Henry Stuart Survives His Illness And Becomes King Henry the IX of England (1612)

One of the key turning points in English history for myself was the death of Henry Stuart in 1612. Strong, virile, and everything the heir to a throne should be, few suspected that in 1612, Henry Stuart would die of typhoid fever at the young age of 18 years old. It makes you wonder what would have been the fate of the English royal line if Henry had lived. As it was, his brother Charles the I was beheaded in 1649, and the royal line was all but abolished as Oliver Cromwell took over and established the Commonwealth of England. A lot of this could said to have occurred due to Charles' firm belief in his divine right as the ruler of England and that he should not be subject to charges like any average citizen.

So if Henry had lived to become King Henry the IX of England, would have Oliver Cromwell still succeeded in taking down the British Royal Line? What does his survival's effect have on England? Would we today have a Stuart on the throne rather than a Windsor?
 
One of the key turning points in English history for myself was the death of Henry Stuart in 1612. Strong, virile, and everything the heir to a throne should be, few suspected that in 1612, Henry Stuart would die of typhoid fever at the young age of 18 years old. It makes you wonder what would have been the fate of the English royal line if Henry had lived. As it was, his brother Charles the I was beheaded in 1649, and the royal line was all but abolished as Oliver Cromwell took over and established the Commonwealth of England. A lot of this could said to have occurred due to Charles' firm belief in his divine right as the ruler of England and that he should not be subject to charges like any average citizen.

So if Henry had lived to become King Henry the IX of England, would have Oliver Cromwell still succeeded in taking down the British Royal Line? What does his survival's effect have on England? Would we today have a Stuart on the throne rather than a Windsor?

Steady the buffs, I think a space of 300 years is pretty difficult to predict which dynasty would be in power.

But let's assume Henry doesn't die of typhoid. His plan was to accompany sister, Liz, to Germany to go find a good Protestant bride for himself. Assuming the age gap isn't too large (as in, she's still in single digits age-wise), we'd be looking at a marriage anytime between 1613 and 1615. No henriette Marie in England - which might in and of itself be a good thing. Assuming of course that Harry's bride isn't a Protestant version of HM.

Harry's Protestantism is an interesting thing in and of itself. He seems to have been as stubborn as Charles and his dad, and his Protestantism tending more towards the Low Church end of the spectrum (remember, Charles I was the first monarch to be raised within the fold of the Church of England). Whether that'd be adjusted at a later point, IDK. But there's a good possibility that James I has surviving male line grandkids by the time he dies.

However, Henry was also not his dad in another way. James wanted to be the arbiter of Christendom - squarely between Protestant and Catholic. Henry would most likely have been for a war against France (in defense of his coreligionists at La Rochelle etc) or Spain (dirty papists). I remember reading an article a while back (can't remember the name, think it was something like The Militant Prince, the Pacific King) which questioned whether Henry really was as bellicose as he is often portrayed, or whether it was simply a case of "what my dad is, I'm not" opposition propaganda that would've been turned on its head the minute James was dead.
 
This is a very interesting what-if. The trouble is untangling what Henry IX would have been versus what Puritans (and others) said Henry IX would have been as a criticism of Charles. The living find it harder to become saints than the dead. And Henry's sainthood got pushed forward by the critics of Charles from all sides of the aisle. The Puritans saw Henry as the true Christian king who would have had none of that crypto-papist nonsense and etc. The Royalists saw Henry as a decisive king who would not have waffled like Charles did when dealing with matters. And somewhere in between the others all used Henry to compare/contrast against Charles. Thus, Henry would have never married a French Catholic (and a Medici to boot)! And certainly Henry would have not tried to play footsie with the papist Spaniards and leave the plucky Dutch rebels in a lurch. Neither would Henry have frittered away his Parliamentary support, nor appointed red-rags to their bull such as Laud and Thomas Lunsford. And a good Parliament would not have pushed a strong and decisive king into the half-baked Army Plots against it, cooked up by a man suspected of being his wife's lover. And naturally a strong Protestant king would not have wasted lives on fighting fellow Protestant Scots, who would have no reason to rebel in the first place, because there is no Laud.

In death, Henry became a man for all people.

Still, if someone were to drill down on his life and write a TL, I'd love to read it.

The English Civil Wars is something that have fascinated me because of the sheer bat-shit crazy cast of characters. I said before and I'll say it again, Lord Digby and Lord Goering deserve their own TV movies. To say nothing of the TMZ life of the Earl of Essex, the Lifetime TV-series of Lucy Hay and the character arc of the Earl of Stafford.
 
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