which ended up in Japan.
[3] If not specifically stated otherwise all OTL events proceeded as OTL.
No monarch would perhaps signify the Habsburg policy of expansion by marriage better than Charles (I of Spain and the V in Germany). By virtue of parents and grandparents and the random fate of European Dynasticism, Charles would end up inheriting a vast empire, including Spain, its American colonies, the Burgundian Netherlands, Austria and territories in Italy and Germany. His dominions were vast, wealthy, populous and provided the young Emperor with more power and influence than any European ruler since Charlemagne. Charles had at his command great resources, but with this would come great challenges. His sprawling territories each came with their own share of problems. The Lutheran and then Reformed movements in Germany. Barbary pirates from North Africa, internal disagreements in Spain, revolts in the Netherlands, the Ottomans though weakened still loomed in the east and above all France. The struggle to maintain this vast imperium and properly harness its possibilities would be the preeminent challenge for Charles and his reign.
Charles was a native of the Burgundian Netherlands (specifically Ghent) and these lands would always hold a special place in his heart. Over the next few years he gradually inherited various other domains and titles eventually forming the grand collection of lands he is famous for. To cement the future of his dynasty Charles married Isabella of Portugal in 1526 (despite previous plans for a possible match to Mary Tudor). The marriage between the two would by all accounts be a happy one, with Isabella playing an active role in helping manage the vast Habsburg estate whilst her husband campaigned or traveled. The couple would end up having five children that would survive into adulthood: Philip (b. 1526), Maria (b. 1528), Charles (b.1530), Joanna (b. 1535) and John (b. 1536). Each of their children would go onto to play their role in history. Philip and Joanna would be involved in the double marriage with Portugal: Philip to King John’s daughter Maria (otl) and Joanna to Prince Manuel. Whilst their oldest daughter Maria would eventually marry her cousin Maximilian of Austria. Thus serving to further cement the dynastic ties between the two Habsburg realms.
Charles V
Maximilian of course was the son of Ferdinand, younger brother to Charles. Since 1521 Charles had handed over most of the day to day governance of Austria (and therefore the Empire more generally) to his brother and thus it was Ferdinand therefore who took the leading role in the Imperial efforts against the German and Swiss Reformed movements. Despite setbacks Ferdinand would do more than admirably in the Casselite Wars, the Swiss Reformation and cementing Imperial and Catholic authority in at least the southern half of Germany. This of course left Charles free to govern and manage the rest of the Habsburg Empire. In many ways Charles was more Flemish than Spanish and it is his actions here we discuss first. Even here Charles’ reign was not uncontested and much of the 1520s through 40s Charles would spend seeking to secure and then expand his holdings in the Low Countries. The first task was to crush the remnants of the peasant revolt in the north, which was accomplished with little difficulty. Then Charles would conquer the remaining free parts of the Netherlands in the north and east in a series of campaigns before completing his unification process with the purchase of the rest of Friesland[1]. Ghent would rise in rebellion in the 1540s serving not only as an unfortunate distraction for Charles during the height of the fighting in Germany and Italy but would be a reminder that he could not be everywhere and the region needed a more constant authoritative watcher. Charles would therefore seek to bind the various Burgundian and Dutch territories of the Habsburg Netherlands into a more unified dynastic/political unit which he did in 1549 with the Pragmatic Sanction[2]. When in 1555 Charles’ aunt Margaret who had been Governor of the Netherlands died, Charles following Ferdinand’s success in Germany appointed another family regent. His twenty-five year old second son, Charles, was made Governor and sent to Flanders to oversee directly in his father’s name. His eldest Philip of course remained in Spain to inherit that great kingdom.
Spain was the largest and most powerful of Charles’ inheritances and unlike in the Netherlands, Charles never felt properly at home here. Always believing himself viewed by the Spanish as a ‘foreign prince’ (with some truth), Charles took pains to assert himself domestically and had to deal early on with the Revolt of the Comuneros in Castile, which was suppressed. Gradually however Charles cemented his authority over Spain (even though he technically was only co-ruler until his mother’s death in 1551). Charles invested much in improving and strengthening Spain as the key power center of his domains. Financial reforms, military expansion and the expansion of royal authority allowed Spain, and specifically Castile, to emerge as the most powerful kingdom in Europe. This would prove vital in the series of wars fought between France and Spain in this period in Italy and along the Pyrenees. These conflicts have been discussed at length elsewhere but the key takeaway is that Charles was able to blunt French ambitions in Italy (minus Savoy) and in the Netherlands whilst cementing Habsburg rule over Milan. Though the round of conflicts were very expensive (causing major financial strain for both France and Spain) this was offset somewhat by the supplies of silver from the American colonies[3]. These were not the only military challenges of Charles’ reign however. The Ottoman Turks represented at the start of Charles’ rule a major threat in the east through their actions in the Balkans and North Africa and their Barbary allies further west. The death of Suleiman at Mohacs and the conflicts that would temporarily paralyze the Ottomans that came after brought Spain some much needed breathing space, as they did for Portugal. Sensing the weakness of the Barbary states without their chief benefactor Charles organised a series of joint Spanish-Portuguese attacks on the major cities of North Africa to cripple the Barbary pirates once and for all. All the major cities were taken with most (such as Tunis, Algiers and Tripoli) falling under Spanish rule. Charles was eager to assert some degree of control and direct management of these new acquisitions before the eventual Ottoman resurgence, which was already well underway by the 1550s. Consequently during his abdications in 1559, Charles named his youngest son John Governor of Tunis and the African territories and charged him with securing the region against Turkish aggression in the name of his brother Philip.
Victories against France, the Barbary states and Protestants in Germany considerably boosted Charles’ authority, prestige and power. It was from this base that Charles would complete the final and one of the most difficult acts of his reign, the centralisation of royal authority in Aragon and Italy. Although on paper the vast Spanish territories seemed to be a united rich power in reality the various parts had their own separate laws and restrictions which prevented the proper mobilisation of their resources by the crown, only Castile would prove reliable and properly pull its weight[4]. Only in Castile was royal authority absolute whereas elsewhere it was limited, undermined and countered by local and provincial legislatures. Charles decided to rectify this and moved to suppress the Aragonese and Catalonian parts of his realm and bring them and their economic resources under central royal authority[5]. This naturally provoked a backlash and the “Subjugation of the Regions” as it was dubbed lasted off and on from 1545-1561, interrupted briefly by the Franco-Spanish conflict that lasted until 1558. It would only eventually be won and settled by Philip upon his ascension as King of Spain, when the local authorities in Aragon, Catalonia and Spanish Navarre eventually conceded to most of the royal demands. Charles gained a great deal of popularity and support from Castile for these efforts, as the Castilian nobility and populace would no longer have to alone bear the great costs of empire. Though this conflict would be costly and cause lingering resentments (and luckily with France facing increasing internal issues and the Turks still slowly rebuilding it was not challenged from a foreign power) in the long run it would allow a better mobilisation of Spanish and Habsburg resources for the future.
Charles would eventually abdicate his various positions in 1559. Worn out by the demands of ruling his territories and the ongoing struggles with enemies foreign and domestic Charles would retire into a private life and partition out his territories before passing away a few years later. Ferdinand’s de facto rule in Austria was formalized as he was made Archduke and elected Holy Roman Emperor. Philip was crowned King of Spain including its vast American, Italian and African territories. With the latter overseen by his brother John, Governor of Tunis. Finally his son Charles, Governor of the Netherlands, was given his father’s title of Duke of Burgundy (etc.) and was officially named ruler of the former Burgundian Netherlands (including the Franche-Comte and Luxembourg) and was granted near complete autonomy if technically a vassal to his brother Philip in Spain and indeed of his uncle Emperor Ferdinand. The younger Charles, now Duke Charles III, would begin setting the foundations of the future Burgundian state. Charles V would leave the Habsburg dominions stronger, wealthier and well governed. Which was just as well as the greatest tests of the dynasty were about to come.
Germany - After the Abdication of Charles V*
* Map might not be 100% accurate but you try and make one of the HRE.
[1] OTL conquests and purchase.
[2] An OTL effort to reorganize the Seventeen Provinces of present day Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg into one indivisible territory, while retaining existing customs, laws, and forms of government within the provinces.
[3] Spanish colonization of the Americas proceeds OTL in this period with the exception of Klein Venedig continuing.
[4] In Paul Kennedy’s Rise and Fall of the Great Powers which is a key research point and inspiration for this timeline Kennedy highlights the failure to properly tax and mobilise the Spanish territories outside Castile as one of the main reasons for the Habsburgs eventual defeat and decline. I will come back to this point and Kennedy’s other conclusions later but here a stronger and less contested Charles V (no Turks, strong positions in Italy and elsewhere, a friendly allied England etc.) is able to tackle this issue head on.
[5] Something tried through various means and with various limited success by his successors Philip II - IV.
In accordance with my views on butterflies and to avoid a Scandinavian flame war in the comments consider all events before 1530 (unless otherwise stated) to have proceeded OTL.
Also special thanks to @Bastiram for help on this chapter.
Reformation and Restoration: Denmark and Sweden (1520-1560)
In January 1521 Gustav Vasa began a rebellion in the province of Dalarna which would trigger the Swedish War of Liberation. The Kalmar Union, the dynastic Scandinavian estate, was unraveling. Decades of mounting tensions, disagreements and resentments had spilled over into the 1520 Stockholm Bloodbath. This massacre at the orders of Christian II of Denmark, ever after Christian the Tyrant in Sweden, triggered a final rising of the Swedish nobility who sought to separate themselves and their lands from the unequal union. Leading Swedish nobles, merchants and councilors were hanged and beheaded whilst anti-Danish clergymen were arrested, though not executed after a last hour change of heart[1]. Vasa’s rebellion sprung from the fury that followed. With the support of the wealthy German city of Lubeck and broad support amongst the Swedish peasantry and nobility, Vasa seized Stockholm and was crowned King of Sweden in 1523. The rest of Sweden, including the occupied areas of Finland, fell to Vasa and his supporters over the next year. The Danes were unable to restore order and in 1524 Swedish independence and the end of the Kalmar Union was officially recognised and a new era of Scandinavian history had begun.
In Denmark itself Christian II had been deposed. His actions in Sweden and their fallout had been the latest in a line of aggregations resented by large elements of the Danish noble and merchant classes. Increasing autocratic measures and reforms (some in retrospect quite progressive) set Christian II at odds with the powerful Danish nobility, jealous of their rights and influences. However he did earn a degree of respect and support amongst the peasantry for his reforms. Freeing Denmark from Hanseatic commercial dominance had brought wealth to the country but had antagonised the great Baltic trading cities and left him exposed and without allies, resulting in his removal and exile in 1523. In exile he spent most of his time in the Netherlands, whilst also touring England and the German lands. He briefly corresponded with Martin Luther, but as Luther’s injury and declining influence in the Reformation complicated things Christian II soon lost interest and remained a Catholic[2]. His wife Isabella of Austria fell ill in 1525 but soon made a full recovery[3]. In 1531 Christian, with his replacement on the Danish throne Frederick becoming a Lutheran, tried to retake his kingdom but was defeated, he did however manage to evade capture fleeing back to the Netherlands.
Christian II of Denmark
Whilst in exile once more in the Netherlands, Christian would not abandon his struggle to reclaim the throne. He attempted to leverage support from his brother-in law, the Emperor Charles V, who although sympathetic was unable to offer anything serious enough to support a campaign distracted as he was. Instead therefore Christian and his family went to England, where they were welcomed by King Henry VIII and his court. Henry and Queen Catherine were supportive of this deposed Catholic monarch and Henry entertained Christian’s ambitions. Though he was unwilling to go to war over them. This changed in 1533.
Frederick, who had usurped Christian’s Danish crown, died in April 1533. The Jutland nobility moved to crown Frederick’s son Christian (now declared Christian III) as king. This was not uncontested and a movement led by Count Christoffer of Oldenburg, rallied Catholic forces, a scattering of Norwegian nobility and support from a collection of Free Cities (including Lubeck) declared for the exiled Christian II and triggered the Danish Succession Crisis. Suddenly the likelihood of Christian II regaining his throne did not look so remote. As the two sides in Denmark began clashing in and around Jutland. Christian II sought international aid and was determined to return to Denmark before his supporters collapsed. Henry VIII now moved to support his Catholic royal counterpart. Taking his title “Defender of the Faith” very seriously and with his militant Catholicism still burning Henry saw this as a religious struggle against heresy. More practically installing a friendly (and indebted) monarch across the North Sea would gain England great influence in the Baltic and help Henry in his bid to establish England as independent power apart from (but friendly to) the Habsburg Imperial bloc. Consequently Henry moved to betrothe Prince Arthur to Christian II’s daughter Dorothea to cement the alliance (Christian II wanted a full marriage but a betrothal was more easily broken if Christian II lost, Henry did not want to be stuck with a lost cause). Henry too wanted to try out his new warships and earn more military glory for himself and England - especially with a rare break in the Franco-Spanish Wars occurring simultaneously. In late 1534 an English fleet was prepared and joined with a small Catholic Danish force led by the naval officer Søren Norby who had been in England with Christian, and set sail for Denmark with Christian II at its head.
Support came from elsewhere too. With King Henry and England backing his cause suddenly Christian II had far more legitimacy behind him. Charles V, eager to re-assert Catholic rule whenever possible, arranged a small force of around 2,000 Dutch mercenaries to be ferried by the English to Denmark. Under English and Imperial lobbying the Pope also granted his blessing for the campaign which pressured the Norwegian Archbishops to support the cause as well. The fighting would continue until 1536. Many elements of local Danish nobility rallied against Christian II and they drew support from Lutheran Sweden, Holstein and Jutland. The Catholic forces led by Christian II, Duke Christoffer and the Anglo-Imperial forces led by the Duke of Norfolk, however outmatched and outfinanced their opponents, and had large support amongst the peasantry. The domestic conflict eventually ended with the Siege of Holstein and the execution, imprisonment and exile of leading rebel nobility including the notable commander Johann Rantzau. The larger war dragged on for a few months with Sweden which had opportunistically seized some Danish territory. Though Sweden was forced out of Skane the Swedes were able to seize the territory of Jamtland. Christian II’s rule over Denmark, Norway and Schleswig-Holstein however was secured.
