List of monarchs III
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What if Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, the son of Queen Anne, had not been born infected with meningitis and had been healthy?
Kings of the United Kingdom of England and Scotland
1714 - 1766: William IV (House of Gloucester) [1]
1766 - 1816: George I (House of Gloucester) [2]
1816 - 1828: William V (House of Gloucester) [3]
[1] On William the Duke of Gloucester's birth, all of England celebrated that now there was a Protestant heir to the throne. His aunt, Queen Mary, and her husband, his cousin once removed, King William, celebrated too, even though King William did not get along with his sister-in-law's husband, Prince George. Rather than see the young infant take on the name of his father's ducal title of Cumberland, he was given the dukedom of Gloucester as a child, which then later became the name of his house. Prince William was second in line after his mother, Princess Anne, to the thrones of England and Scotland separately. Mary preceded her husband in death and then in 1701 he too died and Prince William's mother became Queen. In 1707 the Act of Union united the two kingdoms and so Prince William became the heir of the United Kingdom.
William was 25 when he became king. He was already married to his third cousin, Sophia Dorothea of Hanover, in 1708 when she was 21 and he was 19. She was the daughter of George of Hanover, son of Sophia of Hanover. An act of Parliament had decreed that only Protestants could be heirs to the throne and that made the elder Sophie next in line after William at that time. The marriage was arranged and William and Sophia Dorothea never met until the wedding. But it was a happy marriage and they grew to love each other, having many children.
William had a long rule and during his reign Great Britain won several wars with France, ending up with all their former territories in North America.
William also led the war against his cousin, Charles Stuart, known as Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Young Pretender, and defeated him, ending the Scottish rebellion and the hopes of the Catholic Stuarts.
William was an active king, working closely with Parliament and the ministers of it who would form governments. Sophia Dorothea passed in 1757. William followed her nine years later at the age of 76, only a few days before his 77th birthday.
[2] Born in 1740, George was William's grandson, by his eldest son Edward, Prince of Wales. He was named after both his maternal and paternal great grandfather (George of Hanover, and George of Cumberland) and outlived his father who had an 'unfortunate encounter with his mistresses lovers duelling pistol' (buy since his mistresses lover was also his brother, the Duke of Edinburgh, things got brushed under the carpet by William as the royal family could not be smeared by fratricide) which allowed George to become Prince of Wales himself.
He married Caroline of Orange-Nassau in 1760 and they had fourteen children (seven of whom would survive to adulthood) - the pair were forced to reside in the Netherlands briefly in 1765 when Carolines grandmother died and Caroline was forced to act as Regent for her younger brother, William V, Prince of Orange. This period in the Netherlands probably influenced him significant as it was the first time he had travelled abroad and he brought back many ideas that were influenced by the Court of Orange-Nassau.
The Dutch Regency (as it had become known) had not yet ended when news reached them that his grandfather had passed away and he was forced to rush back to London less one of his uncles or cousins would attempt to suspend his claim despite the wording of the Treason Act. He reached London and became the rightfull King - with Caroline following a few months later when her brother turned 18.
His reign saw the American Revolution (and the declaration of the Kingdom of America under the rule of Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette) and the latter part of his grandfathers had seen the Seven Year War which had left France in debt - but knowing the danger a growing Republican movement could bring, George made a significant loan to the twenty two year old Charles X (all of his older brothers had died in their youths) and advised him on the transformation to a constitutional monarchy. His advice was heeded and a French Revolution had been narrowly avoided - with the leads exiled to the newly established penal colonies of Australia at George's suggestion, further away than Elba or St Helena from where there was still invariably a chance they could return.
In the end, he reigned for fifty years and died at 76, leaving the throne to his son, the Prince of Wales, William.
[3] William was born in 1766 and was the fifth child and second son of George I. His older brother, George Alexander, died in infancy shortly after his birth in 1761. William had three older sisters, two who died in childhood, one of those, Anne, dying in 1764 at age 2 before George and his slightly older fraternal twin sister, Caroline, were born. William was named after King George's grandfather and Caroline after their mother. William and Caroline's remaining older sister, Mary, born in 1765, died when they were three and she was four in 1769. Viewing her dead body later was William's first memory. His younger brothers and sisters who died in childhood were Edward (1768-1776), Sophia Louise (1770), James (1775-1789), and George Henry (1781). His siblings who survived to adulthood were his twin sister Caroline (born in 1766), brother Geoffrey (born in 1767), brother Clarence (born in 1772), sister Frances (born in 1773), and another set of twins, these identical, brothers Harold and Alfred (born in 1777).
William and Caroline were inseparable in childhood and always in adult life were closer to each other than they were with their spouses and/or lovers. Caroline never married but had many secret female lovers. William married young at age 18 in 1785 to Maria Hapsburg of Prague, a granddaughter of the Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa through her son the Archduke Charles Joseph (who in this lives to adulthood instead of dying from the smallpox at age 16) and, through her mother Princess Hildaline, a granddaughter of the Prussian King, Frederick II (who in this is obviously not the child of Sophia Dorothea, but of someone else, and so a different person than OTL Frederick the Great.)
William detested Maria Hapsburg from the moment he met her. She was quite religious and he was only a nominal believer. Maria was not like the girls that William had enjoyed himself with, she was not supple and soft of skin, but thin, bony, and had a poor complexion. As Prince of Wales it was his duty to sire children, so he did his spousal duties. Maria had a difficult time getting pregnant. Finally she did in 1794 and miscarried. She finally got pregnant again in 1798 and had a daughter, named Regina Maria. Prince William told his drinking companions, which included Princess Caroline of course, that "Britain has had four queens, they can have another. I've done my duty." He set up Maria in her own household in Edinburgh and the two never saw each other again. Regina Maria was not brought to London until she was 12 years old, when she met her father and aunt and grandfather, the King, for the first time.
By this time William's excessive wining, dining, and whoring had taken their toll. (As it had with his twin.) He was not very healthy, was over weight, and, to be honest, was a repulsive figure. In fact a Republican movement began in the early part of the 19th Century as a number of the more educated middle class detested the idea of having William as their king someday. But tradition was strong and on the death of his father, he became William V. When he sat at court he did not have his Queen Maria at his side, she was still in unofficial exile in Scotland, but his equally obese and repulsive twin sister, Caroline, the Princess Royal, at his side. Princess Regina Maria was one of those who detested her father and aunt. When he became king she was 18. His intent was to marry her to a distant cousin descended from William IV, but she refused the marriage and went to live with her mother, who by then was wearing a nun's habit and living the live of a nun, even though she was not allowed to take vows, since she was officially Queen Consort of England, and was official Anglican, not Catholic.
Princess Regina Maria loved her mother, unlike how she hated her father, but this was not the life she wanted. She settled in Geneva, made friends with the Romantics from England who visited there: the Shelleys and Lord Byron, and drowned while boating with them on the lake. It was rumored she had a love affair with Byron and was pregnant at the time.
King William was focused on the business side of the kingdom. He gave special privileges to several old and newly formed trading companies, including the East India Company and the Hudson Bay Company. Again Republicanism became a strong movement as there were complaints the King was ruling through the Companies instead of letting Parliament govern.
William's health deteriorated and he died in 1828 at age 62, probably from syphilis. Princess Royal Caroline outlived her twin for fourteen more years. Since William had no child as an heir with Regina Maria's death, he was succeeded by ___________.
Kings of the United Kingdom of England and Scotland
1714 - 1766: William IV (House of Gloucester) [1]
1766 - 1816: George I (House of Gloucester) [2]
1816 - 1828: William V (House of Gloucester) [3]
William was 25 when he became king. He was already married to his third cousin, Sophia Dorothea of Hanover, in 1708 when she was 21 and he was 19. She was the daughter of George of Hanover, son of Sophia of Hanover. An act of Parliament had decreed that only Protestants could be heirs to the throne and that made the elder Sophie next in line after William at that time. The marriage was arranged and William and Sophia Dorothea never met until the wedding. But it was a happy marriage and they grew to love each other, having many children.
William had a long rule and during his reign Great Britain won several wars with France, ending up with all their former territories in North America.
William also led the war against his cousin, Charles Stuart, known as Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Young Pretender, and defeated him, ending the Scottish rebellion and the hopes of the Catholic Stuarts.
William was an active king, working closely with Parliament and the ministers of it who would form governments. Sophia Dorothea passed in 1757. William followed her nine years later at the age of 76, only a few days before his 77th birthday.
[2] Born in 1740, George was William's grandson, by his eldest son Edward, Prince of Wales. He was named after both his maternal and paternal great grandfather (George of Hanover, and George of Cumberland) and outlived his father who had an 'unfortunate encounter with his mistresses lovers duelling pistol' (buy since his mistresses lover was also his brother, the Duke of Edinburgh, things got brushed under the carpet by William as the royal family could not be smeared by fratricide) which allowed George to become Prince of Wales himself.
He married Caroline of Orange-Nassau in 1760 and they had fourteen children (seven of whom would survive to adulthood) - the pair were forced to reside in the Netherlands briefly in 1765 when Carolines grandmother died and Caroline was forced to act as Regent for her younger brother, William V, Prince of Orange. This period in the Netherlands probably influenced him significant as it was the first time he had travelled abroad and he brought back many ideas that were influenced by the Court of Orange-Nassau.
The Dutch Regency (as it had become known) had not yet ended when news reached them that his grandfather had passed away and he was forced to rush back to London less one of his uncles or cousins would attempt to suspend his claim despite the wording of the Treason Act. He reached London and became the rightfull King - with Caroline following a few months later when her brother turned 18.
His reign saw the American Revolution (and the declaration of the Kingdom of America under the rule of Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette) and the latter part of his grandfathers had seen the Seven Year War which had left France in debt - but knowing the danger a growing Republican movement could bring, George made a significant loan to the twenty two year old Charles X (all of his older brothers had died in their youths) and advised him on the transformation to a constitutional monarchy. His advice was heeded and a French Revolution had been narrowly avoided - with the leads exiled to the newly established penal colonies of Australia at George's suggestion, further away than Elba or St Helena from where there was still invariably a chance they could return.
In the end, he reigned for fifty years and died at 76, leaving the throne to his son, the Prince of Wales, William.
William and Caroline were inseparable in childhood and always in adult life were closer to each other than they were with their spouses and/or lovers. Caroline never married but had many secret female lovers. William married young at age 18 in 1785 to Maria Hapsburg of Prague, a granddaughter of the Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa through her son the Archduke Charles Joseph (who in this lives to adulthood instead of dying from the smallpox at age 16) and, through her mother Princess Hildaline, a granddaughter of the Prussian King, Frederick II (who in this is obviously not the child of Sophia Dorothea, but of someone else, and so a different person than OTL Frederick the Great.)
William detested Maria Hapsburg from the moment he met her. She was quite religious and he was only a nominal believer. Maria was not like the girls that William had enjoyed himself with, she was not supple and soft of skin, but thin, bony, and had a poor complexion. As Prince of Wales it was his duty to sire children, so he did his spousal duties. Maria had a difficult time getting pregnant. Finally she did in 1794 and miscarried. She finally got pregnant again in 1798 and had a daughter, named Regina Maria. Prince William told his drinking companions, which included Princess Caroline of course, that "Britain has had four queens, they can have another. I've done my duty." He set up Maria in her own household in Edinburgh and the two never saw each other again. Regina Maria was not brought to London until she was 12 years old, when she met her father and aunt and grandfather, the King, for the first time.
By this time William's excessive wining, dining, and whoring had taken their toll. (As it had with his twin.) He was not very healthy, was over weight, and, to be honest, was a repulsive figure. In fact a Republican movement began in the early part of the 19th Century as a number of the more educated middle class detested the idea of having William as their king someday. But tradition was strong and on the death of his father, he became William V. When he sat at court he did not have his Queen Maria at his side, she was still in unofficial exile in Scotland, but his equally obese and repulsive twin sister, Caroline, the Princess Royal, at his side. Princess Regina Maria was one of those who detested her father and aunt. When he became king she was 18. His intent was to marry her to a distant cousin descended from William IV, but she refused the marriage and went to live with her mother, who by then was wearing a nun's habit and living the live of a nun, even though she was not allowed to take vows, since she was officially Queen Consort of England, and was official Anglican, not Catholic.
Princess Regina Maria loved her mother, unlike how she hated her father, but this was not the life she wanted. She settled in Geneva, made friends with the Romantics from England who visited there: the Shelleys and Lord Byron, and drowned while boating with them on the lake. It was rumored she had a love affair with Byron and was pregnant at the time.
King William was focused on the business side of the kingdom. He gave special privileges to several old and newly formed trading companies, including the East India Company and the Hudson Bay Company. Again Republicanism became a strong movement as there were complaints the King was ruling through the Companies instead of letting Parliament govern.
William's health deteriorated and he died in 1828 at age 62, probably from syphilis. Princess Royal Caroline outlived her twin for fourteen more years. Since William had no child as an heir with Regina Maria's death, he was succeeded by ___________.
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What if the Kingdom of Naples defeated France and Spain in the Second Italian War?
Kings of Naples
1496 - 1512: Frederick IV the Great (House of Trastamara) [1]
1512 - 1551: Ferdinand III (House of Trastamara) [2]
1551 - 1581: Sebastiano (House of Trastamara) [3]
1581 - 1607: Nicolo (House of Naples) [4]
1607 - 1609: Frederick V (House of Naples) [5]
Kings and Queens of Naples and Tuscany
1609 - 1639: Frederick V (House of Naples) [5]
1639 - 1651: Maximillian (House of Naples) [6]
Holy Roman Emperor
1643 - 1651: Maximillian III (House of Naples) [6]
Kings and Queens of Naples and Tuscany
1651 - 1680: Eleanora I (House of Naples) [7]
1680 - 1683: Henry I (House of Stewart) [8]
Kings and Queens of Naples and Tuscany, Dukes and Duchesses of Parma
1683 - 1690 Henry I (House of Stewart) [8]
[1] Frederick came to the throne in the middle of the First Italian War, where the French invaded and were defeated in 1498 by the League of Venice. When France invaded Milan the very next year with the backing of Venice, Frederick came to the aid of Milan, viewing the French invasion of Milan as a threat his own Kingdom. The war was going well for Frederick, but in 1501 Frederick's Spanish relatives invaded Naples, siding with France. Frederick was able to hold off the enemy, but Milan soon fell. Realising he had to adopt a more offensive strategy, he sent a fleet to Venice, capturing it and forcing the Republic to capitulate.
Luckily for Frederick, Spain and France had recently gone to war over how to split the spoils of war. Frederick offered a defensive pact to Spain against France, which was accepted. Neopolitian and Spanish forces defeated the French in Milan. Spain also launched an invasion into Mainland France, conquering Toulouse. France gave up on the war soon enough, and a peace treaty was signed in 1504
Spain would keep Milan, and Frederick would return the city of Venice in return for a large sum of gold.
In 1508 War of the League of Cambrai broke out, but Frederick did not join the war.
Frederick died age 60 of natural causes, leaving the throne to his only son, Ferdinand, Duke of Calabria.
[2] Born in 15 December 1488 in Andria, Apulia as son of the future King Frederick and his second wife, Isabella del Balzo. He held the titles of Duke of Calabria and of Apulia.
In January 1505, Ferdinand married, Princess Sibylle of Bavaria, from the house of Wittelsbach, she was the daughter of Duke Albert IV of Bavaria-Munich (1447–1508) from his marriage to Kunigunde of Austria (1465–1520), daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III. The marriage came two months before the death of her older sister, Sidonie, who was engaged to Elector Palatine Louis V.
Together the pair would have five children, before Sibylle's death in 1519 at the age of 29. Following the death of his first wife, in February 1521, 33 year old Ferdinand married 15 year old, Christine of Saxony (25 December 1505 – 15 April 1549) producing another sixteen children.
There was talks of finding a third wife, with rumoured proposals to Mary, Princess of England or Archduchess Eleanor of Austria, (daughter of Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor and Anna of Bohemia and Hungary), until his own death at the age of 63.
His ruling was seen as fair and just, supporting the Papal State financially against Venice, while holding a strained peace against France to the West. His support of Pope Leo X (1513-1536) and his successor Pope Leo XI (1536-1553 OTL Giovanni Salviati, who was Leo X nephew) gained him the title of "Blessed King Ferdinand, Holy Servant of God"
[3] Ferdinands grandson, Sebastiano, was quite impressive for a single reason - he managed to rule for a prolonged period and fend off several significant attempts to depose him whilst simultaneously being one of the most unliked monarchs in the history of Naples. Keen to delegate his responsibilities to his relatives and council, he rarely left his chambers, spent an increasing amount on clothes, wine, food and prostitutes, reportedly abused his slaves and some claim he murdered his wife (from an arranged marriage, it was common knowledge that they hated each other) when she attempted to leave him with their only son. At this point, he sent his son to be brought up by priests and passed a law that states his son must not set foot in the palace until he, Sebastiano, had died and walked into the embrace of God. Even attempted intervention by the Pope failed to sway him from being an awful person - perhaps the only thing that put down the attempted depositions was the fact that he had delegated so much power to his council and military leaders that they feared having the power removed by any subsequent ruler - and with his death in 1581, his son having vanished off the face of the kingdom after his banishment to a monastery, there was a host of aunts, uncles and cousins to pass the crown to, eventually being passed to his brother, Nicolo.
[4] As the younger brother of Sebastino, many were worried that Nicolo would turn out to be like his brother, so the first thing Nicolo did when he was crowned was found a new house for himself, the House of Naples. When he inherited the throne, the Royal coffers were drained and the country was heading towards a economic crisis.
Nicolo decided to reinvent the tax system, and cut unnecessary costs. This made him unpopular with his nobles, some of whom conspired against him, but nothing major ever came of it. Nicolo sold a number royal palaces and wore mostly plain clothes. Despite this, the economy had made a full recovery by 1593, and now Nicolo was looking to expand.
The Neopolitan colonies of Brasile del Nord (meaning North Brazil, stretches from the Amazon to modern day French Guiana) and the Bahamas, defending by a grand navy that Nicolo had built.
In 1600 Venice and Naples went to war over control of the Mediterranean. When Spain did not defend Naples from the Venetian aggressors, Nicolo was very angry, but did not show it to the Spanish, fearing possible backlash from the Habsburgs. In 1601, the Treaty of Venice was signed. The war was inconclusive, and was considered a waste of time, even by Nicolo himself. Regardless, Nicolo remained one of the most celebrated and popular Kings of Naples.
In 1607, Nicolo died of Cancer age 66, leaving the throne to son, Prince Frederick.
