AHC: Reverse the roles of Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots

Elizabeth I and Mary were very much both the products of their times. They were unique in the period that they stood alone as women womans in a time when such a thing was rare, but chose to persue their reigns in completely different ways. Elizabeth herself saw herself a monarch first, then a woman, and spurned all offers of marriage, finding them useful as diplomatic ploys to play Spain and France off one another, but preferring to maintain her independence. She had a long lived and fairly successful reign.

Mary on the other hand seemed to emphasize that she was a woman before she was a Queen. She definitely had the right regal airs about her, but had the shortfalling of being unable to inspire any sort of regal authority, her short reign in Scotland matched by poor political choices as well as a series of poor marriages. While Elizabeth reigned for life and had a fairly successful reign, Mary ended up deposed and forced to seek exile in England where she was ultimately executed.

Is there anyway the roles of these two opposing figures might be switched? I'm not saying directly switched word for word, but maybe Mary remembered as a great Queen and statesman while Elizabeth is failure whose reign is almost wholly overlooked. Your challenge is to make this happen. I'd say any POD past 1542 (Mary's birth) is fair game.

One interesting idea may be Elizabeth dying of smallpox in the 1560s, while Mary somehow gets her marbles together and isn't deposed, or at least Elizabeth's successor is more willing to aid in her restoration.
 
Ehhh...difficult without totally transforming their personalities, which means transforming the ways in which they were raised, which means that they might not ever be queens at all.
 
Ehhh...difficult without totally transforming their personalities, which means transforming the ways in which they were raised, which means that they might not ever be queens at all.

This is quite possibly, but I'm not looking for where their fates are switched word-for-word, where Mary is highly successive and Elizabeth is the one led into bad marriage after bad mariages, but perhaps one has a more popular perception than the other. An early death of Elizabeth might achieve this, especially if she dies in the 1560s, it'd put into a knife into any possible cult surrounding her, especially if her successor is one of her lackless English heirs as stipulated by Henry's VIII will.
 
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This is quite possibly, but I'm looking for where their fates are switched word-for-word, where Mary is highly successive and Elizabeth is the one led into bad marriage after bad marriages, but perhaps one has a more popular perception than the other. An early death of Elizabeth might achieve this, especially if she dies in the 1560s, it'd put into a knife into any possible cult surrounding her, especially if her successor is one of her lackless English heirs as stipulated by Henry's VIII will.

Well switching their fates word-for-word would be impossible. Elizabeth would never get married, it probably steemed from her parents marriage and her fathers subsequent marriages and mher stepmother Catherine Parr's death in childbirth. However Elizabeth fell ill with smallpox in 1563 so instead of living Elizabeth could die. Truthfully the English heirs left much to be desired. Lady Catherine Grey was imprisoned and Lady Mary Grey was a dwarf. So perhaps Elizabeth names Mary Queen of Scots as her heir on her deathbed. The problem with that is Mary's religion. Maybe, and I mean maybe, a catholic queen would be accepted after Queen Mary Tudor, I really don't know. As for Mary being successful, she would have to have been taught to rule, something she wasn't in OTL. Well she was taught how to be a French Queen-Consort, but not a Scottish and English Queen-Regnant. So I'm not sure how to fix that.
 
Well switching their fates word-for-word would be impossible. Elizabeth would never get married, it probably steemed from her parents marriage and her fathers subsequent marriages and mher stepmother Catherine Parr's death in childbirth. However Elizabeth fell ill with smallpox in 1563 so instead of living Elizabeth could die. Truthfully the English heirs left much to be desired. Lady Catherine Grey was imprisoned and Lady Mary Grey was a dwarf. So perhaps Elizabeth names Mary Queen of Scots as her heir on her deathbed. The problem with that is Mary's religion. Maybe, and I mean maybe, a catholic queen would be accepted after Queen Mary Tudor, I really don't know. As for Mary being successful, she would have to have been taught to rule, something she wasn't in OTL. Well she was taught how to be a French Queen-Consort, but not a Scottish and English Queen-Regnant. So I'm not sure how to fix that.

I apologize for the typo. I meant I am not looking to switch their fates word for word. Rather, have things done so that history remembers Mary greatly/favorably, while Elizabeth is considered the more romantic figure, alternatively reviled and loved, or perhaps forgotten and resigned to the dust bin.

One word makes all the difference. :(
 
Well, I'm not quite sure how to fix Mary, although preserving her marriage to Henry Stuart would probably help allot, but that would make her less of an autocrat and more of a queen consort. Elizabeth could be changed pretty easily though, just by having her father or younger brother (or really even her older sister) live a bit longer and decide to marry her off. Her husband dies within a couple of years, and she is remarried, and this sets up a pattern of short marriages, a process which is aided by her becoming queen and being allowed to divorce anyone whenever she choses in Anglicanism. Repeated divorces create more and more enemies at court, and she eventually gets caught up in a plot by two or three ex husbands trying to overthrow her, probably to replace her with either one of her children or Mary of Scotland. And bang, Queen Elizabeth lives out her days in the Tower of London, forever leaving us with a legacy of romantic failure even greater than Mary's OTL one.
 
I apologize for the typo. I meant I am not looking to switch their fates word for word. Rather, have things done so that history remembers Mary greatly/favorably, while Elizabeth is considered the more romantic figure, alternatively reviled and loved, or perhaps forgotten and resigned to the dust bin.

One word makes all the difference. :(

OK that makes more sense :eek:. Well then, like I said Elizabeth could die in 1563, and with such a short reign a romantic image of the last Tudor and what could have been. Meanwhile, whit Elizabeth dead, I would image Henry Stuart, who had a good claim to the English throne and Mary's OTL husband, would be detained in England sense he was only allowed to go to Scotland because Elizabeth wanted him to. Alot of Mary's bad rep came from the image that she had her husband murdered so that butterflies part of the bad image. Second, depending on if Mary gets the English throne or not, a good husband might might be Charles II, Archduke of Inner Austria. In OTL he courted Elizabeth, so it would;nt be a stretch and Philip II did dangle his son as a husband to Mary so another Habsburg match wouldn't be unheard of. I'm not sure who would be a good husband for Mary if she gets the English Throne, foreign or domestic match.
 
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