In the next two decades Christian II would transform Denmark. With the confirmation of the marriage of his daughter to Arthur of England and of his son John to Maria daughter of Ferdinand of Austria, his and his dynasty’s rule was secured. Danish Baltic trade began to recover (with England gaining generous if not unacceptable concessions). Though their support had eventually come his way Christian resented the fairly ambivalent support of the clergy during the Succession crisis. Consequently Christian II imported the English style of Humanist Catholicism and began reforming the Church and closing down and seizing properties of “corrupt” ecclesiastical holdings. If he shut down some less corrupt ones and took maybe more land/wealth for the Crown than may have been necessary then so be it. The Papacy seeing Protestantism on the march everywhere was not going to come down on a Catholic king too hard. Counter-Reformation efforts in Holstein and Denmark (Norway was still strongly Catholic) were undertaken and many Protestants fled to Germany or Sweden. In 1542 he went to war with Sweden and was able to recover Jamatland but pushed Sweden ever closer to the Protestant German powers. With strong dynastic, commercial and personal links to the Netherlands however Christian oversaw the importation of Flemish manufacturing and merchants which would overtime greatly improve and modernize the Danish economy. Denmark’s fleet would draw on English and Imperial expertise and become a considerable military and commercial instrument. The Danish nobility saw their influence dramatically weakened and a form of proto-absolutism was instigated by Christian II who also enforced more direct dynastic succession. Christian II died in 1560 and was succeeded by his son John - leaving behind a controversial yet considerable legacy.
Gustav I of Sweden
Sweden meanwhile endured a very different few decades under Gustav Vasa (Gustav I). Gustav had successfully defeated and driven out the Danes in the Swedish War of Liberation and had by the end of 1524 secured himself as King of an independent Sweden. In the 1530s Guatv would oversee the Swedish Reformation. The Reformation had as much to do with the activity of preachers (such as the Petri brothers) as ongoing disputes between Gustav and the Pope and the former’s increasing frustration and desire to cement royal not Papal power. Notably the Swedes were one of the few countries to embrace Lutheran beliefs over the unified Reformed movement popular on the continent proper. Though the king, the nobility and the urban merchant classes were largely converted to Lutheranism by the end of his reign, a declining majority of the peasantry and rural populations remained true (if quietly) to the Catholic faith. Gustav, wary of the return of his old foe, intervened in the Danish Succession Crisis; ultimately unsuccessfully with Sweden outmatched by the coalition of Catholic powers arrayed against it. It’s only measurable gain that of the province of Jamtland were undone a decade later after defeat to Denmark. These setbacks however only encouraged Gustav to find allies elsewhere, notably in the northern Protestant German powers (such as Brandenburg and Pomerania) as well as close ties with Protestant nobility in Poland and in the west. These links would prove valuable later on.
Internally Gustav faced pressure from domestic rebellions over religion and taxation such as in Smaland in 1542. All risings were defeated however and Gustav’s rule was never seriously challenged. As Gustav sought to expand Sweden’s influence in the region he was inevitably drawn into conflict. Between 1554-1557 he fought an inconclusive struggle with Tsar Ivan of Russia over the eastern Baltic. Though no gains were made in this conflict lessons were learned and the Swedish military and state adapted before a second round of fighting in the newly declared Livonian War kicked off in 1558/9. Gustav died in 1560 and was followed by his son Erik (born 1534)[4]. Gustav had managed to forge a nation out of a rebellion, oversee the Protestant Reformation at home and secure foreign alliances and ties abroad. He had left his son a respectable inheritance and a Sweden with growing resources and ambitions. Though the way west was blocked by Denmark, the dramatic events of the 1560s that Erik would seek to capitalize on would show that opportunity and Sweden’s future lay to the east.
[1] This is the only slight change from OTL. Christian II here decides not to execute the clergymen for fear of Papal reaction and instead has them arrested and/or exiled. The rest of the war is OTL.
[2] Another change, Christian II converts to Lutheranism (briefly) in OTL. Here he does not.
[3] She died in OTL leading to a division in his family.
[4] Note this is a different Erik from OTL and he is not mad.
In hindsight the fall of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey appears as an inevitability. This may not have been clear at the time, and it may have been less certain than now accepted however it is fair to say that it was unsurprising. Wolsey had effectively governed England since his appointment as Lord Chancellor in 1515. Since then he had proceeded over the previously discussed reforms, advancements and challenges in the name of King Henry VIII. The problem however or problems, was not his loyalty to the King (though this would indeed be one of the charges that it was attempted to label him with) but his constant antagonism of other leading members of court and of course his personal desire for wealth and power. Wolsey would of course come to blows with elements of the nobility and parliament. His constant advancement of himself, the special influence he had courted over the king and most directly his increasing financial demands (or technically the King’s demands executed through Wolsey) on Parliament had created a sour and bitter reservoir of discontent. On top of this his overbearing manner, personal ambitions and widely believed (if hard to prove) pro-French agenda antagonised Queen Catherine. This was all further compounded by his growing conflict with the Church. As part of the reforms of the Church in England (in so-called Humanist Catholicism) corrupt and mismanaged monasteries were being closed - but Wolsey’s diversion of funds to his private enterprises rather than to the royal treasury and the consequent relish that the Cardinal had for this campaign caused fault lines between himself and leading members of the English Church. In the end it all came to ahead in 1533 with Wolsey coming into confrontation with the new Archbishop John Fischer and his ally Queen Catherine. With enough groundswell amongst Parliament, Church and the Queen the King was forced to remove Wolsey from his public offices and banish him back to York. Wolsey would spend the rest of his life in relative exile (whilst remaining Archbishop of York he was increasingly sidelined) before dying in 1541. As his supporters and people fled or faded from public life he was replaced by Thomas More.
More would serve as Lord Chancellor for eight years, and his tenure would see some of the most critical years of Henry’s reign. As More was a less ambitious and politically active Chancellor than Wolsey it was Henry who really began to take charge of all aspects of political life in the kingdom. The betrothal of Princess Elizabeth to the young King James V of Scotland was confirmed in 1534 with marriage itself taking place four years later. Securing a strong foothold in the north allowed Henry to concentrate elsewhere. Thus in that same year Henry would undertake one of his most ambitious foreign policy adventures - the support for the exiled Danish King Christian II. Henry oversaw the assembly, fitting and dispatch of the English fleet, organised diplomatic support from the Emperor and the Pope and proved that England far from being a political minor was a competent independent power as English naval strength and displays were decisive in the conflict and greatly impressed foreign observers. The restoration of Christian II and later marriage between Princess Dorothea and Prince Arthur cemented England’s position in northern Europe, ensured an alliance with a friendly and indebted power, and earned great prestige for England and King Henry. The navy, before and especially after the Danish intervention, would be Henry’s pet project and greatest investment throughout his reign. Finance from the closing of monasteries, trade and Danish commercial ties as well as new taxation plans was largely reinvested in England’s naval strength. The introduction of larger cannon and an increased emphasis on gunnery skills would underpin the transformation in naval tactics during Henry’s reign. A dedicated and empowered Navy Council was set up under the de jure patronage of Prince Arthur who had accompanied the navy in Denmark and had like his father had a deep appreciation of naval matters and what they meant for England’s future. The Navy Council would eventually evolve into the Royal Admiralty under Arthur’s successor.
Domestically More’s stewardship would see great developments taken. The Welsh Acts of 1536 and 1540 saw the full annexation and integration of Wales (the Tudor ancestral homeland) into the English state. The encouragement of trade (especially in wool) was furthered and aided by the king and a bountiful commercial relationship with the Habsburg Netherlands would flourish during the later parts of Henry’s reign. In the religious sphere More and his ally Archbishop Fischer would continue the reform of the English Catholic Church with royal approval whilst vigorously stamping down and seeking to eradicate perceived heresy. Burnings (of books and people), suppression and arrests continued as More attacked Reformist elements with a near fanatical approach. The king’s increasing push to close monasteries for financial reasons rather than ecclesiastical (like Christian II in Denmark) would lead to tensions between the two. That, combined with ailing health and the stubborn growth of Reformist sects (specifically in the southeast around London and the northern regions near Scotland) lead to More’s resignation in 1541. The king and Thomas More would remain on friendly terms throughout the rest of More’s life and More’s writings on philosophy, religion and his account of King Henry are still widely regarded to this day.
1541 was a fateful year in other ways as well. In a jousting tournament in April to celebrate the visit from Portugal of Mary Tudor, her husband Luis and two children Henry and Maria, Prince Arthur then 24 was struck in the head and knocked unconscious during a joust. Though he remained still for hours and appeared to some to be dead he eventually recovered showing no external signs of lasting damage - indeed he would continue jousting for years to come. Whether the emotional trauma of this experience played any part in Queen Catherine’s death later that year is impossible to tell or more likely due to continued complications following the miscarriage of 1523, but pass away she did in November 1541. The King, the Prince, the two daughters and the country at large would greatly mourn the death of Queen Catherine. She had been well loved and has passed away surrounded by her husband and two eldest children. At peace.
The death of his mother would have a tremendous impact on Prince Arthur. Arthur was articulate, smart, strong, handsome and well loved by the people and court. He was very much the image of his parents, the look and vigor of his father and the dignity and deep Catholicism of his mother. His childhood had been overly protective due to his father’s concerns for his health (made even greater following Arthur suffering from the sweating sickness in the 1520s though he recovered) - but by the time he became a man he was determined to assert himself. He accompanied the fleet in Denmark showing a great enthusiasm in maritime affairs and greatly impressing the Danish King, he would later in the 1540s help lead English forces in France when his father intervened in that round of the Franco-Spanish Wars. Arthur was a great proponent of Humanist Catholicism and supported Thomas More and Archbishop Fischer in his reforms. He traveled too, visiting his sister and young nephew in Portugal, then to the Imperial court in Spain to see his cousin the Emperor and met the Pope. After 1541 Arthur would take a more active role in government and concentrate on his future as king. He and his wife Dorothea would give birth to a son in 1539 though the young boy would die within a few months. But they were able to give birth to a daughter in 1544: Anne. There was time still for more to come.
King Henry was devastated by Catherine’s death and would seek to distract himself from this with other endeavors. He went to war with France in 1542 in support of the Emperor. In that same year with Henry and England's stock with the Pope at an all time high, with Papal blessing he oversaw the establishment of the Kingdom of Ireland, henceforth to be ruled in personal union with England. A relatively successful attempt at bringing the Irish issue under control.The Duke of Norfolk would take over from More as Lord Chancellor and would aid and assist the King in his political and military agenda. Consequently however the Protestant following in England would slowly rebound from More’s suppression. Specifically in London, the south coast, English occupied lands around Calais and Boulogne and increasingly in the far north of the country near the border with Scotland which was coming under the influence of the Reformation and would break with Rome during Arthur’s reign. Henry was advised by the Council to remarry though he himself did not desire it. He eventually was convinced to marry the young Lady Mary Howard (daughter of the Duke of Norfolk) though the marriage appears to be amicable no children came of it. The marriage however showed the increasing influence and ambition of Norfolk and the Howards. Slowly but surely the king’s health began to decline and the final years of his reign were largely uneventful. The odd border skirmish with Scotland, France or in Ireland, the continued efforts to suppress Protestantism (with mixed success) and the gradual but definitely measurable growth in trade, industry and commerce marked the last few years of King Henry’s reign. Henry the Eighth, King of England, Ireland and France and Defender of the Faith would die in 1554 and he would be remembered as a good, devout, ambitious and respected monarch - much loved by his people and much respected abroad. The king was dead. Long live King Arthur.
Now my little summer break is over its back to the action. Decided to skip the Ottoman update for now and focus on the events in England - we are now entering the time period of true excitement and deviation.
Arthurian England (1554-1559)
Arthur, son of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, was crowned King of England, Ireland and France in 1554. He inherited the kingdom that Henry had built. England had seen decades of relative peace and growth. Its trade and economy had grown steadily and its people had avoided the violence that had plagued central Europe. Catholicism had remained the dominant religion in the country, embraced and protected by the majority of both nobility and commoners. The Church at home had been reformed and purged of corruption and excesses by the combined endeavours of Thomas Wolsey and Thomas More under Henry’s reign. This so-called ‘Humanist Catholicism’ had then spread and been copied in Denmark and Portugal. Protestantism however continued to grow like a weed in the country. London and the southeast, its urban and commercial networks, were breeding grounds for the Reformists. The English occupied territories in France too were a buzz with English, French, German and Dutch reformers whilst in the far north along the border with Protestant Scotland the Reformist faith was making deep inroads. What was clear was that religious division and perhaps conflict was coming to the British Isles sooner or later.
As king Arthur would seek to broadly follow his father’s policies. Encouragement of trade, specifically of wool, continued and Arthur enjoyed an amicable relationship with his distant cousin, Charles son of the Emperor Charles V who was serving as his father’s regent in Burgundy and the Netherlands. This allowed for a great deal of commercial trade and ties between the two. Combined with England’s favourable influence in the Baltic trade (as per Henry VIII’s agreements with the Danish king Christian II) these measures brought great wealth to England. This money and capital was used for various projects by King Arthur, such as: the renovation of monasteries and cathedrals, establishment of fortifications in the south and north as well as patronage of the arts - leading to more than a few comparisons to the mythical Arthurian Camelot. But the biggest benefactor of the new wealth was of course the navy. Arthur had long been impressed and interested in maritime affairs, and his declaration that “England’s future lies on the seas” became the motto of The Navy Council. The English fleet, a pet project of his father, would be expanded under Arthur. New warships, tactics and gunnery skills were all key pillars of the new Arthurian English navy. Lessons from the English intervention in the Danish Succession Crisis and periodic involvement with the Franco-Spanish wars were instrumental in this. Arthur was popular with the navy and its sailors and would write of his great pride for the service. The king was also greatly interested in the New World, having seen the great wealth it brought to Spain and Portugal and began laying plans for English expeditions to the west.