[5] Frederick, was born in 1571, son of Nicolo and his wife, Elisabeth of Austria, daughter of Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor, and Maria of Spain. This marriage was arranged as a Habsburg attempt to influence the running of Naples.
Growing up during the reign of his eccentric uncle, Frederick, would be educated by his father, regarding matters of state and foreign politics.
At the age of ten, he became heir following his uncles death and his father’s succession and would continue being tutored by his father and shadow him.
His marriage was arranged by his father to Maria de’ Medici at the Palazzo Pitti of Florence, Italy, the sixth daughter of Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Archduchess Joanna of Austria.
The death of his father from cancer and Frederick succession, came at the age of 36 and his preparation set him in good stead, he was able to continue his father's strong economy policy assisted by colonial trade, helping to assist with the Navy and Army.
When Maria’s uncle, Cardinal and Grand Duke Ferdinando II of Tuscany died in 1609, King Frederick, claimed her father’s throne on behalf of her, uniting the two nations and elevating the later nation to a Kingdom.
To placate, Pope Julius III and his Papal State, who now found its self sharing borders with the Union of Naples and Tuscany, King Frederick would pledge loyal allegiance to his Holiness, signed a non-aggression agreement, along with a yearly "loyalty tax," a tax used by the Pope to invest in its army and navy.
His death in 1639, at the age of 68, came following three years of declining health. He was succeeded by his son, Prince Maximillian.
[6] Maximillian was the third son of king Frederick and the only one to survive untill adulthood. He was born in 1598 and named after his maternal grandfather emperor Maximillian II. By the time Maximillian was crowned king of Naples and Tuscany his grandfather's branch of the Habsburg family had died out and his distant relative Ferdinand III sat on the imperial throne. Ties with the Habsburgs remained strong nevertheless as Maximillian had married Ferdinand's sister Maria Anna (b.1610).
Wheras Italy had remained firmly catholic, Europe north of the Alps was ravaged by decades of religious warfare. The imperial forces had met with initial success but after more than 20 years it became apparent that the Habsburgs were fighting a loosing war. Backed by the French and other foreign powers protestant forces sacked Vienna in 1638, but the war was far from over. By 1640 most of the HRE was in protestant hands and church lands were distributed to protestant lords, including the archbishoprics of the Electors of Trier, Cologne and Mainz. With most of their lands occupied and the Electoral system of the HRE shattered the situation for the Habsburgs seemed dire.
In 1641 King Maximillian intervened on behalf of his brother-in-law emperor Ferdinand III and landed with his troops in Habsburg Croatia in an attempt to liberate central Europe. He marched northwards capturing Vienna before the end of the year and continued marching westwards towards Bavaria. The renewed warfare was a catastrophe for the local population with between 33-50% of the inhabitants of Lower and Upper Austria being killed during the course of the war. The catholic forces were moderatly successful and reached Franconia by 1643 but than the luck of the House of Austria ran out. Ferdinand's brother Leopold Wilhelm was killed on the battlefield before the emperor himself succumbed to fever, leaving the Habsburg family without adult males to take the crown.
In the Treaty of Passau Maximillian promised to defend the Austrian lands in exchange for Habsburg support for his claim to the imperial throne. With the electors of Trier, Cologne and Mainz living in exile and the Habsburgs at his mercy the election was a mere farce. Maximillian was elected emperor despite the fact that non of the electors who voted for him actually controlled their electorate (not even the Habsburgs as Bohemia was occupied by protestant troops).
To further cement his rather weak claim to imperial authority Maximillian left his troop in the hands of his generals and traveled to Rome to be crowned emperor by the pope (a tradition abandoned by the Habsburgs over a century ago). Both Maximillian and his father Frederick had been financially generous towards the pope but this came with a price. In the last decades papal economy and building projects had become increasingly dependent on those Neapolitan taxes. Both overland and naval trade became dominated by merchants from Tuscany and Naples and the minor lords of the Romagna soon cared more for the opinion of the Neapolitan kings than the pope's.
Despite the initial success the Neapolitans enjoyed in Germany the war once again swung in favour of the protestants. Not long after his return from Italy Maximillian and his allies were forced back towards Vienna. Tired of the ongoing war Maximillian once again left for Italy leaving the war to his generals and the Austrians, who felt rightfully betrayed by the emperor, who had pledged to defend their lands.
After almost three decades and the second sack of Vienna the Austrian forces of the young Archduke Ferdinand surrendered in 1646. In the Treaty of Ingolstadt the Austrians and Neapolitans accepted the loss of Bohemia and the independence of the German states not part of the Habsburg domain. The treaty was an utter humilitation for the House of Habsburg and showed that Maximillian was utterly uninteressested in fighting for the Austrian cause.
The second half of Maximillian's reign was rather uneventful. The center of power slowly moved to the north as the rich Tuscan lands became increasingly important for the finances of the dual kingdom. Maximillian died of throat cancer in 1651 after 12 years as king and 8 as emperor. Leaving his wife and their minor children. His reign is regarded as one of the most succesful in Italian history, wheras it is seen as a historical low point by German catholics.
He was succeeded by his daughter, Eleanora Maria Catalina of Naples.
[7] The Princess Eleanora Maria Catalina of Naples was 15 when her father died. A minor by technicality, she was placed under a regency of her cousin, the Prince Francesco of Naples, and left in the care of her mother, Maria Anna, Archduchess of Austria. Raised prior with the knowledge that she would eventually be replaced by a son of her mother and father (her mother was just 30 at her father's death, his second wife after a fruitless marriage to his first cousin, the Princess Louise Margaret of Savoy, who died in 1632, at age 35, after 20 years together. Maria Anna, his second wife, gave birth to Eleanora in 1636. 7 children followed, 3 sons, 2 daughters and a stillbirth in 1651, two days before his death. The sons, Princes Ferdinand, Frederick and Niccolo of Naples, both died in 1645, of smallpox, but the Emperor had been confidant that a new son would follow. The stillborn child in 1651 seems to have been another daughter.
The new Queen Eleanora had been raised from birth with the goal in mind of marriage, specifically to the King of France. France, Maximilian had hoped, would be a useful ally against the descendants of the Hapsburgs, already in the 1650's aiming for the Imperial Throne again, and as part of this alliance (due to their belief that a union with Naples was imminent) the French had placed their support behind the Elector of Bavaria in order to block the Archduke of Austria, Joseph Gonzaga, from the Imperial Throne. The play worked, but in 1654, Eleanora was forced by her cousin to formally break her betrothal to Francis III of France, in part because her cousin planned on marrying her himself. Maria Anna, however, was able to block the match when, later that year, she produced her former lady-in-waiting, a Lady Ippolita Orsino, to testify that Prince Francesco had married her in 1649, and that they had a son together. The general consensus had been, at the time, that Ippolita was his mistress, but with the Queen Dowager of Naples supporting her and documents with his signature proving, to many, the marriage was real, the Pope himself called upon Francesco to take his wife in. Their son, Prince Sebastian, died in 1655, and they would have no surviving children before the Lady Ippolita's death in 1660, probably of poisoning.
However, free from any major commitments in terms of marriage, with the King of France safely married to the Princess Julianne of Lorraine, Eleanora began to play her options, hoping to emulate Elizabeth I of England, who had rejected the famed King Sebastiano with the phrase "England's lion shan't marry the Italian Pig". Eleanora, however, found that, with the death of her mother in 1658, and the marriage of her sisters into various royal houses, she was quite lonely. She met her future husband, Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, in 1658, at the wedding of her 15 year old sister, the Princess Maria Catalina of Naples, to Henry's elder brother, the newly installed King of England. Henry, 4 years her junior, was not the English Prince many suspected she would eventually marry, but sparks flew, and when they met again for the marriage of Eleanora's other sister, the Princess Niccola Margarita of Naples, to the Duke of Parma, in 1660. At 24, Eleanora was fast becoming annoyed by the various proposals thrown her way, in particular by Prince Ferdinand of Trastamara, a descendant of Ferdinand II of Naples, who was a Prince by technicality, but in 1660 was more known as a hanger on of the court. Thus, she married the Stuart Prince in 1661, and in 1662, had the first of their 8 children, all surviving.
Eleanor only truly began ruling around this time too. Previously having played off the misogyny of her advisers, in 1663, she restructured the court, removing almost 30 seperate men who were advisers, not by merit, but by blood. In particular, the man responsible for the Economics of Naples, one Lord Jorges Farnese, had run the finances of the country into the ground, which was able to be righted when he was replaced by Thomas Francino. The trouble was, however, that Eleanora continued to face massive pushback from her councilors, and in 1665, had to form a formal parliament, in order to try and condense the bureaucracy of the government.
In 1670, Naples went to war against the last Italian holding to not be under their control, the Duke of Parma. With the death of her sister in 1666, in childbirth with the second of two daughters, the Duke of Parma had married the Archduke of Austria's niece, Margaret Farnese, and in 1667 had begun a series of attacks against the Italian holdings of Naples. Eleanora thus, unhappily, sent her husband to deal with it, when she was 3 months pregnant with their 8th child. Henry Stuart would defeat the Duke in battle in 1671, but returned home wounded, and despite nursing by his wife and the care of the best doctors, he died of an infection, leaving his wife pregnant and alone. Eleanora grieved heavily.
Eleanora suffered giving birth to her final child, but managed to pull through of this illness, managing to live past them. At age 36, she was young enough to consider remarriage, and in 1675, there was talks of her marrying her former betrothed, the King of France, with the understanding that she would abdicate her throne of Naples to her heir. Eleanora seems to have considered it, but declined, preferring to raise a monument to her husband in 1677. This monument would, however, be the death of her.
in 1678, Eleanora's other sister, the Queen of England, died in childbirth with her 13 child. The Queen of Naples, distraught, was cautioned against attending the funeral, and instead (in part due to fears that her quick weight gain after the death of her husband would cause health issues) she was perscribed long walks to combat her grief. She took them through the building site of the monument, with her nieces (Maria and Isabella of Parma) hand in hand, lecturing the girls as to the evils their father had committed. However, in June of 1680, she walked alone, and was struck by a falling hammer. The wound was grave, and in July, she died of an infection, much like her husband had done 10 years earlier. The monument, a massive statue of Henry Stuart and Eleanora of Naples together, was where the two were buried, under the stones. She was succeeded by her son, Henry.
[8] The oldest son of Henry and Eleanora, Henry the 1st is said to have done only three good things; marrying his cousin, Maria of Parma and thus uniting all of Italy but the Papal states (which were effectively dependent on the Kingdom of Naples), fathering two heirs, and letting his wife run things.
It did not always seem that way, and as an heir and during his first year he seemed bright and competent. The problems began in 1681 when he was thrown from his horse and treated with opium for his broken leg. Though it was not understood at the time, Henry became an addict and spent more and more time in a stupor until his fatal overdose, by which time few mourned.
Throughout this time, his wife Maria took on more and more of the the royal duties, most importantly and effectively arranging for her two brothers in law to join the church and eventually becoming successive Popes. As Duchess of Parma in her own right after 1683, she encouraged the loyalty to her personally and to her children, doing much to set the dynasty up for further success.
Henry was succeeded by his ______,_______.
Kings of Naples
1496 - 1512: Frederick IV the Great (House of Trastamara) [1]
1512 - 1551: Ferdinand III (House of Trastamara) [2]
1551 - 1581: Sebastiano (House of Trastamara) [3]
1581 - 1607: Nicolo (House of Naples) [4]
1607 - 1609: Frederick V (House of Naples) [5]
Kings and Queens of Naples and Tuscany
1609 - 1639: Frederick V (House of Naples) [5]
1639 - 1651: Maximillian (House of Naples) [6]
Holy Roman Emperor
1643 - 1651: Maximillian III (House of Naples) [6]
Kings and Queens of Naples and Tuscany
1651 - 1680: Eleanora I (House of Naples) [7]
1680 - 1683: Henry I (House of Stewart) [8]
Kings and Queens of Naples and Tuscany, Dukes and Duchesses of Parma
1683 - 1690 Henry I (House of Stewart) [8]
[1] Frederick came to the throne in the middle of the First Italian War, where the French invaded and were defeated in 1498 by the League of Venice. When France invaded Milan the very next year with the backing of Venice, Frederick came to the aid of Milan, viewing the French invasion of Milan as a threat his own Kingdom. The war was going well for Frederick, but in 1501 Frederick's Spanish relatives invaded Naples, siding with France. Frederick was able to hold off the enemy, but Milan soon fell. Realising he had to adopt a more offensive strategy, he sent a fleet to Venice, capturing it and forcing the Republic to capitulate.
Luckily for Frederick, Spain and France had recently gone to war over how to split the spoils of war. Frederick offered a defensive pact to Spain against France, which was accepted. Neopolitian and Spanish forces defeated the French in Milan. Spain also launched an invasion into Mainland France, conquering Toulouse. France gave up on the war soon enough, and a peace treaty was signed in 1504
Spain would keep Milan, and Frederick would return the city of Venice in return for a large sum of gold.
In 1508 War of the League of Cambrai broke out, but Frederick did not join the war.
Frederick died age 60 of natural causes, leaving the throne to his only son, Ferdinand, Duke of Calabria.
[2] Born in 15 December 1488 in Andria, Apulia as son of the future King Frederick and his second wife, Isabella del Balzo. He held the titles of Duke of Calabria and of Apulia.
In January 1505, Ferdinand married, Princess Sibylle of Bavaria, from the house of Wittelsbach, she was the daughter of Duke Albert IV of Bavaria-Munich (1447–1508) from his marriage to Kunigunde of Austria (1465–1520), daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III. The marriage came two months before the death of her older sister, Sidonie, who was engaged to Elector Palatine Louis V.
Together the pair would have five children, before Sibylle's death in 1519 at the age of 29. Following the death of his first wife, in February 1521, 33 year old Ferdinand married 15 year old, Christine of Saxony (25 December 1505 – 15 April 1549) producing another sixteen children.
There was talks of finding a third wife, with rumoured proposals to Mary, Princess of England or Archduchess Eleanor of Austria, (daughter of Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor and Anna of Bohemia and Hungary), until his own death at the age of 63.
His ruling was seen as fair and just, supporting the Papal State financially against Venice, while holding a strained peace against France to the West. His support of Pope Leo X (1513-1536) and his successor Pope Leo XI (1536-1553 OTL Giovanni Salviati, who was Leo X nephew) gained him the title of "Blessed King Ferdinand, Holy Servant of God"
[3] Ferdinands grandson, Sebastiano, was quite impressive for a single reason - he managed to rule for a prolonged period and fend off several significant attempts to depose him whilst simultaneously being one of the most unliked monarchs in the history of Naples. Keen to delegate his responsibilities to his relatives and council, he rarely left his chambers, spent an increasing amount on clothes, wine, food and prostitutes, reportedly abused his slaves and some claim he murdered his wife (from an arranged marriage, it was common knowledge that they hated each other) when she attempted to leave him with their only son. At this point, he sent his son to be brought up by priests and passed a law that states his son must not set foot in the palace until he, Sebastiano, had died and walked into the embrace of God. Even attempted intervention by the Pope failed to sway him from being an awful person - perhaps the only thing that put down the attempted depositions was the fact that he had delegated so much power to his council and military leaders that they feared having the power removed by any subsequent ruler - and with his death in 1581, his son having vanished off the face of the kingdom after his banishment to a monastery, there was a host of aunts, uncles and cousins to pass the crown to, eventually being passed to his brother, Nicolo.
[4] As the younger brother of Sebastino, many were worried that Nicolo would turn out to be like his brother, so the first thing Nicolo did when he was crowned was found a new house for himself, the House of Naples. When he inherited the throne, the Royal coffers were drained and the country was heading towards a economic crisis.
Nicolo decided to reinvent the tax system, and cut unnecessary costs. This made him unpopular with his nobles, some of whom conspired against him, but nothing major ever came of it. Nicolo sold a number royal palaces and wore mostly plain clothes. Despite this, the economy had made a full recovery by 1593, and now Nicolo was looking to expand.
The Neopolitan colonies of Brasile del Nord (meaning North Brazil, stretches from the Amazon to modern day French Guiana) and the Bahamas, defending by a grand navy that Nicolo had built.
In 1600 Venice and Naples went to war over control of the Mediterranean. When Spain did not defend Naples from the Venetian aggressors, Nicolo was very angry, but did not show it to the Spanish, fearing possible backlash from the Habsburgs. In 1601, the Treaty of Venice was signed. The war was inconclusive, and was considered a waste of time, even by Nicolo himself. Regardless, Nicolo remained one of the most celebrated and popular Kings of Naples.
In 1607, Nicolo died of Cancer age 66, leaving the throne to son, Prince Frederick.
[5] Frederick, was born in 1571, son of Nicolo and his wife, Elisabeth of Austria, daughter of Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor, and Maria of Spain. This marriage was arranged as a Habsburg attempt to influence the running of Naples.
Growing up during the reign of his eccentric uncle, Frederick, would be educated by his father, regarding matters of state and foreign politics.
At the age of ten, he became heir following his uncles death and his father’s succession and would continue being tutored by his father and shadow him.
His marriage was arranged by his father to Maria de’ Medici at the Palazzo Pitti of Florence, Italy, the sixth daughter of Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Archduchess Joanna of Austria.
The death of his father from cancer and Frederick succession, came at the age of 36 and his preparation set him in good stead, he was able to continue his father's strong economy policy assisted by colonial trade, helping to assist with the Navy and Army.
When Maria’s uncle, Cardinal and Grand Duke Ferdinando II of Tuscany died in 1609, King Frederick, claimed her father’s throne on behalf of her, uniting the two nations and elevating the later nation to a Kingdom.
To placate, Pope Julius III and his Papal State, who now found its self sharing borders with the Union of Naples and Tuscany, King Frederick would pledge loyal allegiance to his Holiness, signed a non-aggression agreement, along with a yearly "loyalty tax," a tax used by the Pope to invest in its army and navy.
His death in 1639, at the age of 68, came following three years of declining health. He was succeeded by his son, Prince Maximillian.
[6] Maximillian was the third son of king Frederick and the only one to survive untill adulthood. He was born in 1598 and named after his maternal grandfather emperor Maximillian II. By the time Maximillian was crowned king of Naples and Tuscany his grandfather's branch of the Habsburg family had died out and his distant relative Ferdinand III sat on the imperial throne. Ties with the Habsburgs remained strong nevertheless as Maximillian had married Ferdinand's sister Maria Anna (b.1610).
