Habsburg Lorraine Greece and Britain

How could we have a Habsburg-Lorraine Greece and Britain?

Queen Victoria could marry the Jacobite claimant who was her contemporary and a Habsburg-Lorraine who was less virile than Albert and also the most visible Palaialogos descendants are the Habsburg-Lorraines as well.
 
How could we have a Habsburg-Lorraine Greece and Britain?

Queen Victoria could marry the Jacobite claimant who was her contemporary and a Habsburg-Lorraine who was less virile than Albert and also the most visible Palaialogos descendants are the Habsburg-Lorraines as well.

No Catholic on a British throne. Can't see anyone accepting it. You need a PoD of Mary of England at learliest. So... 1550s... let her have a Catholic heir. At latest a failed Glorious Revolution with James II on the throne and a Catholic heir. Let the dynasty intermarry with the Habsburgs abd the die out. A Habsburg Britain there is. If OTL does not get too affected then a Habsburg may end up in Greece in 1830 (or earlier, who knows...). Although I am not sure if a Habsburg is willing to turn Greek Orthodox...
 
No Catholic on a British throne. Can't see anyone accepting it. You need a PoD of Mary of England at learliest. So... 1550s... let her have a Catholic heir. At latest a failed Glorious Revolution with James II on the throne and a Catholic heir. Let the dynasty intermarry with the Habsburgs abd the die out. A Habsburg Britain there is. If OTL does not get too affected then a Habsburg may end up in Greece in 1830 (or earlier, who knows...). Although I am not sure if a Habsburg is willing to turn Greek Orthodox...

The issue is that a POD before 1740 is likely to result in a Habsburg rather than Habsburg Lorraine monarchy and might well butterfly the house of Habsburg-Lorraine. You could then later get a house of Habsburg Lorraine by another round of intermarriage, but it wouldnt be the same House founded by Maria Theresa and Francis of Lorraine.
 
The issue is that a POD before 1740 is likely to result in a Habsburg rather than Habsburg Lorraine monarchy and might well butterfly the house of Habsburg-Lorraine. You could then later get a house of Habsburg Lorraine by another round of intermarriage, but it wouldnt be the same House founded by Maria Theresa and Francis of Lorraine.
Yes, but Archduke Francis can marry Queen Victoria, provided that he converts to Anglicanism and he can get Belgium as well in that case..
 
Here's the thing for Greece. Whoever becomes King must convert to the Greek Orthodox Church, no ifs and or buts. That does not necessarily square well with the UK, which at the time the throne was de jure banned for Catholics and de facto the public expects an Anglican on the throne since whoever occupies the monarchy is Supreme Governor of the Church of England. Now converting to Anglicanism would be not that much of an obstacle to climb for a Hapsburg (the 19th century saw the rise of the Tractarians and the modern Anglo-Catholic movement which ultimately colonized the "high church" wing of the C of E; at this stage, even considering the context of the time, any attempt at reconciliation between the two would be most welcome). It's Greece that would be more problematic, since at the time most Western Europeans had this very rosy-eyed view of the place based on Ancient Greece, which is as different from Ottoman-era Greece as Victorian Britain is from Roman-era Britain. The paradigmatic example (apart from Lord Byron) of this clash of interpretations of Greece is King Otto himself, who made himself very unpopular and was forced out by the Greeks themselves. Any Hapsburg monarch of Greece would have to be separate from the British connection, number one, so that he could convert to Greek Orthodoxy in a sincere manner, and number two would have to considerably lower his expectations of what to expect for Greece and use what was already there. One big butterfly here would be no autocephalous Church of Greece, but that would be no big problem; your average Greek would not notice the difference when s/he piously walks into a church.
 
Yes, but Archduke Francis can marry Queen Victoria, provided that he converts to Anglicanism and he can get Belgium as well in that case..

That would work, but the poster I was replying to suggested a POD with either Mary or a Jacobite pretender, which would result ina Habsburg rather than Habsburg Lorraine England/Britain.
 
What of the Greek Catholic church?

By this point the Latin and Greek Catholics together are a very minor presence in Greece at this point in the 19th century. For the latter, an organizational structure existed only starting in the 1880s, and for the former (although somewhat more numerous, relatively speaking, they're largely confined to the various islands under former Venetian or Genoese rule) the structure in its modern form also dates from this period. It would be much less complicated if whoever among the Hapsburgs become King of Greece converts to the religion of the majority population. To retain the Catholic religion would create a lot of problems (not to mention having the King and Royal Family viewed as heretics), so to convert would be of utmost importance in maintaining the stability of his reign.
 
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