Arthur’s interest in the New World was heightened by his contact with his young nephew Henry, son of his sister Mary and Luis Avis of Portugal, younger brother of the Portuguese king. Henry and his mother visited England twice during Arthur’s reign in 1555 and 1558. Arthur was greatly impressed by the energetic and charismatic young man - who had succeeded his father as Duke of Beja in 1555. Henry had similar maritime enthusiasms and had seen first hand the results of Portugal’s American and African endeavours and the wealth that followed. Arthur wanted to establish England as an independent European great power a match for either France or Spain (though still friendly to the Habsburgs). To do this he maintained England’s alliances with Portugal (which he visited in 1557) and Denmark (through whom he was linked to by marriage to Dorothea, daughter of Christian II). Arthur was also aware of the need to maintain the stability in Ireland. Ireland had been (with Papal approval) raised to the rank of Kingdom in personal union with England - the two Catholic countries were linked and steady English investment and attention and the support of the local Irish nobility had resulted in a near unprecedented period of peace and mutual exchange between the two realms. Irish mercenaries (a way in part to provide an outlet for some of the more troublesome Irish) were sent to aid Spain in their conflict with France. The Earl of Sussex was serving as the Lord Deputy for Arthur in Ireland and was able to work with loyal and co-operative Irish families to put down the small intermittent revolts and in many ways Ireland was as secure as England by 1559.
There were however issues. Domestically the realm was becoming divided. On one side the established nobility (strongly Catholic) sought to maintain their positions. Leading this faction was Thomas Howard[1], the new 4th Duke of Norfolk. The Howards were a very powerful and influential family, the Duke’s sister had briefly been Queen of England after marrying Henry VIII towards the end of his reign. The Howards were loyal to King Arthur, over whom they had much influence but had still developed their own power base in the south and amongst the old nobility. Opposing them were the “new men” rising families and players who were riding the back of the new booming commercial order, families such as the Seymours and the Duke of Suffolk were part of this movement as well as also older noble families who opposed the Howards influence: such as Thomas Percy the new Earl of Northumberland [2] who had recently (secretly) converted to the Reformed faith after exposure to literature/agents from Scotland. In fact this movement was full of secret Reformers who wished to remove the influence of the Howards and convince the king to move towards the Reformed faith. These two factions continued to stare daggers at one another as tensions mounted within the country. This was compounded when King Arthur’s only child Anne died young leaving the king without an heir and a wife who seemed incapable of providing a lasting child. The Howards wish to move to replace the current queen with one of their own (who would be younger and more fertile) as the reformists sought to suggest Catherine Percy, sister of the Earl of Northumberland.
Beginning in 1559 Arthur began to show increasing signs of erratic behaviour and became more absent from governing affairs. In this relative power vacuum the factionalization of the country continued and schemes over the king’s marriage and succession intensified. This would all dramatically be rendered moot however. Whilst in his study in Westminster in August 1559 Arthur collapsed suddenly. By the time his servants rushed to his side it was too late, the king was dead. Theories of poison or ‘divine judgement’ were rife. Modern historians believe it was the result of his jousting accident a few years earlier when he had suffered a major blow to the head and temporarily lost consciousness. It is believed this had caused major brain damage which manifested in a sudden trauma in that fateful summer of 1559, this also further explains the king’s changing behaviour. The result was the same, the king was dead and he had no heir. Chaos gripped the country. There were two clear options now, and the Reformists acted first. Word was sent to the Protestant king of Scotland, Robert IV [3]. His father. James V, who he had succeeded in 1551, had married Princess Elizabeth Tudor - King Arthur's younger sister. He was invited to invade England and establish a Protestant dynastic union between the two countries. Messages flew immediately north and the Earl of Northumberland and the Duke of Suffolk began mobilizing. Threat of a Scottish move and the implementation of a Reformed Monarchy terrified the opposing side. The Howards and the Catholics made their move too. Recognising the threat they sent word to Lisbon to the king’s other sister. Though Mary’s health was declining due to what is now believed to have been ovarian cancer, her son, Henry, who had established his own relationships in England during his visits, was in the prime of health. He became the rallying point for the so-called Legitimists. And indeed there is some credible evidence that Arthur had planned to name Henry his heir in the event of a childless death. Henry wasted no time, and with the support of his mother and his cousin Manuel II of Portugal, he declared himself Henry IX of England and adopted the more politically astute family name of Avis-Tudor - the Howards, the Catholic nobility and Ireland rallied to his side. The War of the English Succession had begun.
[1] Not an OTL figure - an alternate son born instead of the OTL Henry son of Thomas Howard.
[2] Also a non OTL figure. Son of Henry Percy.
[3] James V had no surviving legitimate male heirs in OTL. Here he does through his marriage to Elizabeth youngest daughter of Henry VIII. He dies in 1551 due to fever. More on Scotland later.
So this turned out way longer than anticipated... Writers block overcome however. Strap in.
The War of the English Succession (1559-1564) Part I
On August 22nd 1559 Arthur, King of England and Ireland, died suddenly. Within the next few months England would again be the stage for a Dynastic War as two competing claimants battled for the throne. Less than eighty years since the end of the Wars of the Roses, England once more was in the grips of civil war. After the confusion of the immediate chaos following Arthur’s death the battlelines had been drawn and there were two official claimants to the thrones of England and Ireland. To the north was Robert IV, King of Scotland. Robert, who had succeeded his father as King of Scotland in 1551, and was the son of Elizabeth Tudor, Arthur’s younger sister and therefore his nephew. Robert was a Reformist, an adherent to the post-Marburg United Reformed Church which was popular throughout Europe. In the eight years since his ascension Robert (and for his first few years of his reign his mother and regent Elizabeth) had overseen the Scottish Reformation. His father, James, though a Catholic and hostile to the Reformation, had failed to effectively curtail the spread of reform. Key individuals: such as George Wishart (who had repeatedly managed to avoid capture), John Knox and Queen Elizabeth herself (who had been tutored by secret Reformers in England whilst young), all supported and aided the spread of the Reformation. Resistance to the Humanist Catholic reforms instituted south of the border in England by a stubborn and intransigent Catholic clergy in Scotland, meant hostility to the corruption and avarice of the Catholic Church grew steadily in Scotland. It also played host to Reformist exiles from England and the Low Countries which formed a popular underground. Robert, who had adopted his mother’s beliefs, moved to cement the Reformed faith after he succeeded his father. In this he was aided by his own wife Claude, daughter of Francis II of France, who was one of an increasing members of the French nobility who had joined the Reformation - she had, like her brother Louis, been tutored by Thomas Cromwell on her mother (Marie Bourbon)’s wishes. After a series of small Catholic revolts in 1552 and 1554, Robert had managed to suppress (if not totally destroy) Catholic Counter-Reformation in his kingdom.
After the death of his uncle the young Robert (22 in 1559) , an ambitious and talented man, needed little encouragement from the Scottish nobility to stake and enforce his claim in England. The majority of the Scottish nobility supported it anyway: hoping to gain new lands for themselves to the south, cement the Reformation in all of Britain and remove the threat of a Catholic England to Scotland’s independence. Robert had support south of the border as well. First and foremost was Thomas Percy, Earl of Northumberland. He was one of the most powerful lords of the realm and a Reformist. Alongside him was the Duke of Suffolk and the Earl of Essex both of whom were now openly Reformed and opposed to the dominance of the old Catholic families (the Howards first amongst them). These areas were the core centres of the Stuart support: the north and southeast, strongly Reformed and home to a thriving commercial middle class. This then led into the strategy for the Stuart campaign: Robert IV(I) would assemble his armies in Scotland then move to join with Northumberland and head south. Meanwhile pro-Stuart forces would assemble in the southeast: Suffolk would engage with the Howards in Norfolk whilst Essex would secure London and the southeast. It was also hoped that help would come from the English controlled Pas-de-Calais region (strongly Reformed) and possibly even from France. It was desired that by the time the Catholics and Henry had landed that most of England would already be in Stuart hands.
Henry, like Robert, was the nephew of the late King Arthur. Born from the marriage of Mary Tudor and Luis Avis, Duke of Beja - Henry had grown up in Lisbon. Cousin and close friend to the new Portuguese monarch Manuel II, Henry (23) was already an experienced sailor, soldier (having served as part of a Portuguese expedition against Barbary pirates in 1557) and had been Duke of Beja since 1555. His international support came from his cousin who promised ships, gold and men to seat his friend and kin on the English throne. Philip II recently crowned King of Spain after his father’s abdication also pledged diplomatic (if not material) aid. Henry though accepting in part was concerned that landing in England with a Portuguese army would be perceived as a foreign invasion and so was wary of such a direct move. In this he was aided by his domestic supporters. Whereas England was divided between Stuart and Avis-Tudor loyalties - Ireland had declared unanimously for Henry. Well almost unanimously. Some elements of Ireland (far from Dublin) had risen in revolt against “English rule” - not in support of either claimant; though these revolts were minor. The Irish and English nobility in Ireland were behind Henry and had offered him the crown of Ireland [which since Henry VIII’s reign had been a separate realm as the Kingdom of Ireland in personal union with England]. The proclaimed Henry IX and his advisers therefore planned to sail first to Dublin accept the Irish Crown, gather support there and then invade England. With Irish support and with the English Army stationed in Ireland led by the Catholic Earl of Sussex also loyal to him, Henry could land in England with a large and loyal backing of domestic troops. Ireland would also serve as a base for future operations on the British mainland. This would take time however and it was hoped that Henry’s allies in England (principally the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Oxford and most of the minor nobility) and the majority Catholic population could do enough to delay Robert IV before Henry arrived in force. Messages were dispatched from Lisbon immediately to the Avis declarants in England for the war would now start in earnest.
The English Army (save for that element in Ireland under the Earl of Sussex) had been the neglected part of Arthur’s reign and was a small and rather insignificant force compared to its continental counterparts. Consequently in the early months of the Succession War the army disbanded and unwravelled - leaving the various leaders and nobles of England to draw up their own forces and militias from the Army remnants and their own people. This took time. The Scottish Army however took far less time to mobilize. Despite concerns about the winter weather it was argued that speed was more essential and in late October 1559 Robert IV crossed the border with an army of roughly 12,000 men. He soon quickly joined up with Northumberland’s forces (approximately 3-4,000 men) and prepared to move south. He first moved west to secure Carlisle, where the Earl of Cumberland (Henry Clifford) had declared for Henry IX and was serving as the key rallying point for Catholics in the north. Carlisle was a significant outpost in the north and had had its fortifications strengthened during Arthur and Henry’s reigns due to worry over Scottish relations. Left untaken Carlisle would serve as a base in the north for Henry and a constant threat behind Stuart lines. Brushing aside opposition forces in a series of small skirmishes, Robert and his forces headed west. The Siege of Carlisle would begin on November 10th 1559. The Stuarts hoped to have secured the fortification by Christmas allowing them to move south in force in the new year. This would prove to be an optimistic prediction - the Defiance of Carlisle had begun.
The Scottish Army of Robert IV(I):
Whilst Robert of Scotland began the bombardment of the walls of Carlisle and Henry Avis-Tudor prepared to set sail for Ireland the first fighting in southern England burst into life. Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk, was the principal lord in England upon Arthur’s death and as Catholic and an opponent of the “new men” was the principal supporter of Henry in southern England when the war erupted. Both Norfolk and his Reformed opponent Suffolk had been slowly and quietly gathering their resources before Arthur’s death due to rising internal tensions in the country and the doubt over the succession following the death of Arthur’s daughter. Consequently it was these two that sprang into life first. The Duke of Suffolk had not been in London at the time of Arthur’s death but at his house at Westhorpe Hall, Suffolk. Upon hearing the news he immediately contacted his supporters and allies and began raising troops. He was soon joined by Protestant elements of the dissolving English Army and began assembling his men. Norfolk meanwhile who had been in London was making his own moves. He first dispatched word to his brother John who was in Norfolk itself to instruct him to begin raising his own forces. The Duke meanwhile quickly went south to Arundel Castle in West Sussex, which had been his father’s and now his principal residence. He had already spent the last few years strengthening Arundel’s defenses and had his own militia and troops drilling here. London itself was left to be ruled by Queen Catherine, widow of Arthur, who as a Catholic and perhaps aware of any plans her late royal husband had regarding the succession had backed Henry’s claim. Norfolk, effective overall leader of the Catholic forces until Henry arrived, had planned the following: secure London, raise an army in Norfolk under his brother, and in the south under himself; move both forces against Suffolk from either side, defeat him, then secure southern England. This would mean that when Henry landed he would be in Norfolk’s debt, the two would join forces move north and crush the Stuart pretender. Suffolk’s plan conversely was based on a rather accurate prediction of Norfolk's. Suffolk would raise his army of Reformed troops strike north and take out the army under John Howard - then recognising London was well held, move north secure the center of the country and link up with the Stuart forces in the north as they moved south. As John Howard moved his forces southwest, Suffolk moved his forces west to intercept. The Duke of Suffolk, like his late father, was an experienced veteran of English intervention in Europe, and he managed to outmaneuver Howard and the two clashed at the Battle of Cambridge in February 1560, the first major battle of the war. The battle was a victory, though a costly one, for Suffolk. Howard’s army was dealt a major blow and forced to flee north. Suffolk had struck the first blow.
Elsewhere forces were forming up. A new army had been assembling in southeast England in Essex under the Earl of Essex. This was a pleasant surprise to Suffolk who had not expected another Reformed/Stuart declared force to appear in the south. Likewise Norfolk and the Catholic/Avis faction was greatly distressed. The Earl of Essex was not believed to have had the resources himself to assemble an army - even a small one. And that appeared to be true, only around a third of the 6,000 men or so Essex had assembled were provided by him and his domains. The rest were a combination of: men from the English controlled Pas-de-Calais, Protestant exiles from Germany and the Netherlands and French mercenaries. It was also French gold and equipment that funded/armed the Essex force. Francis II it seemed was taking a more active role in the conflict by early 1560, though a Catholic himself the idea of a secured Catholic England allied to Portugal and Spain concerned Francis - and Robert IV after all had a French wife. The existence of the Essex force convinced Suffolk to stay in the south rather than moving north as the balance of power now meant that an assault on London was possible. The Catholic/Avis supporters were not left idle however. Two new armies of the self-declared “Legitimists” (taking their legitimacy from the apparent wish of Arthur to name Henry his heir which they now claimed as incontrovertible fact) were raised in the early part of 1560. The Earl of Oxford John de Vere, a battle hardened Catholic and in many ways the Legitimists answer to the Duke of Suffolk, had under instructions from Norfolk began raising an army in the west of the country which secured Norfolk’s rear while he focused on Essex/Suffolk. Oxford’s force of 6,000 men was ready for battle by May. Further north a larger Legitimist host was being assembled. Though Northumberland and his followers had embraced the Reformation and the Stuarts - the traditional powerful lords of Yorkshire most certainly had not. These lords had begun assembling their own troops around York. This large gathering of Yorkshire nobility and soldiers actually had some considering declaring their own king (likely the aging Richard de la Pole) and letting the white rose fly again. This was discounted however by the vast majority in attendance, few wanted to reopen that sore and besides turning the conflict into a three sided dispute with them being the weakest faction was not seen as a bright idea. Instead, under the symbolic leadership of the Archbishop of York, the army of 9,000 men marched north to combat the Stuart pretender - for England, the Catholic faith, and King Henry. On the same day this army left York heading north, Henry was crowned King of Ireland in Dublin and prepared to sail east to England.
