ACH/WI: Anne Stanley, or Anne I of England

A simple challenge, Anne Stanley, Countess of Castlehaven was as per Henry VIII's will the heir to the throne after Elizabeth I by the time of Elizabeth's death, however she was passed over by James I/VI of Scots.

So how could things play out that Anne would become Queen instead? And what would her reign be like?

EDIT: I screwed up her regnal number, fixed it! :)
 
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A simple challenge, Anne Stanley, Countess of Castlehaven was as per Henry VIII's will the heir to the throne after Elizabeth I by the time of Elizabeth's death, however she was passed over by James I/VI of Scots.

So how could things play out that Anne would become Queen instead? And what would her reign be like?

The best way would be for Queen Elizabeth to add this into her will as well making it a royal decree.

As Anne was an unmarried 23 year old woman at the time of Elizabeth's death in 1603, the first thing would be to find her a husband and following the last two queens their would be strict guide lines.
The English government would want her to get married so she can produce an heir and marry a royal man who would not rule the country (like the scenario of Mary I and Philip II of Spain)

There are:
Frederick Henry, the youngest child of William the Silent (Prince of Orange)
John George son of Christian I, Elector of Saxony
Among loads of British Dukes and Earls

In OTL she lived till 1647, so would reign for 44 years, so in them years a lot can happen.
Events in OTL
1603-1605 - Bye Plot, Main Plot and Gunpowder Plot - Would anyone want to blow her up? Is she religious?
1642 - Start of English Civil War - Will the war break out? Would she want to take power away from parliament?

Also here is a family tree to show you where every one is.

500px-Anne_stanley_pedigree.png
 
Nah, who would be king after Elizabeth is entirely up to Cecil and his pals. They all wanted James I due to him already having an heir and a spare, plus by that time a majority of the English are sick and tired of being ruled by a queen. It was time for a ore 'natural' state of affairs, which is being ruled by a manly man king! Hence the nice propaganda of Elizabeth "nodding" while dying when James Stuart's name was mentioned.

If Elizabeth made any will, she knew it'd be a reason for one faction to arrange an "unfortunate accident" for her. She was that paranoid, and who could blame her given her life. "Men worship the rising sun, not the setting sun" and all that. I don't see her declaring an heir or designating one in a will, unless there's a damn good POD.

My two cents :)
 
Nah, who would be king after Elizabeth is entirely up to Cecil and his pals. They all wanted James I due to him already having an heir and a spare, plus by that time a majority of the English are sick and tired of being ruled by a queen. It was time for a ore 'natural' state of affairs, which is being ruled by a manly man king! Hence the nice propaganda of Elizabeth "nodding" while dying when James Stuart's name was mentioned.

If Elizabeth made any will, she knew it'd be a reason for one faction to arrange an "unfortunate accident" for her. She was that paranoid, and who could blame her given her life. "Men worship the rising sun, not the setting sun" and all that. I don't see her declaring an heir or designating one in a will, unless there's a damn good POD.

My two cents :)

But I can never see Robert Cecil being as strong as his father William, so if you have Queen Elizabeth seeing this young Anne and putting her name in the will, Robert would be seen as a rebel going against royal decree and we could see a new civil war between Pro-James and Pro-Anne forces in 1603 or The English War of Succession.

You are also the first person to call King James I a "manly man king" Throughout his life James had close relationships with male courtiers, which has caused debate among historians about their nature.

After his accession in England, his peaceful and scholarly attitude contrasted strikingly with the bellicose and flirtatious behaviour of Elizabeth, as indicated by the contemporary epigram Rex fuit Elizabeth, nunc est regina Jacobus (Elizabeth was King, now James is Queen).

