It was 525 years ago tomorrow...

A topical one for an anniversary - what if Bosworth had ended differently ? If Northumberland and Stanley had actively joined the battle in support of the King, it's probable Henry Tudor would have been defeated and perhaps killed.

With the Tudors defeated and their supporters routed, Richard was able to consider the very real problem of his own succession. He tried to marry his siste off to John II of Portugal without success and the Earl of Lincoln was formally named his heir in early 1486. Edward Plantagenent, though having a better claim, had been confined soon after his mother's death.

Richard would sit, brooding and lonely, on the throne of England until 1502. He never found a love to replace Anne Neville and though his relations with Lincoln were often strained, they never broke down completely.

John styled himself Richard IV on his accession in May 1502 and though his brother caused him some anguish by his intrigues and rebellion, the Yorksist line was confirmed by the accession of Edmund as King in 1523.

Ok, my thoughts - what do others think ?
 
How likely is it for Stanley to join with Richard?

I think to bring off Stanley jumping the other way, you'd need a PoD at least several months before the Battle, possibly as far back as Richard's accession, which probably butterflies the battle of Bosworth entirely.

Might be easier, however, to have Richard win the battle without needing Stanley to jump in, at which point Stanley will help mop up Henry's forces in order to maintain a polite fiction that he was on Richard's side all along.
 
Richard III always reminds me of Richard Nixon-psychotic, brooding, bitter but brilliant who finally oversteps the mark and is brought down by lesser men (no offence to Gerald Ford but . . . yeah).

But that aside, I think that his support in the north could make him bow to pressure from the northern barons for a good war with Scotland so they can expand their holdings north of the border. It's hard to guess what he'd do when it comes to foreign policy, given how little time he could devote to it during his short reign, but I don't think he'd do the typical Plantagenet thing and attack France, he just seems too pragmatic for that.

I think his reign after the first two or three years would be largely peaceful, with maybe a few incursions into Ireland and Scotland. He'd probably centralise power around himself and his court and be an assiduous accountant, having had a lot of administrative experience in the north. So he'd probably be a good king, repairing England after the Wars of the Roses, and I imagine that he'd pass his throne to a close relative fairly unchallenged if he purged the Lancastrians after his victory.
 
How likely is it for Stanley to join with Richard?

I think to bring off Stanley jumping the other way, you'd need a PoD at least several months before the Battle, possibly as far back as Richard's accession, which probably butterflies the battle of Bosworth entirely.

Might be easier, however, to have Richard win the battle without needing Stanley to jump in, at which point Stanley will help mop up Henry's forces in order to maintain a polite fiction that he was on Richard's side all along.

Considering he charged Henry and fought face-to-face with his bodyguard, this is certainly a POD that has a fair chance of happening, and your take on Stanley makes a lot of sense.

One of the questions is what does Richard do with Edward IV's daughters. Many thought he would marry Elizabeth, but he swore not to and if he keeps this promise he surely would not want anybody else marrying her, or any of her sisters. But could he really make them all become nuns? Might he not decide to use them as dynastic pawns? Does Lincoln need a wife, or would he like a new one?

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
A topical one for an anniversary - what if Bosworth had ended differently ? If Northumberland and Stanley had actively joined the battle in support of the King, it's probable Henry Tudor would have been defeated and perhaps killed.

With the Tudors defeated and their supporters routed, Richard was able to consider the very real problem of his own succession. He tried to marry his siste off to John II of Portugal without success and the Earl of Lincoln was formally named his heir in early 1486. Edward Plantagenent, though having a better claim, had been confined soon after his mother's death.

Richard would sit, brooding and lonely, on the throne of England until 1502. He never found a love to replace Anne Neville and though his relations with Lincoln were often strained, they never broke down completely.

John styled himself Richard IV on his accession in May 1502 and though his brother caused him some anguish by his intrigues and rebellion, the Yorksist line was confirmed by the accession of Edmund as King in 1523.

Ok, my thoughts - what do others think ?

I really don't think that Richard would just sit and never remarry, leaving his succession as a probable source of troubles. He would probably try to have his own issue in order to have a clear successor. At the time of his death there were already negotiations to marry him to Joana of Portugal, sister of the Portuguese king.
 
Marriage...

I think the plan was for Richard to marry Joanna and Elizabeth of York to marry the man who would become Manuel I.

Reading between the lines, I'm far from convinced a marriage to Joanna would have worked or produced an issue as she seems to have been a very pious woman and would probably have been happier in a convent.

Of course, that's not to say something would not have been concocoted but I'm doubtful. John de la Pole seemed to be his favoured successor in 1485 and we don't know whether he would have remained so.

I wonder if we'd have seen feuding between and within the de la Pole family after Richard's death. John's brothers, Edmund, William and Richard were all ambitious in their own way and I just wonder if the dynastic issues which plagued English politics would simply have continued in another guise.

De La Pole might also have faced a challenge from Edward Plantageant, Earl of Warwick who had been named heir by Richard before Anne Neville's death.

It seems likely then that, without issue, the succession could well have triggered a further period of instability between Warwick and Lincoln, in a sense reprising the Lancaster/York dynastic conflict.
 
I think the plan was for Richard to marry Joanna and Elizabeth of York to marry the man who would become Manuel I.

Reading between the lines, I'm far from convinced a marriage to Joanna would have worked or produced an issue as she seems to have been a very pious woman and would probably have been happier in a convent.

Of course, that's not to say something would not have been concocoted but I'm doubtful. John de la Pole seemed to be his favoured successor in 1485 and we don't know whether he would have remained so.

I agree that Richard and Joanna's marriage probably wouldn't have worked, but the odds are that Richard III would have remarried. He was only 33 at the time of his death, and given his own ascension to the throne I doubt that he would just sit and wait decades to leave his kingdom to Lincoln. De la Pole was the nominated successor at the time only because Richard din't have a son of his own at the time, but it doesn't mean that he wouldn't never remarry again.
 
Richard's problem was that there were a dearth of adult males with strong family ties to him and the house of york by 1485. The pressure on him to remarry is obvious and will get stronger with time.

John Earl of Lincoln was never formally named as heir and in strict primogeniture wasn't the nearest heir anyhow. In Otl he never claimed the throne after Richard's death. Even if you take away the dubious grounds for bastardising Edward IV's children, Clarence's surviving children are growing up and have a far stronger claim to the throne than Richard himself.

As to Edward's daughter's claims - again as Henry VII found - they were widely considered to have a strong claim irrespective of Richard's TItulus Regius - but the risk of marrying them abroad was immense - Henry VII at least had the knowledge that while his wife lived and produced heirs she overrode her sister's claims but apart from a half hearted attempt to marry Cecily to James IV all the girls were married to loyal Tudor supporters.

Assuming Richard doesn't marry or his new wife is unable to produce an heir then the assumption on Warwick succeeding is going to be higher.

By the way Lincoln was married to a Fitzalan i think (and ironically the niece of Elizabeth Wydeville).
 
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