Cursed Habsburg France idea

Ryden_Br

So im going to start this thread with the obvious: the scenario im proposing was impossible due to various reasons but i found it fun so im going with it.

That said, i was reading about the Franco-Spanish war of 1595 (the one from the French Wars of Religion) and i couldn't help but notice that Archuduke Albert of Austria was heavily involved in the end as governor of the Spanish Netherlands. He ended up marrying the spanish infanta Isabela Clara Eugenia one year after the war ended and she was the candidate for queen of a minority of french catholics. So my head for some reason got the idea: what if Isabela Clara and Albert got to be kings of France due to any space bat reasons you want to think about.

So the timeline is as follows:
1589: after the death of the cardinal de bourbon the catholic league for god knows what reasons accepts Isabela as queen of France
1589-1599: somehow they miracolously win against Henri de Navarre
1598: Albert dosen't become sovereing of the habsburg netherlands like in OTL
1599: Isabela still marries Albert and the catholic league magically forgets that they wanted her to marry a frenchman

Things to consider are short term are:
- The diplomatic impacts of a habsurg france
- How would Albert's and Isabela's style of goverment do in France

Things to consider long term are:
- Who suceeds them? (as they didn't have any children in otl for disputed reasons)
- Would the regime suceed pass their deaths?
- How would female sucession affect future internal affairs of france?
 
ordinarylittleme

ordinarylittleme

How do they win against Henri de Navarre? I think that's an important question? Is Henri killed or captured and kept in prison? Why on EARTH would Isabella be accepted when Salic law existed to stop that?

But if female succession was allowed then that would have saved a LOT of trouble with dynasties dying out in the male line...
 
Clandango

Clandango

ordinarylittleme said:
How do they win against Henri de Navarre? I think that's an important question? Is Henri killed or captured and kept in prison? Why on EARTH would Isabella be accepted when Salic law existed to stop that?

But if female succession was allowed then that would have saved a LOT of trouble with dynasties dying out in the male line...
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Didn’t the French push for Salic law partially to retroactively remove the claims of the English kings?
 
Clandango

Clandango

darthfanta said:
It was actually to remove the claims of Joan of Navarre,who was widely suspected to be a bastard without actually declaring her as such.
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ordinarylittleme said:
I don't think so...if this was the case then you'd think something like that would happen in Castile with regards to "la beltraneja"
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Looking it up, I see Wikipedia’s pages on Salic law mention that it was not exactly Salic law explicitly used there (though it was basically the same) as it had a guy who was supposed to be regent claiming himself as king due to closely related he was to St. Louis. That page says the daughters were supposed to inherit the throne if their brother died (he did, fairly early). Might be there are some problems of wording between the Wikipedia page or one of them is using the official terms of the agreement (or ignoring parts unrelated to their pages) as there was just one daughter. The page on Joan II mentions the claims of illegitimacy andshe was not set to inherit France, but Navarre and the dowry counties of her mother in France. Fortunately for her it ended up with her eventually getting Navarre once her uncle died and the locals threw out the zfrench governor and declared her Queen. I recall John Lackland and how he forced a woman engaged to someone else to marry her, then divorced her and kept all of her lands (after earlier forcing the inheritance set to go to her sisters when their parents died to go to her/him.) They did do Salic law more officially later on to remove the claim of the French English kings. But yah, that would all be in the past by here.

Still, with enough force they sometimes would overlook it. In the Hundred Years War one of the English king’s got far enough into the country that the French King agreed to marry his daughter to him and disinherit his son. Of course much of this isn’t related to the topic at hand, I suppose. If this happens we can probably imagine that the wars Henry IV participated in against the Habsburgs will instead have the Habsburg clients winning. We also can see the English being very angry or scared, plus the Ottomans a bit more isolated.
 
Avrorrange

Avrorrange

ordinarylittleme said:
I don't think so...if this was the case then you'd think something like that would happen in Castile with regards to "la beltraneja"
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It very much was. Unlike France, Castile had a long tradition of female succession. For France, Jean of Navarre was the first instance of a king dying with only a surviving daughter.It helped that Jean’s maternal uncle and main supporter,the Dukes of Burgundy, was willing to negotiate with Jean’s paternal uncle for Jean to be recognized as a legitimate princess in return for supporting ‘salic law’.
 
