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What if Prince John was good friends with William de Longchamp and stayed loyal to Richard instead of rebelling during the Third Crusade? I don't think this is likely since at this time it was understood that Normandy and England would be inherited together and Aquitaine was supposed to be Richard even before Henry the young King died, which doesn't leave John much of anything. (Anjou? Ireland? Wales?). So it seemed if he didn't rebel, he was going to end up with little land or power.

Only after it became apparent that Richard was going to die childless was John in contention to be heir. Even then, Richard was going to give Arthur England and Normandy to go along with Brittainy despite the protests of Richard's mom in favor of John (she was influential in his life), but Richard suddenly thought that Phillipe Augustus might try to take advantage of Arthur, so he told the Anglo-Norman nobility that he wanted John to be heir and that was totally going to wrong.

Ok, that plan might have had a few flaws.

So pretty much John has a lot of reasons to rebel when Richard goes crusading. But not every prince in history who was the brother of a king rebelled when his brother went away.

So let's suppose John and Longchamp get along.

Richard is likely still going to end up childless. They are still likely to build Château Gaillard since a castle there pretty much prevents French... sorry the Plantagenets were French nobles... House of Capet incursions from most directions as the terrain to allow large army movements was restricted to some areas and this location sits on the easiest road.

And if John ends up king he is probably going to need to raise taxes like OTL. In OTL, of the money he needed to raise, about 22% was due to Richard's crusading (he sold some profitable titles), and 75% was due to the loss of Normandy being stupidly expensive for the Plantagenets.

So... nothing changes much? Unless there is a plausible reason Richard might have a kid just because John was loyal.
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