P.O.D. in 1580, Alice Spencer dies in childbirth, with the child, Anne Stanley is alive and healthy, Ferdinando Stanley, 5th Earl of Derby in grief asks the queen permission to adopt the child.
The queen is dubious but on seeing the child in person, her heart if melted and asks her right hand man William Cecil to find an honourable family to keep the child until she is 16, when she is to be brought to Queen Elizabeth as a lady-in-waiting.
In 1596, Anne is brought to queen and is still as beautiful as ever and so lives life as the adopted daughter to the most powerful woman in the World, nicknamed the Virgin's daughter.
 
You are also the first person to call King James I a "manly man king" Throughout his life James had close relationships with male courtiers, which has caused debate among historians about their nature.
Hey, it wasn't what I think, it was what many thought at the time. Not with regards of his macho-ness, but the fact that his rule would be a more "natural" masculine rule. This means he is of the male gender (that he may be bisexual is of little consequence aside for being used a slur), he has a wife (bonus that she has proven to be fertile, unlike the "unnatural, barren" Queen Bess!) and he has the aforementioned "heir and spare" combo.

But I can never see Robert Cecil being as strong as his father William
Then you do Rob Cecil a disservice IMO :) For me, he is the heir not just of his dad but also Sir Francis Walsingham, England's first spymaster and civil servant/politician combo par excellence. OTL Robert Cecil masterminded the ascension of James Stuart, and some unmarried aged 23 "old maid" (more incoming headache on who she will marry as Queen, here go again!) will not be his choice nor would it be the choice of many other aristocrats who were at the end of Elizabeth's life sick and tired of being ruled by a woman. They want a man and more importantly, a dynasty to secure succession, no more uncertainty with Elizabeth's coy "Will marry, let me choose first, whoops changed my mind, later!" approach.

Your POD is interesting, but again, Elizabeth's paranoia in naming a successor is well documented, she would never openly adopt anyone in that manner. An alternative male heir with sons is a much better idea, IMO. Cecil and his pals may look towards such a man, especially as an alternative of having a Scots king ;) Not an unmarried woman, nope.
 
Your POD is interesting, but again, Elizabeth's paranoia in naming a successor is well documented, she would never openly adopt anyone in that manner. An alternative male heir with sons is a much better idea, IMO. Cecil and his pals may look towards such a man, especially as an alternative of having a Scots king ;) Not an unmarried woman, nope.

I just see it as an easy way for Queen Elizabeth to have an heir to marry off but at the same time keep her "virgin" image.

Marrying her off as an heir would be an easy way to form an alliance
 
What if she wed one of Catherine Grey's Seymour sons thereby uniting those claims derived from Mary Tudor?
 
There's a plausible theory that James suffered from either intermittent porphyria or Lesch-Nyhan syndrome, but it was mild enough that the mental symptoms weren't debilitating. Give him a more severe case, so he suffers obvious fits of madness before the English succession is firmly settled in his favor.

The candidates for the succession are then Edward Seymour, Anne Stanley, or Arabella Stuart.

In Seymour's favor, he's an adult man, and he has an heir and a spare. Working against him, his family has a rather unsavory reputation at this point, and the legitimacy of his birth is dubious at best: his parents married illegally, without documentation, and the priest is missing and the only witness to the marriage was conveniently dead when the marriage was discovered. The Privy Council at the time declared the marriage void, Seymour a bastard, and stripped Seymour's father of his lands and titles for the crime of "seducing a virgin of the blood royal". IOTL, James rehabilitated the Seymours and declared the marriage valid, but that was quite a bit after our POD.

Arabella was a serious contender for the succession in the 1580s, but she'd been firmly shelved in favor of James by the time Elizabeth died. Her claim over James relies on some legal hair-splitting (either applying the loosely-enforced principle that only an English subject can inherit English titles, or parsing the marriage treaty between James IV and Margaret Tudor as being a morganatic marriage for the purposes of the English succession), and she was an unmarried woman with no clear heir herself.