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FouDuRoy

Such a thing means basically destroying French royalty as it existed and building an entirely new royalty with new laws.
I guess female succession would be included in the new succession laws. Without it, how could Isabel reign?
Then, I am pretty sure her successor would be her nephew Victor-Amadeus, duke of Savoy. It implies France would gain Savoy in the process. Interestingly, this France/Savoy union would have boundary with Milan. And Victor-Amadeus was the logical heir of the Valois claim to Milan.
 
Avrorrange

Avrorrange

FouDuRoy said:
Such a thing means basically destroying French royalty as it existed and building an entirely new royalty with new laws.
I guess female succession would be included in the new succession laws. Without it, how could Isabel reign?
Then, I am pretty sure her successor would be her nephew Victor-Amadeus, duke of Savoy. It implies France would gain Savoy in the process. Interestingly, this France/Savoy union would have boundary with Milan. And Victor-Amadeus was the logical heir of the Valois claim to Milan.
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France is honestly an exception in that there were no usurpations(depending on who you ask of course) between the Hugh Capet and the French Revolution.
 
ordinarylittleme

ordinarylittleme

FouDuRoy said:
Such a thing means basically destroying French royalty as it existed and building an entirely new royalty with new laws.
I guess female succession would be included in the new succession laws. Without it, how could Isabel reign?
Then, I am pretty sure her successor would be her nephew Victor-Amadeus, duke of Savoy. It implies France would gain Savoy in the process. Interestingly, this France/Savoy union would have boundary with Milan. And Victor-Amadeus was the logical heir of the Valois claim to Milan.
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I don't think you need to destroy ALL of French royalty. Just the male-line descendants...and the men...therefore necessitating female succession. That'd be a BLOODBATH but it could be quite interesting to explore
 
Clandango

Clandango

How would this all effect the wars between France and the Habsburgs over Milan, Savoy, Burgundy, etc? Savoy/Piedmont especially. Would a Habsburg led or leaning France have lost the rights to inheritance or the dynastic ties to those areas? Would the Habsburgs elsewhere try to solidify their own control over the area? I see them perhaps being a bit antsy at first about if France would stay in their camp. Plus those are valuable and strategic areas. Ooh, the Habsburgs might also technically have a near monopoly in Swiss mercenaries who have not yet left Switzerland, as they would surround it on so many sides. I doubt they would make any attempt to conquer that Swiss themselves of course as the land wouldn’t be worth it and due to its location and government, it might as well be the middle area between the patricians and small nobility of Italy and Germany. Any religious reformers there will have to sit tight though. They are not going anywhere.
 
DracoLazarus

DracoLazarus

ordinarylittleme said:
I don't think you need to destroy ALL of French royalty. Just the male-line descendants...and the men...therefore necessitating female succession. That'd be a BLOODBATH but it could be quite interesting to explore
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And it would require the French nobility to not just assassinate the foreign, Habsburg monarchs.
Which considering the French lost a number of kings in that era to assassinations... isn't too unlikely, I think that if they're crowned in 95 they'd be exploded by 97.
 

Ryden_Br

ordinarylittleme said:
How do they win against Henri de Navarre? I think that's an important question? Is Henri killed or captured and kept in prison? Why on EARTH would Isabella be accepted when Salic law existed to stop that?

But if female succession was allowed then that would have saved a LOT of trouble with dynasties dying out in the male line...
Click to expand...
Well as i said its basically a alien space bats scenario (as in it was impossible but lets say it happened as i found it a intresting and wanted to discuss). So i guess you can input your own weird and unrealistic way to make it work as thats not the main point i wanted to ask.
 
DracoLazarus

DracoLazarus

FouDuRoy said:
How do you want to have the Valois or the Bourbons getting Austria? 😲
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Just kill off Philip the Fair of Austria before 1490.
Margaret of Austria becomes the sole heir to the Habsburg realm after Maximilian of Austria, and she's still engaged to Charles VIII.
 
ordinarylittleme

ordinarylittleme

DracoLazarus said:
And it would require the French nobility to not just assassinate the foreign, Habsburg monarchs.
Which considering the French lost a number of kings in that era to assassinations... isn't too unlikely, I think that if they're crowned in 95 they'd be exploded by 97.
Click to expand...
True...perhaps get the Habsburg king to wed a French princess again...
 
ordinarylittleme

ordinarylittleme

DracoLazarus said:
Just kill off Philip the Fair of Austria before 1490.
Margaret of Austria becomes the sole heir to the Habsburg realm after Maximilian of Austria, and she's still engaged to Charles VIII.
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Yes but he broke it off with her to go for Anne of Brittany as Brittany was much more useful to France than Austria...
 
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