So John, Duke of Bedford.
Younger brother of the great Henry V. After Henry's untimely death, Regent in France for the next 15 years. John gets overshadowed by his brother, but he was an impressive character in his own right: diligent, fearless, a more-than-competent general and no mean diplomat. Even the French respected him.
But he didn't leave any heirs behind.
We know the Duke of Bedford was fertile; he fathered one bastard son, and his first wife -- Anne of Burgundy, sister of Philip the Good -- died in 1432 in childbirth. But still: no heirs. This is especially odd when you look at his second marriage. Duke John remarried just a year after Anne's death, to a young French/ Burgundian girl who had been part of his wife's household: Jacquetta of Luxembourg.
This marriage was peculiar on several levels. First, though of noble birth and family, the girl was at least two steps below a royal Duke. Second, she was thirty years younger than the Duke -- just seventeen. Even in the fifteenth century, eyebrows were raised. And third, she was a Burgundian subject, so John should have consulted his former brother-in-law, Philip the Good, before marrying her. He did not. Philip was, understandably, enraged. Here his sister was barely cold in her grave, and her widowed husband was jumping her teenage handmaiden, without even asking his permission first. This incident was a major contributing factor in the collapse of Anglo-Burgundian relations in the 1430s.
This was all rather unlike Duke John, who was a competent diplomat and no fool. The simplest explanation is that the fortysomething Duke was besotted with the lovely young girl.
Anyway. Duke John died two years later; he and Jacquetta had no children. Within two years, Jacquetta had married again... to Sir Richard Woodville, the handsome son of John's chamberlain. This was another shocker; Sir Richard was a simple knight, as far below her as she had been below Duke John. And as a royal Duchess, aunt to the young King Henry, Jacquetta was supposed to get royal permission before marrying again. It was a nine days wonder, and the Duchess had to pay a heavy fine -- 1000 pounds, perhaps some million of dollars modern
equivalent.
It's interesting to note the parallel between John and his big brother Henry V: both left behind young, pretty French widows who soon found comfort with handsome courtiers and were subsequently married in secret.
Now: while Jacquetta had not produced a single child with Duke John, she and Sir Richard produced a whopping _sixteen_ live births. Eleven of them lived to adulthood. One was the lovely Elizabeth Woodville, who inherited her mother's mind-melting powers and used them to good effect on Edward IV. The others became the huge and parasitic Woodville clan, whose boundless appetite for wealth and titles helped make Edward IV's reign so interesting.
So Edward IV's mother-in-law was the widow of Henry V's brother... where was I. Oh yes, Duke John. So, on one hand he had enough juice in him to go after young Jacquetta, and marry her in defiance of diplomacy and good sense. On the other hand, they produced no children in two and a half years of marriage, which is striking given her extraordinary fertility in later life.
And so we come to the WI: the parallel between Henry V and Duke John goes one step further, and John dies leaving Jacquetta with a baby boy. This young prince would be Henry VI's first cousin and another male Lancastrian heir. The boy would probably be named Henry or John, but let's call him Peter, after Jacquetta's father Pierre of Luxembourg.
With the death of Humphrey of Gloucester in 1447, young Peter would become the heir presumptive to the English throne. Simply by existing, he'd significantly strengthen Henry VI's throne, and put a noticeable crimp in the ambitions of Richard of York. Oh, and his mother Jacquetta would probably be kept under closer watch, and prevented from marrying her handsome knight, so we've probably eliminated the Woodvilles as well.
Have we derailed the Wars of the Roses? Maybe!
Or maybe not. If Peter is weak and feckless, then not -- we've just added another target. But if he's reasonably competent, he's another warm body standing between Richard of York and the throne. He'd be 18 or 19 in 1453, which is when the balloon went up OTL... certainly old enough to be a factor.
It's possible that Richard rebels anyway, and young Peter ends up dying in one of the early scuffles of the Wars of the Roses. He'd certainly be a prime target. Other-other hand, if he marries, any of his kids would be Lancastrian heirs too.
Mind, if Peter turns out to be more than competent -- not impossible, given who his father and uncle were -- he could be a major asset to the Lancastrians. 18-year-old Edward IV single-handedly saved the Yorkist cause from disaster, so this isn't implausible.
OTOH, if he takes after his mother's side of the family, he'd probably be handsome, greedy, arrogant and stupid. Elizabeth Woodville seems to have been brighter and more competent than any of her brothers, but she still wasn't exactly great at winning hearts and minds.
Also: Margaret of Anjou would probably view him askance, as another potential rival to her husband's throne. So he might not have much chance to show his stuff.
Gnarly.
Thoughts?
Doug M.