There were now three separate campaign spheres which would play out throughout 1560/1 and culminate in three large pitch battles which would end what can be seen as the first phase of the conflict. The first centers around Henry. After setting sail from Lisbon in early 1560 Henry and his fleet (including a small but organized force of between three and four thousand men, mainly Portuguese) headed to Dublin. There were fears of a possible naval engagement intercepting the Avis expedition. However the English navy had split following the outbreak of the Succession War. Many ships were lost, sunk or destroyed in the early chaotic months but around two thirds of the surviving navy had declared for the Legitimists, the rest fleeing north to join with the Stuarts and Scottish navy. Therefore Henry’s procession to Ireland was relatively unmolested. As the fleet entered St. George’s Channel Henry’s flagship the Sovereign (a rebranded Portuguese warship gifted from his cousin) unfurled a massive banner bearing his new coat of arms: the royal coat of arms of England quartered, but with harp of Ireland replacing the fleur-de-lis in the upper left echelon and the coat of arms of the Avis in the center. Whilst docking at Wexford, Ireland Henry heard news that the Protestant Marquess of Dorset was moving to besiege Bristol which was held by men loyal to himself. Advised of the importance of Bristol as a port/center of operations, Henry dispatched a small flotilla with 500 men to reinforce the city before heading onto Dublin. Here he was greeted with great enthusiasm before accepting the crown of Ireland and the loyalty of the assembled Irish and English lords. Less publicly the Irish Parliament was able to acquire several concessions of autonomy and financial boons as they reocgnised this was their best chance to increase their own power and influence. Regardless Ireland (save those parts in the west still in a low level and ultimately doomed rising) was behind the Legitimist cause. Henry wasted little time and adding a further 5,000 men of the Irish troops and the Earl of Sussex’s Army to his force sailed east. A few naval skirmishes now erupted as pro-Stuart elements of the navy and a small squadron sent south by Robert IV of the Scottish navy harassed and raided the Legitimist convoys - though they scored a few successes they ultimately were unable to seriously hinder the Legitimists and were largely dealt with following a naval clash off Anglesey won by the largely Portuguese Legitimist fleet. A few groups of Henry’s army were landed in Wales (which strongly Catholic and the ancestral homeland of the Tudors was overwhelmingly for Henry) to shore up support there but the main force headed on to Bristol. Landing his army to the south of the city Henry set foot on English soil and moved to lift the siege - though it is worth nothing that it seems the Earl of Sussex was in real effective command of the army. Aware of the threat now to his south the Marquess of Dorset lifted the siege and began to withdraw. As he moved his Protestant army away from Bristol, scouts reported to him that he could not move north as the Earl of Oxford was bringing his own army southward, consequently Dorset realized he had no choice but to stand and fight against Henry and hope to triumph. The Battle of Trowbridge would be a decisive victory for Henry and the Legitimists. The experienced Anglo-Irish-Portuguese troops routed the inexperienced men under Dorset and the Marquess himself was captured. Trowbridge would result in the end of any opposition to the Legitimist cause in the southwest. Not long after the battle the Earl of Oxford would join with Henry and the Legitimists would now begin planning the second stage of their campaign.
Henry's Army in England:
The campaign in the North now would also reach a dramatic end to its first stage. The Scottish-Stuart army had been besieging Carlisle for over a year. The reinforced stronghold, its garrison and its stubborn resolutely Catholic commander Henry Clifford refused to capitulate. The Stuart forces were reluctant to move south whilst Carlisle held out. However its capture had taken far longer than anticipated. And soon word reached Robert IV of the Legitimist Yorkshire host moving north. Wary of being trapped between Carlisle and the Yorkshire army, Robert (leaving a small force to keep Carlisle besieged) moved his army southeast to counter the threat. The Yorkshire army, wishing to avoid the Pennines had advanced along the east coast of England, threatening Robert’s rear. The two forces eventually clashed at the Battle of Durham on the banks of the River Wear. Despite strong resolve the Yorkshire host was defeated, the more experienced and disciplined Scots managed to force the center of the Catholic army and their superiority in heavy cannon prevented the Yorkshire forces from rallying. The battle was a decisive victory for the Stuart cause. With the Yorkshire host fleeing southward, Robert decided to give chase and headed south: northern England and perhaps destiny lay before him. The final major confrontation of 1561 and the first phase of the Civil War took place at sea. Wary of continued French and Continental aid to the Stuart/Reformed cause, Henry IX dispatched a naval force east to sever the flow of men and material crossing over from Calais and the Low Countries. Here the Catholic fleet encountered a naval flotilla of those English ships who had declared for Robert and the Battle of the Downs was a costly but clear victory for the Legitimist cause and cut of the Earl of Essex from his continental aid. It seemed for now at least that control of the seas had passed to the Catholic cause, but appearances can be deceiving. And if France chose to intervene directly…. As the year passed into 1562 the armies of the Earl of Essex, the Duke of Suffolk and the Duke of Norfolk, after a year of intermittent skirmishes, converged on London.
The War of the English Succession (1559-1564)
Part II
The War in the North would now continue. Leaving Carlisle and the small force still besieging it, Robert moved south chasing the retreating Yorkshire host. Another Scottish force (financed largely by France) was assembling just over the border and Robert gave orders for it to follow him south when it was fully prepared. Aware of the consolidation of Catholic forces in the south and Henry's victory at Trowbridge, Robert was aware of the necessity of achieving a major victory of his own to boost his legitimacy and credentials. His goal then was to seize York. Following hard on the heels of the Yorkshire host Robert eventually caught up with them at the Battle of Richmond in Northern Yorkshire. This was a second victory for Robert. The scattered remnants of the Yorkshire beat a difficult and hard retreat southwest across the River Swale and the Pennines into solidly Catholic Lancashire to regroup. Efforts to unite with local Lancashire nobility were undermined by years of Lancashire-Yorkshire enmity. Meanwhile Robert continued his apparently unstoppable march south and within a few weeks had began to besiege York.
In the south meanwhile the various armies began to converge. Whereas 1561 had seen a series of small skirmishes and confused inconclusive encounters in England’s southeast, 1562 would play host to several large pitch battles. At the beginning of the year there were several major armies in the field. On the Stuart side there was the force of the Duke of Suffolk, Henry Brandon, one of the best field commanders in the war. After defeating the armies of John Howard in 1560, Suffolk had proceeded to crush remaining Catholic forces in east England and after deciding against a move north he was now advancing on London from the north. In Kent the Earl of Essex had assembled an Anglo-European force of English troops from the region and from the occupied lands across the Channel, exiled Reformists from Germany and the Low Countries and French mercenaries. He too was approaching London from the southeast. Essex had been spurred into action by the Stuart defeat at the naval clash at the Battle of the Downs. Without continental support his forces would grow no larger or receive reinforcement so it was decided he would have to move against London and join with Suffolk perhaps earlier than planned. Opposing the Stuart forces was the large Catholic army organised by the Duke of Norfolk, larger than either of the two Stuart declarant armies in the field but smaller than their combined might, Norfolk was considering his option. He really had two choices: 1) Await the arrival of Henry and the Earl of Oxford’s combined army marching east from Bristol or 2) move to intercept Essex’s assault on London. Realising the blow that losing the capital - still held by former Queen Dorothea and a Legitimist garrison - would be to the cause, Norfolk decided not to wait for reinforcements from the west and moved to give battle.
This more audacious move apparently surprised the Earl of Essex who had not anticipated Norfolk to move east without waiting for Henry. This perhaps explains the slow pace set on his move from Kent to London, though just as likely this was down to a diminishing supply situation and the difficult logistics of moving and commanding such a multinational force. Regardless Norfolk caught Essex near Dartford around twenty miles southeast of London. The ensuing battle was chaotic and for all intents and purposes was a tactical draw. Norfolk had more troops however Essex possessed battle hardened French mercenaries that somewhat negated the advantage. The battlefield had been turned into a thick mud by constant rain and the flooding of nearby streams. The Battle of Dartford, also known as the Battle of Mud, lasted two days and saw both armies crippled. Eventually Norfolk was forced to withdraw. However Essex had taken such heavy losses he did not believe it was capable to move immediately on London, instead withdrawing to his closest logistical base at Gravesend. Only to find upon reaching it that it had been sacked and his supplies seized by Catholic forces, who now with almost unopposed control of the seas around southern England had landed a small expedition behind him and destroyed his supplies. The Earl of Essex’s army now slowly began to evaporate as the continental mercenaries (now without payment) deserted or went looting, and Essex and a small band of followers eventually made their way towards the Duke of Suffolk. Norfolk’s force too however was battered and he withdrew to his home at Arundel in West Sussex to regroup.
When news of Dartford and Suffolk’s moves reached him Henry spurred into action and began moving his army as fast as possible across England to relieve London. Wary of the news from the north however Henry had dispatched the Earl of Oxford and his small army north to help delay Robert. Suffolk had hoped to take the capital before Henry could arrive. And had tried twice to storm the city, but both times had been driven back out again by determined street fighting. Though large parts of London were damaged by fire and battle in the process. Soon Suffolk’s scouts began arriving informing him that the Catholic army was fast approaching from the west and the Norfolk had remustered his army in the south and was moving north to join with Henry. Suffolk decided to lift the siege and move west to confront Henry, knowing that he would be overwhelmed if Henry and Norfolk could link and predicting (rightly) that Henry would expect Suffolk to continue the siege giving him an element of surprise. The two armies would clash at the Battle of Windsor, the two sides led by their experienced commanders Suffolk and the Catholic Earl of Sussex (who had been in command in Ireland). Despite finding favourable ground the Duke of Suffolk’s infantry were driven back by the Catholic center comprised of veterans from Ireland and the professional Portuguese troops - backed by cannon taken from the warships that had ferried them to England. In a brave but perhaps foolhardy attempt to change the course of battle, Suffolk himself led a charge into the Catholic right flank (held mostly by Welsh infantry and archers). Despite almost being able to rout the Welsh, Suffolk himself was dehorsed and killed leading to the gradual collapse of his army and the battle swung decisively to a Catholic victory. Henry and Sussex had barely been able to rest after their victory when news arrived: York had fallen.
Word of Suffolk’s defeat at the Battle of Windsor caused repercussions abroad. Francis II, King of France, who had supported the Stuart cause indirectly was now increasingly concerned about an Avis triumph and the subjugation perhaps of his Scottish ally. Consequently Francis rapidly raised a small army and moved north to besiege Boulogne, occupied by England since the reign of Henry VIII. It was hoped that this would draw away or at least distract Henry enough to aid the Stuart cause. And failing that, taking Boulogne (and also planned later Calais) would at least be a boon to France and Francis himself if the Legitimist cause in England triumphed anyway. The timing was fortuitous regardless as Philip II of Spain was distracted by an escalating naval conflict with a resurgent Ottoman threat in the Mediterranean and rising tensions in the Low Countries and would be unable to intervene. Though the actual military impact on the war in England was minimal the long term consequences of this action would be massive for France and Europe. Both sides back in England meanwhile began preparing and maneuvering for the final inevitable clash between Henry and Robert. After taking York, Robert paused briefly before moving south again. After successfully seizing several other important towns in the region (Wakefield, Doncaster, Sheffield etc.) Robert was eventually confronted by the Earl of Oxford who had moved north with his army, which had been swelled by Lancashire and Yorkshire Catholic forces, and the two fought the Battle of Derby. Though another victory for Robert, the toll on his army was enough that he had to once again pause and wait for the arrival of reinforcements from Scotland. This was one of the weaknesses of the Stuart cause, with England still being predominantly Catholic (especially in the peasantry and rural areas) and after centuries of Anglo-Scottish enmity; local support for the Stuart cause was thin on the ground and supplies and reinforcements had to come all the way from back in Scotland - through miles of ambushes and raids from Catholic locals. Regardless Robert was ready to move south again in the new year once the weather improved, leaving around 4,000 men behind to prevent the remnants of Oxford’s army from threatening his rear, Robert marched southward. The pause after Derby however had given Henry time to join with Norfolk, resupply and reequip his men with shipments from Ireland and Portugal. As the snows melted Henry moved north. In March 1563 the two armies would meet at the small hamlet of Sharnford, just south of Leicester on the road from London - and only ten miles south of Bosworth.
