Arthur Survives, Who Does Henry Wed?

Assuming Arthur lives and especially if he and Catherine have a child then Henry is far less valuable for the top of the European Royal Marriage market.
If he is his brother's heir at Arthur's accession then he is more valuable especially if after several years Catherine and Arthur have remained childless.
Another question is what land and wealth has been bestowed on Henry? How much of a catch is he?
Edward IV had bestowed lands and titles on his brothers and his younger son - but the majority of their wealth came via marriages with wealthy heiresses. (though he did attempt a foreign marriage for George of Clarence on a couple of occassions) In effect Edward endowed his close male relations without alienating any lands from the crown.
Henry V's brothers had been endowed by the crown but mainly from lands taken from other people.
Given Henry VIII's age when he became heir to the throne he had not been vastly endowed by his father.
Assuming Arthur lives then apart from his title he is going to be dependent on his father and then his brother's financial generosity and that means either finding him a rich wife or giving him lands and property that belonged to the crown or where in its gift.
A domestic wife preferably an heiress is an easy solution to that issue the problem is their aren't many around:
Some thoughts on those mentioned already or the one's I think the most likely!
A Stafford match - Elizabeth Stafford was Henry's second cousin (both being a great grand child of Richard Earl Rivers) - she was betrothed to Westmorland first before her father opted for Norfolk - her dowery was around £2,000 so not to be sniffed at - failing her there is her two younger sisters (one of whom did marry Westmorland)
A Grey marriage - one problem is the family dispute that arose after Thomas Grey's death in 1501 over his widow's remarriage and her family's fear she would use her wealth to endow her young second husband at the expense of her children. As one of four daughter's Elizabeth would have a good dower but not an heiress by any standard - she is of course Henry's half first cousin.
Ursula Pole (b around 1504) - bit young but the granddaughter of George Duke of Clarence - and her dowery when she married Buckingham's heir was around 3,000 marks. Given that her mother was a close confidante of both Arthur and Catherine (and remained in Henry VIII's good books for years) I wouldn't rule out her at all. Henry Duke of York is a better match than the heir of the Duke of Buckingham. (In OTL she married in around 1518/19)
I would rule out Margaret Courtenay Henry's first cousin - her father was under attainder and the family were not wealthy even before that (given the numerous gifts to her mother and siblings by Queen Elizabeth of York).

PS there is no suggestion that Henry would have been "governor" of the north (there was no such position)
 
A candidate I haven't seen mentioned yet: Germaine de Foixe, niece of the Kings of France and Aragon. You'd need the right PoD to make it happen, but she was adequately royal and well-connected to be a suitable match for the second son of a new dynasty.

As for Henry becoming a prince of the Church, it would meet many of his inclinations. He was very bright, educated, and theologically interested. OTL, he wrote a treatise against Luther that got him awarded the 'Defender of the Faith' title from the Pope (talk about irony). The fact that he liked tumbling female courtiers, well, that wasn't anything out of the ordinary for princes of the Church at the time, unfortunately.

Whether Henry VII would have agreed to it, that's another question entirely. But OTL's Henry VIII would likely have been happy to go that route. IMO.

I can't see any of the Tudor men agreeing to that...until Arthur has issue of his own, the risk of leaving the crown to the Stewarts and bringing civil war back once more would mean that Henry of York would, necessarily, marry to father heirs.

Julia of Naples and Anne of Navarre both strike me as reasonably safe choices should Henry VII be arranging the betrothal as opposed to Arthur. The consensus that seems to be emerging is that if Henry is still unmarried by the time his brother comes to the throne, then he isn't marrying a foreign bride. Of the two, I think I prefer Julia, because her aunt Joan was a candidate to marry Henry VII after Elizabeth of York died. One scenario could be Elizabeth of York dying more-or-less on schedule, Henry VII's courtiers going to Naples to assess Joan, and encountering Julia; Henry, of course, doesn't want to remarry but as a sop to Naples he'll marry his son to their daughter - who, IOTL, never married until 1533, at the age of 41 :)eek:) in a short-lived union with the Marquis of Montferrat which (unsurprisingly) produced no children. Such a marriage would give Henry Tudor's children a claim to the throne of Naples, and depending on how the Italian Wars go, a "neutral" King of Naples might be as desirable as a "neutral" Duke of Milan.

IIRC, by the time Henry VII was at liberty to remarry, Queen Joanna of Naples was already residing with her mother (Ferdinand's sister) in Valencia. They kept a small Neapolitan court-in-exile about them but I can't recall if the nieces were there or not. (Wiki is saying Naples, so you could be right, but I have the fixed idea that they were in Valencia). Either way, plans were scuppered by Philip I's death and Henry VIII's subsequent fixation on wedding Juanna la Loca instead; the subsequent ill-will (combined with constant squabbling over her dowry) had much to do with the many sufferings he caused/allowed Catherine of Aragon in her widowhood. The match with Queen Joanna had been a counter-proposal to Henry VII's inquiries re: Catherine as a potential match for himself; in all of this it's hard to see where poor Julia would fit in, with a suitable dowry, which Ferdinand certainly would not be willing to pay.