Wheras Italy had remained firmly catholic, Europe north of the Alps was ravaged by decades of religious warfare. The imperial forces had met with initial success but after more than 20 years it became apparent that the Habsburgs were fighting a loosing war. Backed by the French and other foreign powers protestant forces sacked Vienna in 1638, but the war was far from over. By 1640 most of the HRE was in protestant hands and church lands were distributed to protestant lords, including the archbishoprics of the Electors of Trier, Cologne and Mainz. With most of their lands occupied and the Electoral system of the HRE shattered the situation for the Habsburgs seemed dire.
In 1641 King Maximillian intervened on behalf of his brother-in-law emperor Ferdinand III and landed with his troops in Habsburg Croatia in an attempt to liberate central Europe. He marched northwards capturing Vienna before the end of the year and continued marching westwards towards Bavaria. The renewed warfare was a catastrophe for the local population with between 33-50% of the inhabitants of Lower and Upper Austria being killed during the course of the war. The catholic forces were moderatly successful and reached Franconia by 1643 but than the luck of the House of Austria ran out. Ferdinand's brother Leopold Wilhelm was killed on the battlefield before the emperor himself succumbed to fever, leaving the Habsburg family without adult males to take the crown.
In the Treaty of Passau Maximillian promised to defend the Austrian lands in exchange for Habsburg support for his claim to the imperial throne. With the electors of Trier, Cologne and Mainz living in exile and the Habsburgs at his mercy the election was a mere farce. Maximillian was elected emperor despite the fact that non of the electors who voted for him actually controlled their electorate (not even the Habsburgs as Bohemia was occupied by protestant troops).
To further cement his rather weak claim to imperial authority Maximillian left his troop in the hands of his generals and traveled to Rome to be crowned emperor by the pope (a tradition abandoned by the Habsburgs over a century ago). Both Maximillian and his father Frederick had been financially generous towards the pope but this came with a price. In the last decades papal economy and building projects had become increasingly dependent on those Neapolitan taxes. Both overland and naval trade became dominated by merchants from Tuscany and Naples and the minor lords of the Romagna soon cared more for the opinion of the Neapolitan kings than the pope's.
Despite the initial success the Neapolitans enjoyed in Germany the war once again swung in favour of the protestants. Not long after his return from Italy Maximillian and his allies were forced back towards Vienna. Tired of the ongoing war Maximillian once again left for Italy leaving the war to his generals and the Austrians, who felt rightfully betrayed by the emperor, who had pledged to defend their lands.
After almost three decades and the second sack of Vienna the Austrian forces of the young Archduke Ferdinand surrendered in 1646. In the Treaty of Ingolstadt the Austrians and Neapolitans accepted the loss of Bohemia and the independence of the German states not part of the Habsburg domain. The treaty was an utter humilitation for the House of Habsburg and showed that Maximillian was utterly uninteressested in fighting for the Austrian cause.
The second half of Maximillian's reign was rather uneventful. The center of power slowly moved to the north as the rich Tuscan lands became increasingly important for the finances of the dual kingdom. Maximillian died of throat cancer in 1651 after 12 years as king and 8 as emperor. Leaving his wife and their minor children. His reign is regarded as one of the most succesful in Italian history, wheras it is seen as a historical low point by German catholics.
He was succeeded by his daughter, Eleanora Maria Catalina of Naples.
[7] The Princess Eleanora Maria Catalina of Naples was 15 when her father died. A minor by technicality, she was placed under a regency of her cousin, the Prince Francesco of Naples, and left in the care of her mother, Maria Anna, Archduchess of Austria. Raised prior with the knowledge that she would eventually be replaced by a son of her mother and father (her mother was just 30 at her father's death, his second wife after a fruitless marriage to his first cousin, the Princess Louise Margaret of Savoy, who died in 1632, at age 35, after 20 years together. Maria Anna, his second wife, gave birth to Eleanora in 1636. 7 children followed, 3 sons, 2 daughters and a stillbirth in 1651, two days before his death. The sons, Princes Ferdinand, Frederick and Niccolo of Naples, both died in 1645, of smallpox, but the Emperor had been confidant that a new son would follow. The stillborn child in 1651 seems to have been another daughter.
The new Queen Eleanora had been raised from birth with the goal in mind of marriage, specifically to the King of France. France, Maximilian had hoped, would be a useful ally against the descendants of the Hapsburgs, already in the 1650's aiming for the Imperial Throne again, and as part of this alliance (due to their belief that a union with Naples was imminent) the French had placed their support behind the Elector of Bavaria in order to block the Archduke of Austria, Joseph Gonzaga, from the Imperial Throne. The play worked, but in 1654, Eleanora was forced by her cousin to formally break her betrothal to Francis III of France, in part because her cousin planned on marrying her himself. Maria Anna, however, was able to block the match when, later that year, she produced her former lady-in-waiting, a Lady Ippolita Orsino, to testify that Prince Francesco had married her in 1649, and that they had a son together. The general consensus had been, at the time, that Ippolita was his mistress, but with the Queen Dowager of Naples supporting her and documents with his signature proving, to many, the marriage was real, the Pope himself called upon Francesco to take his wife in. Their son, Prince Sebastian, died in 1655, and they would have no surviving children before the Lady Ippolita's death in 1660, probably of poisoning.
However, free from any major commitments in terms of marriage, with the King of France safely married to the Princess Julianne of Lorraine, Eleanora began to play her options, hoping to emulate Elizabeth I of England, who had rejected the famed King Sebastiano with the phrase "England's lion shan't marry the Italian Pig". Eleanora, however, found that, with the death of her mother in 1658, and the marriage of her sisters into various royal houses, she was quite lonely. She met her future husband, Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, in 1658, at the wedding of her 15 year old sister, the Princess Maria Catalina of Naples, to Henry's elder brother, the newly installed King of England. Henry, 4 years her junior, was not the English Prince many suspected she would eventually marry, but sparks flew, and when they met again for the marriage of Eleanora's other sister, the Princess Niccola Margarita of Naples, to the Duke of Parma, in 1660. At 24, Eleanora was fast becoming annoyed by the various proposals thrown her way, in particular by Prince Ferdinand of Trastamara, a descendant of Ferdinand II of Naples, who was a Prince by technicality, but in 1660 was more known as a hanger on of the court. Thus, she married the Stuart Prince in 1661, and in 1662, had the first of their 8 children, all surviving.
Eleanor only truly began ruling around this time too. Previously having played off the misogyny of her advisers, in 1663, she restructured the court, removing almost 30 seperate men who were advisers, not by merit, but by blood. In particular, the man responsible for the Economics of Naples, one Lord Jorges Farnese, had run the finances of the country into the ground, which was able to be righted when he was replaced by Thomas Francino. The trouble was, however, that Eleanora continued to face massive pushback from her councilors, and in 1665, had to form a formal parliament, in order to try and condense the bureaucracy of the government.
In 1670, Naples went to war against the last Italian holding to not be under their control, the Duke of Parma. With the death of her sister in 1666, in childbirth with the second of two daughters, the Duke of Parma had married the Archduke of Austria's niece, Margaret Farnese, and in 1667 had begun a series of attacks against the Italian holdings of Naples. Eleanora thus, unhappily, sent her husband to deal with it, when she was 3 months pregnant with their 8th child. Henry Stuart would defeat the Duke in battle in 1671, but returned home wounded, and despite nursing by his wife and the care of the best doctors, he died of an infection, leaving his wife pregnant and alone. Eleanora grieved heavily.
Eleanora suffered giving birth to her final child, but managed to pull through of this illness, managing to live past them. At age 36, she was young enough to consider remarriage, and in 1675, there was talks of her marrying her former betrothed, the King of France, with the understanding that she would abdicate her throne of Naples to her heir. Eleanora seems to have considered it, but declined, preferring to raise a monument to her husband in 1677. This monument would, however, be the death of her.
in 1678, Eleanora's other sister, the Queen of England, died in childbirth with her 13 child. The Queen of Naples, distraught, was cautioned against attending the funeral, and instead (in part due to fears that her quick weight gain after the death of her husband would cause health issues) she was perscribed long walks to combat her grief. She took them through the building site of the monument, with her nieces (Maria and Isabella of Parma) hand in hand, lecturing the girls as to the evils their father had committed. However, in June of 1680, she walked alone, and was struck by a falling hammer. The wound was grave, and in July, she died of an infection, much like her husband had done 10 years earlier. The monument, a massive statue of Henry Stuart and Eleanora of Naples together, was where the two were buried, under the stones. She was succeeded by her son, Henry.
[8] The oldest son of Henry and Eleanora, Henry the 1st is said to have done only three good things; marrying his cousin, Maria of Parma and thus uniting all of Italy but the Papal states (which were effectively dependent on the Kingdom of Naples), fathering two heirs, and letting his wife run things.
It did not always seem that way, and as an heir and during his first year he seemed bright and competent. The problems began in 1681 when he was thrown from his horse and treated with opium for his broken leg. Though it was not understood at the time, Henry became an addict and spent more and more time in a stupor until his fatal overdose, by which time few mourned.
Throughout this time, his wife Maria took on more and more of the the royal duties, most importantly and effectively arranging for her two brothers in law to join the church and eventually becoming successive Popes. As Duchess of Parma in her own right after 1683, she encouraged the loyalty to her personally and to her children, doing much to set the dynasty up for further success.
Henry was succeeded by his ______,_______.
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What if Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, the son of Queen Anne, had not been born infected with meningitis and had been healthy?
Kings of the United Kingdom of England and Scotland
1714 - 1766: William IV (House of Gloucester) [1]
1766 - 1816: George I (House of Gloucester) [2]
1816 - 1828: William V (House of Gloucester) [3]
1828 - 1862: George II (House of Gloucester) [4]
[1] On William the Duke of Gloucester's birth, all of England celebrated that now there was a Protestant heir to the throne. His aunt, Queen Mary, and her husband, his cousin once removed, King William, celebrated too, even though King William did not get along with his sister-in-law's husband, Prince George. Rather than see the young infant take on the name of his father's ducal title of Cumberland, he was given the dukedom of Gloucester as a child, which then later became the name of his house. Prince William was second in line after his mother, Princess Anne, to the thrones of England and Scotland separately. Mary preceded her husband in death and then in 1701 he too died and Prince William's mother became Queen. In 1707 the Act of Union united the two kingdoms and so Prince William became the heir of the United Kingdom.
William was 25 when he became king. He was already married to his third cousin, Sophia Dorothea of Hanover, in 1708 when she was 21 and he was 19. She was the daughter of George of Hanover, son of Sophia of Hanover. An act of Parliament had decreed that only Protestants could be heirs to the throne and that made the elder Sophie next in line after William at that time. The marriage was arranged and William and Sophia Dorothea never met until the wedding. But it was a happy marriage and they grew to love each other, having many children.
William had a long rule and during his reign Great Britain won several wars with France, ending up with all their former territories in North America.
William also led the war against his cousin, Charles Stuart, known as Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Young Pretender, and defeated him, ending the Scottish rebellion and the hopes of the Catholic Stuarts.
William was an active king, working closely with Parliament and the ministers of it who would form governments. Sophia Dorothea passed in 1757. William followed her nine years later at the age of 76, only a few days before his 77th birthday.
[2] Born in 1740, George was William's grandson, by his eldest son Edward, Prince of Wales. He was named after both his maternal and paternal great grandfather (George of Hanover, and George of Cumberland) and outlived his father who had an 'unfortunate encounter with his mistresses lovers duelling pistol' (buy since his mistresses lover was also his brother, the Duke of Edinburgh, things got brushed under the carpet by William as the royal family could not be smeared by fratricide) which allowed George to become Prince of Wales himself.
He married Caroline of Orange-Nassau in 1760 and they had fourteen children (seven of whom would survive to adulthood) - the pair were forced to reside in the Netherlands briefly in 1765 when Carolines grandmother died and Caroline was forced to act as Regent for her younger brother, William V, Prince of Orange. This period in the Netherlands probably influenced him significant as it was the first time he had travelled abroad and he brought back many ideas that were influenced by the Court of Orange-Nassau.
The Dutch Regency (as it had become known) had not yet ended when news reached them that his grandfather had passed away and he was forced to rush back to London less one of his uncles or cousins would attempt to suspend his claim despite the wording of the Treason Act. He reached London and became the rightfull King - with Caroline following a few months later when her brother turned 18.
His reign saw the American Revolution (and the declaration of the Kingdom of America under the rule of Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette) and the latter part of his grandfathers had seen the Seven Year War which had left France in debt - but knowing the danger a growing Republican movement could bring, George made a significant loan to the twenty two year old Charles X (all of his older brothers had died in their youths) and advised him on the transformation to a constitutional monarchy. His advice was heeded and a French Revolution had been narrowly avoided - with the leads exiled to the newly established penal colonies of Australia at George's suggestion, further away than Elba or St Helena from where there was still invariably a chance they could return.
In the end, he reigned for fifty years and died at 76, leaving the throne to his son, the Prince of Wales, William.
[3] William was born in 1766 and was the fifth child and second son of George I. His older brother, George Alexander, died in infancy shortly after his birth in 1761. William had three older sisters, two who died in childhood, one of those, Anne, dying in 1764 at age 2 before George and his slightly older fraternal twin sister, Caroline, were born. William was named after King George's grandfather and Caroline after their mother. William and Caroline's remaining older sister, Mary, born in 1765, died when they were three and she was four in 1769. Viewing her dead body later was William's first memory. His younger brothers and sisters who died in childhood were Edward (1768-1776), Sophia Louise (1770), James (1775-1789), and George Henry (1781). His siblings who survived to adulthood were his twin sister Caroline (born in 1766), brother Geoffrey (born in 1767), brother Clarence (born in 1772), sister Frances (born in 1773), and another set of twins, these identical, brothers Harold and Alfred (born in 1777).
William and Caroline were inseparable in childhood and always in adult life were closer to each other than they were with their spouses and/or lovers. Caroline never married but had many secret female lovers. William married young at age 18 in 1785 to Maria Hapsburg of Prague, a granddaughter of the Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa through her son the Archduke Charles Joseph (who in this lives to adulthood instead of dying from the smallpox at age 16) and, through her mother Princess Hildaline, a granddaughter of the Prussian King, Frederick II (who in this is obviously not the child of Sophia Dorothea, but of someone else, and so a different person than OTL Frederick the Great.)
William detested Maria Hapsburg from the moment he met her. She was quite religious and he was only a nominal believer. Maria was not like the girls that William had enjoyed himself with, she was not supple and soft of skin, but thin, bony, and had a poor complexion. As Prince of Wales it was his duty to sire children, so he did his spousal duties. Maria had a difficult time getting pregnant. Finally she did in 1794 and miscarried. She finally got pregnant again in 1798 and had a daughter, named Regina Maria. Prince William told his drinking companions, which included Princess Caroline of course, that "Britain has had four queens, they can have another. I've done my duty." He set up Maria in her own household in Edinburgh and the two never saw each other again. Regina Maria was not brought to London until she was 12 years old, when she met her father and aunt and grandfather, the King, for the first time.
By this time William's excessive wining, dining, and whoring had taken their toll. (As it had with his twin.) He was not very healthy, was over weight, and, to be honest, was a repulsive figure. In fact a Republican movement began in the early part of the 19th Century as a number of the more educated middle class detested the idea of having William as their king someday. But tradition was strong and on the death of his father, he became William V. When he sat at court he did not have his Queen Maria at his side, she was still in unofficial exile in Scotland, but his equally obese and repulsive twin sister, Caroline, the Princess Royal, at his side. Princess Regina Maria was one of those who detested her father and aunt. When he became king she was 18. His intent was to marry her to a distant cousin descended from William IV, but she refused the marriage and went to live with her mother, who by then was wearing a nun's habit and living the live of a nun, even though she was not allowed to take vows, since she was officially Queen Consort of England, and was official Anglican, not Catholic.
Princess Regina Maria loved her mother, unlike how she hated her father, but this was not the life she wanted. She settled in Geneva, made friends with the Romantics from England who visited there: the Shelleys and Lord Byron, and drowned while boating with them on the lake. It was rumored she had a love affair with Byron and was pregnant at the time.
King William was focused on the business side of the kingdom. He gave special privileges to several old and newly formed trading companies, including the East India Company and the Hudson Bay Company. Again Republicanism became a strong movement as there were complaints the King was ruling through the Companies instead of letting Parliament govern.
William's health deteriorated and he died in 1828 at age 62, probably from syphilis. Princess Royal Caroline outlived her twin for fourteen more years. Since William had no child as an heir with Regina Maria's death, he was succeeded by his nephew, Prince George, Duke of Munster.
[4] Prince George of Munster was the eldest child of Prince Harold, second youngest son of George I, created Duke of Munster upon his marriage in 1800. George was the next in line to the crown following the death of his cousin in Geneva (Geoffrey and Clarence both died without issue before their niece), and was stationed in India as part of the British Army when news reached him of her death, and he was recalled to London where his obese aunt and uncle ignored him as a minor inconvenience - it was clear that his aunt considered she should take the throne, but when William V died and George took the throne, he exiled her to Geneva where he set her up a household at the Villa Diodati so she could always look out at where her niece had died.
George had inherited the Dukedom of Munster when his father died shortly before his cousin, and whilst in India he became friends with the Commander in Chief, Stapleton Cotton, Viscount Combermere, and became engaged to Cottons daughter, Anna (from his first wife, Anna, daughter of the Duke of Newcastle) before they were married and she became first Duchess of Munster, then Princess of Wales briefly, eventually Queen Consort of Britain and later Dowager Queen (she outlived her husband by almost 30 years) and Queen Mother when her son/daughter ............. took the throne.
Although Republican sentiment had been growing whilst he was in India during the reign of his uncle, his charisma and his experiences in the military managed to sway public perception and narrowly pull the country away from a revolution. On the opposite side of the Atlantic, the Kingdom of America was not so lucky and found itself in open revolt against their own King George, son of Gilbert I, who sought side from the French but the French refused as George II reminded them that their loan to Britain had not yet been repaid. This didn't stop George II supplying arms to the insurgents who were rising up against the American monarch. It was a dangerous game, but George II considered it to be a great one - and he became the creator of a counter-intelligence and espionage division within the War Office.
He had five children - two sons and two daughters who survived to adulthood, married and had issue of their own and another son, Prince George, Duke of Cleveland, who had caught polio and died before majority leading his parents to donate significant funds (what would have been the Duke of Clevelands allowance) to the Royal College of Physicians every year for the following decade after his death in order to support research onto polio.
When he died, it was at the launch of a new Royal Navy ship named after his grandfather, the HMS King George, suffering a heart attack during the canon salute.
