Healthier Francis II = France-Scotland-England?

Reading over several Tudor timelines the other day, a question popped into the mind: What would happen in a world with Mary Stuart married to a healthier, fertile Francis II? One where the Tudors proved no more prosperous than IOTL?

Francis's father Henry II had six (seven if you count Francis) legitimate children that survived to adulthood, plus several bastards. While Mary was James V's only surviving legitimate, he fathered at least nine bastards. With this in mind, I figured it was at least possible for Francis and Mary to have five children make it to adulthood, out of numerous other miscarriages/stillbirths/early deaths. They are as follows:

Louis (b. 1562)
Marie (b. 1564)
Charles (b. 1566)
Claude (b. 1569)
Madeleine (b. 1572)

Louis and Charles, an heir and a spare, just about secure the succession. Marie and Claude aren't the most robust princesses, more like the kind to have one or two children before dying from a birth/miscarriage or being left infertile from one. Madeleine, however, is healthy as can be, unlike her ill-fated ancestor.

In 1562, Queen Elizabeth is a year or two shy of thirty, and she ain't getting any younger. Her successor is married to the King of France and a queen in her own right, and Mary's newborn son now has very good claim to three kingdoms.

How would a healthier, more independent Francis II affect the future of France? Who would Elizabeth marry to try and produce a legitimate heir? If that fails, would she seek to declare another heir in Mary/Louis's place? If that were the case, would France-Scotland be prepared to go to war over their king's rightful claim on England? Would the world see a France-Scotland-England, if only for a little while?

What about marriages and the resulting alliances? Surely such close claimants to three kingdoms would be very high in demand on the marriage market.
 
OK, we love A More Personal Union but we can have our own threads on the subject without that TL hijacking it!

I think Mary's Catholic offspring would be bypassed for Lady Anne Stanley or Arbella Stuart. In Scotland, the Protestants might make Moray or the legal heir, the Earl of Arran, King to prevent Catholic rule.
 
To join in with the 'no, he won't get it all' crowd--Historical Philip II, not being the utterly bigoted idiot that Meme Philip II is, will side with whoever he has to stop a Valois Empire. So Spain backs the Protestants in the British Isles, as it was in fact doing during the Mary-Francois marriage (and for some time afterwards). Possibly, if he's really on a roll, Philip restrains himself in the Netherlands to avoid giving France allies there. (But that might be hoping too much.) France likely winds up diplomatically isolated, with England and Scotland firmly in the Spanish sphere while its King seriously holds pretentions to their respective thrones.
 
Yup tend to agree - the pressure on Elizabeth to marry will ramp up each and every time Mary produces a Valois catholic heir but she can avoid it as she will have Philip on side which will also keep a Papal excommunication at bay (as it did in OTL).

The English council and Parliament will keep Henry's final will and the third Henrician Act of Succession at the forefront as a justification to exclude Mary and her French heirs from the throne in the event of Elizabeth's death.

In Scotland the Lords of the Congregation continue to move closer to England and in my view closer to open rebellion against their absent, Catholic and foreign Queen.

In France expect a stronger religious war as a surviving Frances and Mary means a stronger Guise influence on the royal couple and less of the more pragmatic Queen Mother.
 
In France expect a stronger religious war as a surviving Frances and Mary means a stronger Guise influence on the royal couple and less of the more pragmatic Queen Mother.

Ehhh...

The Guise/Catherine de Medici thing is... complicated. Early 1560s, the Guises are moderates, with the man calling the shots, Cardinal de Lorraine, being about as close to Protestant without actually being one that a person can get. As the consensus starts breaking down, and it becomes clearer that a compromise isn't going to happen, the family shifts to a more hardline stance, though believe it or not, most of them never have the mad hate-on for Huguenots many of the other future Catholic League members share. Catherine, on the other hand really, really despises the Huguenots, but she clues in early on that persecution doesn't seem to work and empowers nobles who see it as an opportunity to aggrandize themselves--like, for example, the Guises. This--and a whole lot of other things--results in that back and forth policy that will wind up partaking of the worst of both worlds...

Honestly, I don't know if any French monarch can come up with a working compromise until the Catholic diehards and the Huguenots both realize that neither one of them can kill their way to victory. And that will take some time. That said, despite her surprisingly large fanbase of revisionists, I'd say keeping Catherine to the sidelines of French politics is probably a net gain.
 
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