From The Black Death, the Scourge of Europe
In the early August of 1641 another outbreak of the plague struck in England. although a relatively minor outbreak compared both to earlier outbreaks and ones that were to follow in 1665 in England, this outbreak arguably had the biggest direct impact on history than any other plague before or since. This was the case because unlike earlier plagues which mainly affected the working classes, this struck at the heart of the power structure - the royal family.
The outbreak started on the 4th of August 1641 in the house of a small London merchant just a hundred yards from the grounds of Charles I's palace at Whitehall. The plague had spread this distance to the royal palace by the 7th of August where King Charles I, Queen Henrietta Maria, and their children Charles, Mary (who had been married earlier that year to the futire William II, Prince of Orange), James, Elizabeth and Henry as well as Charles Louis the future heir of the Palatinate who had been disposed earlier in the century by the Holy Roman Emperor after his parents had taken the throne in Bohemia and was in England trying to win English effects were all infected and died within days.
The plague died out a cople of days after this having killed approximately 1,000 people but had gotten rid of the tyranical Stuart's (particular Charles) and they were going to be replaced by Elizabeth of Bohemia (who became Elizabeth II of England) who founded the new British dynasty of the house of Palatinate-Simmern.
From The Relationship Between Parliament and the Monarchy in the 17th Century
Unlike Charles I, Elizabeth II was in a good position to deal with the rather fragile parliamentary situation in 1641. Firstly unlike Charles she hadn't tried to rule without parliamentary rule for an 11 year period in the 1630's. Secondly she had been a cause celebrie and a heroine to the parliamentary opposition to both of the Stuart monarch's with one of the main criticism's of both James and Charles in the 1620's by parliament being that they were betraying both protestanism and family duty by not doing anything to help restore Elizabeth to her proper lands and titles. Parliament therefore fully trusted Elizabeth when she came to the throne and was not near the breaking point of open rebellion as had been the case under Charles.
From England 1558-1662 - The Elizabethan Sandwich of Greatness
Elizabeth II arrived in England from her exile in the Netherlands on the 20th of August 1641. She quickly issued a royal proclamation which was passed through parliament by the end of the year which while reaffirming Anglicanism as the official state religion allowed all protestant religions to be practised publically and in a move reminiscent of Elizabeth I allowed Catholics to practise their religion in private without penalty as long as they kept it private and followed the crown loyally. This proclamation was a result of her experiences during over 20 years of exile in the Netherlands where she had seen the benefits of religious tolerance to society.
Elizabeth also changed the relationship between parliament and the monarchy. Where as previously parliament had been called at the monarch's whim (often when they needed money), the Triennial acts signed under hardship by Charles in March of 1641 was embraced by Elizabeth who supported a biennial act mandating that parliament had to be called once every two years in return for the monarch being able to disolve parliament when it was in the national interest to do so. This act was passed in October of that year along with an act (which was needed to get the biennial act through the House of Commons) which allowed the Royal Veto to be over ruled in the event of 90% support in both Houses of Parliament.
An important issue for both Elizabeth and parliament was the restoration of her lands particularly in the Palatinate but also in Bohemia to a lesser extent. On the reccomendation of John Pym who had developed a good relationship with the new queen, Oliver Cromwell, the MP for Cambridge from 1640 and before that the MP from Huntingdon between 1628 and 1629 was put in charge of making the English military as strong as possible for this possible future conflict. In this reforming of the English military, Cromwell was greatly helped by Prince Rupert of the Rhine who had been made the Prince of Wales following his brother's death while in England earlier that year. Rupert who had fought in the Thirty Years War with great distinction at the Seige of Rheinberg in 1633, and in a battle at Breda in 1638 as well as at the battle of Vlotho on the 17th of October 1638 where he had been imprisoned. He was only released earlier in 1641 on parole on the condition that he never took up arms against the Holy Roman Emperor again.
It was in this climate that in January of 1642, a message was sent to Vienna requesting the return of Elizabeth's territories in Germany.
Note:The Point of Difference is that while in Original Time Line this plague developed a week after Charles had left to face the Scots and reached within a hundred yards of his palace. in this timeline the plague developed a fortnight earlier and due to different weather conditions and butterflies was slightly more intense and reached Whitehall Palace where it killed the whole of the Stuart Royal Family as well as Charles Louise who would in our timeline become the Elector Palantine.
Queries
- Now that Rupert is the Prince of Wales will his name be anglicised and if so to what?
- Will Cromwell be as successful in creating a sucessful army as he was with the New Model Army in Original Timeline?
- How much will the Habsburg's be willing to give to the English to prevent them from interfering in the Thirty Years War (i.e. nothing, the Palatinate, Bohemia, compensation from states in the empire fighting against the emperor such as Saxony and Brandenburg-Prussia)?