Kings of the United Kingdom of England and Scotland
1714 - 1766: William IV (House of Gloucester) [1]
1766 - 1816: George I (House of Gloucester) [2]
1816 - 1828: William V (House of Gloucester) [3]
1828 - 1862: George II (House of Gloucester) [4]
William was 25 when he became king. He was already married to his third cousin, Sophia Dorothea of Hanover, in 1708 when she was 21 and he was 19. She was the daughter of George of Hanover, son of Sophia of Hanover. An act of Parliament had decreed that only Protestants could be heirs to the throne and that made the elder Sophie next in line after William at that time. The marriage was arranged and William and Sophia Dorothea never met until the wedding. But it was a happy marriage and they grew to love each other, having many children.
William had a long rule and during his reign Great Britain won several wars with France, ending up with all their former territories in North America.
William also led the war against his cousin, Charles Stuart, known as Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Young Pretender, and defeated him, ending the Scottish rebellion and the hopes of the Catholic Stuarts.
William was an active king, working closely with Parliament and the ministers of it who would form governments. Sophia Dorothea passed in 1757. William followed her nine years later at the age of 76, only a few days before his 77th birthday.
[2] Born in 1740, George was William's grandson, by his eldest son Edward, Prince of Wales. He was named after both his maternal and paternal great grandfather (George of Hanover, and George of Cumberland) and outlived his father who had an 'unfortunate encounter with his mistresses lovers duelling pistol' (buy since his mistresses lover was also his brother, the Duke of Edinburgh, things got brushed under the carpet by William as the royal family could not be smeared by fratricide) which allowed George to become Prince of Wales himself.
He married Caroline of Orange-Nassau in 1760 and they had fourteen children (seven of whom would survive to adulthood) - the pair were forced to reside in the Netherlands briefly in 1765 when Carolines grandmother died and Caroline was forced to act as Regent for her younger brother, William V, Prince of Orange. This period in the Netherlands probably influenced him significant as it was the first time he had travelled abroad and he brought back many ideas that were influenced by the Court of Orange-Nassau.
The Dutch Regency (as it had become known) had not yet ended when news reached them that his grandfather had passed away and he was forced to rush back to London less one of his uncles or cousins would attempt to suspend his claim despite the wording of the Treason Act. He reached London and became the rightfull King - with Caroline following a few months later when her brother turned 18.
His reign saw the American Revolution (and the declaration of the Kingdom of America under the rule of Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette) and the latter part of his grandfathers had seen the Seven Year War which had left France in debt - but knowing the danger a growing Republican movement could bring, George made a significant loan to the twenty two year old Charles X (all of his older brothers had died in their youths) and advised him on the transformation to a constitutional monarchy. His advice was heeded and a French Revolution had been narrowly avoided - with the leads exiled to the newly established penal colonies of Australia at George's suggestion, further away than Elba or St Helena from where there was still invariably a chance they could return.
In the end, he reigned for fifty years and died at 76, leaving the throne to his son, the Prince of Wales, William.
William and Caroline were inseparable in childhood and always in adult life were closer to each other than they were with their spouses and/or lovers. Caroline never married but had many secret female lovers. William married young at age 18 in 1785 to Maria Hapsburg of Prague, a granddaughter of the Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa through her son the Archduke Charles Joseph (who in this lives to adulthood instead of dying from the smallpox at age 16) and, through her mother Princess Hildaline, a granddaughter of the Prussian King, Frederick II (who in this is obviously not the child of Sophia Dorothea, but of someone else, and so a different person than OTL Frederick the Great.)
William detested Maria Hapsburg from the moment he met her. She was quite religious and he was only a nominal believer. Maria was not like the girls that William had enjoyed himself with, she was not supple and soft of skin, but thin, bony, and had a poor complexion. As Prince of Wales it was his duty to sire children, so he did his spousal duties. Maria had a difficult time getting pregnant. Finally she did in 1794 and miscarried. She finally got pregnant again in 1798 and had a daughter, named Regina Maria. Prince William told his drinking companions, which included Princess Caroline of course, that "Britain has had four queens, they can have another. I've done my duty." He set up Maria in her own household in Edinburgh and the two never saw each other again. Regina Maria was not brought to London until she was 12 years old, when she met her father and aunt and grandfather, the King, for the first time.
By this time William's excessive wining, dining, and whoring had taken their toll. (As it had with his twin.) He was not very healthy, was over weight, and, to be honest, was a repulsive figure. In fact a Republican movement began in the early part of the 19th Century as a number of the more educated middle class detested the idea of having William as their king someday. But tradition was strong and on the death of his father, he became William V. When he sat at court he did not have his Queen Maria at his side, she was still in unofficial exile in Scotland, but his equally obese and repulsive twin sister, Caroline, the Princess Royal, at his side. Princess Regina Maria was one of those who detested her father and aunt. When he became king she was 18. His intent was to marry her to a distant cousin descended from William IV, but she refused the marriage and went to live with her mother, who by then was wearing a nun's habit and living the live of a nun, even though she was not allowed to take vows, since she was officially Queen Consort of England, and was official Anglican, not Catholic.
Princess Regina Maria loved her mother, unlike how she hated her father, but this was not the life she wanted. She settled in Geneva, made friends with the Romantics from England who visited there: the Shelleys and Lord Byron, and drowned while boating with them on the lake. It was rumored she had a love affair with Byron and was pregnant at the time.
King William was focused on the business side of the kingdom. He gave special privileges to several old and newly formed trading companies, including the East India Company and the Hudson Bay Company. Again Republicanism became a strong movement as there were complaints the King was ruling through the Companies instead of letting Parliament govern.
William's health deteriorated and he died in 1828 at age 62, probably from syphilis. Princess Royal Caroline outlived her twin for fourteen more years. Since William had no child as an heir with Regina Maria's death, he was succeeded by his nephew, Prince George, Duke of Munster.
[4] Prince George of Munster was the eldest child of Prince Harold, second youngest son of George I, created Duke of Munster upon his marriage in 1800. George was the next in line to the crown following the death of his cousin in Geneva (Geoffrey and Clarence both died without issue before their niece), and was stationed in India as part of the British Army when news reached him of her death, and he was recalled to London where his obese aunt and uncle ignored him as a minor inconvenience - it was clear that his aunt considered she should take the throne, but when William V died and George took the throne, he exiled her to Geneva where he set her up a household at the Villa Diodati so she could always look out at where her niece had died.
George had inherited the Dukedom of Munster when his father died shortly before his cousin, and whilst in India he became friends with the Commander in Chief, Stapleton Cotton, Viscount Combermere, and became engaged to Cottons daughter, Anna (from his first wife, Anna, daughter of the Duke of Newcastle) before they were married and she became first Duchess of Munster, then Princess of Wales briefly, eventually Queen Consort of Britain and later Dowager Queen (she outlived her husband by almost 30 years) and Queen Mother when her son/daughter ............. took the throne.
Although Republican sentiment had been growing whilst he was in India during the reign of his uncle, his charisma and his experiences in the military managed to sway public perception and narrowly pull the country away from a revolution. On the opposite side of the Atlantic, the Kingdom of America was not so lucky and found itself in open revolt against their own King George, son of Gilbert I, who sought side from the French but the French refused as George II reminded them that their loan to Britain had not yet been repaid. This didn't stop George II supplying arms to the insurgents who were rising up against the American monarch. It was a dangerous game, but George II considered it to be a great one - and he became the creator of a counter-intelligence and espionage division within the War Office.
He had five children - two sons and two daughters who survived to adulthood, married and had issue of their own and another son, Prince George, Duke of Cleveland, who had caught polio and died before majority leading his parents to donate significant funds (what would have been the Duke of Clevelands allowance) to the Royal College of Physicians every year for the following decade after his death in order to support research onto polio.
When he died, it was at the launch of a new Royal Navy ship named after his grandfather, the HMS King George, suffering a heart attack during the canon salute.
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Crystal
Banned
What if the Kingdom of Naples defeated France and Spain in the Second Italian War?
Kings of Naples
1496 - 1512: Frederick IV the Great (House of Trastamara) [1]
1512 - 1551: Ferdinand III (House of Trastamara) [2]
1551 - 1581: Sebastiano (House of Trastamara) [3]
1581 - 1607: Nicolo (House of Naples) [4]
1607 - 1609: Frederick V (House of Naples) [5]
Kings and Queens of Naples and Tuscany
1609 - 1639: Frederick V (House of Naples) [5]
1639 - 1651: Maximillian (House of Naples) [6]
Holy Roman Emperor
1643 - 1651: Maximillian III (House of Naples) [6]
Kings and Queens of Naples and Tuscany
1651 - 1680: Eleanora I (House of Naples) [7]
1680 - 1683: Henry I (House of Stewart) [8]
Kings and Queens of Naples and Tuscany, Dukes and Duchesses of Parma
1683 - 1690: Henry I (House of Stewart) [8]
1690 - 1715: Maximillian II (House of Stewart) [9]
Kings and Queens of Italy
1715 - 1718: Maximillian II (House of Stewart) [10]
[1] Frederick came to the throne in the middle of the First Italian War, where the French invaded and were defeated in 1498 by the League of Venice. When France invaded Milan the very next year with the backing of Venice, Frederick came to the aid of Milan, viewing the French invasion of Milan as a threat his own Kingdom. The war was going well for Frederick, but in 1501 Frederick's Spanish relatives invaded Naples, siding with France. Frederick was able to hold off the enemy, but Milan soon fell. Realising he had to adopt a more offensive strategy, he sent a fleet to Venice, capturing it and forcing the Republic to capitulate.
Luckily for Frederick, Spain and France had recently gone to war over how to split the spoils of war. Frederick offered a defensive pact to Spain against France, which was accepted. Neopolitian and Spanish forces defeated the French in Milan. Spain also launched an invasion into Mainland France, conquering Toulouse. France gave up on the war soon enough, and a peace treaty was signed in 1504
Spain would keep Milan, and Frederick would return the city of Venice in return for a large sum of gold.
In 1508 War of the League of Cambrai broke out, but Frederick did not join the war.
Frederick died age 60 of natural causes, leaving the throne to his only son, Ferdinand, Duke of Calabria.
[2] Born in 15 December 1488 in Andria, Apulia as son of the future King Frederick and his second wife, Isabella del Balzo. He held the titles of Duke of Calabria and of Apulia.
In January 1505, Ferdinand married, Princess Sibylle of Bavaria, from the house of Wittelsbach, she was the daughter of Duke Albert IV of Bavaria-Munich (1447–1508) from his marriage to Kunigunde of Austria (1465–1520), daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III. The marriage came two months before the death of her older sister, Sidonie, who was engaged to Elector Palatine Louis V.
Together the pair would have five children, before Sibylle's death in 1519 at the age of 29. Following the death of his first wife, in February 1521, 33 year old Ferdinand married 15 year old, Christine of Saxony (25 December 1505 – 15 April 1549) producing another sixteen children.
There was talks of finding a third wife, with rumoured proposals to Mary, Princess of England or Archduchess Eleanor of Austria, (daughter of Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor and Anna of Bohemia and Hungary), until his own death at the age of 63.
His ruling was seen as fair and just, supporting the Papal State financially against Venice, while holding a strained peace against France to the West. His support of Pope Leo X (1513-1536) and his successor Pope Leo XI (1536-1553 OTL Giovanni Salviati, who was Leo X nephew) gained him the title of "Blessed King Ferdinand, Holy Servant of God"
[3] Ferdinands grandson, Sebastiano, was quite impressive for a single reason - he managed to rule for a prolonged period and fend off several significant attempts to depose him whilst simultaneously being one of the most unliked monarchs in the history of Naples. Keen to delegate his responsibilities to his relatives and council, he rarely left his chambers, spent an increasing amount on clothes, wine, food and prostitutes, reportedly abused his slaves and some claim he murdered his wife (from an arranged marriage, it was common knowledge that they hated each other) when she attempted to leave him with their only son. At this point, he sent his son to be brought up by priests and passed a law that states his son must not set foot in the palace until he, Sebastiano, had died and walked into the embrace of God. Even attempted intervention by the Pope failed to sway him from being an awful person - perhaps the only thing that put down the attempted depositions was the fact that he had delegated so much power to his council and military leaders that they feared having the power removed by any subsequent ruler - and with his death in 1581, his son having vanished off the face of the kingdom after his banishment to a monastery, there was a host of aunts, uncles and cousins to pass the crown to, eventually being passed to his brother, Nicolo.
[4] As the younger brother of Sebastino, many were worried that Nicolo would turn out to be like his brother, so the first thing Nicolo did when he was crowned was found a new house for himself, the House of Naples. When he inherited the throne, the Royal coffers were drained and the country was heading towards a economic crisis.
Nicolo decided to reinvent the tax system, and cut unnecessary costs. This made him unpopular with his nobles, some of whom conspired against him, but nothing major ever came of it. Nicolo sold a number royal palaces and wore mostly plain clothes. Despite this, the economy had made a full recovery by 1593, and now Nicolo was looking to expand.
The Neopolitan colonies of Brasile del Nord (meaning North Brazil, stretches from the Amazon to modern day French Guiana) and the Bahamas, defending by a grand navy that Nicolo had built.
In 1600 Venice and Naples went to war over control of the Mediterranean. When Spain did not defend Naples from the Venetian aggressors, Nicolo was very angry, but did not show it to the Spanish, fearing possible backlash from the Habsburgs. In 1601, the Treaty of Venice was signed. The war was inconclusive, and was considered a waste of time, even by Nicolo himself. Regardless, Nicolo remained one of the most celebrated and popular Kings of Naples.
In 1607, Nicolo died of Cancer age 66, leaving the throne to son, Prince Frederick.
[5] Frederick, was born in 1571, son of Nicolo and his wife, Elisabeth of Austria, daughter of Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor, and Maria of Spain. This marriage was arranged as a Habsburg attempt to influence the running of Naples.
Growing up during the reign of his eccentric uncle, Frederick, would be educated by his father, regarding matters of state and foreign politics.
At the age of ten, he became heir following his uncles death and his father’s succession and would continue being tutored by his father and shadow him.
His marriage was arranged by his father to Maria de’ Medici at the Palazzo Pitti of Florence, Italy, the sixth daughter of Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Archduchess Joanna of Austria.
The death of his father from cancer and Frederick succession, came at the age of 36 and his preparation set him in good stead, he was able to continue his father's strong economy policy assisted by colonial trade, helping to assist with the Navy and Army.
When Maria’s uncle, Cardinal and Grand Duke Ferdinando II of Tuscany died in 1609, King Frederick, claimed her father’s throne on behalf of her, uniting the two nations and elevating the later nation to a Kingdom.
To placate, Pope Julius III and his Papal State, who now found its self sharing borders with the Union of Naples and Tuscany, King Frederick would pledge loyal allegiance to his Holiness, signed a non-aggression agreement, along with a yearly "loyalty tax," a tax used by the Pope to invest in its army and navy.
His death in 1639, at the age of 68, came following three years of declining health. He was succeeded by his son, Prince Maximillian.
[6] Maximillian was the third son of king Frederick and the only one to survive untill adulthood. He was born in 1598 and named after his maternal grandfather emperor Maximillian II. By the time Maximillian was crowned king of Naples and Tuscany his grandfather's branch of the Habsburg family had died out and his distant relative Ferdinand III sat on the imperial throne. Ties with the Habsburgs remained strong nevertheless as Maximillian had married Ferdinand's sister Maria Anna (b.1610).
Wheras Italy had remained firmly catholic, Europe north of the Alps was ravaged by decades of religious warfare. The imperial forces had met with initial success but after more than 20 years it became apparent that the Habsburgs were fighting a loosing war. Backed by the French and other foreign powers protestant forces sacked Vienna in 1638, but the war was far from over. By 1640 most of the HRE was in protestant hands and church lands were distributed to protestant lords, including the archbishoprics of the Electors of Trier, Cologne and Mainz. With most of their lands occupied and the Electoral system of the HRE shattered the situation for the Habsburgs seemed dire.
In 1641 King Maximillian intervened on behalf of his brother-in-law emperor Ferdinand III and landed with his troops in Habsburg Croatia in an attempt to liberate central Europe. He marched northwards capturing Vienna before the end of the year and continued marching westwards towards Bavaria. The renewed warfare was a catastrophe for the local population with between 33-50% of the inhabitants of Lower and Upper Austria being killed during the course of the war. The catholic forces were moderatly successful and reached Franconia by 1643 but than the luck of the House of Austria ran out. Ferdinand's brother Leopold Wilhelm was killed on the battlefield before the emperor himself succumbed to fever, leaving the Habsburg family without adult males to take the crown.
In the Treaty of Passau Maximillian promised to defend the Austrian lands in exchange for Habsburg support for his claim to the imperial throne. With the electors of Trier, Cologne and Mainz living in exile and the Habsburgs at his mercy the election was a mere farce. Maximillian was elected emperor despite the fact that non of the electors who voted for him actually controlled their electorate (not even the Habsburgs as Bohemia was occupied by protestant troops).
To further cement his rather weak claim to imperial authority Maximillian left his troop in the hands of his generals and traveled to Rome to be crowned emperor by the pope (a tradition abandoned by the Habsburgs over a century ago). Both Maximillian and his father Frederick had been financially generous towards the pope but this came with a price. In the last decades papal economy and building projects had become increasingly dependent on those Neapolitan taxes. Both overland and naval trade became dominated by merchants from Tuscany and Naples and the minor lords of the Romagna soon cared more for the opinion of the Neapolitan kings than the pope's.
Despite the initial success the Neapolitans enjoyed in Germany the war once again swung in favour of the protestants. Not long after his return from Italy Maximillian and his allies were forced back towards Vienna. Tired of the ongoing war Maximillian once again left for Italy leaving the war to his generals and the Austrians, who felt rightfully betrayed by the emperor, who had pledged to defend their lands.
After almost three decades and the second sack of Vienna the Austrian forces of the young Archduke Ferdinand surrendered in 1646. In the Treaty of Ingolstadt the Austrians and Neapolitans accepted the loss of Bohemia and the independence of the German states not part of the Habsburg domain. The treaty was an utter humilitation for the House of Habsburg and showed that Maximillian was utterly uninteressested in fighting for the Austrian cause.
The second half of Maximillian's reign was rather uneventful. The center of power slowly moved to the north as the rich Tuscan lands became increasingly important for the finances of the dual kingdom. Maximillian died of throat cancer in 1651 after 12 years as king and 8 as emperor. Leaving his wife and their minor children. His reign is regarded as one of the most succesful in Italian history, wheras it is seen as a historical low point by German catholics.