The Battle of Sharnford was fought on March 1st 1563, between the armies of two Kings, one of Scotland the other of Ireland, the prize the crown of a third realm: England. The Stuart host led by Robert IV was 14,000 strong, including around 1,000 cavalry. The majority of this force was Scottish, but 3,000 or so troops were English (drawn principally from the north under Thomas Percy, Earl of Northumberland) and around 500 or so French mercenaries. Against this was the army of the declared Henry IX of Tudor-Aviz and his Catholic (self named Legitimist host) of 15,000, with a slight advantage in horse and cannon. Around 9,000 of these troops were English, the rest a mix of Welsh, Irish and Portuguese. In many ways this was a battle for Britain and fought by the British. Robert began his assault in the early hours of the morning hoping to seize the initiative. Scottish troops advanced across the battlefield while on their left the English contingent under Percy advanced against the Irish-Portuguese forces under the Earl of Sussex (commander of the English army in Ireland), Robert wisely was reluctant to commit his Englishmen to fight other Englishmen. The Scottish attack was hard and crashed into the Legitimist lines. The advantage seemed to lie with the Scots. The Catholic English began to give way, though on their right the more experienced Porto-Irish troops under Sussex were holding. The Scottish drive began to lose momentum as the superior Catholic cannon across the Soar river continued to pound away. With supporting cannon fire a series of counter charges by Catholic cavalry led by Henry Norfolk (son of the Duke) forced a gradual withdrawal of the Scottish center and right flank. The battle would turn again however in the late afternoon when rain began to pour down onto the battlefield limiting the effectiveness of the Catholic cannon and arquebus as their powder became wet. The Scots now rallied and their resolve stiffened as now, on the relative defensive, they were able to hold off the Catholic assault. The battle remained in limbo for a short time before a charge by Anglo-Portuguese cavalry led by Henry IX himself into the Scottish left (held by the Protestant English) threatened to turn this flank. Robert was now concerned the battle was turning against him, but noticed that by moving all his cavalry to engage, Henry had left his other flank, held principally by the Welsh exposed. Robert led his remaining cavalry in a charge into the Welsh in attempt to rout them and encircle the Catholic host. The ground here, close to the river Soar however, was wet and muddy and the charge was not as impactful as it could have been and the fighting was fierce. Here despite lacking their own cavalry cover and facing fearful odds the men of Wales, on St. David’s day, held. Robert his final gambit failed and his other flank in tatters was forced to retreat. For his part Henry had won. Though at a terrible cost. Thousands lay dead. Welsh, Irish, Scots, Portuguese, French and above all English. The Earl of Sussex the great Catholic commander had died in the fighting, as had the son of Thomas Percy of Northumberland and around a dozen or so other lesser nobles. The battle was over, but the war was not.
Coat of Arms of Henry Tudor-Aviz.
Takes the traditional coat of arms of the throne of England and replaces the top left fleu-de-lis with the Irish Harp to symbolize his title of King of Ireland and to reflect the increasingly important role of Ireland in the Kingdom. In the center is the Aviz Coat of Arms of the Duke of Beja, his family's title in Portugal (now relinquished).
The war would now see months of skirmishes and small battles as the Scottish army slowly withdrew northwards. Shorn of the experienced and battle hardened Earl of Sussex the Legitimists (now led directly by Henry) were unable to win a second decisive battle and instead played cat and mouse with Robert and his men for the next six months. In the west Essex and his regrouped army including the Yorkshire and Lancashire contingents, pushed up the west coast supported by the Catholic Anglo-Portuguese navy in the Irish Sea. French aid for the Stuart cause would now be decisive if it was to survive. France was still coming to terms with the sudden death of Francis II after he died of a wound taken from a stray English musket ball at the Siege of Boulogne. The new king, his 21 year old son, Henry II though favourable to the Stuart cause was focused on securing his new reign and increasingly serious domestic matters, though did promise financial aid in the new year. The fighting retreat continued as the Catholic army retook York and moved further north. In August they entered Durham and the Earl of Essex finally relieved the siege of Carlisle in the northwest, the men who held that castle for four years wept in joy at their relief and its commander the Earl of Cumberland was hailed as a hero by Henry IX and even received a personal letter from the Pope. In the New Year Henry attempted to cross the Tyne river and drive the last Stuart forces out of England occupying Northumberland. But he was repulsed. Henry tried again further east. But was repulsed. He ordered Essex and Cumberland to strike from the west to outflank the Stuarts, but the difficult mountainous terrain limited their mobility and they were held near Greenhead. Henry tried a naval descent near Berwick behind the Scotts, but the still not inconsiderable Scottish navy disrupted the attempt.
The war had reached stalemate. Robert and Thomas Percy still held onto Northumberland and Henry, though in control of the rest of England could not force them out. His Welsh and Irish forces, exhausted by years of fighting and marching were growing restless and his English men, mostly not professional soldiers, were slowly beginning to slip home. England itself had been badly hurt by the Civil War and large parts of it were in a poor state, trade and agriculture were both also in tatters. Robert for his part knew victory was gone but was determined to hold this small part of England, Protestant as it was. He still hoped for French intervention. However the assassination of Henry II of France in early 1564 and the collapse of that country into Civil War ended that hope. It also concerned Henry IX as suddenly the future of Western Europe seemed to hang in the balance. Closer to home, peasant unrest in Ireland and now in a hungry wartorn England was one the rise and with his closest ally (the Earl of Sussex) dead his position was precarious and he knew it. After two more inconclusive but bloody battles it was clear that neither side could gain an advantage on the other. King John of Denmark now offered to mediate. In return for financial indemnities, abandoning his claim to the English throne and recognising Henry as King of England, Robert was allowed to keep the roughly two thirds of Northumberland under his control as Thomas Percy became a subject of the Scottish Crown and took most of his Earldom with him. Both sides now had to face the aftermath of this brutal struggle as the fighting in France would now take the center of the European stage.
In 1547 Francis II succeeded his father Francis I as King of France, as his wife Marie Bourbon was crowned Queen. The stability of the House of Valois, joined as it was in marriage to their great domestic rivals the Bourbons, seemed beyond doubt. The country had fought with relative success against the vast encircling Habsburg Imperium, secured alliances with the Protestant German princes and the Jagiellon bloc in the east and though Reformed elements were on the rise the religious divisions within the country seemed muted. Yet within two decades the county would be in the grip of a bloody religious and dynastic Civil War.
In order to better understand the course of the French Civil War of 1564-1578 it is important to outline what caused the gradual weakening of the French monarchy and the rise of the two armed camps within France. There are three interlinked causes for the outbreak of the Civil War: financial, religious and political. Let us start with the financial aspect. Francis II inherited a relatively stable economy from his father, but the balance was a tenuous one. Francis I’s wars, domestic improvements, early colonial activities and subsidies to anti-Habsburg forces had put grain strain on the French balance sheet. What the country needed was several decades of peace and no foreign adventurism. However, Francis II’s obsession with building up French military strength to rival the Habsburgs, including a large naval building program inspired by the English, made this all far worse, though with time the economy may still have recovered. However it did not get this as in 1553 a new Franco-Spanish War erupted lasting for five years. That conflict involved bloody fighting in Italy, along the Rhine and on the Franco-Spanish border [This conflict is roughly OTL]. The war saw no border changes, with France unable to take Metz or drive the Burgundians out of Artois, but in turn hanging on to Savoy. All it did succeed in doing (besides resulting in thousands of deaths) was force France to declare bankruptcy in 1557 - it was only Spain’s own financial near collapse and the ongoing Subjugation of the Regions by Charles in Aragon that spared France from total defeat [1]. Rather than have time to recover from this France was again distracted by the outbreak of the War of the English Succession in 1559. France was unable to intervene directly, but the subsidiaries and aid sent to the Stuart cause (eventually unsuccessfully) put even greater strain on the French economy. In fact it was the intervention in this war with the opportunistic Siege of Boulogne which saw Francis II’s untimely death in battle. By the time his son, Henry II, ascended the throne in 1563 therefore the French state was in an incredibly dire financial state - the attempt to compensate this by squeezing the nobility and raising various taxes was not appreciated by many of the other French noble families and their reactionary status quo intransigence prevented necessary reforms. This led into the political divisions that contributed to the Civil War. Anger at the increasing demands of the Crown, jealousy of the Bourbons who through marriage were now clearly the second family in France, the ambitions of other major noble families (specifically the influential Catholic House of Guise) and the sudden deaths of both Francis II and later Henry II created a tinderbox of aristocratic resentment and opportunism.
The final aspect of the conflict was of course religion. Specifically the rising struggle between the Roman Catholic Church and the followers of the United Reformed Church and the influential John Calvin. France was not immune to the spread of the Reformation and indeed even by the time of the death of Francis I it had made significant inroads. Though the peasantry remained strongly Catholic (somewhere around 80-85%) the Reformation made strong inroads into parts of the merchant and commercial classes as well as the nobility - with the Bourbons being the largest house to be ‘infiltrated’. The most significant converter of course was Marie Bourbon, now Queen of France. She fostered a significant Protestant faction in the royal court and even brought in the English Reformer Thomas Cromwell (in exile in Calais) as a tutor for her second son Louis. After she became Queen she encouraged the spread of the movement, John Calvin’s exile was lifted and Reformists teachers and printed works began to arrive in the country from northern Germany and Switzerland and then increasingly from English exiles. This group continued to grow, and elsewhere in French middle and upper society the light or rot of Reformation (depending on one’s view) continued to spread. It is interesting to consider how the spread of Reformism may have been at least disrupted had either the original Parisian plot to spread anti-Papal placards throughout Paris gone ahead [2] or if Francis II had taken much of an interest in theological issues. However it is clear that he did not and Francis II was focused foremost on military and foreign affairs - not that he was a bad king as few would claim, merely that his interests lay on the battlefield and his military reforms. The domestic government of the country was effectively run by a triumvirate of Queen Marie, her brother the new Duke of Bourbon Charles IV (a Catholic) and Anne, Duke of Montmorency Marshall of France, another Catholic who had one foot in domestic affairs and one in the military endeavors of the King, consequently he was the least influential of the trio. It is important to note that both Charles Bourbon and Anne Montmorency did not support the Reformist movement but did not directly oppose the Queen’s efforts for personal political reasons - Charles obviously recognising the strong influence his family gained by the Queen’s power and Montmorency due to his deep personal dislike for the Catholic House of Guise who were the main opponents of the Queen. They were the original and leading members of the Politique faction that attempted to promote national and political issues over religious squabbling [3]. The religious mood in the county however was tense. Violence and abuse between Protestants and Catholics was far from uncommon and many Catholic nobles began to stir up anti-Protestant and increasingly anti-Marie sentiments in their own lands. Consequently by the time of the ascension of Henry II in 1563 France was economically crippled, politically fragmented and religiously divided and discontented. In addition with the English dynastic conflict finalising in a victory for the Tudor-Avis faction, France found itself increasingly isolated diplomatically. An explosion was inevitable - and the spark came in February 1564.
In that fateful month Henry II was assassinated by a Catholic fanatic who claimed Henry II was a secret Reformer who intended to abolish Catholicism in France - likely whipped up by the more militant parts of the Catholic nobility or indeed possibly directly supported by them [4]. Although it is difficult to know for certain if Henry II was indeed a secret Reformist - it seems unlikely. The most widely accepted belief is that Henry II was inclined to the Humanist Catholicism popular in England, Denmark and Portugal - that of reform within the Catholic Church but there is no evidence of any clear break from Rome in the mind or actions of King Henry II. Now where there is some debate on Henry II’s potential Reformist beliefs there is no debate on those of his younger brother, the now King Louis XIII. Louis XIII, King of France, was an open adherent to the Reformed Faith. This was well known by the Catholic nobility and tends to downplay (but not rule out) the possibility of their direct involvement in the assassination of Henry II. Enraged by the death of his brother Louis moved against the main Catholic families (particularly de Guise). This was interpreted and proclaimed by the Catholic elements as a plot to forcibly instill the Reformation in France, and they took up arms (encouraged by Rome and Spain). The situation of course then spiraled out of control and France was engulfed in Civil War as central authority began to break down.
The war which ran in one form or another for about fourteen years is usually divided into three phases and we will use that formula here for it does make understanding and following the conflict far easier. This will not be an account of every single battle or personal action but more of a general overview including the key events to give a broad comprehension. The first phase of the war is occasionally referred to as the Local Phase and lasts roughly from 1564 to 1568. This period as its name would imply would see local regional conflicts break out across France each telling their own local story. This is a very bloody four years for France and as the violence was often undertaken against the French people (and usually the peasantry) by other Frenchmen makes it all the sadder. As the country collapsed into civil strife the massacre of Reformists (suspected or proven) by Catholic militias and mobs was matched only in ferocity by the massacre of Catholics (suspected or proven) by Reformists. In the south and west the Reformist forces, led by Charles Bourbon for the most part, secured territory and key towns and cities such as La Rochelle and Lyon. In and around Paris the King secured control and moved into the Loire Valley. Mutinies and revolts within the Royal army (such as it was) saw around half of it dissolve early on, but a reminder comprised of Reformists or simply those loyal to the King, survived and saw action at St Denis in 1565 (a Reformist victory) and a year later at Clermont (a decisive Catholic triumph which briefly threatened Paris in late 1566). The Catholic League as it became known was expertly led by the brothers Duke Francis of Guise (victor at Clermont) and Cardinal Charles of Lorraine. They secured control of the northeast, Brittany, the east of the country and Provence in the far southeast. It is hard to form exact counts of the dead in this period but it is estimated the number of French killed in massacres, riots and murders (aka not including the battles) during these four years at near half a million. Not all of the major noble families took up arms in this period some (including Anne de Montmorency) were torn between religious belief and loyalty to the king so sat out the early period [5], though most did raise arms simply to defend their holdings in the increasingly lawless state of France. The end of the Local phase in 1568 is marked by three events, two military and one political. First their were the two great clashes at Mayenne in the west (another victory for Francis de Guise which effectively secured the northwest and Brittany for the League) and at Chambery in the southeast where Charles Bourbon defeated a combined Catholic-Savoyard [6] army that was attempting to retake Lyon. The political act was the Declaration of Nantes, where the major Catholic League leaders decide to formalize their position in the hope of unifying their movement and attracting foreign support. They argued for the abdication of Louis XIII and a regency for his one year old son Charles (who they would of course guide) and the formal declaration of Catholicism as the official religion of France and the denouncement of the Reformist heresy. The war would now enter its second phase.
