In OTL, the Canary Islands were conquered by Castile in the 15th century, starting in 1402. This conquest helped springboard the eventual European discovery of the New World and gave Spain both a stepping stone towards the Americas and provided a new target for the Reconquest ethos.
But what if the Canary Islands had instead been taken by France? The leaders of the Castilian invasion were both Frenchmen - Gadifer de la Salle and Jean de Bethencourt - and the first expedition left from La Rochelle, France. It's not hard to imagine the French king, even with the Hundred Years War raging, lending his support to an effort to expand his dominion. Béthencourt is financing the expedition, after all.
So, as in OTL, Béthencourt and de la Salle land in the Canaries in 1402, and seize Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, and El Hierro in fairly short order. These three islands become the Kingdom of the Canaries, with Béthencourt as their king (but as a vassal to Charles VI). This has very little effect on the war in France, which unfolds more or less as it does in OTL (with some minor butterfly effects on dates and places of battles). *Charles VII of this timeline eventually succeeds in gaining control of all of France (except perhaps a few enclaves such as Calais). His domain also includes les îles Canaries, which now includes all the islands, at least nominally.
And now things, perhaps, get very divergent from our own history.
The Castilians, deprived of an Atlantic outlet, turn their attention southwards, across the Strait of Gibraltar. While the Portuguese manage to seize the Azores and establish a string of forts along the coast of West Africa, the Castilians channel the energy that in OTL lead to the conquest of much of the Weestern Hemisphere into seizing northwest Africa.
Meanwhile, France has been colonizing the Canary Islands for decades. French merchants begin to take their share of the east Atlantic trade in gold and slaves. And then, in the reign of *Louis XI, one of his Genoese subjects, a merchant from an established family on Lancerotte (OTL Lanzarote), approaches the king with a proposal to gain France great riches by sailing west across the great ocean in search of the spices of the Far East, bypassing the Venetians and Arabs who dominate the long current route across Asia and the Mediterranean. There have long been stories of other islands further west in the Atlantic, and surely it will not take long to cross the rest of the ocean and reach the eastern coast of China.Louis XI, eager to gain greater glory for France and Holy Mother Church (and to make France appear less weak compared to the expanding Castilians and Portuguese), agrees to Zorzo Caffageddo's bold plan. On August 18, 1477, four ships depart the port of Pentecôteville (OTL Santa Cruz) and sail into the great unknown. As Caffageddo confidently predicted, they make landfall around five weeks later, on September 23, the Feast of St. Thecla (thus, the island discovered, OTL Eleuthera in Bahamas, is named Sainte-Thècle).
Of course, it does not take long for the learned men of Caffageddo's mission (which includes three priests and four merchants who have actually been to China) to realize they are not where they expect to be. The expedition lingers in these strange new islands for another few months and return to Pentecôteville in March of 1478. Caffageddo goes on to La Rochelle and then to Paris, preceded by news and rumors of his strange voyage.
And then... what? Assuming Louis XI takes advantage of the discovery, what does a New World where France dominates the Caribbean (and maybe even most of OTL's Spanish empire) look like? What about Castilian North Africa? How far can the "Re"conquest go before Islamic resistance stops it? And what about Portugal? What do you, the viewers at home, think?
But what if the Canary Islands had instead been taken by France? The leaders of the Castilian invasion were both Frenchmen - Gadifer de la Salle and Jean de Bethencourt - and the first expedition left from La Rochelle, France. It's not hard to imagine the French king, even with the Hundred Years War raging, lending his support to an effort to expand his dominion. Béthencourt is financing the expedition, after all.
So, as in OTL, Béthencourt and de la Salle land in the Canaries in 1402, and seize Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, and El Hierro in fairly short order. These three islands become the Kingdom of the Canaries, with Béthencourt as their king (but as a vassal to Charles VI). This has very little effect on the war in France, which unfolds more or less as it does in OTL (with some minor butterfly effects on dates and places of battles). *Charles VII of this timeline eventually succeeds in gaining control of all of France (except perhaps a few enclaves such as Calais). His domain also includes les îles Canaries, which now includes all the islands, at least nominally.
And now things, perhaps, get very divergent from our own history.
The Castilians, deprived of an Atlantic outlet, turn their attention southwards, across the Strait of Gibraltar. While the Portuguese manage to seize the Azores and establish a string of forts along the coast of West Africa, the Castilians channel the energy that in OTL lead to the conquest of much of the Weestern Hemisphere into seizing northwest Africa.
Meanwhile, France has been colonizing the Canary Islands for decades. French merchants begin to take their share of the east Atlantic trade in gold and slaves. And then, in the reign of *Louis XI, one of his Genoese subjects, a merchant from an established family on Lancerotte (OTL Lanzarote), approaches the king with a proposal to gain France great riches by sailing west across the great ocean in search of the spices of the Far East, bypassing the Venetians and Arabs who dominate the long current route across Asia and the Mediterranean. There have long been stories of other islands further west in the Atlantic, and surely it will not take long to cross the rest of the ocean and reach the eastern coast of China.Louis XI, eager to gain greater glory for France and Holy Mother Church (and to make France appear less weak compared to the expanding Castilians and Portuguese), agrees to Zorzo Caffageddo's bold plan. On August 18, 1477, four ships depart the port of Pentecôteville (OTL Santa Cruz) and sail into the great unknown. As Caffageddo confidently predicted, they make landfall around five weeks later, on September 23, the Feast of St. Thecla (thus, the island discovered, OTL Eleuthera in Bahamas, is named Sainte-Thècle).
Of course, it does not take long for the learned men of Caffageddo's mission (which includes three priests and four merchants who have actually been to China) to realize they are not where they expect to be. The expedition lingers in these strange new islands for another few months and return to Pentecôteville in March of 1478. Caffageddo goes on to La Rochelle and then to Paris, preceded by news and rumors of his strange voyage.
And then... what? Assuming Louis XI takes advantage of the discovery, what does a New World where France dominates the Caribbean (and maybe even most of OTL's Spanish empire) look like? What about Castilian North Africa? How far can the "Re"conquest go before Islamic resistance stops it? And what about Portugal? What do you, the viewers at home, think?