Anne Stanley had the best legal claim on paper, but was never seriously considered to be in the mix for the succession, mainly because she (like her father and grandmother before her) went out of her way to not appear to be advancing her claim. She was also an unmarried woman, but she's five years younger than Arabella (23 vs. 28), so there's more time for her to marry and produce heirs, and she has two younger sisters, one of whom was already married to the Earl of Huntingdon, so there's a clear succession after her if she were to fail to produce an hear. The other major handicap to her as a candidate is that she (like her father) was conspicuously quiet about religion, leading many to suspect that they were either Catholics or Puritans.



If James were disqualified by obvious fits of madness, I think there's a chance the Cecils might settle on Anne in preference to Arabella or Seymour. The more so if Seymour tries (as he may have tried IOTL) to strengthen his claim by marrying his eldest son to Arabella, which could backfire badly if he gets caught because marrying someone that close to the succession is illegal without the approval of the council, and is tantamount to treason (IOTL, Arabella married Seymour's second son William during James's reign; she was arrested and died in the tower, while William successfully fled to the Netherlands and was eventually forgiven by James).
 
There's a plausible theory that James suffered from either intermittent porphyria or Lesch-Nyhan syndrome, but it was mild enough that the mental symptoms weren't debilitating. Give him a more severe case, so he suffers obvious fits of madness before the English succession is firmly settled in his favor.

The candidates for the succession are then Edward Seymour, Anne Stanley, or Arabella Stuart.

In Seymour's favor, he's an adult man, and he has an heir and a spare. Working against him, his family has a rather unsavory reputation at this point, and the legitimacy of his birth is dubious at best: his parents married illegally, without documentation, and the priest is missing and the only witness to the marriage was conveniently dead when the marriage was discovered. The Privy Council at the time declared the marriage void, Seymour a bastard, and stripped Seymour's father of his lands and titles for the crime of "seducing a virgin of the blood royal". IOTL, James rehabilitated the Seymours and declared the marriage valid, but that was quite a bit after our POD.

Arabella was a serious contender for the succession in the 1580s, but she'd been firmly shelved in favor of James by the time Elizabeth died. Her claim over James relies on some legal hair-splitting (either applying the loosely-enforced principle that only an English subject can inherit English titles, or parsing the marriage treaty between James IV and Margaret Tudor as being a morganatic marriage for the purposes of the English succession), and she was an unmarried woman with no clear heir herself.

Anne Stanley had the best legal claim on paper, but was never seriously considered to be in the mix for the succession, mainly because she (like her father and grandmother before her) went out of her way to not appear to be advancing her claim. She was also an unmarried woman, but she's five years younger than Arabella (23 vs. 28), so there's more time for her to marry and produce heirs, and she has two younger sisters, one of whom was already married to the Earl of Huntingdon, so there's a clear succession after her if she were to fail to produce an hear. The other major handicap to her as a candidate is that she (like her father) was conspicuously quiet about religion, leading many to suspect that they were either Catholics or Puritans.



If James were disqualified by obvious fits of madness, I think there's a chance the Cecils might settle on Anne in preference to Arabella or Seymour. The more so if Seymour tries (as he may have tried IOTL) to strengthen his claim by marrying his eldest son to Arabella, which could backfire badly if he gets caught because marrying someone that close to the succession is illegal without the approval of the council, and is tantamount to treason (IOTL, Arabella married Seymour's second son William during James's reign; she was arrested and died in the tower, while William successfully fled to the Netherlands and was eventually forgiven by James).

This is interesting, so if they settled on Anne as the heir, then she'd need to get married in a hurry. Who was available that would make a good match?
 
This is interesting, so if they settled on Anne as the heir, then she'd need to get married in a hurry. Who was available that would make a good match?

What scenario are we using:
Queen Elizabeth adopts her young cousin to be her future heir, marrying her off to Maurice, Count of Nassau.
In 1603, Queen Elizabeh dies leaving Queen Anne to rule Britain with her husban Maurice
On the death of his eldest half brother, Prince Maurice became the ruler of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, creating in 1618, the United Kingdom of England and the Netherlands.
 
This is interesting, so if they settled on Anne as the heir, then she'd need to get married in a hurry. Who was available that would make a good match?