The second phase of the war, often creatively termed the Middle phase, lasted from 1568 to the direct involvement of Spain in 1572. One key difference between this period and the preceding time was the increasing professionalization of the two armies. Those elements that had remained loyal to the King or were Protestant had been molded into the Royal Army and along lines set out by Charles Bourbon and English Protestant exile veterans. The Catholic League Army meanwhile was tightening its control on the east, north and northwest of the country, and saw its expanding army advised and supported by Spain, and to a far smaller but rising extent, England. A Catholic peasant revolt in the Loire Valley induced a League Army under Francis de Guise to move on Orleans. King Louis meanwhile was distracted by a renewed Catholic campaign in the northeast, supported by Burgundian mercenaries (financed by the Catholic nobility borrowing from Spanish and Flemish banks). The north would then see several years of back and forth campaigning with the two Catholic armies (in northeast and northwest) attempting to drive on Paris and Orleans as Louis sought to defend against these blows. In the end Louis was unable to prevent the fall of Orleans in late 1571 but did crush the northeastern army at Amiens. The following year Duke Charles III of Burgundy prepared to intervene directly in the conflict but a large revolt in the Protestant northern parts of the Burgundian Netherlands [Roughly analogous to OTL - more on this later] scuppered his plans and he turned his army north not south. In the south of France the war devolved into a series of sieges and counter-sieges. La Rochelle was besieged by Catholic forces whilst Toulouse changed hands repeatedly. As 1570 turned to 1571 the Catholic forces in the southeast managed to force Charles Bourbon to withdraw from Lyon and secured much of the Rhone valley. In 1572 however Bourbon, reinforced by troops from the triumphant campaign in the northeast and Swiss mercenaries from the Protestant Swiss Confederacy (funded by loans taken by the French Crown from domestic and German sources and indeed discounted by the friendly co-religious Swiss) defeated the Catholic League army at Nevers as it sought to join de Guise at Orleans. Not long later a Reformed army under Protestant leader Gaspard de Coligny relieved La Rochelle. In 1572 therefore concerned about the direction of the war following the Dutch Revolt and the battle at Nevers, and with his country now somewhat recovered from the domestic unrest following the Subjugation of the Regions - Philip II of Spain entered the war in earnest alongside the Catholic League. Two Spanish armies, one in Catalonia led by the king’s younger brother John, Governor of Tunis since 1559, and another in the Habsburg controlled Duchy of Milan under the Duke of Alba, moved towards France.
Flag Increasingly Used by Those Loyal to Louis XIII. Traditional French Cross used in the French army with the Valois Coat of Arms. Louis XIII preferred those of the pre-Francis I Valois Kings due to the less Catholic imagery.
The Coat of Arms of Francis de Guise
The final phase of the French Civil War was the longest and bloodiest lasting from the Spanish entry into the war up until the end of hostilities in 1578. Depending on the source this is known as the National, Long or Spanish phase of the war and would see the deployment of large foreign armies in France and the increasing politicization (at the expense of religious) nature of the conflict. The Spanish entry immediately put King Louis and his allies on the backfoot. There was already a strong Catholic League Army in Orleans not far from Paris under Francis de Guise. In Provence the remnants of the army defeated at Nevers under the command of Francis’ younger brother the Duke of Aumale (and then following his assassination in 1574 by the Duke of Mayenne) was regrouping and other smaller forces besieged Angers and occupied Brittany. Spanish Armies under Alba and Prince John were now on the march. The Protestant/Loyalist forces meanwhile were divided into a force led by the King near Paris and another by the Duke of Bourbon in the southeast, as well as scattered local garrisons holding key towns about the country and a third force being gathered in the southwest lead by Coligny near Navarre whose King John IV (Louis XIII’s brother in law) was openly sympathetic to the Reformation.
Starting in the southeast Bourbon began to pull his army northwards for fear of being trapped between Amuale and Alba. He was reluctant to abandon Lyon for a second time and consequently fought Alba’s army at Vienne, where he suffered a narrow defeat and was forced to withdraw from the region entirely. Meanwhile Prince John of Spain invaded Navarre which he and King Philip (correctly) believed was granting aid to the Reformed cause. The Navarrese alongside the French forces in the area fought a valiant resistance slowing, but not halting the Spanish move north. In northern France the situation was rosier for the Royalists (as it is now proper to refer to the two sides as Royalists and League as the religious element continued to loses primacy). King Louis moved his army (now bolstered by troops and gold provided by his uncle by marriage William of Hesse) out of Paris and crushed Francis de Guis at the battle of Dreux west of the capital in late 1573 - buying time and relief for the Royalist cause. 1574 was a year of gradual Spanish/League advance in the south and withdrawal in the north, save Brittany. 1575 was the decisive year. In March of that year after long since overrunning Navarre, Prince John’s Spanish Army had besieged and then (aided by Spanish warships) sacked La Rochelle. The sack of La Rochelle was a brutal bloody affair, with thousands murdered due to suspected Protestant beliefs or simply murderous rampaging as was all too common in this period. It was a sad horrific massacre in a war littered with sad horrific massacres. What made this different however was that it was committed on French men, women and children by a foreign army - and this story was retold and exaggerated by the printers and their pamphlets (who were disproportionately Protestant) again and again throughout France. The story’s effect on the peasantry (those that could get hold of the info or be able to read it) and merchant classes varied from horror to righteous pleasure at the death of heretics. Amongst the nobility however the reaction was very much fury. A few, including the new Duc de Montmorency, Francis, who had succeeded his father Anne a few years earlier, declared immediately for the King. Despite being a Catholic, Duke Francis despised the House of Guise [OTL] and Spain’s entry and the massacre at La Rochelle were the final straw. It was Louis XIII’s wife, the older and very intelligent Catherine of Navarre (sister of King John of Navarre), whose involvement was crucial however. Recognising the opportunity to turn the focus of the war to one of combating Spanish invasion rather than a religious divide she, along with the Catholic Royalists Charles de Bourbon the new addition of Francis de Montmorency and the other Politiques persuaded the King to publish the Edict of Chartres. The Edict guaranteed religious and political toleration for Catholics and Reformists (though not for the tiny Lutheran minority). As well as containing a declaration protecting Catholics and the Catholic Church (and its lands in France) from harm or assault from the Crown or others and the denunciation of de Guise and his followers as Spanish puppets [Effectively a mix of a French version of the Peace of Augsburg and the OTL Edicts of Amboise and Saint-Germain]. Almost simultaneously Orleans was retaken by forces loyal to Louis. Those nobles who had largely tried to remain on the sidelines almost to a man declared for the King and the tide now slowly began to turn. Then later in the year the Duke of Alba’s army in the southeast pivoted abruptly and moved east - leaving a small force to supplement the Savoyard force as that Dukedom has been largely liberated from the French - to northern Italy as the conflict in Austria erupted threatening the Habsburg base of power in the Empire.
It is at this point that a proper analysis of Spain’s role and agenda for this conflict is worth discussing. The outbreak of the war between Habsburg and Wittelsbach for the Austrian Succession was indeed a major distraction for Spain - and likely a more pressing one than continued intervention in a bloody French Civil War. However did Spain need to dispatch so much of its forces and focus that way at this time - and for that matter could it have invested more directly in France from the beginning? Maybe. But Spain did not do so, so what were King Philip’s motivations? Firstly it has to be again reiterated that Spain (like France and to a lesser extent England) had been fighting externally and internally off and on for decades and had its own financial and economic malaise to deal with. Spain’s own exchequer and Spanish merchants cried out for a period of peaceful recovery. Secondly is what we would now term the realpolitique reason. Did Spain prefer a Catholic France to one ruled by a Protestant king? Probably. But what Spain really desired was a weak France. The French were the only major power in Western Europe that could rival or threaten the Habsburg Empire - so a decisive early (or even late) intervention that ended the conflict and unified France behind a Catholic dynasty was not beneficial. A long Civil War, drawn out and bloody that weakened France however was far better, indeed imaging a Catholic defeat (still not the desired option) would leave a France that was led by a Protestant King but home to a majority Catholic population leaving it almost certainly too internally divided to threaten Spain for decades. No, a weak and possibly reduced in size France, was the best case option for Spain. So a smaller (and therefore financially more bearable) intervention alongside the League that prolonged but did not immediately end the conflict was a sensible course. And if that had been Spain’s only strategic dilemma in the 1570s it is likely it would have paid off, allowing Spain to slowly recover economically and see France deteriorate before an indebted Catholic monarchy could be secured in Paris. Whereas the Austrian affair threatened directly the Habsburg mastery of Europe and thus Spain’s prioritisation of its stretched resources for that conflict makes a great deal of sense.
With around a third of Spain’s forces therefore leaving the conflict and with the Empire clearly distracted by the Austrian Succession Crisis the Swiss felt comfortable enough to move in a larger force openly to support the Royalists. In response to aid the flagging League forces the Burgundians moved into France now that the Dutch uprising had (temporarily) been put down but with limited success. Henry IX of England too sent aid, but with the country still recovering from its own Civil War, only 3,000 men (mostly Catholic Irish) were able to be financed and sent to Brittany to support the League forces there. The intricacies of the final few years of the conflict are not necessary to cover in detail but the broad summary can be outlined as such: the gradual reassertion of the French Royal authority alongside increasing defections from the League to the Royalist cause simultaneous with the solidification of Anglo-League control of Brittany and Spanish forces holding onto Navarre and defending Savoy. Two final battles in 1578 at Blois (a Royalist triumph seeing Francis de Guise defeated permanently and forced into exile) and just north of Nantes (an Anglo-Spanish-League victory that prevented a reconquest of Brittany) effectively ended the conflict. A series of agreements, treaties and pardons (collectively known as the Treaties of Rouen) served as the official end of the war. Louis XIII was accepted as King of France by internal and external enemies and the religious toleration of the Edict of Chartres was guaranteed and recognised. Those Catholic nobles who by the end had defected to the Crown were largely pardoned and the remaining minority (mainly de Guise and core allies) were exiled, arrested or executed. In exchange Louis XIII and John IV were forced to recognise the Spanish annexation of Navarre south of the Pyrenees and the renewed independence of and effective Spanish influence in the Duchy of Savoy (both effective facts on the ground anyway) as well as some minor border adjustments in Burgundy and Spain’s favour. The final point of Brittany was the most contentious but again the de facto situation was begrudgingly recognised. Brittany was severed from the French crown and its status as an independent Catholic Duchy was established. The aging Philibert of Chalon-Arlay, titular Prince of Orange, a Catholic noble from Provence who had fought for Charles V and then for the League and who had a dynastic link to the old Breton rulers through his father, was named the new Duke and taking the name John VI. Louis XIII’s realm was battered, broken and bruised. Two million of his people had died, Brittany and Savoy had been lost, the economy was in tatters and his people restive. France was now clearly in the second rank of European powers and unable to effectively exert influence beyond its borders for decades. It was debatable whether the Valois Monarchy and France itself would survive the next few years. But survive it would, slowly, slowly rebuilding from this disaster and re-emerge as a major power in the next century. For the foreseeable future however it seemed Europe and total dominance was within the grasps of the Habsburgs. Or was it?
[1] Both France and Spain repeatedly declared bankruptcy in OTL in their wars
[2] The OTL Affair of the Placards which I previously butterflied.
[3] An OTL Faction/Movement in this period (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politique)
[4] If curious look up the number of OTL assassinations in France during the Wars of Religion. It is frankly ridiculous.
[5] This is the key fundamental difference from OTL. Rather than a chaotic weak monarchy which in OTL was a relative spectator for the Wars of Religion here the monarch is active and influential diluting those who take up arms against the Crown.
[6] The Catholic Duchy of Savoy had been under French rule for a few decades now and has taken this moment to revolt, allying itself with its coreligionists.
Author’s Note & Map:
First of all welcome back. I have attempted above to lay out and detail what I think is a realistic, compelling and sensible portrayal of how a Protestant Monarch could come to the throne of France. A majority Protestant France by the 1580s I think all would agree is impossible. However I believe the idea of a French monarch adhering to the Reformed faith but not seeking to impose it (and therefore ruling over a careful balance) I think is plausible, just. With a few changes from OTL. I’ve laid them out elsewhere but to summarize the key changes from OTL that lead to this possibility are: 1) The maintenance of Royal power in the Civil War as opposed to the impotence of the French Crown in OTL which largely sat out the majority of the conflict until the later stages. This also prevents an outright immediate split of the nobility on religious lines such as the eventual Royalist commitment of the Montmorency’s ITTL. 2) The overall larger influence and numbers of Reformists in France due to earlier events in this timeline such as the unification of the Reformation at Marburg, the ability of a united Swiss Confederacy to aid the cause, English Protestant exiles, the Valois-Bourbon dynastic alliance allowing the OTL Huguenot friendly Bourbons more influence and a more influential John Calvin. 3) More sensible and pragmatic leadership on the part of the Royalist/Reformed faction. In conclusion I hope you can accept the plausibility of the above and join with me as the story progresses. Plus, why write alternate history if not to push the bounds? Direwolf.
Unions Old and New: Poland and Lithuania (1540-1575)
Sigismund II succeeded his father as King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania in 1548. Sigismund’s father, Sigismund I “The Old”, had reigned for over forty years overseeing the gradual cemention of royal power in both Poland and Lithuania, the expansion of control over Prussia, patronage of the arts and expanded religious toleration, not only of Jews and Orthodox Christians but also later of Lutherans and the Reformed Church[1]. Sigismund II was his father’s only surviving son and had been elected heir in 1529 whilst his father still lived - encouraging a seamless succession. The only complication therefore around the succession arose around resistance to Sigismund II’s new wife, the beautiful Lithuanian Calvinist noble Barbara Radziwiłł, who he had married in secret in 1547 following the death of his first wife Elizabeth of Austria. Complaints from the Polish nobility in the 1548 Sejm almost threatened to escalate seriously but the king eventually won out by 1550 supported by Barbara’s influential relatives in the Lithuanian nobility and the matter was dropped. It all almost appeared to be a moot point regardless when now accepted Queen Barbara almost died of an illness in 1551, but she eventually recovered[2] - the couple however would remain childless.
Despite this relatively rocky start the next decade of Sigismund II’s reign would be one of relative peace and economic and cultural growth. The king oversaw the development, modernization and expansion of several palaces and castles in Poland whilst expanding his own personal collection of jewels with which he had developed quite an interest. Lacking however the political strength and authority of his father, Sigismund II’s reign would see the gradual increasing in power of the nobility especially in Lithuania. Relations between the two halves of Sigismund II’s realm were never particularly positive. The Lithuanian nobility resented what they saw as a gradual increase in Polish power and influence at their expense whilst the Poles for their part looked down on their eastern neighbours. Relations between the two groups were exasperated in 1526 as the temporary weakness of the Ottoman Turkish Empire following its defeat in Hungary saw Polish and Lithuanian nobility compete for influence and land in Ruthenia, Moldavia and the Ukraine as Ottoman influence retreated. Sigismund I was able to suppress this rivalry but his son would have less luck. The interests and desires of the Lithuanian and Polish aristocracies would continue to diverge and mutual distrust would fester.