He was succeeded by his daughter, Eleanora Maria Catalina of Naples.
[7] The Princess Eleanora Maria Catalina of Naples was 15 when her father died. A minor by technicality, she was placed under a regency of her cousin, the Prince Francesco of Naples, and left in the care of her mother, Maria Anna, Archduchess of Austria. Raised prior with the knowledge that she would eventually be replaced by a son of her mother and father (her mother was just 30 at her father's death, his second wife after a fruitless marriage to his first cousin, the Princess Louise Margaret of Savoy, who died in 1632, at age 35, after 20 years together. Maria Anna, his second wife, gave birth to Eleanora in 1636. 7 children followed, 3 sons, 2 daughters and a stillbirth in 1651, two days before his death. The sons, Princes Ferdinand, Frederick and Niccolo of Naples, both died in 1645, of smallpox, but the Emperor had been confidant that a new son would follow. The stillborn child in 1651 seems to have been another daughter.
The new Queen Eleanora had been raised from birth with the goal in mind of marriage, specifically to the King of France. France, Maximilian had hoped, would be a useful ally against the descendants of the Hapsburgs, already in the 1650's aiming for the Imperial Throne again, and as part of this alliance (due to their belief that a union with Naples was imminent) the French had placed their support behind the Elector of Bavaria in order to block the Archduke of Austria, Joseph Gonzaga, from the Imperial Throne. The play worked, but in 1654, Eleanora was forced by her cousin to formally break her betrothal to Francis III of France, in part because her cousin planned on marrying her himself. Maria Anna, however, was able to block the match when, later that year, she produced her former lady-in-waiting, a Lady Ippolita Orsino, to testify that Prince Francesco had married her in 1649, and that they had a son together. The general consensus had been, at the time, that Ippolita was his mistress, but with the Queen Dowager of Naples supporting her and documents with his signature proving, to many, the marriage was real, the Pope himself called upon Francesco to take his wife in. Their son, Prince Sebastian, died in 1655, and they would have no surviving children before the Lady Ippolita's death in 1660, probably of poisoning.
However, free from any major commitments in terms of marriage, with the King of France safely married to the Princess Julianne of Lorraine, Eleanora began to play her options, hoping to emulate Elizabeth I of England, who had rejected the famed King Sebastiano with the phrase "England's lion shan't marry the Italian Pig". Eleanora, however, found that, with the death of her mother in 1658, and the marriage of her sisters into various royal houses, she was quite lonely. She met her future husband, Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, in 1658, at the wedding of her 15 year old sister, the Princess Maria Catalina of Naples, to Henry's elder brother, the newly installed King of England. Henry, 4 years her junior, was not the English Prince many suspected she would eventually marry, but sparks flew, and when they met again for the marriage of Eleanora's other sister, the Princess Niccola Margarita of Naples, to the Duke of Parma, in 1660. At 24, Eleanora was fast becoming annoyed by the various proposals thrown her way, in particular by Prince Ferdinand of Trastamara, a descendant of Ferdinand II of Naples, who was a Prince by technicality, but in 1660 was more known as a hanger on of the court. Thus, she married the Stuart Prince in 1661, and in 1662, had the first of their 8 children, all surviving.
Eleanor only truly began ruling around this time too. Previously having played off the misogyny of her advisers, in 1663, she restructured the court, removing almost 30 seperate men who were advisers, not by merit, but by blood. In particular, the man responsible for the Economics of Naples, one Lord Jorges Farnese, had run the finances of the country into the ground, which was able to be righted when he was replaced by Thomas Francino. The trouble was, however, that Eleanora continued to face massive pushback from her councilors, and in 1665, had to form a formal parliament, in order to try and condense the bureaucracy of the government.
In 1670, Naples went to war against the last Italian holding to not be under their control, the Duke of Parma. With the death of her sister in 1666, in childbirth with the second of two daughters, the Duke of Parma had married the Archduke of Austria's niece, Margaret Farnese, and in 1667 had begun a series of attacks against the Italian holdings of Naples. Eleanora thus, unhappily, sent her husband to deal with it, when she was 3 months pregnant with their 8th child. Henry Stuart would defeat the Duke in battle in 1671, but returned home wounded, and despite nursing by his wife and the care of the best doctors, he died of an infection, leaving his wife pregnant and alone. Eleanora grieved heavily.
Eleanora suffered giving birth to her final child, but managed to pull through of this illness, managing to live past them. At age 36, she was young enough to consider remarriage, and in 1675, there was talks of her marrying her former betrothed, the King of France, with the understanding that she would abdicate her throne of Naples to her heir. Eleanora seems to have considered it, but declined, preferring to raise a monument to her husband in 1677. This monument would, however, be the death of her.
in 1678, Eleanora's other sister, the Queen of England, died in childbirth with her 13 child. The Queen of Naples, distraught, was cautioned against attending the funeral, and instead (in part due to fears that her quick weight gain after the death of her husband would cause health issues) she was perscribed long walks to combat her grief. She took them through the building site of the monument, with her nieces (Maria and Isabella of Parma) hand in hand, lecturing the girls as to the evils their father had committed. However, in June of 1680, she walked alone, and was struck by a falling hammer. The wound was grave, and in July, she died of an infection, much like her husband had done 10 years earlier. The monument, a massive statue of Henry Stuart and Eleanora of Naples together, was where the two were buried, under the stones. She was succeeded by her son, Henry.
[8] The oldest son of Henry and Eleanora, Henry the 1st is said to have done only three good things; marrying his cousin, Maria of Parma and thus uniting all of Italy but the Papal states (which were effectively dependent on the Kingdom of Naples), fathering two heirs, and letting his wife run things.
It did not always seem that way, and as an heir and during his first year he seemed bright and competent. The problems began in 1681 when he was thrown from his horse and treated with opium for his broken leg. Though it was not understood at the time, Henry became an addict and spent more and more time in a stupor until his fatal overdose, by which time few mourned.
Throughout this time, his wife Maria took on more and more of the the royal duties, most importantly and effectively arranging for her two brothers in law to join the church and eventually becoming successive Popes. As Duchess of Parma in her own right after 1683, she encouraged the loyalty to her personally and to her children, doing much to set the dynasty up for further success.
Henry was succeeded by his brother, Ferdinand.
[9] Maximillian was the younger brother of Henry I. Maximillian was notorious for being rowdy, brash, and stubborn. Although this made him unpopular with some, it did seem to help him as King, seeing that he never backed down from a fight.
In 1700, Charles II of Spain died, starting the Spanish War of Succession.
Maximillian took up arms against the Bourbons in the name of the Habsburgs. He immediately launched three invasions: an invasion of Sardinia, an invasion of Savoy and Milan, and an invasion of Portuguese Brazil. Sardinia was quickly annexed into his Kingdom after only 2 weeks of fighting. Milan fell quickly too, with assistance from the Austrians, while Savoy held out. Brazil was soon unified under the banner of Naples.
However, a counter attack was launched in 1703 by France and Savoy. The fighting was bloody, and soon the Neapolitans were pushed out of Savoy. When Milan fell in late 1704, Maximillian's own son Henry, charged with the defence of Parma, betrayed his father and joined the French. Prince Henry lead many attacks into Parma and Tuscany. Maximillian's court of advisors pleaded with him to exit the war, but the King refused. He knew if his King would ever be great, he must win this war. It seems God was on his side, for in the crucial siege of Florence, when all hope seemed loss, Maximillian and an army of 42,000 rode into battle, crushing the invading Savoyard forces. The momentum generated from the famous battle created enough force to force the Savoyard and French forces out of Italy. By 1708, Savoy had fallen and was occupied by Neapolitan troops. Prince Henry fled, and took refuge on a little island in the Caribbean for the rest of the war.
The Italian front remained a stalemate until the end of the war in 1713, with Prince Charles Habsburg being crowned King of Spain.
In the Treaty of Naples, Maximillian gained Savoy, Milan, Sardinia, and Portuguese Brazil. The Kingdom of Naples now controlled most of Italy, all it was missing was a collection of minor states in the North.
Maximillian convinced the Italian states to join his Kingdom, all except Genoa and Venice. Maximillian quickly defeated the two Republics, annexing them, including the Venetian colonies along the Balkans, as well as Greece. Following the unification of the Italian States, the Kingdom of Naples was renamed the Kingdom of Italy.
Maximillian died a few years later of natural causes at the age of 60, leaving the throne to his _,_.
Kings of Naples
1496 - 1512: Frederick IV the Great (House of Trastamara) [1]
1512 - 1551: Ferdinand III (House of Trastamara) [2]
1551 - 1581: Sebastiano (House of Trastamara) [3]
1581 - 1607: Nicolo (House of Naples) [4]
1607 - 1609: Frederick V (House of Naples) [5]
Kings and Queens of Naples and Tuscany
1609 - 1639: Frederick V (House of Naples) [5]
1639 - 1651: Maximillian (House of Naples) [6]
Holy Roman Emperor
1643 - 1651: Maximillian III (House of Naples) [6]
Kings and Queens of Naples and Tuscany
1651 - 1680: Eleanora I (House of Naples) [7]
1680 - 1683: Henry I (House of Stewart) [8]
Kings and Queens of Naples and Tuscany, Dukes and Duchesses of Parma
1683 - 1690: Henry I (House of Stewart) [8]
1690 - 1715: Maximillian II (House of Stewart) [9]
Kings and Queens of Italy
1715 - 1718: Maximillian II (House of Stewart) [10]
[1] Frederick came to the throne in the middle of the First Italian War, where the French invaded and were defeated in 1498 by the League of Venice. When France invaded Milan the very next year with the backing of Venice, Frederick came to the aid of Milan, viewing the French invasion of Milan as a threat his own Kingdom. The war was going well for Frederick, but in 1501 Frederick's Spanish relatives invaded Naples, siding with France. Frederick was able to hold off the enemy, but Milan soon fell. Realising he had to adopt a more offensive strategy, he sent a fleet to Venice, capturing it and forcing the Republic to capitulate.
Luckily for Frederick, Spain and France had recently gone to war over how to split the spoils of war. Frederick offered a defensive pact to Spain against France, which was accepted. Neopolitian and Spanish forces defeated the French in Milan. Spain also launched an invasion into Mainland France, conquering Toulouse. France gave up on the war soon enough, and a peace treaty was signed in 1504
Spain would keep Milan, and Frederick would return the city of Venice in return for a large sum of gold.
In 1508 War of the League of Cambrai broke out, but Frederick did not join the war.
Frederick died age 60 of natural causes, leaving the throne to his only son, Ferdinand, Duke of Calabria.
[2] Born in 15 December 1488 in Andria, Apulia as son of the future King Frederick and his second wife, Isabella del Balzo. He held the titles of Duke of Calabria and of Apulia.
In January 1505, Ferdinand married, Princess Sibylle of Bavaria, from the house of Wittelsbach, she was the daughter of Duke Albert IV of Bavaria-Munich (1447–1508) from his marriage to Kunigunde of Austria (1465–1520), daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III. The marriage came two months before the death of her older sister, Sidonie, who was engaged to Elector Palatine Louis V.
Together the pair would have five children, before Sibylle's death in 1519 at the age of 29. Following the death of his first wife, in February 1521, 33 year old Ferdinand married 15 year old, Christine of Saxony (25 December 1505 – 15 April 1549) producing another sixteen children.
There was talks of finding a third wife, with rumoured proposals to Mary, Princess of England or Archduchess Eleanor of Austria, (daughter of Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor and Anna of Bohemia and Hungary), until his own death at the age of 63.
His ruling was seen as fair and just, supporting the Papal State financially against Venice, while holding a strained peace against France to the West. His support of Pope Leo X (1513-1536) and his successor Pope Leo XI (1536-1553 OTL Giovanni Salviati, who was Leo X nephew) gained him the title of "Blessed King Ferdinand, Holy Servant of God"
[3] Ferdinands grandson, Sebastiano, was quite impressive for a single reason - he managed to rule for a prolonged period and fend off several significant attempts to depose him whilst simultaneously being one of the most unliked monarchs in the history of Naples. Keen to delegate his responsibilities to his relatives and council, he rarely left his chambers, spent an increasing amount on clothes, wine, food and prostitutes, reportedly abused his slaves and some claim he murdered his wife (from an arranged marriage, it was common knowledge that they hated each other) when she attempted to leave him with their only son. At this point, he sent his son to be brought up by priests and passed a law that states his son must not set foot in the palace until he, Sebastiano, had died and walked into the embrace of God. Even attempted intervention by the Pope failed to sway him from being an awful person - perhaps the only thing that put down the attempted depositions was the fact that he had delegated so much power to his council and military leaders that they feared having the power removed by any subsequent ruler - and with his death in 1581, his son having vanished off the face of the kingdom after his banishment to a monastery, there was a host of aunts, uncles and cousins to pass the crown to, eventually being passed to his brother, Nicolo.
[4] As the younger brother of Sebastino, many were worried that Nicolo would turn out to be like his brother, so the first thing Nicolo did when he was crowned was found a new house for himself, the House of Naples. When he inherited the throne, the Royal coffers were drained and the country was heading towards a economic crisis.
Nicolo decided to reinvent the tax system, and cut unnecessary costs. This made him unpopular with his nobles, some of whom conspired against him, but nothing major ever came of it. Nicolo sold a number royal palaces and wore mostly plain clothes. Despite this, the economy had made a full recovery by 1593, and now Nicolo was looking to expand.
The Neopolitan colonies of Brasile del Nord (meaning North Brazil, stretches from the Amazon to modern day French Guiana) and the Bahamas, defending by a grand navy that Nicolo had built.
In 1600 Venice and Naples went to war over control of the Mediterranean. When Spain did not defend Naples from the Venetian aggressors, Nicolo was very angry, but did not show it to the Spanish, fearing possible backlash from the Habsburgs. In 1601, the Treaty of Venice was signed. The war was inconclusive, and was considered a waste of time, even by Nicolo himself. Regardless, Nicolo remained one of the most celebrated and popular Kings of Naples.
In 1607, Nicolo died of Cancer age 66, leaving the throne to son, Prince Frederick.
[5] Frederick, was born in 1571, son of Nicolo and his wife, Elisabeth of Austria, daughter of Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor, and Maria of Spain. This marriage was arranged as a Habsburg attempt to influence the running of Naples.
Growing up during the reign of his eccentric uncle, Frederick, would be educated by his father, regarding matters of state and foreign politics.
At the age of ten, he became heir following his uncles death and his father’s succession and would continue being tutored by his father and shadow him.
His marriage was arranged by his father to Maria de’ Medici at the Palazzo Pitti of Florence, Italy, the sixth daughter of Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Archduchess Joanna of Austria.
The death of his father from cancer and Frederick succession, came at the age of 36 and his preparation set him in good stead, he was able to continue his father's strong economy policy assisted by colonial trade, helping to assist with the Navy and Army.
When Maria’s uncle, Cardinal and Grand Duke Ferdinando II of Tuscany died in 1609, King Frederick, claimed her father’s throne on behalf of her, uniting the two nations and elevating the later nation to a Kingdom.
To placate, Pope Julius III and his Papal State, who now found its self sharing borders with the Union of Naples and Tuscany, King Frederick would pledge loyal allegiance to his Holiness, signed a non-aggression agreement, along with a yearly "loyalty tax," a tax used by the Pope to invest in its army and navy.
His death in 1639, at the age of 68, came following three years of declining health. He was succeeded by his son, Prince Maximillian.
[6] Maximillian was the third son of king Frederick and the only one to survive untill adulthood. He was born in 1598 and named after his maternal grandfather emperor Maximillian II. By the time Maximillian was crowned king of Naples and Tuscany his grandfather's branch of the Habsburg family had died out and his distant relative Ferdinand III sat on the imperial throne. Ties with the Habsburgs remained strong nevertheless as Maximillian had married Ferdinand's sister Maria Anna (b.1610).
Wheras Italy had remained firmly catholic, Europe north of the Alps was ravaged by decades of religious warfare. The imperial forces had met with initial success but after more than 20 years it became apparent that the Habsburgs were fighting a loosing war. Backed by the French and other foreign powers protestant forces sacked Vienna in 1638, but the war was far from over. By 1640 most of the HRE was in protestant hands and church lands were distributed to protestant lords, including the archbishoprics of the Electors of Trier, Cologne and Mainz. With most of their lands occupied and the Electoral system of the HRE shattered the situation for the Habsburgs seemed dire.
In 1641 King Maximillian intervened on behalf of his brother-in-law emperor Ferdinand III and landed with his troops in Habsburg Croatia in an attempt to liberate central Europe. He marched northwards capturing Vienna before the end of the year and continued marching westwards towards Bavaria. The renewed warfare was a catastrophe for the local population with between 33-50% of the inhabitants of Lower and Upper Austria being killed during the course of the war. The catholic forces were moderatly successful and reached Franconia by 1643 but than the luck of the House of Austria ran out. Ferdinand's brother Leopold Wilhelm was killed on the battlefield before the emperor himself succumbed to fever, leaving the Habsburg family without adult males to take the crown.
In the Treaty of Passau Maximillian promised to defend the Austrian lands in exchange for Habsburg support for his claim to the imperial throne. With the electors of Trier, Cologne and Mainz living in exile and the Habsburgs at his mercy the election was a mere farce. Maximillian was elected emperor despite the fact that non of the electors who voted for him actually controlled their electorate (not even the Habsburgs as Bohemia was occupied by protestant troops).
To further cement his rather weak claim to imperial authority Maximillian left his troop in the hands of his generals and traveled to Rome to be crowned emperor by the pope (a tradition abandoned by the Habsburgs over a century ago). Both Maximillian and his father Frederick had been financially generous towards the pope but this came with a price. In the last decades papal economy and building projects had become increasingly dependent on those Neapolitan taxes. Both overland and naval trade became dominated by merchants from Tuscany and Naples and the minor lords of the Romagna soon cared more for the opinion of the Neapolitan kings than the pope's.
Despite the initial success the Neapolitans enjoyed in Germany the war once again swung in favour of the protestants. Not long after his return from Italy Maximillian and his allies were forced back towards Vienna. Tired of the ongoing war Maximillian once again left for Italy leaving the war to his generals and the Austrians, who felt rightfully betrayed by the emperor, who had pledged to defend their lands.
After almost three decades and the second sack of Vienna the Austrian forces of the young Archduke Ferdinand surrendered in 1646. In the Treaty of Ingolstadt the Austrians and Neapolitans accepted the loss of Bohemia and the independence of the German states not part of the Habsburg domain. The treaty was an utter humilitation for the House of Habsburg and showed that Maximillian was utterly uninteressested in fighting for the Austrian cause.
