Scenario: Daughter of Richard II of England.
Richard II,
King of England (b.1367: d.1400) m. Anne,
Princess of Bohemia (b.1366: d.1394) (a), Isabella,
Princess of France (b.1389: d.1409) (b)
1a) Philippa, Princess of England (b.1388: d.1462) [1] m. Henry V, King of England and France (b.1386: d.1428) (a) [2]
1a) Joan, Princess of England and France (b.1406: d.1489) m. John Holland, Duke of Exeter (b.1395: d.1447) (a) -annulled 1440- Ralph Neville, Earl of Westmorland (b.1406: d.1484) (b) [3]
1a) Elizabeth Holland (b.1425)
2a) Tiffany Holland (b.1427)
3b) Edward Neville, Earl of Westmorland (b.1444)
2a) Henry, Prince of Wales (b.1408: d.1415)
3a) Anne of Wales (b.1409: d.1419)
4a) Edward IV, King of England and France (b.1412: d.1450) m. Marie of Armagnac (b.1420: d.1473) (a) [4]
1a) Mary, Princess of England and France (b.1439)
2a) Henry, Prince of Wales and Dauphin of France (b.1440: d.1447)
3a) Philippa, Princess of England and France (b.1443)
4a) Thomas I, King of England, King of France -until 1452- (b.1445)
5a) Bernard, Duke of Bedford (b.1448: d.1449)
5a) Stillborn Son (c.1413)
6a) Alice, Princess of England and France (b.1415: d.1438) m. Francis I, Duke of Brittany (b.1414: d.1450) (a) [5]
1a) Isabella of Brittany (b.1436)
2a) John of Brittany, Count of Montfort (b.1437: d.1449)
7a) Richard, Duke of Clarence and Milan (b.1417: d.1448) m. Philippa, Infanta of Portugal (b.1432: d.1444) (a), Bianca Maria Visconti (b.1425: d.1468) (b) [6]
1a) Maria Isabella of Milan (b.1445: d.1446)
2a) Filippo, Duke of Milan (b.1446)
3a) Bianca of Milan (b.1448)
8a) Catherine, Princess of England and France (b.1422: d.1461) m. Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor (b.1415: d.1493) (a) [7]
- had no children
9a) Margaret, Princess of England and France (b.1423: d.1503) m. Louis XI, King of France (b.1423: d.1483) (a) [8]
1a) Peter I, King of France (b.1452)
2a) Stillborn Son (c.1455)
3a) Anne, Princess of France (b.1456)
[1] Philippa of England, the only daughter of Richard II of England and his first wife, Anne of Bohemia, only a catch in the dynastic sense. Very tall, very slim, and very pale, she was often described as a ghostly figure by those who failed to understand her lack of worry concerning her looks. What Philippa understood, however, was power. And family. Thus, when her father was deposed and eventually killed by the Lancastrians, she saw her life going in a completely different direction than initially anticipated. Originally proposed as a match for Louis II of Anjou (and, for a brief moment, the
Earl of March), she found herself as a second choice for the new
Prince of Wales, and agreed to marry her cousin in 1404, after negotiations had failed for him to marry Isabella of France, her father's child widow.
[2] Henry V of England's campaign in France succeeded in 1421, when he successfully negotiated to become Charles VI's heir, in place of his son. The next few years, however, were difficult for him. Illness began to take hold in the early days of 1422, although his wife would bring nurses from England that successfully prevented his death. But by 1425 he was consistently bedridden, and in 1428 died blind and screaming. His widow hid his death for 15 days, until their eldest son arrived to the city, and the young Edward,
Prince of Wales was crowned
King of England and France shortly after. His rule would remain challenged.
[3] Joan of England, eldest daughter of Henry V and Philippa of England, was her father's favourite child, and painfully spoiled. Unhappy in her marriage to the
Duke of Exeter, she separated from him in 1435 and by 1440 secured an annulment from the Pope. The Princess, young, rich and independent, took on a string of lovers (allegedly), only to marry the widower
Earl of Westmorland and have her brother settle the Neville-Neville dispute in his favour in 1444, after falling pregnant. She rarely saw her daughters from her first marriage, but doted on her son. Her first husband married again to a daughter of the
Duke of York and became a figure of worry to the Lancastrian regime.
[4] Marie of Armagnac's marriage to Edward IV of England and France was a success on the political front for the
Queen Dowager, who struggled through the 1430s to establish herself as a figure in politics. While the
Duke of Bedford led the Regency until 1430, her son did look to his domineering mother for guidance, and in 1432, after Bedford's attempt to secure a Breton match for the King failed (largely due to his disinterest in the concept and the bride in question), Philippa managed to successfully break the Armagnac's interest in the Valois succession with a marriage alliance. Marie, on top of her beauty, proved to be a very submissive bride, and the
Queen Dowager used her regularly as a smokescreen for her own activities.
[5] Despite the failed attempts to marry the King to a Breton bride, all parties knew Brittany was a key alliance in securing the French throne. Thus, in 1434, the Princess Alice, aged 19, married the
Count of Montfort and future
Duke of Brittany. The marriage was relatively happy until her death at 23, and only Alice's daughter Isabella would survive to adulthood.
[6] Richard,
Duke of Clarence was an ambitious young man. Convinced he needed his own, separate, seat of power, he leveraged his fortune for an army in 1443, shortly after wedding the Infanta Philippa of Portugal (a niece to the
King of Portugal) he fought and pushed back Francesco Sforza from Milan, eventually killing him in battle. When news arrived his bride had died in his mother's care, Richard went even further to secure his position and married the widowed
Dowager Duchess of Milan, Bianca Maria Visconti, who had an (illegitimate) claim to the Duchy by her father. The Pope spoke against Richard's cruelty, with rumours he had forced his marriage upon Bianca, and it's assumed she had him killed in 1448 when he was stabbed to death while hunting. She later remarried to her first husband's brother, but maintained the rights of her children by Richard.
[7] Catherine, the first of two daughters born to Henry V as King of both England and France, was married to the
Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III in 1443, while he was
King of the Romans. Catherine, the most beautiful of the English Princesses, proved sterile, and regularly left her husband's side for pilgrimages to remedy the issue. It's like the 1461 pregnancy that she allegedly had was ovarian cancer, as she died later that year. She was her mother's favourite child, and it's said that Philippa of England's suddenly decline in health was a direct response to losing her daughter.
[8] The Princess Margaret was the shrewdest of Philippa's daughters, and her least favourite child by far. She rarely spent time in England, and until her marriage in 1451, never considered an alliance. Left alone through most of her youth, she was the first to see the writing on the wall in 1450 when her brother died. France had been unstable since Richard of Clarence's Milanese Invasion had upset the Pope and given the Valois ammunition, the
Duke of York in England was getting ideas, and she knew she needed to diffuse a bomb (and maybe get a crown). Thus, in 1451, she eloped with the widower Louis XI of France, and acted as a diplomat for him with her own mother, to release the crown of France with minimal bloodshed, so that England could be secured and most of the Plantagenet possessions across the sea were secured. Most saw her move as a direct betrayal of her country, and in many ways it was. But Margaret knew France was unlikely to be held by a child King with no close male relatives. So, she solved it and made herself Queen instead.