AHC: Make Henry VIII's Bloodline Survive

The challenge, should you choose to accept is this:

All three of Henry VIII's legitimate children (Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth) must marry and produce children that will pass his bloodlines among the royal houses of Europe. Bonus points if the current British monarch ends up being descended from all three. Note, not all of them have to end up as ruling England.

My reason for posing this challenge is that if one believes that Henry and Catherine Carey were Henry VIII's, it took over four centuries for his blood to get back to the English throne (in the person of the current duchess of Cambridge). But still, there are no direct descendants of Henry's wives: Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour.

Please try to keep it credible.

Christmas greetings
 
The challenge, should you choose to accept is this:

All three of Henry VIII's legitimate children (Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth) must marry and produce children that will pass his bloodlines among the royal houses of Europe. Bonus points if the current British monarch ends up being descended from all three. Note, not all of them have to end up as ruling England.

My reason for posing this challenge is that if one believes that Henry and Catherine Carey were Henry VIII's, it took over four centuries for his blood to get back to the English throne (in the person of the current duchess of Cambridge). But still, there are no direct descendants of Henry's wives: Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour.

Please try to keep it credible.

Christmas greetings


My thinking is that one of Edward VI's regents decided that having a Catholic contender for the throne like Mary in England wasn't worth the risk, but couldn't get away with killing her, so they married her off to the most distant Catholic monarch they could come up with.

In Elizabeth's case... She would have been married to seal an alliance of some sort... Dare I suggest that she'd be married to Ivan the Terrible?

Edward VI's a lot easier, he lives long enough to marry Elisabeth of Valois, who in RL bore Philip II two daughters.
 
My thinking is that one of Edward VI's regents decided that having a Catholic contender for the throne like Mary in England wasn't worth the risk, but couldn't get away with killing her, so they married her off to the most distant Catholic monarch they could come up with.

In Elizabeth's case... She would have been married to seal an alliance of some sort... Dare I suggest that she'd be married to Ivan the Terrible?

Edward VI's a lot easier, he lives long enough to marry Elisabeth of Valois, who in RL bore Philip II two daughters.
Ivan idea is cliche but silly.
Let's say - Edward VI lives long enough to marry Elisabeth of Valois, but has only daughter with her (let's name her also Elisabeth).
To secure the succession he marries off his "bastard" sisters away - preferably to some Germans (I like the idea of Danish and Saxonian matches from Now Blooms the Tudor Rose).

Then Edward dies, and his infant daughter (let's say the child is born in 1556, Edward dies in 1557) is proclaimed a Queen as Elisabeth I. Her aunts (and uncles by marriage) object to this but in female succession the daughter of the King is superior to the sister of the King, and the Elisabethan Era TTL starts with a long regency).
Then in mid-17th century the lines of Elisabeth Sr. and Mary intermarry into each other and their descendant marries into English Royal Family descending from Elisabeth Jr.
 
Edward abandons the idea of a Scottish or French marriage and makes the obvious move - allying himself to Lady Jane Grey, his childhood companion and fellow believer. Marrying her in mid-1552 would give him just under a year to put a babe in her belly before dying (assuming butterflies don't take care of his illness).

Easiest way to achieve this is by not only sparing Thomas Seymour but allowing him to somehow slither his way up to the Protectorate. In such a scenario, Seymour would most likely wed Mary (despite his OTL romps with Elizabeth, he'd no doubt prefer the alliance with Mary given half a chance) leaving Elizabeth to wed one of his allies or someone whose support he needed (a Dudley perhaps? Courtenay?) or else to marry at her own leisure once an infant nephew or niece was monarch, presuming that the Marquis of Dorset would not become so ascendant a Regent/Protector as to push her into a marriage with some Grey kinsman.
 
Most credible POD I can see is - Thomas Seymour manages to nab Edward VI's signature for a document dismissing the Protector and naming Thomas as Governor. Thomas is able to strike first, using command of the person of the King as a chip as he asserts himself as the head man of the new regime. His brother sidelined politically and Dudley out of the scene with an injury or death from Kett's Rebellion (a secondary POD) allows him to achieve full ascendancy, flanked by Henry Grey the Marquis of Dorset and his former brother-in-law William Parr the Marquis of Northampton, the two of them pacified with Edward's betrothal to Lady Jane Grey and a favourable ruling from Seymour touching Parr's dubious remarriage to his lover Elizabeth Brooke.

Thomas for his part restores the royal arms and title of the Lady Mary as a Princess of England and marries her himself, presumably having made himself an Earl or Duke in the meantime. As the King's uncle and brother-in-law he would wield power unimpeded, especially in Edward's ill health and eventual death, with Mary likely bringing him both foreign (Hapsburg) and internal (Poles, Staffords, Courtenays) support.