The second half of Maximillian's reign was rather uneventful. The center of power slowly moved to the north as the rich Tuscan lands became increasingly important for the finances of the dual kingdom. Maximillian died of throat cancer in 1651 after 12 years as king and 8 as emperor. Leaving his wife and their minor children. His reign is regarded as one of the most succesful in Italian history, wheras it is seen as a historical low point by German catholics.
He was succeeded by his daughter, Eleanora Maria Catalina of Naples.
[7] The Princess Eleanora Maria Catalina of Naples was 15 when her father died. A minor by technicality, she was placed under a regency of her cousin, the Prince Francesco of Naples, and left in the care of her mother, Maria Anna, Archduchess of Austria. Raised prior with the knowledge that she would eventually be replaced by a son of her mother and father (her mother was just 30 at her father's death, his second wife after a fruitless marriage to his first cousin, the Princess Louise Margaret of Savoy, who died in 1632, at age 35, after 20 years together. Maria Anna, his second wife, gave birth to Eleanora in 1636. 7 children followed, 3 sons, 2 daughters and a stillbirth in 1651, two days before his death. The sons, Princes Ferdinand, Frederick and Niccolo of Naples, both died in 1645, of smallpox, but the Emperor had been confidant that a new son would follow. The stillborn child in 1651 seems to have been another daughter.
The new Queen Eleanora had been raised from birth with the goal in mind of marriage, specifically to the King of France. France, Maximilian had hoped, would be a useful ally against the descendants of the Hapsburgs, already in the 1650's aiming for the Imperial Throne again, and as part of this alliance (due to their belief that a union with Naples was imminent) the French had placed their support behind the Elector of Bavaria in order to block the Archduke of Austria, Joseph Gonzaga, from the Imperial Throne. The play worked, but in 1654, Eleanora was forced by her cousin to formally break her betrothal to Francis III of France, in part because her cousin planned on marrying her himself. Maria Anna, however, was able to block the match when, later that year, she produced her former lady-in-waiting, a Lady Ippolita Orsino, to testify that Prince Francesco had married her in 1649, and that they had a son together. The general consensus had been, at the time, that Ippolita was his mistress, but with the Queen Dowager of Naples supporting her and documents with his signature proving, to many, the marriage was real, the Pope himself called upon Francesco to take his wife in. Their son, Prince Sebastian, died in 1655, and they would have no surviving children before the Lady Ippolita's death in 1660, probably of poisoning.
However, free from any major commitments in terms of marriage, with the King of France safely married to the Princess Julianne of Lorraine, Eleanora began to play her options, hoping to emulate Elizabeth I of England, who had rejected the famed King Sebastiano with the phrase "England's lion shan't marry the Italian Pig". Eleanora, however, found that, with the death of her mother in 1658, and the marriage of her sisters into various royal houses, she was quite lonely. She met her future husband, Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, in 1658, at the wedding of her 15 year old sister, the Princess Maria Catalina of Naples, to Henry's elder brother, the newly installed King of England. Henry, 4 years her junior, was not the English Prince many suspected she would eventually marry, but sparks flew, and when they met again for the marriage of Eleanora's other sister, the Princess Niccola Margarita of Naples, to the Duke of Parma, in 1660. At 24, Eleanora was fast becoming annoyed by the various proposals thrown her way, in particular by Prince Ferdinand of Trastamara, a descendant of Ferdinand II of Naples, who was a Prince by technicality, but in 1660 was more known as a hanger on of the court. Thus, she married the Stuart Prince in 1661, and in 1662, had the first of their 8 children, all surviving.
Eleanor only truly began ruling around this time too. Previously having played off the misogyny of her advisers, in 1663, she restructured the court, removing almost 30 seperate men who were advisers, not by merit, but by blood. In particular, the man responsible for the Economics of Naples, one Lord Jorges Farnese, had run the finances of the country into the ground, which was able to be righted when he was replaced by Thomas Francino. The trouble was, however, that Eleanora continued to face massive pushback from her councilors, and in 1665, had to form a formal parliament, in order to try and condense the bureaucracy of the government.
In 1670, Naples went to war against the last Italian holding to not be under their control, the Duke of Parma. With the death of her sister in 1666, in childbirth with the second of two daughters, the Duke of Parma had married the Archduke of Austria's niece, Margaret Farnese, and in 1667 had begun a series of attacks against the Italian holdings of Naples. Eleanora thus, unhappily, sent her husband to deal with it, when she was 3 months pregnant with their 8th child. Henry Stuart would defeat the Duke in battle in 1671, but returned home wounded, and despite nursing by his wife and the care of the best doctors, he died of an infection, leaving his wife pregnant and alone. Eleanora grieved heavily.
Eleanora suffered giving birth to her final child, but managed to pull through of this illness, managing to live past them. At age 36, she was young enough to consider remarriage, and in 1675, there was talks of her marrying her former betrothed, the King of France, with the understanding that she would abdicate her throne of Naples to her heir. Eleanora seems to have considered it, but declined, preferring to raise a monument to her husband in 1677. This monument would, however, be the death of her.
in 1678, Eleanora's other sister, the Queen of England, died in childbirth with her 13 child. The Queen of Naples, distraught, was cautioned against attending the funeral, and instead (in part due to fears that her quick weight gain after the death of her husband would cause health issues) she was perscribed long walks to combat her grief. She took them through the building site of the monument, with her nieces (Maria and Isabella of Parma) hand in hand, lecturing the girls as to the evils their father had committed. However, in June of 1680, she walked alone, and was struck by a falling hammer. The wound was grave, and in July, she died of an infection, much like her husband had done 10 years earlier. The monument, a massive statue of Henry Stuart and Eleanora of Naples together, was where the two were buried, under the stones. She was succeeded by her son, Henry.
[8] The oldest son of Henry and Eleanora, Henry the 1st is said to have done only three good things; marrying his cousin, Maria of Parma and thus uniting all of Italy but the Papal states (which were effectively dependent on the Kingdom of Naples), fathering two heirs, and letting his wife run things.
It did not always seem that way, and as an heir and during his first year he seemed bright and competent. The problems began in 1681 when he was thrown from his horse and treated with opium for his broken leg. Though it was not understood at the time, Henry became an addict and spent more and more time in a stupor until his fatal overdose, by which time few mourned.
Throughout this time, his wife Maria took on more and more of the the royal duties, most importantly and effectively arranging for her two brothers in law to join the church and eventually becoming successive Popes. As Duchess of Parma in her own right after 1683, she encouraged the loyalty to her personally and to her children, doing much to set the dynasty up for further success.
Henry was succeeded by his brother, Ferdinand.
In 1700, Charles II of Spain died, starting the Spanish War of Succession.
Maximillian took up arms against the Bourbons in the name of the Habsburgs. He immediately launched three invasions: an invasion of Sardinia, an invasion of Savoy and Milan, and an invasion of Portuguese Brazil. Sardinia was quickly annexed into his Kingdom after only 2 weeks of fighting. Milan fell quickly too, with assistance from the Austrians, while Savoy held out. Brazil was soon unified under the banner of Naples.
However, a counter attack was launched in 1703 by France and Savoy. The fighting was bloody, and soon the Neapolitans were pushed out of Savoy. When Milan fell in late 1704, Maximillian's own son Henry, charged with the defence of Parma, betrayed his father and joined the French. Prince Henry lead many attacks into Parma and Tuscany. Maximillian's court of advisors pleaded with him to exit the war, but the King refused. He knew if his King would ever be great, he must win this war. It seems God was on his side, for in the crucial siege of Florence, when all hope seemed loss, Maximillian and an army of 42,000 rode into battle, crushing the invading Savoyard forces. The momentum generated from the famous battle created enough force to force the Savoyard and French forces out of Italy. By 1708, Savoy had fallen and was occupied by Neapolitan troops. Prince Henry fled, and took refuge on a little island in the Caribbean for the rest of the war.
The Italian front remained a stalemate until the end of the war in 1713, with Prince Charles Habsburg being crowned King of Spain.
In the Treaty of Naples, Maximillian gained Savoy, Milan, Sardinia, and Portuguese Brazil. The Kingdom of Naples now controlled most of Italy, all it was missing was a collection of minor states in the North.
Maximillian convinced the Italian states to join his Kingdom, all except Genoa and Venice. Maximillian quickly defeated the two Republics, annexing them, including the Venetian colonies along the Balkans, as well as Greece. Following the unification of the Italian States, the Kingdom of Naples was renamed the Kingdom of Italy.
Maximillian died a few years later of natural causes at the age of 60, leaving the throne to his _,_.
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What if Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, the son of Queen Anne, had not been born infected with meningitis and had been healthy?
Kings of the United Kingdom of England and Scotland
1714 - 1766: William IV (House of Gloucester) [1]
1766 - 1816: George I (House of Gloucester) [2]
1816 - 1828: William V (House of Gloucester) [3]
1828 - 1862: George II (House of Gloucester) [4]
1862 - 1913: Charles III (House of Gloucester) [5]
[1] On William the Duke of Gloucester's birth, all of England celebrated that now there was a Protestant heir to the throne. His aunt, Queen Mary, and her husband, his cousin once removed, King William, celebrated too, even though King William did not get along with his sister-in-law's husband, Prince George. Rather than see the young infant take on the name of his father's ducal title of Cumberland, he was given the dukedom of Gloucester as a child, which then later became the name of his house. Prince William was second in line after his mother, Princess Anne, to the thrones of England and Scotland separately. Mary preceded her husband in death and then in 1701 he too died and Prince William's mother became Queen. In 1707 the Act of Union united the two kingdoms and so Prince William became the heir of the United Kingdom.
William was 25 when he became king. He was already married to his third cousin, Sophia Dorothea of Hanover, in 1708 when she was 21 and he was 19. She was the daughter of George of Hanover, son of Sophia of Hanover. An act of Parliament had decreed that only Protestants could be heirs to the throne and that made the elder Sophie next in line after William at that time. The marriage was arranged and William and Sophia Dorothea never met until the wedding. But it was a happy marriage and they grew to love each other, having many children.
William had a long rule and during his reign Great Britain won several wars with France, ending up with all their former territories in North America.
William also led the war against his cousin, Charles Stuart, known as Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Young Pretender, and defeated him, ending the Scottish rebellion and the hopes of the Catholic Stuarts.
William was an active king, working closely with Parliament and the ministers of it who would form governments. Sophia Dorothea passed in 1757. William followed her nine years later at the age of 76, only a few days before his 77th birthday.
[2] Born in 1740, George was William's grandson, by his eldest son Edward, Prince of Wales. He was named after both his maternal and paternal great grandfather (George of Hanover, and George of Cumberland) and outlived his father who had an 'unfortunate encounter with his mistresses lovers duelling pistol' (buy since his mistresses lover was also his brother, the Duke of Edinburgh, things got brushed under the carpet by William as the royal family could not be smeared by fratricide) which allowed George to become Prince of Wales himself.
He married Caroline of Orange-Nassau in 1760 and they had fourteen children (seven of whom would survive to adulthood) - the pair were forced to reside in the Netherlands briefly in 1765 when Carolines grandmother died and Caroline was forced to act as Regent for her younger brother, William V, Prince of Orange. This period in the Netherlands probably influenced him significant as it was the first time he had travelled abroad and he brought back many ideas that were influenced by the Court of Orange-Nassau.
The Dutch Regency (as it had become known) had not yet ended when news reached them that his grandfather had passed away and he was forced to rush back to London less one of his uncles or cousins would attempt to suspend his claim despite the wording of the Treason Act. He reached London and became the rightfull King - with Caroline following a few months later when her brother turned 18.
His reign saw the American Revolution (and the declaration of the Kingdom of America under the rule of Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette) and the latter part of his grandfathers had seen the Seven Year War which had left France in debt - but knowing the danger a growing Republican movement could bring, George made a significant loan to the twenty two year old Charles X (all of his older brothers had died in their youths) and advised him on the transformation to a constitutional monarchy. His advice was heeded and a French Revolution had been narrowly avoided - with the leads exiled to the newly established penal colonies of Australia at George's suggestion, further away than Elba or St Helena from where there was still invariably a chance they could return.
In the end, he reigned for fifty years and died at 76, leaving the throne to his son, the Prince of Wales, William.
[3] William was born in 1766 and was the fifth child and second son of George I. His older brother, George Alexander, died in infancy shortly after his birth in 1761. William had three older sisters, two who died in childhood, one of those, Anne, dying in 1764 at age 2 before George and his slightly older fraternal twin sister, Caroline, were born. William was named after King George's grandfather and Caroline after their mother. William and Caroline's remaining older sister, Mary, born in 1765, died when they were three and she was four in 1769. Viewing her dead body later was William's first memory. His younger brothers and sisters who died in childhood were Edward (1768-1776), Sophia Louise (1770), James (1775-1789), and George Henry (1781). His siblings who survived to adulthood were his twin sister Caroline (born in 1766), brother Geoffrey (born in 1767), brother Clarence (born in 1772), sister Frances (born in 1773), and another set of twins, these identical, brothers Harold and Alfred (born in 1777).
William and Caroline were inseparable in childhood and always in adult life were closer to each other than they were with their spouses and/or lovers. Caroline never married but had many secret female lovers. William married young at age 18 in 1785 to Maria Hapsburg of Prague, a granddaughter of the Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa through her son the Archduke Charles Joseph (who in this lives to adulthood instead of dying from the smallpox at age 16) and, through her mother Princess Hildaline, a granddaughter of the Prussian King, Frederick II (who in this is obviously not the child of Sophia Dorothea, but of someone else, and so a different person than OTL Frederick the Great.)
William detested Maria Hapsburg from the moment he met her. She was quite religious and he was only a nominal believer. Maria was not like the girls that William had enjoyed himself with, she was not supple and soft of skin, but thin, bony, and had a poor complexion. As Prince of Wales it was his duty to sire children, so he did his spousal duties. Maria had a difficult time getting pregnant. Finally she did in 1794 and miscarried. She finally got pregnant again in 1798 and had a daughter, named Regina Maria. Prince William told his drinking companions, which included Princess Caroline of course, that "Britain has had four queens, they can have another. I've done my duty." He set up Maria in her own household in Edinburgh and the two never saw each other again. Regina Maria was not brought to London until she was 12 years old, when she met her father and aunt and grandfather, the King, for the first time.
By this time William's excessive wining, dining, and whoring had taken their toll. (As it had with his twin.) He was not very healthy, was over weight, and, to be honest, was a repulsive figure. In fact a Republican movement began in the early part of the 19th Century as a number of the more educated middle class detested the idea of having William as their king someday. But tradition was strong and on the death of his father, he became William V. When he sat at court he did not have his Queen Maria at his side, she was still in unofficial exile in Scotland, but his equally obese and repulsive twin sister, Caroline, the Princess Royal, at his side. Princess Regina Maria was one of those who detested her father and aunt. When he became king she was 18. His intent was to marry her to a distant cousin descended from William IV, but she refused the marriage and went to live with her mother, who by then was wearing a nun's habit and living the live of a nun, even though she was not allowed to take vows, since she was officially Queen Consort of England, and was official Anglican, not Catholic.
Princess Regina Maria loved her mother, unlike how she hated her father, but this was not the life she wanted. She settled in Geneva, made friends with the Romantics from England who visited there: the Shelleys and Lord Byron, and drowned while boating with them on the lake. It was rumored she had a love affair with Byron and was pregnant at the time.
King William was focused on the business side of the kingdom. He gave special privileges to several old and newly formed trading companies, including the East India Company and the Hudson Bay Company. Again Republicanism became a strong movement as there were complaints the King was ruling through the Companies instead of letting Parliament govern.
William's health deteriorated and he died in 1828 at age 62, probably from syphilis. Princess Royal Caroline outlived her twin for fourteen more years. Since William had no child as an heir with Regina Maria's death, he was succeeded by his nephew, Prince George, Duke of Munster.
[4] Prince George of Munster was the eldest child of Prince Harold, second youngest son of George I, created Duke of Munster upon his marriage in 1800. George was the next in line to the crown following the death of his cousin in Geneva (Geoffrey and Clarence both died without issue before their niece), and was stationed in India as part of the British Army when news reached him of her death, and he was recalled to London where his obese aunt and uncle ignored him as a minor inconvenience - it was clear that his aunt considered she should take the throne, but when William V died and George took the throne, he exiled her to Geneva where he set her up a household at the Villa Diodati so she could always look out at where her niece had died.
George had inherited the Dukedom of Munster when his father died shortly before his cousin, and whilst in India he became friends with the Commander in Chief, Stapleton Cotton, Viscount Combermere, and became engaged to Cottons daughter, Anna (from his first wife, Anna, daughter of the Duke of Newcastle) before they were married and she became first Duchess of Munster, then Princess of Wales briefly, eventually Queen Consort of Britain and later Dowager Queen (she outlived her husband by almost 30 years) and Queen Mother when her son/daughter ............. took the throne.
Although Republican sentiment had been growing whilst he was in India during the reign of his uncle, his charisma and his experiences in the military managed to sway public perception and narrowly pull the country away from a revolution. On the opposite side of the Atlantic, the Kingdom of America was not so lucky and found itself in open revolt against their own King George, son of Gilbert I, who sought side from the French but the French refused as George II reminded them that their loan to Britain had not yet been repaid. This didn't stop George II supplying arms to the insurgents who were rising up against the American monarch. It was a dangerous game, but George II considered it to be a great one - and he became the creator of a counter-intelligence and espionage division within the War Office.
He had five children - two sons and two daughters who survived to adulthood, married and had issue of their own and another son, Prince George, Duke of Cleveland, who had caught polio and died before majority leading his parents to donate significant funds (what would have been the Duke of Clevelands allowance) to the Royal College of Physicians every year for the following decade after his death in order to support research onto polio.
When he died, it was at the launch of a new Royal Navy ship named after his grandfather, the HMS King George, suffering a heart attack during the canon salute.