Bona Sforza's family had means of their own to provide for their daughter, but Julia's were deposed and landless. Not the most attractive candidate for Henry's hand...

Assuming Arthur lives and especially if he and Catherine have a child then Henry is far less valuable for the top of the European Royal Marriage market.
If he is his brother's heir at Arthur's accession then he is more valuable especially if after several years Catherine and Arthur have remained childless.
Another question is what land and wealth has been bestowed on Henry? How much of a catch is he?
Edward IV had bestowed lands and titles on his brothers and his younger son - but the majority of their wealth came via marriages with wealthy heiresses. (though he did attempt a foreign marriage for George of Clarence on a couple of occassions) In effect Edward endowed his close male relations without alienating any lands from the crown.
Henry V's brothers had been endowed by the crown but mainly from lands taken from other people.
Given Henry VIII's age when he became heir to the throne he had not been vastly endowed by his father.
Assuming Arthur lives then apart from his title he is going to be dependent on his father and then his brother's financial generosity and that means either finding him a rich wife or giving him lands and property that belonged to the crown or where in its gift.
A domestic wife preferably an heiress is an easy solution to that issue the problem is their aren't many around:
Some thoughts on those mentioned already or the one's I think the most likely!
A Stafford match - Elizabeth Stafford was Henry's second cousin (both being a great grand child of Richard Earl Rivers) - she was betrothed to Westmorland first before her father opted for Norfolk - her dowery was around £2,000 so not to be sniffed at - failing her there is her two younger sisters (one of whom did marry Westmorland)

A Stafford match would be one of the most practical, especially if Henry VII uses it to snag more of the de Bohun inheritance for his son and a renunciation of all Stafford claims to the Lancastrian half. We might then see Harry York emerge as a prominent marcher lord governing Wales for his brother.

The Viscountess Lisle was one of few heiresses about, so a possibility; otherwise his cousin Margaret Plantagenet, an attractively fertile and middle-aged widow which Henry of York could neutralize as a dynastic threat (he'd need a dispensation since he was related to both her and her husband) and which would likely provide him with an heir or two, but not too many.
 
The only problem with the Stafford match is Elizabeth is one of numerous children and her chance of inheriting the Buckingham estates is slim to negligible (Assuming Arthur lives and perhaps has issue then Buckingham as a political threat becomes even less risky)
She is still a catch in terms of family and dowery though but in this tl i think it likely Buckingham doesn't think of rebellion or pose a dynastic threat.
It would take a lot to remove her brothers and uncle aswell as her father in order for the lot to fall to Elizabeth and Henry.
Viscountess Lisle is a wealthy catch - but she is going to be a long wait (she wont be or marital age until around 1519 at the earliest)

Margaret Plantagenet Pole (she wasn't given the Earldom of Salisbury until Henry VIII's accession) is a widow husband died in 1504/5 and she is poor Henry VII paid for her husband's funeral.
In otl Henry VIII restored some lands of her grandparents and the Earldom of Salisbury to her making her more wealthy and by the time of her execution she was very wealthy. She is also much older than Henry which might cause mockery of the match and her age is problematic in terms of issue she is passed thirty in 1505 to Henry's 14.
Henry is her first cousin once removed and his father Henry VII is half first cousin of her husband Sir Richard Pole (whose mother was half sister to Margaret Beaufort) - as i said i think her daughter a better catch assuming Margaret receives at least the grants and restorations she got from Henry VIII on his accession in this tl from King Arthur then the daughter is a better candidate.

A Stafford match would be one of the most practical, especially if Henry VII uses it to snag more of the de Bohun inheritance for his son and a renunciation of all Stafford claims to the Lancastrian half. We might then see Harry York emerge as a prominent marcher lord governing Wales for his brother.
The Viscountess Lisle was one of few heiresses about, so a possibility; otherwise his cousin Margaret Plantagenet, an attractively fertile and middle-aged widow which Henry of York could neutralize as a dynastic threat (he'd need a dispensation since he was related to both her and her husband) and which would likely provide him with an heir or two, but not too many.
 
I like Ursula Pole, although both she and the Viscountess Lisle are subject to butterflies (born in 1504 and 1505 respectively), and if they are both still born ITTL, I imagine it would be tough for Arthur or Henry to have to choose between them. If we're discussing candidates in the context of their relation to King Arthur, and since the possibility of Henry being dispatched to Wales has been brought up, I should probably mention Griffith Ryce (Gruffydd ap Rhys ap Thomas), arguably Arthur's closest confidant - IOTL he married Catherine St John, the half-niece of Margaret Beaufort, which makes him family (and ITTL he could marry even higher). Arthur has a nice shiny Welsh peerage he can bestow upon Griffith (Earl of Pembroke) and it's hard to imagine that he wouldn't be Arthur's Welsh lieutenant. This makes it likelier that York would be dispatched to the North - probably not in any formal, titled position, but with similar duties to Richard III before him. Where would he go otherwise, if he stayed in England? Maybe he'd be stationed in Calais? If so, perhaps that would increase the likelihood of a continental match, especially from neighbouring France or Burgundy/Austria.
 
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