Sigismund II, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania
In religious policy Sigismund would continue his father’s policy of light religious toleration. Lutheranism had made early inroads into Poland and had become the de facto state religion in the Prussian Duchy in the 1520s. Following the unification of the Reformed Church at Marburg this process accelerated. Queen Barbara herself a Reformist favoured the spread of the movement as did increasing amounts of the Polish nobility and upper classes, and to a lesser extent in Lithuania as well. Jan Łaski was one of the leading Polish Reformed preachers/thinkers and ended up becoming secretary to the king and pushed the king for the establishment of a Polish National Church (unsuccessfully) - however his influence did encourage the growth of the Reformation in both Poland and Lithuania and in 1563 the Bible of Brest (a Polish language version of the Bible) was published[3]. In 1563 threats of a split within the Polish Reformed movement were overcome by Laski, the Queen and her allies and the movement remained unified. In 1569 the Krakow Declaration granted a huge degree of rights and protections to the Reformed movement (especially the noble followers). By the time of the king’s death in 1571 nearly two thirds of the magnate class and a third of the lesser nobility and townspeople (but not the peasant majority) in Poland were Reformists[4]. It had also made significant but less dramatic inroads into Lithuania.
The big foreign policy test of Sigismund II’s reign was the Livonian War. The Livonian War had begun in 1558 when Tsar Ivan IV of Russia (the first Russian Tsar) invaded Livonia in response to the Livonian efforts to facilitate an alliance and closer political ties with Poland-Lithuania. Many elements of the Livonian populace welcomed the Russians as liberators from the “German” rule of the Order. In 1559 another major crack between the Polish and Lithuanian halves of the realm was brought to life by the Treaty of Vilnius when the Livonian Order placed themselves under the protection of the Grand Duke of Lithuania (Sigismund II) in order to help drive out the Russians. The Polish Sejm however refused to ratify the treaty seeing it as a “Lithuanian” issue and not wishing to get involved[5] - consequently the military effort to contain the Russians would be Lithuanian one alone. The war continued to go well for the Russians so in 1561 the Livonian Order (following a major defeat to the Russians) dissolved itself into secular Duchies under the Lithuanian Crown - at this point so many Lithuanian nobles were growing irritated and resentful of the Poles they offered the Lithuanian Crown to Tsar Ivan without success [6]. A short truce in the war was signed in 1561 between Lithuania and Russia though Sweden now took up arms against the Russians so the war continued. Lithuania would rejoin the war in 1562. The war would rage back and forth in Livonia and along the Polish-Lithuanian border and Russia slowly gained the upper hand.
Fighting in the Livonian War
Sigismund II eager to strengthen and preserve the union between Poland and Lithuania and very aware that he had no male heirs began pushing for closer political union - using the Russian threat as a way to convince the apathetic Lithuanian nobility to get in line. It is likely that in time this may have worked [7] but then the Russian threat disappeared. The death of Ivan IV in 1565 and the sudden and dramatic collapse of the Russian state that followed transformed the situation. Lithuania now not only had breathing room to regroup and recover but also a great opportunity to expand in the east. The desire for Union in Vilnius went from lukewarm to very cool and the dream died. As did Sigismund himself a few years later in 1571. The Lithuanians moved first. Sensing a golden opportunity to free themselves of the arrogant Poles and focus their efforts against the collapsing Russians in the east (two causes which transcended religious differences) the Lithuanian nobility gathered quickly to elect a new Grand Duke.
There were two factions within the Lithuanian nobility roughly split on religious lines. The first was led by the Radziwiłłs, the relatives of the late Queen who had died three years before her husband. The two leaders of the family were Mikołaj "the Red" the Grand Chancellor of Lithuania (brother of the late queen) and his cousin Mikołaj "the Black" Radziwiłł. The Radziwiłłs were supportive of and adherents to the the Reformed Faith and had considerable power and influence in Lithuania which they hoped to leverage alongside their dynastic links to the old Queen into gaining the Lithuanian throne. Opposing them were those who sought to limit the power of the Radziwiłł family and were largely Catholic (and some Orthodox) better representing the majority of the Lithuanian population. They were a collection of multiple groups with multiple leaders but the respected, intelligent and military veteran Jan Hieronimowicz Chodkiewicz (a former Reformist now Catholic again) was the most assertive amongst them. These two groups however many differences they had possessed two major goals in common: the continued and re-asserted independence of Lithuania from Poland and the defence of the powers of the nobility at the expense of the monarch. With a worry about a Polish attempt to forcibly maintain the union and wanting to take advantage of the Russian implosion both sides came together to make a fast decision. The Radziwiłłs of course wanted one of their own as the new Grand Duke, but this was blocked by their opponents and in the end it was decided that like tradition a foreign prince was best. But whom? He had to be a Catholic this was fundamental to the anti-Radziwiłł faction and even the Reformed nobles realised that the population was not with them and their influence was not as great as their co-religionists were enjoying in Poland. It was also desired that he should be young, allowing him to be “guided” by the nobles and less likely to attempt to curtail their powers. The Lithuanian court settled on John, second son of Stephen King of Hungary. John, 13, was not only a Catholic but a member of the Jagiellon Dynasty like Sigismund II and thus had some legitimacy . Also as a second son there was less likelihood of Lithuania ending up as the junior partner in yet another foreign personal union, in addition the choice secured Lithuania a strong dynastic alliance with Hungary which it was hoped would counter any Polish attempts to re-subdue Lithuania. John was invited to Vilnius where he was crowned Grand Duke where he took the name Alexander II - after signing the Compact of 1572 which defended the rights of the Lithuanian nobility, guaranteed religious tolerance of Catholics, Orthodox Christians and Reformists (but not Lutherans) and formalized the electoral nature of the Lithuanian monarchy. The Catholic faction asserted that Jan Hieronimowicz Chodkiewicz be named regent for the young king and in exchange Anna, daughter of Mikołaj "the Red", was betrothed to the young Grand Duke. The two factions, though opposed to one another, both recognised the importance of this moment and were eager to secure a peaceful and speedy solution. Which, baring a brief small Orthodox rebellion in Ruthenia, they achieved. The Lithuanian nobles and their armies now turned east. In Poland however the story was far bloodier.
The succession struggle in Poland would take a very different route from across the border. There were two reasons for this. Firstly, religious. Whereas Lithuania had a notable and influential minority of Reformist nobles the majority of the population were still Catholic/Orthodox with a majority Catholic nobility. Poland however was far more divided, with a slight majority of its magnates embracing the Reformation and a significant chunk of its urban population and lesser nobility as well. Secondly because of Poland’s geographic location it was far more likely to invite foreign involvement. Sigismund II had died childless in November 1571. As Lithuania moved to break its dynastic union with Poland and elected the Jagiellon John of Hungary the Polish nobility split. The Reformed nobles and their supporters saw this as the perfect opportunity to elect a Reformed Monarch who could finish the Reformation in Poland - and of course therefore enhance their own positions. The Catholic faction, fearing exactly this, immediately gathered in Warsaw[8] to select their own monarch and assert control over the country before the Reformists who were gathering in the north could make their play. The Catholic Faction, which also included most of the bishops (led by the influential Stanisław Karnkowski and Jakub Uchański) was however divided on a candidate. Loosely speaking there were three different groups within the Catholic Faction. One who wanted a foreign monarch (largely in order to invite foreign support in a Civil War which most now saw as unavoidable) and others who wanted a domestic Polish candidate (in order to end foreign interference in Poland and indeed put themselves forward as claimants). In addition the foreign leaning group were again divided largely between pro-Habsburg and pro-Jagiellon candidates [9]. The various groups could not come to an agreement and with the Protestant forces on the march decided to temporarily shelve the issue and under the symbolic leadership of Bishop Uchański began forming their armies: the Catholic nobility and organised supporters and therefore their armies were gathered in two distinct regions near Poznan (Posen) in Greater Poland in the west and in the south at Lvov. Their plan was to crush the main Protestant forces between them and besiege and capture the capital Krakow.
The Protestants for their part were eager to elect a king quickly and settled early on for a domestic candidate: Samuel Zborowski head of the influential, rich and powerful Reformist Zborowski family. The Protestant faction planned to marry Zborowski to Anna Jagiellon, Sigismund II’s unmarried sister as Zborowski’s own wife had died a few years previously. But the fighting took priority as the two sides fought a series of battles throughout the first half of 1572. A Protestant effort to retake Warsaw was repelled in a bloody battle on the Vistula but a Protestant force from the north was able to take Toruń (Thorn) to threaten cutting the Catholic forces in half. The Lutheran Prussians (vassals to the Polish Crown) supported the Protestant faction but were only making minimal efforts of support, primarily as they were hoping to negotiate for greater autonomy before committing fully. Once this was granted the Prussians moved south and joining with a Protestant army under Jan Firlej, won a major victory at Plock. The Catholics, now met in Warsaw and after intense debate (and with the Jagellions of Hungary currently fighting another bitter war with the Turks) decided to elect Leopold Habsburg (son of Archduke Ferdinand who was the younger brother of Emperor Maximilian) in the hope of unifying their cause and inviting Habsburg support. This had unintended consequences as between one quarter and one third of the Catholic nobility led by Bishop Uchański [10] were alienated by this decision and either simply went home or defected to the Zborowski cause favouring a domestic Polish candidate (a move that was rendered ironic very soon). Leopold Habsburg however accepted the election and began lobbying his father and uncle for support as he gathered his own forces in Austria.
In November 1572 however the Zborowski Prusso-Polish Army fought a bloody and inconclusive battle west of Warsaw. Both armies suffered casualties but the most important of all was the death of the would be king Samuel Zborowski, he left no heirs and his remaining brothers were deemed lacklustre. The Protestant cause was now in the balance. There were no remaining domestic candidates agreeable to all sides and the nomination of a Habsburg candidate by the other side (and the expected foreign support it would bring) meant that electing a Protestant candidate from abroad who could bring his own forces and support to bear was now the choice of the majority of the Protestant nobles, meeting in Krakow. Bishop Uchański and the other Catholic defectors now found themselves between a rock and hard place, realising they couldn’t re-defect back they instead found themselves arguing for A) a candidate that would protect not persecute the Catholic elements of the country and B) if at all possible had some dynastic link to the previous monarchy as some form of domestic claim. Taking all this into account there was one obvious candidate: Frederick von Hohenzollern - the son of Joachim III Elector of Brandenburg and his second wife Hedwig Jagiellon (sister of Sigismund II)[11]. Not only was Frederick Protestant (of the Unified Reformed faith though his father was a Lutheran) but he was not known to be rabidly anti-Catholic and he had a dynastic link to the old regime. But most importantly of all in late 1571 Joachim III had died after outliving all his male children from his first marriage - meaning Frederick was now not only the nephew of the former King Sigismund II but was the Prince-Elector of the Margraviate of Brandenburg. With the majority of the impromptu Sejm at Krakow in agreement (including the enthusiastic support of the Hohenzollern Duke of Prussia) Frederick was elected King of Poland. Frederick, who had of course kept an eye on events in Poland and had kept up a small lobbying campaign throughout, was happy to be nominated and began preparing his forces. He was also however a cunning and ambitious man. Recognising that he effectively held now all the cards as the Protestant choice and with the war finely balanced, he made his acceptance of the crown dependent on three factors: the replacement of an elected monarchy with a Hohenzollern dynastic succession, the establishment of a Reformed Polish National Church and the enhancement of monarchical power at the expense of the relatively powerful nobility. The debate between Krakow and Berlin went back and forth for months as Frederick gathered his army but as the Catholic forces began a siege of Lublin and rumors of the Habsburg Leopold leaving Vienna reached Krakow, the Sejm were forced to compromise. The Reformed National Church was accepted easily - even Bishop Uchański accepted after securing guarantees of Catholic tolerance. The powers of the nobility were limited (less than Frederick wanted but more than the nobility desired as a compromise) - but they were unwilling to abandon their rights to elect a monarch. Instead a compromise was agreed that Frederick's young son, George, was elected Vivente rege, in other words pre-elected as the next king before his father died - as Sigismund II had been. With most of what he wanted and a guarantee that the Hohenzollern dynasty would continue in Poland after his death, Frederick von Hohenzollern formally accepted the crown of Poland and moved his army over the border.
The fighting would drag on for another 9 months but by now the conclusion was already set. As the Hohenzollern forces joined the fight the Catholic army suffered a string of reverses and gradually collapsed. More and more simply went home or joined the Hohenzollern cause to save what they could. Leopold in Austria had indeed mustered a small force of 2,000 to aid his bid. However Stephen of Hungary-Bohemia refused to help Leopold or allow him to cross lands under his control - though a Catholic, Stephen was a pragmatist and the idea of being caught in a Habsburg vice of Austria and Poland made him (and his court) deeply uncomfortable. This undermined Leopold’s ability to intervene directly (in contrast to Frederick) and with a crushing Catholic defeat at Poznan and with a dynastic crisis (and opportunity) brewing in Austria itself Leopold abandoned his campaign. The final surrender of the remaining Catholic diehards came at Lvov on the 14th of July 1573. Frederick was confirmed as King of Poland and the Frederikan Constitution (formalizing all the previous agreements with the Polish Sejm) was formally adopted. Poland (and Lithuania) now entered a new era in their histories. While further east the chaos in Russia reach a climax.
The dynastic crisis in Poland of 1571-73 is often viewed as the final religious precursor conflict to 1592 - with the Austrian Succession War being the final political settlement as both sides in that struggle were Catholic. This is an argument this author is in agreement with. These conflicts represent the final spasm of the chaos and war brought about by Luther’s actions in 1517. Everything that had followed from the Atlantic to the Baltic had sown the seeds of what was to come and laid out the table on which the future of Europe was to be settled. The board was set and the pieces now began to move. The War for Dominance was on the horizon. - From The Struggle for Dominion 1520-1620 by George Thomas-Watt Commonwealth Press.
[1] OTL behavior
[2] Change from OTL where she died. Here she recovers (somewhat) from the cancer but is unable to have children.