[5] When the loss of his brother came at the age of 14, Charles was devastated. While his parents were understandably mournful, Charles fell into a severe melancholy. The carefree, almost immature, child that had been a light in the palace would never return. When he recovered he was a different person. Now the young prince was stubborn, cold, and trying deliberately to act like his late brother, constantly the mature one. When Charles turned 18 he purchased a commission in the 3rd Lifeguards Cavalry, and be deployed to India. There he found himself in, what he would later admit, was the most becoming and most enjoyable position he ever knew. The young prince quickly found himself tested by the Rajput war (1848) in which the Mahratta states and the Rajputs allied to force Britain off the continent. The 23 year old Left Tennant quickly proved himself an able and reliable Commander and fighter. By the end of the war in 1853, in which britain annexed all of India except Kashmir and Pakistan, Crown Prince Charles was the Colonel of his regiment and up for promotion to brigadier. However it was at this time that scandal would strike the house of Gloucester. Prince Charles had met a woman whom he had married without royal approval. A Hindi Maratha woman named Chaaya Pulekar, the daughter of a noble serving Britain. While it would be a scandalous moment for Britain monarchy, with the help and approval of his mother, Charles would eventually receive grudging tolerance from his father, but it would come at the cost of his commission. His father would order him honorably discharged from service with rank and honors, and ordered him home to Britain.
When his father died, it nearly sent Charles into another fit of melancholy, but with the help of his wife and the queen mother, Charles would recover quickly to assume the throne. Inheriting an Empire that now held land on four continents, he would have much to do. His greatest test as a monarch would come two years later with the French Succession Crisis of 1865. The late king Louis the XV had died with his eldest children being a set of triplet sons, out of whom he had chosen no heir. Austria backed Charles the XIII, Prussia backed the Huguenot Francis III, and Spain backed Louis XVI who was married to Spanish king Phillip V's daughter Isabella. In this great crisis it would fall to Britain to be the mediator. Influenced by his Wife and Mother speaking in favor of the more tolerant Protestant king, Charles threw the weight of Britain behind Francis III. While no one knew it at the time, the following decade and a half would see the Political landscape of Europe altered forever. When the war finally ended in 1874 Europe was forever changed. The Hapsburg Monarchy in Spain was overthrown by its people and replaced with the first republic on European soil, Austria was stunted by Hungarian independence and Prussia absorbing Bohemia, and A unified Germany would be created with the assistance of Britain and Francis III the King of France. After this great tumult Charles reign was fairly calm. the last Indian states were peacefully annexed, the empire in Africa expanded, and Alaska was purchased from Russia, expanding the Dominion of Canada to reach from Atlantic to Pacific. The last major conflict of his reign came when the Ottoman empire collapsed in 1904. yet, with british mediation, even this would be relatively short. By 1908 a kingdom of Turkey had been established, and various tribally oriented nations, namely the Kingdom of Kurdistan, the kingdom of Lebanon, the kingdom of Palestine, and the Sultanates of Mesopotamia. King Charles would pass away peacefully in his sleep on March 9th, 1913, the same day that his wife passed earlier that morning. He would leave the empire larger and more stable than any time in its history, but with His eldest child _______ being a devout Hindu (some said Charles converted early on) their would undoubtedly be friction and contention when they took the throne.
Kings of the United Kingdom of England and Scotland
1714 - 1766: William IV (House of Gloucester) [1]
1766 - 1816: George I (House of Gloucester) [2]
1816 - 1828: William V (House of Gloucester) [3]
1828 - 1862: George II (House of Gloucester) [4]
1862 - 1913: Charles III (House of Gloucester) [5]
William was 25 when he became king. He was already married to his third cousin, Sophia Dorothea of Hanover, in 1708 when she was 21 and he was 19. She was the daughter of George of Hanover, son of Sophia of Hanover. An act of Parliament had decreed that only Protestants could be heirs to the throne and that made the elder Sophie next in line after William at that time. The marriage was arranged and William and Sophia Dorothea never met until the wedding. But it was a happy marriage and they grew to love each other, having many children.
William had a long rule and during his reign Great Britain won several wars with France, ending up with all their former territories in North America.
William also led the war against his cousin, Charles Stuart, known as Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Young Pretender, and defeated him, ending the Scottish rebellion and the hopes of the Catholic Stuarts.
William was an active king, working closely with Parliament and the ministers of it who would form governments. Sophia Dorothea passed in 1757. William followed her nine years later at the age of 76, only a few days before his 77th birthday.
[2] Born in 1740, George was William's grandson, by his eldest son Edward, Prince of Wales. He was named after both his maternal and paternal great grandfather (George of Hanover, and George of Cumberland) and outlived his father who had an 'unfortunate encounter with his mistresses lovers duelling pistol' (buy since his mistresses lover was also his brother, the Duke of Edinburgh, things got brushed under the carpet by William as the royal family could not be smeared by fratricide) which allowed George to become Prince of Wales himself.
He married Caroline of Orange-Nassau in 1760 and they had fourteen children (seven of whom would survive to adulthood) - the pair were forced to reside in the Netherlands briefly in 1765 when Carolines grandmother died and Caroline was forced to act as Regent for her younger brother, William V, Prince of Orange. This period in the Netherlands probably influenced him significant as it was the first time he had travelled abroad and he brought back many ideas that were influenced by the Court of Orange-Nassau.
The Dutch Regency (as it had become known) had not yet ended when news reached them that his grandfather had passed away and he was forced to rush back to London less one of his uncles or cousins would attempt to suspend his claim despite the wording of the Treason Act. He reached London and became the rightfull King - with Caroline following a few months later when her brother turned 18.
His reign saw the American Revolution (and the declaration of the Kingdom of America under the rule of Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette) and the latter part of his grandfathers had seen the Seven Year War which had left France in debt - but knowing the danger a growing Republican movement could bring, George made a significant loan to the twenty two year old Charles X (all of his older brothers had died in their youths) and advised him on the transformation to a constitutional monarchy. His advice was heeded and a French Revolution had been narrowly avoided - with the leads exiled to the newly established penal colonies of Australia at George's suggestion, further away than Elba or St Helena from where there was still invariably a chance they could return.
In the end, he reigned for fifty years and died at 76, leaving the throne to his son, the Prince of Wales, William.
William and Caroline were inseparable in childhood and always in adult life were closer to each other than they were with their spouses and/or lovers. Caroline never married but had many secret female lovers. William married young at age 18 in 1785 to Maria Hapsburg of Prague, a granddaughter of the Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa through her son the Archduke Charles Joseph (who in this lives to adulthood instead of dying from the smallpox at age 16) and, through her mother Princess Hildaline, a granddaughter of the Prussian King, Frederick II (who in this is obviously not the child of Sophia Dorothea, but of someone else, and so a different person than OTL Frederick the Great.)
William detested Maria Hapsburg from the moment he met her. She was quite religious and he was only a nominal believer. Maria was not like the girls that William had enjoyed himself with, she was not supple and soft of skin, but thin, bony, and had a poor complexion. As Prince of Wales it was his duty to sire children, so he did his spousal duties. Maria had a difficult time getting pregnant. Finally she did in 1794 and miscarried. She finally got pregnant again in 1798 and had a daughter, named Regina Maria. Prince William told his drinking companions, which included Princess Caroline of course, that "Britain has had four queens, they can have another. I've done my duty." He set up Maria in her own household in Edinburgh and the two never saw each other again. Regina Maria was not brought to London until she was 12 years old, when she met her father and aunt and grandfather, the King, for the first time.
By this time William's excessive wining, dining, and whoring had taken their toll. (As it had with his twin.) He was not very healthy, was over weight, and, to be honest, was a repulsive figure. In fact a Republican movement began in the early part of the 19th Century as a number of the more educated middle class detested the idea of having William as their king someday. But tradition was strong and on the death of his father, he became William V. When he sat at court he did not have his Queen Maria at his side, she was still in unofficial exile in Scotland, but his equally obese and repulsive twin sister, Caroline, the Princess Royal, at his side. Princess Regina Maria was one of those who detested her father and aunt. When he became king she was 18. His intent was to marry her to a distant cousin descended from William IV, but she refused the marriage and went to live with her mother, who by then was wearing a nun's habit and living the live of a nun, even though she was not allowed to take vows, since she was officially Queen Consort of England, and was official Anglican, not Catholic.
Princess Regina Maria loved her mother, unlike how she hated her father, but this was not the life she wanted. She settled in Geneva, made friends with the Romantics from England who visited there: the Shelleys and Lord Byron, and drowned while boating with them on the lake. It was rumored she had a love affair with Byron and was pregnant at the time.
King William was focused on the business side of the kingdom. He gave special privileges to several old and newly formed trading companies, including the East India Company and the Hudson Bay Company. Again Republicanism became a strong movement as there were complaints the King was ruling through the Companies instead of letting Parliament govern.
William's health deteriorated and he died in 1828 at age 62, probably from syphilis. Princess Royal Caroline outlived her twin for fourteen more years. Since William had no child as an heir with Regina Maria's death, he was succeeded by his nephew, Prince George, Duke of Munster.
[4] Prince George of Munster was the eldest child of Prince Harold, second youngest son of George I, created Duke of Munster upon his marriage in 1800. George was the next in line to the crown following the death of his cousin in Geneva (Geoffrey and Clarence both died without issue before their niece), and was stationed in India as part of the British Army when news reached him of her death, and he was recalled to London where his obese aunt and uncle ignored him as a minor inconvenience - it was clear that his aunt considered she should take the throne, but when William V died and George took the throne, he exiled her to Geneva where he set her up a household at the Villa Diodati so she could always look out at where her niece had died.
George had inherited the Dukedom of Munster when his father died shortly before his cousin, and whilst in India he became friends with the Commander in Chief, Stapleton Cotton, Viscount Combermere, and became engaged to Cottons daughter, Anna (from his first wife, Anna, daughter of the Duke of Newcastle) before they were married and she became first Duchess of Munster, then Princess of Wales briefly, eventually Queen Consort of Britain and later Dowager Queen (she outlived her husband by almost 30 years) and Queen Mother when her son/daughter ............. took the throne.
Although Republican sentiment had been growing whilst he was in India during the reign of his uncle, his charisma and his experiences in the military managed to sway public perception and narrowly pull the country away from a revolution. On the opposite side of the Atlantic, the Kingdom of America was not so lucky and found itself in open revolt against their own King George, son of Gilbert I, who sought side from the French but the French refused as George II reminded them that their loan to Britain had not yet been repaid. This didn't stop George II supplying arms to the insurgents who were rising up against the American monarch. It was a dangerous game, but George II considered it to be a great one - and he became the creator of a counter-intelligence and espionage division within the War Office.
He had five children - two sons and two daughters who survived to adulthood, married and had issue of their own and another son, Prince George, Duke of Cleveland, who had caught polio and died before majority leading his parents to donate significant funds (what would have been the Duke of Clevelands allowance) to the Royal College of Physicians every year for the following decade after his death in order to support research onto polio.
When he died, it was at the launch of a new Royal Navy ship named after his grandfather, the HMS King George, suffering a heart attack during the canon salute.
[5] When the loss of his brother came at the age of 14, Charles was devastated. While his parents were understandably mournful, Charles fell into a severe melancholy. The carefree, almost immature, child that had been a light in the palace would never return. When he recovered he was a different person. Now the young prince was stubborn, cold, and trying deliberately to act like his late brother, constantly the mature one. When Charles turned 18 he purchased a commission in the 3rd Lifeguards Cavalry, and be deployed to India. There he found himself in, what he would later admit, was the most becoming and most enjoyable position he ever knew. The young prince quickly found himself tested by the Rajput war (1848) in which the Mahratta states and the Rajputs allied to force Britain off the continent. The 23 year old Left Tennant quickly proved himself an able and reliable Commander and fighter. By the end of the war in 1853, in which britain annexed all of India except Kashmir and Pakistan, Crown Prince Charles was the Colonel of his regiment and up for promotion to brigadier. However it was at this time that scandal would strike the house of Gloucester. Prince Charles had met a woman whom he had married without royal approval. A Hindi Maratha woman named Chaaya Pulekar, the daughter of a noble serving Britain. While it would be a scandalous moment for Britain monarchy, with the help and approval of his mother, Charles would eventually receive grudging tolerance from his father, but it would come at the cost of his commission. His father would order him honorably discharged from service with rank and honors, and ordered him home to Britain.
When his father died, it nearly sent Charles into another fit of melancholy, but with the help of his wife and the queen mother, Charles would recover quickly to assume the throne. Inheriting an Empire that now held land on four continents, he would have much to do. His greatest test as a monarch would come two years later with the French Succession Crisis of 1865. The late king Louis the XV had died with his eldest children being a set of triplet sons, out of whom he had chosen no heir. Austria backed Charles the XIII, Prussia backed the Huguenot Francis III, and Spain backed Louis XVI who was married to Spanish king Phillip V's daughter Isabella. In this great crisis it would fall to Britain to be the mediator. Influenced by his Wife and Mother speaking in favor of the more tolerant Protestant king, Charles threw the weight of Britain behind Francis III. While no one knew it at the time, the following decade and a half would see the Political landscape of Europe altered forever. When the war finally ended in 1874 Europe was forever changed. The Hapsburg Monarchy in Spain was overthrown by its people and replaced with the first republic on European soil, Austria was stunted by Hungarian independence and Prussia absorbing Bohemia, and A unified Germany would be created with the assistance of Britain and Francis III the King of France. After this great tumult Charles reign was fairly calm. the last Indian states were peacefully annexed, the empire in Africa expanded, and Alaska was purchased from Russia, expanding the Dominion of Canada to reach from Atlantic to Pacific. The last major conflict of his reign came when the Ottoman empire collapsed in 1904. yet, with british mediation, even this would be relatively short. By 1908 a kingdom of Turkey had been established, and various tribally oriented nations, namely the Kingdom of Kurdistan, the kingdom of Lebanon, the kingdom of Palestine, and the Sultanates of Mesopotamia. King Charles would pass away peacefully in his sleep on March 9th, 1913, the same day that his wife passed earlier that morning. He would leave the empire larger and more stable than any time in its history, but with His eldest child _______ being a devout Hindu (some said Charles converted early on) their would undoubtedly be friction and contention when they took the throne.
@Lord Arthur your know who your post do not follow the story set in previous one? Your King must be a son (or daughter) of Henry I not his brother as the previous post explicity said who both brothers of Henry I joined the Church and were Popes while Henry and Maria had two children (likely sons)
It was her brothers in law. To be fair, it doesn't clarify if it was brothers in law via her own siblings or siblings of Henry.
Well she had no brothers or she would not be the Duchess of Parma (plus from Eleonora’s story Maria has just one sister) and usually brothers-in-law are either the husband of your sisters or the brothers of your husband (and is pretty clear they are the younger brothers of Henry here) plus the end of Henry and Maria’s story make pretty clear the dynasty will be continued by their descendants
It actually only states that Eleanora had two nieces by the Duke of Parma, Maria and Isabella. He remarried but dies with his wife pregnant with their first child - the gender of the child isn't specified, but by your own evidence it couldn't be a son (or else he would inherit the Duchy) and therefore still fitting what was previously established as it wouldn't be one of Eleanoras nieces whilst their spouses would still be her brother-in-laws
Yes, but if they are Maria's brother-in-laws as husbands of her sisters so married men explain me how they can enter in the Church and becoming Popes? They can be only Henry's brothers because they need to be unmarried for becoming priests plus the pregnant widow is Eleanora herself as the story in that point talk about the death of Henry Stuart aka Eleanora's husband not of the Duke of Parma (and likely his second wedding will remain childless)
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I'll concede the validity point re the widow as I had misread it - but it doesn't state the Dukes second wife had no children, so there is clearly the room for it!
And if we want to be fussy - there are records of several Popes being married (and having children) prior to taking holy orders (or married and widowed) and the vow of celibacy: Hormisdas, Adrian II, John XVII, Clement IV and Honorious IV - the last in 1287. So it would be unusual but not exactly impossible.
Anyways, we're taking the thread off tangent. I think we will need to agree to disagree.
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Don't forget about Felix V, even if he is now considered an antipope.
What if Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, the son of Queen Anne, had not been born infected with meningitis and had been healthy?
Kings of the United Kingdom of England and Scotland
1714 - 1766: William IV (House of Gloucester) [1]
1766 - 1816: George I (House of Gloucester) [2]
1816 - 1828: William V (House of Gloucester) [3]
1828 - 1862: George II (House of Gloucester) [4]
1862 - 1913: Charles III (House of Gloucester) [5]
1913 - 1914: Arthur II (House of Gloucester) [6]
[1] On William the Duke of Gloucester's birth, all of England celebrated that now there was a Protestant heir to the throne. His aunt, Queen Mary, and her husband, his cousin once removed, King William, celebrated too, even though King William did not get along with his sister-in-law's husband, Prince George. Rather than see the young infant take on the name of his father's ducal title of Cumberland, he was given the dukedom of Gloucester as a child, which then later became the name of his house. Prince William was second in line after his mother, Princess Anne, to the thrones of England and Scotland separately. Mary preceded her husband in death and then in 1701 he too died and Prince William's mother became Queen. In 1707 the Act of Union united the two kingdoms and so Prince William became the heir of the United Kingdom.
William was 25 when he became king. He was already married to his third cousin, Sophia Dorothea of Hanover, in 1708 when she was 21 and he was 19. She was the daughter of George of Hanover, son of Sophia of Hanover. An act of Parliament had decreed that only Protestants could be heirs to the throne and that made the elder Sophie next in line after William at that time. The marriage was arranged and William and Sophia Dorothea never met until the wedding. But it was a happy marriage and they grew to love each other, having many children.
William had a long rule and during his reign Great Britain won several wars with France, ending up with all their former territories in North America.
William also led the war against his cousin, Charles Stuart, known as Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Young Pretender, and defeated him, ending the Scottish rebellion and the hopes of the Catholic Stuarts.
William was an active king, working closely with Parliament and the ministers of it who would form governments. Sophia Dorothea passed in 1757. William followed her nine years later at the age of 76, only a few days before his 77th birthday.
[2] Born in 1740, George was William's grandson, by his eldest son Edward, Prince of Wales. He was named after both his maternal and paternal great grandfather (George of Hanover, and George of Cumberland) and outlived his father who had an 'unfortunate encounter with his mistresses lovers duelling pistol' (buy since his mistresses lover was also his brother, the Duke of Edinburgh, things got brushed under the carpet by William as the royal family could not be smeared by fratricide) which allowed George to become Prince of Wales himself.
He married Caroline of Orange-Nassau in 1760 and they had fourteen children (seven of whom would survive to adulthood) - the pair were forced to reside in the Netherlands briefly in 1765 when Carolines grandmother died and Caroline was forced to act as Regent for her younger brother, William V, Prince of Orange. This period in the Netherlands probably influenced him significant as it was the first time he had travelled abroad and he brought back many ideas that were influenced by the Court of Orange-Nassau.