I don't have a good feel for that, but my best guess would be either a high-ranking English noble who was in good graces with the Cecils (perhaps Robert Cecil's son, who was 22 and unmarried in 1603), or a prince from one of the other major Protestant countries.

If the decision to marry her off happens before 1598, Ludovic Stuart would be a very strong choice. He's the second man in Scotland, and would probably be James's regent there if the hypothetical madness were bad enough to require one. Anne+Ludovic would have most of the advantages of the OTL personal union under James.

Sweden was actively shopping for an English match for Gustavus Adolphus around this time period, but he's far too young to be a match for Anne under these circumstances (he was 9 in 1603), and I don't see support for Anne marrying a reigning sovereign or direct heir for any country other than Scotland.

I'm not sure who might be a good candidate from Denmark or the German Protestant states.
 
Marrying her off as an heir would be an easy way to form an alliance

This is again a repeat of the problem which plagued Elizabeth, a problem that James does not have. Why would Cecil make his life more difficult when he has a tailor-made solution already? Why risk one faction disagreeing with the heir's marriage versus another faction supporting it, when you can have an heir already married with kids, the end, let's crown him once old Bess is dead!

I don't have a good feel for that, but my best guess would be either a high-ranking English noble who was in good graces with the Cecils (perhaps Robert Cecil's son, who was 22 and unmarried in 1603), or a prince from one of the other major Protestant countries.

Not the former scenario, no way in hell are the other nobles going to give Cecil that much power (and he does have to work with his peers)! The latter is much better bet, but again who??? Which prince can the aristocrats choose to ensure their interests are taken care of?

The other major handicap to her as a candidate is that she (like her father) was conspicuously quiet about religion, leading many to suspect that they were either Catholics or Puritans.

Hah! That there should be a nail in the coffin. Once again, need a major POD to have her as a more suitable heir in the eyes of Cecil and co. If she's a Puritan, even Queen Lizzie may view her with suspicion (as much as she tolerated Puritans like Walsingham, Elizabeth did not like them and even Sir Francis was the subject of many anti-Puritan tantrums from the Queen!).
 
So, if she were born as a son to Ferdinando Stanley (let's call him Ferdinand(o)) instead, do you think he would have been in a better position to inherit?
 
This is again a repeat of the problem which plagued Elizabeth, a problem that James does not have. Why would Cecil make his life more difficult when he has a tailor-made solution already? Why risk one faction disagreeing with the heir's marriage versus another faction supporting it, when you can have an heir already married with kids, the end, let's crown him once old Bess is dead!

That's why I proposed a POD that revolved around James disqualifying himself by going mad. That's pretty much what it would take for anyone other than James to inherit, past 1590 or so.

Hah! That there should be a nail in the coffin. Once again, need a major POD to have her as a more suitable heir in the eyes of Cecil and co. If she's a Puritan, even Queen Lizzie may view her with suspicion (as much as she tolerated Puritans like Walsingham, Elizabeth did not like them and even Sir Francis was the subject of many anti-Puritan tantrums from the Queen!).

If she actually is Catholic or Puritan, and committed to that faith, then yes, it would be a near-complete disqualifier. If she's close to being tapped for the succession and willing to send the right signals, though, it'd be pretty easy for her to put the major concerns to rest. London is worth a communion, as it were.

Apart from James, all the major claimants have near-dealbreaker problems. Arabella has a similar religion problem, and Seymour is legally and figuratively a bastard.

Past them, the candidates' claims get extremely tenuous. York heirs, unacknowledged bastards, random nobles with a drop or two of Plantagenet blood, etc.
 
Anne marries Frederick Henry, son of William the Silent (Prince of Orange).
His brother Maurice never married.
Suppose Maurice of Nassau, sovereign Prince of Orange marries and has several sons who could succeed him.
Thus his brother Prince Frederick Henry will not be the sovereign Prince of Orange and stadtholder of Holland.
 
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