How could Navarre remain independent until the XVII. century?

[Sayresth]

With both Castile and Aragon trying to divide Navarre between themselves since the XII. century, is there any way, without pulling some ASB, to let Navarre make it into the 1600s? It doesn't matter if they're conquered afterwards by another power.

By butterflying away the losses of Gipuzkoa and Alava in 1199 (By having Alfonso VIII marrying someone else), would it be "easier" for it to survive?

 

[Prince de Pringondani]

House of Evreux don't get extinct or no marriage with Trastamara/Aragon Prince for Joan of Navarra

 

[Marc]

The Kingdom of Navarre, like Burgundy, is one of those almost Ruritanian states that I have a fondness for. One of my idle conjectures involve Navarre somehow acquiring Asturias and Galicia, and becoming a viable Iberian state in the Northwest, a la Portugal in the West. Managing to stay south of the Pyrenees would probably be a very good thing.

 

[catalfalque]

I wonder if Cesare Borgia could have a hand in this alternate history

 

[telynk]

Define "Navarre".

If you mean someone who is not the King/Queen of Castille/Aragon/Spain with the title "King/Queen of Navarre" you just need to prevent the House of Valois from dying out in which case the House of Bourbon remains a powerful French noble family with the Crown of Navarre amongst its holdings.

If you need this surviving Navarre to control more than just Lower Navarre and Bearn North of the Pyreneees, things are a little more difficult without an early POD. Maybe the Kingdom of Spain could be partioned with one of the partitions being Navarre....

 

[The Undead Martyr]

The big thing is preventing the union if Castille and Aragon, and/or giving another power (e.g. France, or an e ngland which maintains control of Gascony) reason a d ability to ally with Navarre against the *Spanish. A more successful Navarrese performance in the initial stages of the Hundred Years War could see them claim g part of southwestern France (say Foix), a wealthy or powerful Navarre could participate in the various Castilian succession wars of the 15th century, perhaps partitioning Castille with Portugal or Aragon.

 

[Sayresth]

Define "Navarre".

If you mean someone who is not the King/Queen of Castille/Aragon/Spain with the title "King/Queen of Navarre" you just need to prevent the House of Valois from dying out in which case the House of Bourbon remains a powerful French noble family with the Crown of Navarre amongst its holdings.

If you need this surviving Navarre to control more than just Lower Navarre and Bearn North of the Pyreneees, things are a little more difficult without an early POD. Maybe the Kingdom of Spain could be partioned with one of the partitions being Navarre....

Yes, I meant an independent Navarre south of the Pyrenees. I know it's tricky, since it means Castile and Aragon never uniting or having Navarre's independence guaranteed by either France or England.

 

[telynk]

Yes, I meant an independent Navarre south of the Pyrenees. I know it's tricky, since it means Castile and Aragon never uniting or having Navarre's independence guaranteed by either France or England.

I also think I misread the OP.... I thought the idea was to make a POD in the late 1400s or 1500s that would allow Navarre to last till 1600, which would really be restablishing an independent Navarre rather than preserving one. I think the original intention was a much earlier POD....

I know much less about late medieval history than I do about renaissance and reformation history so I probably won't be much help.

 

[Marc]

Simplest solution to the challenge is to have Navarre not Castile win the Kingdom of Leon, in the XI century. It completely undoes the future of Western Civilization. But what the hey...

 

[Prince de Pringondani]

Is it inevitably to have it annexed by Casille or a United Spain?Could it never stayed independent?Sometimes its looks if some members see OTL as a Chain of inevitably Events but is it not also a Chain of Coincidences?