[3] Also roughly OTL. Here however the Unified Reformed Movement that has formed throughout Europe and Poland prevents (or at least lessens) some of the OTL divisions in the Polish Reformation which hindered it.
[4] In OTL Protestants encompassed approximately ½ of the magnateclass and ¼ of other nobility and townspeople according to Reformations by Carlos Eire and Wikipedia. With a stronger more unified Reform movement in Europe and the continued influence of the Radziwiłłs I see no reason why this shouldn't be higher ATL. In fact the level of influence the Reformation gained in Poland OTL is honestly quite surprising - it surprised me anyway when I began researching it. It was a major force and with a few tweaks and twists could have ended up dominating the upper and middle classes.
[5] OTL
[6] Also OTL
[7] In OTL it was the rapidly worsening situation in the war vs Russia that convinced enough of the Lithuanian elite to sign up to the Union of Lublin - and even then it was difficult. With the war against Russia going well here (covered next update) there is less impetus for the Lithuanians to concede sovereignty. So they don't.
[8] Krakow was still the capital without Union of Lublin but it was a city with high Protestant support OTL
[9] Divisions over foreign princes were very much a factor in the elections in Poland/Lithuania in this time OTL after Sig II.
[10] Uchański OTL was one of the more pragmatic of the Catholic bishops. He proposed toleration and co-operation with the Protestants and favored a Polish National Church.
[11] An ATL character but effectively a different version of their son Sigismund. ITTL none of Joachim's sons from this first marriage survive to adulthood so the title passes to Frederick.
Ivan IV has been declared Grand Prince of Moscow in 1533 and nearly fifteen years took the title of Tsar. The early years of the young Ivan’s reign were relatively benign. He oversaw the revision and relative modernisation of the legal code - resulting in the Sudebnik of 1550. He expanded the influence and political rights of the nobility, established a standing Russian army and had strong and positive relations with the church. The first printing press was established in Moscow and St. Basil’s Cathedral was commissioned following his conquest of Kazan in 1552. This all began to change in the 1560s however as economic downturn and upheaval led to political repressment. His wife, the Tsarina Anastasia Romanov, died of suspected poison and one of the Tsar’s closest advisors Prince Andrei Kurbsky defected to the Lithuanians. Resentment amongst the nobility grew at the Tsar’s increasing autocratic behavior and paranoia - which was obviously then a self fulfilling prophecy. The domestic situation began to deteriorate as relations between the Tsar and the nobility got worse and worse - and on top of all of it there were foreign issues as well.
Eastern Europe in 1565 was at war. Seven years earlier, Ivan IV, Tsar of all the Russias, had invaded neighbouring Livonia in response to the growing political ties between Livonia and Poland-Lithuania. The Russians achieved many initial successes, aided in no small part by the local nobility and peasantry, many of whom were opposed to the ruling members of the Livonian Order. The Russians won notable victories in the early years, culminating in the Battle of Valga in late 1560. The result saw the dissolution of the Livonian Order, and its successor Duchies being placed under the protection of the Lithuanian Crown. Poland-Lithuania and Russia would continue skirmishing until a short truce came in effect in 1561. The truce was brought on by growing exhaustion from both sides and elements of the Lithuanian nobility becoming increasingly frustrated at Poland’s growing influence over their country - which of course would come to a head ten years later.[1]
Russians During the Livonian War
The war would continue however, though now with Sweden taking on the role of antagonist in chief. Russia then faced a series of defeats that exacerbated tensions between Ivan IV and the Russian nobility. Ivan, who had already began to suffer from an increasing paranoia in the last few years, began to see political enemies everywhere. This all resulted in Ivan going into self imposed exile in Aleksandrova, east of Moscow, in December 1564 as he began to suspect the loyalty and effectiveness of the boyar aristocracy. Whilst in exile Ivan announced his abdication from the throne via letter in a bid to force the boyars to cede him absolute authority in return for him resuming the throne and staving off disaster[2]. He apparently also sent a second letter addressed to the people of Moscow, but perhaps due to the winter conditions or forces unknown this letter never arrived in the city[3]. The boyars were distracted by the worsening military situation in the west and the people of Moscow were for the most part totally unaware of the Tsar’s abdication or disappearance from the city. The negotiations between the nobility and former Tsar over the terms of his return dragged on for months. Just when it seemed a breakthrough had been reached the boyar nobility in Moscow received another letter from Aleksandrova in April 1565: Ivan IV was dead.
The cause of Ivan IV’s death has never properly been determined. The two most likely cases are either assassination (perhaps by members of the aristocracy or foreign agents) or sickness or disease[4]. Regardless the result of this news reaching Moscow, and its subsequent spread to the public was chaos. The public were devastated and stunned whilst the nobility panicked over the suddenly vacant throne and the political instability this could cause. Many however would also quietly breathe a sigh of relief. Ivan IV’s paranoia and distrust had seen many boyars lose influence and fear for their safety. With the Tsar dead, it might now be time to reassert themselves and try and regain some power. To that end the question now turned to the succession. Ivan has left two sons. The eldest was Dimitry, 13, who had grown distant from his father and had been left in Moscow when his father had left the city. The second was Ivan, still only 7 and had been with the Tsar in Aleksandrova. The Moscow based aristocracy, overcoming their initial shock, moved to crown Dimitry as Tsar: with the young man in Moscow crowned they could use him as a puppet and increase their own influence. Those elements loyal to the late Ivan IV who had gone with him to Aleksandrova however feared exactly this. Recognising that a boy Tsar in the hands of their political enemies in Moscow was a potential death sentence, and knowing that the former Tsar had no love for Dimitry, they decided to counter this move. The Aleksandrova faction published Ivan IV’s will (almost certainly forged) which disinherited Dimitry and named their young prince Tsar Ivan V. Both sides now prepared to enforce their puppet Tsar on the other. Before Civil War could break out in earnest however two events tipped what could’ve been a simple dynastic crisis into a full blown political disaster.
In August 1565, a third group of boyars, clergy and military leaders who had no love for the ruling dynasty or for the two forming cabals entered the game. They claimed that in fact neither of the two sons were the legitimate Tsars, as Ivan IV had abdicated the throne in December 1564 - an abdication never redacted. They instead formed their own power base in Novgorod, Russia’s third largest city, where they declared the former Tsar’s cousin and previous rallying point for the opposition Vladimir Andreyevich as their Tsar. Then Moscow burned. Ivan IV had always been very popular with the people of Moscow. His death, which rumour insisted to be by assassination, led to a wave of public anger. When the news of the will and the disinheritance of Dmitry arrived this anger turned to violence. Fully believing the legitimacy of this document the people of Moscow attempted to storm the Kremlin and pull down the “illegitimate” Tsar. In the ensuing chaos as the Moscow regime attempted to reimpose order, Dmitry was killed along with several leading boyars and the city was consumed by riot and fire. In one night of chaos the capital was burned and the most likely next Tsar was murdered. A huge power vacuum now emerged and the fight for the future of Russia would now begin in earnest.
1566 and 1567 would see Russia torn apart in Civil War. Any sense of national coherency evaporated as the nobility waged war on one another from the Baltic to the Volga. The fighting in Russia was different from those experienced by western European states in the preceding years. The War of the English Succession (1559-1563) and the ongoing civil war in France were domestic conflicts that took place within existing national states, both of whom had been in a unified existence of one sort or another for centuries. Russia on the other hand was mere decades old, many could remember a time when Moscow was merely just the largest of a collection of petty princedoms [5]. Consequently it is not surprising that as the fighting wore on the idea of “Russia” as a unified state, quickly unwravelled. Cities, regions and territories that been independent less than a century ago began to break free. The great cities of the north and west soon began to look to their own futures whilst the only recently acquired lands to the south and east rapidly became areas of lawlessness and anarchy. All the while the “Russian state” remained technically at war with the outside world. By 1568 it is easier to draw dividing lines between the three primary factions. The first were those who had crowned the young Ivan V. They had by now withdrawn from Aleksandrova to the more defensible and historically important city of Yaroslavl, which lay to the northeast of (what was left of) Moscow. The young Tsar (now 10) was serving as the rallying point for the so-called Legitimist faction; those loyal to the old ruling dynasty of Ivan IV. To their immediate west were the supports of Vladimir Andreyevich acting out of Novgorod. By this point they had secured Pskov and much of the northwest. The Andreyevich faction were aristocrats looking to replace the increasingly absolutist model of Ivan IV with a balance of power more favourable to the nobility. Though they were in a strong position they were also dealing with the fighting in Livonia (which had rapidly and decisively started to go against the Russians as their armies disintegrated) and Swedish moves to the north. The final group was an alliance of local aristocracy in the cities of Tver, Ryazan and Smolensk. This force had declared no Tsar following Dmitry’s death and instead was a collection of nobility who sought to enhance their own power at the expense of a unified Russian state. These ‘Confederate’ forces were a loose association of effectively independent city-states. War between the three forces dragged on and on for another two years, until the conflict again changed dramatically in 1570.
Whereas it is unknown if Ivan IV was assassinated or not still to this day, it is clear that his son the disputed Ivan V most definitely was. The twelve year old would be Tsar was poisoned in September 1570 by anti-Rurikid elements from the Confederate faction. His death would plunge the Legitimist faction into uncertainty before they settled on a replacement: Nikita Romanovich the brother-in-law of the late Ivan IV. Romanovich was declared “Prince of Yaroslavl” and began to rally his supporters who had been driven back in the uncertainty after the death of Ivan V. The war continued however to go against the Yaroslavl forces as both the Confederates and Andreyevite armies advanced. Their luck would soon change in the new year however.
Though the dynastic infighting handicapped Russia, it was foreign intervention that doomed it. In 1571 three foreign armies would invade the former Tsardom and break it forever: Sweden in the north, Lithuania from the west and a joint Ottoman-Crimean invasion in the south. The Swedes had for the last several years been engaged in a war against Denmark in the Baltic for supremacy in the region, and had thus been unable to intervene in Russia. The war however had ended in 1570 in relative stalemate. But now, free from western concerns, Eric XIV, King of Sweden, intervened in the east. Seeing a glorious chance to expand Sweden’s influence in the Baltic and permanently cripple any Russian threat, Eric XIV invaded in force. Swedish troops soon secured northern Livonia, Ingria and large areas of Karelia. They soon came into conflict with Andreyevite armies out of Novgorod. The fighting here would drag on for a few years. Following Sweden’s entry into the war, the newly sovereign Grand Duchy of Lithuania under its new Grand Duke Alexander II decided to expand its borders and assert its credentials as an independent power. Lithuanian armies moved into Russia in a bid to expand the reach of the Lithuanian crown and prevent one of the Russian factions from unifying the country. Lithuania took Smolensk in 1572 as well as making serious gains in the Ukraine. After defeating Confederate forces near Kolomna in 1573, Lithuanian forces sacked Moscow; what was left of that city fell into ruin, never again to rise to its former prominence. In the south the Ottomans under their new sultan Selim II and his ‘eastern’ agenda, crossed the Caucasus Mountains in 1573. Ottoman and Crimean Khanate forces soon restored order in the lawless lands of the Don and Volga basins. The Khanate of Crimea was able to regain huge areas of land lost in the previous decades and were only halted by a Confederate army on the banks of the Oka River in 1574. The Ottomans meanwhile secured the important hub at Astrakhan. Encountering little organised resistance the Ottomans soon expanded their influence up the Volga. Local Tatar groups, cossacks and the remnants of some of the old Steppe tribes became de facto Ottoman vassals as the Sultan’s envoys and advanced troops set up shop on the banks of the Volga. Their only serious challenges were from the various tribal hordes east of the Caspian and from the Urals which had plundered their way west during the Russian collapse and the occasional skirmish with the Lithuanians in the west.
By 1575 the advance of the invading armies had been stalled (more so due to logistics than opposition) and the fighting between the Russian factions had begun to slow. The Romanovich forces in Yaroslavl had rallied whilst the others were fighting Sweden and Lithuania and secured control over the north and east. The Andreyevite Novgorod faction had come to terms with Sweden. Recognising that they could form a useful southern buffer for Sweden, King Eric chose to support the Andreyevites in turn for them accepting Swedish gains in the Baltic and Karelia. The Confederates meanwhile had managed to hold the Lithuanians and Crimeans after 1574 and were now increasingly becoming focused on their own personal ambitions. In the east the Yaroslavl group were now also fighting against the newly refounded Khanate out of Kazan, which had been re-occupied in the chaos by Nogay tribal leaders, Tatars and other anti-Russian groups just over twenty years after they were driven out of the city and region. The fighting would drag on inconclusively into 1577 before a series of agreements ended the war.
The various gains by Sweden, Lithuania, the Ottomans and Crimea were all accepted as a matter of fact with no formal Russian state left to claim or resist them. None of the Russian successor states had been able to win a decisive victory over the others and in the end were forced to accept one another’s continuing existence. With no one man with enough influence or support to declare himself Tsar, four new independent ‘Principalities’ were declared ruled by four former boyars. The Principality of Novgorod was secured under Vladimir Andreyevich. Under Swedish protection, Andreyevich sought to reestablish the vibrant and independent Republic of Novgorod of the 15th Century, under his more autocratic rule of course. In the east the Principality of Yaroslavl was ruled by Nikita Romanov; whilst in the center two former Confederate leaders were declared Princes of Tver and of Ryazan. Former independent states in their own right these two cities would now again be centers of political power in the east. After scarcely a century of unity, Russia had been broken, shattered and divided. What remained was a new and precarious balance of power in Eastern Europe.
Map:
Note the "territories" of the Khanates are approximations and tend to be loosely held rather than full political control.
[1] Everything from these first two paragraphs is essentially OTL.
[2] Also OTL
[3] First major change - the letter makes it to Moscow in OTL. It was the demands of the Moscow public that caused the nobility to accede to the Tsar's demands OTL.
[4] The Tsar suffered from syphilis in OTL
[5] Novgorod had been annexed less than a century before, with Pskov and Ryazan only under Ivan IV’s father. Ivan IV had been the first to take the title Tsar of all the Russias and had seized Kazan and Astrakhan only in the 1550s.
consider all events before 1530 (unless otherwise stated) to have proceeded OTL.