Who Elizabeth would marry in such a scenario is anyone's guess, though if Thomas was secure enough in his position he might attempt to curry favour with the old nobility by letting her wed the Earl of Hastings.
 

scholar

Banned
What about King Edward VI marrying and having children with his half-sister Elizabeth?
No, but theoretically you could get their respective children to marry one another, but that would be self-defeating when it comes to marriages.
 
Mary's not gonna marry Seymour. He's too new money. I think she'll either get a minor royal as in Now Blooms the Tudor Rose or someone like Courtenay. Crown Prince Hans of Denmark, Sweden and Norway might likewise make a good match. He would be made an Imperial governor or could even be a domesticated son-in-law if he survived.

Elizabeth marrying Edward would only fly if Edward continues to maintain that she is not Henr.VIII's daughter but Norris or one of the other gentlemen's. a good match for Liz might be James Hamilton

Likewise IDK how likely Edward is to marry with Jane Grey, since she's not even aristocracy, only gentry. But if Jane's stillborn brother were to survive, he could marry Liz and Edward could marry Mary Stewart, Juana of Spain or Élisabeth de Valois.
 
Thomas Seymour was already one of the richest men in England, the King's uncle and a Queen Dowager's widower. As Regent he'd no doubt become even richer and a duke. Considering Mary had little to no say in her circumstances at the time and was officially a bastard ""new money"" doesn't matter in the slightest, given this is Tudor England not the Holy Roman Empire.

No way is she getting married off abroad by anyone who isn't her father.

Even if Elizabeth insisted on her bastardy - a charge no one would believe given her obvious Tudor heritage - she's still related to Edward within forbidden degrees of affinity. Beyond which she has zero market value if she isn't Harry's baby girl.

Lady Jane Grey was a de facto princess of the blood royal. Related to the Tudor monarchs on both sides, heiress of one of the greatest magnates in the realm and dangerously high in the line of succession, she was given serious consideration OTL as a potential match for Edward (not least because of her own personal attributes, education and correct beliefs). Seymour's triumph would almost certainly result in the union.
 
While it was uncommon for English monarchs to marry a daughter of a subject (as Henry VIII did four times, more than consolidating his grandfather's own notorious precedent) the English had no qualms about blood purity and the like. In truth, neither did many outside of Germany: Ferdinand the Catholic's mother, Juana Enriquez, was a non-royal with marrano ancestry while Isabella the Catholic descended from the infamous misalliance of Peter I and his concubine Maria de Padilla, as well as the bastard born João I d'Avis and his bastard the Duke of Braganza, who married the non-royal daughter of the legitmized bastard Nuno Alvarez. The Tudors own breeding was itself less than stellar.
 
...Seriously?
Yeah. ummm.....no.
No, but theoretically you could get their respective children to marry one another, but that would be self-defeating when it comes to marriages.

Prince Edward and Princess Elizabeth, were very close due to their shared religions and are only half siblings, so in theory they can marry (weirder things have happened in Europe, uncles marrying nieces, cousins marrying.

These two would be the best as both would legitamate their roles, hold of their half-sister Mary.
 
Prince Edward and Princess Elizabeth, were very close due to their shared religions and are only half siblings, so in theory they can marry (weirder things have happened in Europe, uncles marrying nieces, cousins marrying.

These two would be the best as both would legitamate their roles, hold of their half-sister Mary.

Half-sibling marriage would NEVER happen in this context and, if attempted, likely result in their imprisonment and deaths.
 
I think its perfectly reasonable to think that at least one of Henry's children could have produced heirs surviving to this day, its worth noting that Queen Elizabeth II descends from both of Henry VIII's sisters Mary and Margaret and they did not have huge numbers of children.

I think Mary has the best prospects.

The best chance of a happy and fulfiled life for her is her marrying abroad. She was in her mid teens by the time of her parents divorce, delay that slightly or alternatively have a more rational and confident Anne Boleyn, who just wants Mary out of the country and she could have been married off to senior European royal.

Based on her maternal family, I am assuming that had she had the opportunity, Mary could have produced a large brood, I suspect her problem was that she simply began trying to concieve late. Its worth noting that her mother Catherine of Aragon and Isabella of Castille had their last pregnancies in their early 30s, whereas Mary did not even marry until she was past 37.

I don't understand why people think Edward would marry his half sister, Elizabeth. She posed no threat to him, so there was no need to neutralise her, which would be the only possible justification for a marriage and even then I think its highly improbable, I fail to see the advantage to Edward.

I think Elizabeth would be kept in England until Edward was married and produced a decent number of children. Even after this, I think she could have potentially managed to nab a Scandinavian royal and produced a couple of children.

Assuming Mary and Elizabeth's descendants rule over European countries, its entirely possible one of them could marry into the English royal house thus uniting Henry's bloodline. It could happen many times over, of Henry VII's 8 legitimate grandchildren, Elizabeth II descends from 4 of them.
 
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