The Dutch Regency (as it had become known) had not yet ended when news reached them that his grandfather had passed away and he was forced to rush back to London less one of his uncles or cousins would attempt to suspend his claim despite the wording of the Treason Act. He reached London and became the rightfull King - with Caroline following a few months later when her brother turned 18.
His reign saw the American Revolution (and the declaration of the Kingdom of America under the rule of Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette) and the latter part of his grandfathers had seen the Seven Year War which had left France in debt - but knowing the danger a growing Republican movement could bring, George made a significant loan to the twenty two year old Charles X (all of his older brothers had died in their youths) and advised him on the transformation to a constitutional monarchy. His advice was heeded and a French Revolution had been narrowly avoided - with the leads exiled to the newly established penal colonies of Australia at George's suggestion, further away than Elba or St Helena from where there was still invariably a chance they could return.
In the end, he reigned for fifty years and died at 76, leaving the throne to his son, the Prince of Wales, William.
[3] William was born in 1766 and was the fifth child and second son of George I. His older brother, George Alexander, died in infancy shortly after his birth in 1761. William had three older sisters, two who died in childhood, one of those, Anne, dying in 1764 at age 2 before George and his slightly older fraternal twin sister, Caroline, were born. William was named after King George's grandfather and Caroline after their mother. William and Caroline's remaining older sister, Mary, born in 1765, died when they were three and she was four in 1769. Viewing her dead body later was William's first memory. His younger brothers and sisters who died in childhood were Edward (1768-1776), Sophia Louise (1770), James (1775-1789), and George Henry (1781). His siblings who survived to adulthood were his twin sister Caroline (born in 1766), brother Geoffrey (born in 1767), brother Clarence (born in 1772), sister Frances (born in 1773), and another set of twins, these identical, brothers Harold and Alfred (born in 1777).
William and Caroline were inseparable in childhood and always in adult life were closer to each other than they were with their spouses and/or lovers. Caroline never married but had many secret female lovers. William married young at age 18 in 1785 to Maria Hapsburg of Prague, a granddaughter of the Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa through her son the Archduke Charles Joseph (who in this lives to adulthood instead of dying from the smallpox at age 16) and, through her mother Princess Hildaline, a granddaughter of the Prussian King, Frederick II (who in this is obviously not the child of Sophia Dorothea, but of someone else, and so a different person than OTL Frederick the Great.)
William detested Maria Hapsburg from the moment he met her. She was quite religious and he was only a nominal believer. Maria was not like the girls that William had enjoyed himself with, she was not supple and soft of skin, but thin, bony, and had a poor complexion. As Prince of Wales it was his duty to sire children, so he did his spousal duties. Maria had a difficult time getting pregnant. Finally she did in 1794 and miscarried. She finally got pregnant again in 1798 and had a daughter, named Regina Maria. Prince William told his drinking companions, which included Princess Caroline of course, that "Britain has had four queens, they can have another. I've done my duty." He set up Maria in her own household in Edinburgh and the two never saw each other again. Regina Maria was not brought to London until she was 12 years old, when she met her father and aunt and grandfather, the King, for the first time.
By this time William's excessive wining, dining, and whoring had taken their toll. (As it had with his twin.) He was not very healthy, was over weight, and, to be honest, was a repulsive figure. In fact a Republican movement began in the early part of the 19th Century as a number of the more educated middle class detested the idea of having William as their king someday. But tradition was strong and on the death of his father, he became William V. When he sat at court he did not have his Queen Maria at his side, she was still in unofficial exile in Scotland, but his equally obese and repulsive twin sister, Caroline, the Princess Royal, at his side. Princess Regina Maria was one of those who detested her father and aunt. When he became king she was 18. His intent was to marry her to a distant cousin descended from William IV, but she refused the marriage and went to live with her mother, who by then was wearing a nun's habit and living the live of a nun, even though she was not allowed to take vows, since she was officially Queen Consort of England, and was official Anglican, not Catholic.
Princess Regina Maria loved her mother, unlike how she hated her father, but this was not the life she wanted. She settled in Geneva, made friends with the Romantics from England who visited there: the Shelleys and Lord Byron, and drowned while boating with them on the lake. It was rumored she had a love affair with Byron and was pregnant at the time.
King William was focused on the business side of the kingdom. He gave special privileges to several old and newly formed trading companies, including the East India Company and the Hudson Bay Company. Again Republicanism became a strong movement as there were complaints the King was ruling through the Companies instead of letting Parliament govern.
William's health deteriorated and he died in 1828 at age 62, probably from syphilis. Princess Royal Caroline outlived her twin for fourteen more years. Since William had no child as an heir with Regina Maria's death, he was succeeded by his nephew, Prince George, Duke of Munster.
[4] Prince George of Munster was the eldest child of Prince Harold, second youngest son of George I, created Duke of Munster upon his marriage in 1800. George was the next in line to the crown following the death of his cousin in Geneva (Geoffrey and Clarence both died without issue before their niece), and was stationed in India as part of the British Army when news reached him of her death, and he was recalled to London where his obese aunt and uncle ignored him as a minor inconvenience - it was clear that his aunt considered she should take the throne, but when William V died and George took the throne, he exiled her to Geneva where he set her up a household at the Villa Diodati so she could always look out at where her niece had died.
George had inherited the Dukedom of Munster when his father died shortly before his cousin, and whilst in India he became friends with the Commander in Chief, Stapleton Cotton, Viscount Combermere, and became engaged to Cottons daughter, Anna (from his first wife, Anna, daughter of the Duke of Newcastle) before they were married and she became first Duchess of Munster, then Princess of Wales briefly, eventually Queen Consort of Britain and later Dowager Queen (she outlived her husband by almost 30 years) and Queen Mother when her son, Charles took the throne.
Although Republican sentiment had been growing whilst he was in India during the reign of his uncle, his charisma and his experiences in the military managed to sway public perception and narrowly pull the country away from a revolution. On the opposite side of the Atlantic, the Kingdom of America was not so lucky and found itself in open revolt against their own King George, son of Gilbert I, who sought side from the French but the French refused as George II reminded them that their loan to Britain had not yet been repaid. This didn't stop George II supplying arms to the insurgents who were rising up against the American monarch. It was a dangerous game, but George II considered it to be a great one - and he became the creator of a counter-intelligence and espionage division within the War Office.
He had five children - two sons and two daughters who survived to adulthood, married and had issue of their own and another son, Prince George, Duke of Cleveland, who had caught polio and died before majority leading his parents to donate significant funds (what would have been the Duke of Clevelands allowance) to the Royal College of Physicians every year for the following decade after his death in order to support research onto polio.
When he died, it was at the launch of a new Royal Navy ship named after his grandfather, the HMS King George, suffering a heart attack during the canon salute.
[5] When the loss of his brother came at the age of 14, Charles was devastated. While his parents were understandably mournful, Charles fell into a severe melancholy. The carefree, almost immature, child that had been a light in the palace would never return. When he recovered he was a different person. Now the young prince was stubborn, cold, and trying deliberately to act like his late brother, constantly the mature one. When Charles turned 18 he purchased a commission in the 3rd Lifeguards Cavalry, and be deployed to India. There he found himself in, what he would later admit, was the most becoming and most enjoyable position he ever knew. The young prince quickly found himself tested by the Rajput war (1848) in which the Mahratta states and the Rajputs allied to force Britain off the continent. The 23 year old Left Tennant quickly proved himself an able and reliable Commander and fighter. By the end of the war in 1853, in which britain annexed all of India except Kashmir and Pakistan, Crown Prince Charles was the Colonel of his regiment and up for promotion to brigadier. However it was at this time that scandal would strike the house of Gloucester. Prince Charles had met a woman whom he had married without royal approval. A Hindi Maratha woman named Chaaya Pulekar, the daughter of a noble serving Britain. While it would be a scandalous moment for Britain monarchy, with the help and approval of his mother, Charles would eventually receive grudging tolerance from his father, but it would come at the cost of his commission. His father would order him honorably discharged from service with rank and honors, and ordered him home to Britain.
When his father died, it nearly sent Charles into another fit of melancholy, but with the help of his wife and the queen mother, Charles would recover quickly to assume the throne. Inheriting an Empire that now held land on four continents, he would have much to do. His greatest test as a monarch would come two years later with the French Succession Crisis of 1865. The late king Louis the XV had died with his eldest children being a set of triplet sons, out of whom he had chosen no heir. Austria backed Charles the XIII, Prussia backed the Huguenot Francis III, and Spain backed Louis XVI who was married to Spanish king Phillip V's daughter Isabella. In this great crisis it would fall to Britain to be the mediator. Influenced by his Wife and Mother speaking in favor of the more tolerant Protestant king, Charles threw the weight of Britain behind Francis III. While no one knew it at the time, the following decade and a half would see the Political landscape of Europe altered forever. When the war finally ended in 1874 Europe was forever changed. The Hapsburg Monarchy in Spain was overthrown by its people and replaced with the first republic on European soil, Austria was stunted by Hungarian independence and Prussia absorbing Bohemia, and A unified Germany would be created with the assistance of Britain and Francis III the King of France. After this great tumult Charles reign was fairly calm. the last Indian states were peacefully annexed, the empire in Africa expanded, and Alaska was purchased from Russia, expanding the Dominion of Canada to reach from Atlantic to Pacific. The last major conflict of his reign came when the Ottoman empire collapsed in 1904. yet, with british mediation, even this would be relatively short. By 1908 a kingdom of Turkey had been established, and various tribally oriented nations, namely the Kingdom of Kurdistan, the kingdom of Lebanon, the kingdom of Palestine, and the Sultanates of Mesopotamia. King Charles would pass away peacefully in his sleep on March 9th, 1913, the same day that his wife passed earlier that morning. He would leave the empire larger and more stable than any time in its history, but with His eldest child, Arthur, being a devout Hindu (some said Charles converted early on) their would undoubtedly be friction and contention when they took the throne.
[6] The first member of a royal family to be born on the British isle to openly self identify as a non-Caucasian was seen at the time as extremely controversial.
Born in 1859, his name was chosen to be a positive reminder to his paternal heritage rather than concentrating on the maternal trait.
Although baptised and encouragingly raised in the Anglican faith, Arthur would convert to Hinduism at the age of 16, when he was told that this could cause a political and constitutional crisis, he quickly replied “there is only a rule prohibiting Catholic and member married to a Catholic from succeeding to the throne. Hinduism is not Catholicism.”
At 21, Arthur found love at a wedding of his close cousin, Prince Edward of Kent.
Lady Helen Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, daughter of Liberal Politician and future Viceroy to India Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava and his wife, Hariot Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava.
The pair were married five years later in 1875, enjoying nearly forty years of happy marriage.
Succeeding the throne at the late age of 54, he had already had fourteen plotted assassinations on him and his family foiled.
However no one could have predicted or stop, David Copeland, a lone-wolf white-supremacy English-nationalist, from blowing up the carriage holding King Arthur, Queen Helen and their eldest daughter, Princess Victoria, while on route to Westminster Abbey for the coronation.
Kings of the United Kingdom of England and Scotland
1714 - 1766: William IV (House of Gloucester) [1]
1766 - 1816: George I (House of Gloucester) [2]
1816 - 1828: William V (House of Gloucester) [3]
1828 - 1862: George II (House of Gloucester) [4]
1862 - 1913: Charles III (House of Gloucester) [5]
1913 - 1914: Arthur II (House of Gloucester) [6]
William was 25 when he became king. He was already married to his third cousin, Sophia Dorothea of Hanover, in 1708 when she was 21 and he was 19. She was the daughter of George of Hanover, son of Sophia of Hanover. An act of Parliament had decreed that only Protestants could be heirs to the throne and that made the elder Sophie next in line after William at that time. The marriage was arranged and William and Sophia Dorothea never met until the wedding. But it was a happy marriage and they grew to love each other, having many children.
William had a long rule and during his reign Great Britain won several wars with France, ending up with all their former territories in North America.
William also led the war against his cousin, Charles Stuart, known as Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Young Pretender, and defeated him, ending the Scottish rebellion and the hopes of the Catholic Stuarts.
William was an active king, working closely with Parliament and the ministers of it who would form governments. Sophia Dorothea passed in 1757. William followed her nine years later at the age of 76, only a few days before his 77th birthday.
[2] Born in 1740, George was William's grandson, by his eldest son Edward, Prince of Wales. He was named after both his maternal and paternal great grandfather (George of Hanover, and George of Cumberland) and outlived his father who had an 'unfortunate encounter with his mistresses lovers duelling pistol' (buy since his mistresses lover was also his brother, the Duke of Edinburgh, things got brushed under the carpet by William as the royal family could not be smeared by fratricide) which allowed George to become Prince of Wales himself.
He married Caroline of Orange-Nassau in 1760 and they had fourteen children (seven of whom would survive to adulthood) - the pair were forced to reside in the Netherlands briefly in 1765 when Carolines grandmother died and Caroline was forced to act as Regent for her younger brother, William V, Prince of Orange. This period in the Netherlands probably influenced him significant as it was the first time he had travelled abroad and he brought back many ideas that were influenced by the Court of Orange-Nassau.
The Dutch Regency (as it had become known) had not yet ended when news reached them that his grandfather had passed away and he was forced to rush back to London less one of his uncles or cousins would attempt to suspend his claim despite the wording of the Treason Act. He reached London and became the rightfull King - with Caroline following a few months later when her brother turned 18.
His reign saw the American Revolution (and the declaration of the Kingdom of America under the rule of Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette) and the latter part of his grandfathers had seen the Seven Year War which had left France in debt - but knowing the danger a growing Republican movement could bring, George made a significant loan to the twenty two year old Charles X (all of his older brothers had died in their youths) and advised him on the transformation to a constitutional monarchy. His advice was heeded and a French Revolution had been narrowly avoided - with the leads exiled to the newly established penal colonies of Australia at George's suggestion, further away than Elba or St Helena from where there was still invariably a chance they could return.
In the end, he reigned for fifty years and died at 76, leaving the throne to his son, the Prince of Wales, William.
William and Caroline were inseparable in childhood and always in adult life were closer to each other than they were with their spouses and/or lovers. Caroline never married but had many secret female lovers. William married young at age 18 in 1785 to Maria Hapsburg of Prague, a granddaughter of the Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa through her son the Archduke Charles Joseph (who in this lives to adulthood instead of dying from the smallpox at age 16) and, through her mother Princess Hildaline, a granddaughter of the Prussian King, Frederick II (who in this is obviously not the child of Sophia Dorothea, but of someone else, and so a different person than OTL Frederick the Great.)
William detested Maria Hapsburg from the moment he met her. She was quite religious and he was only a nominal believer. Maria was not like the girls that William had enjoyed himself with, she was not supple and soft of skin, but thin, bony, and had a poor complexion. As Prince of Wales it was his duty to sire children, so he did his spousal duties. Maria had a difficult time getting pregnant. Finally she did in 1794 and miscarried. She finally got pregnant again in 1798 and had a daughter, named Regina Maria. Prince William told his drinking companions, which included Princess Caroline of course, that "Britain has had four queens, they can have another. I've done my duty." He set up Maria in her own household in Edinburgh and the two never saw each other again. Regina Maria was not brought to London until she was 12 years old, when she met her father and aunt and grandfather, the King, for the first time.
By this time William's excessive wining, dining, and whoring had taken their toll. (As it had with his twin.) He was not very healthy, was over weight, and, to be honest, was a repulsive figure. In fact a Republican movement began in the early part of the 19th Century as a number of the more educated middle class detested the idea of having William as their king someday. But tradition was strong and on the death of his father, he became William V. When he sat at court he did not have his Queen Maria at his side, she was still in unofficial exile in Scotland, but his equally obese and repulsive twin sister, Caroline, the Princess Royal, at his side. Princess Regina Maria was one of those who detested her father and aunt. When he became king she was 18. His intent was to marry her to a distant cousin descended from William IV, but she refused the marriage and went to live with her mother, who by then was wearing a nun's habit and living the live of a nun, even though she was not allowed to take vows, since she was officially Queen Consort of England, and was official Anglican, not Catholic.
Princess Regina Maria loved her mother, unlike how she hated her father, but this was not the life she wanted. She settled in Geneva, made friends with the Romantics from England who visited there: the Shelleys and Lord Byron, and drowned while boating with them on the lake. It was rumored she had a love affair with Byron and was pregnant at the time.
King William was focused on the business side of the kingdom. He gave special privileges to several old and newly formed trading companies, including the East India Company and the Hudson Bay Company. Again Republicanism became a strong movement as there were complaints the King was ruling through the Companies instead of letting Parliament govern.
William's health deteriorated and he died in 1828 at age 62, probably from syphilis. Princess Royal Caroline outlived her twin for fourteen more years. Since William had no child as an heir with Regina Maria's death, he was succeeded by his nephew, Prince George, Duke of Munster.
[4] Prince George of Munster was the eldest child of Prince Harold, second youngest son of George I, created Duke of Munster upon his marriage in 1800. George was the next in line to the crown following the death of his cousin in Geneva (Geoffrey and Clarence both died without issue before their niece), and was stationed in India as part of the British Army when news reached him of her death, and he was recalled to London where his obese aunt and uncle ignored him as a minor inconvenience - it was clear that his aunt considered she should take the throne, but when William V died and George took the throne, he exiled her to Geneva where he set her up a household at the Villa Diodati so she could always look out at where her niece had died.
George had inherited the Dukedom of Munster when his father died shortly before his cousin, and whilst in India he became friends with the Commander in Chief, Stapleton Cotton, Viscount Combermere, and became engaged to Cottons daughter, Anna (from his first wife, Anna, daughter of the Duke of Newcastle) before they were married and she became first Duchess of Munster, then Princess of Wales briefly, eventually Queen Consort of Britain and later Dowager Queen (she outlived her husband by almost 30 years) and Queen Mother when her son, Charles took the throne.
Although Republican sentiment had been growing whilst he was in India during the reign of his uncle, his charisma and his experiences in the military managed to sway public perception and narrowly pull the country away from a revolution. On the opposite side of the Atlantic, the Kingdom of America was not so lucky and found itself in open revolt against their own King George, son of Gilbert I, who sought side from the French but the French refused as George II reminded them that their loan to Britain had not yet been repaid. This didn't stop George II supplying arms to the insurgents who were rising up against the American monarch. It was a dangerous game, but George II considered it to be a great one - and he became the creator of a counter-intelligence and espionage division within the War Office.
He had five children - two sons and two daughters who survived to adulthood, married and had issue of their own and another son, Prince George, Duke of Cleveland, who had caught polio and died before majority leading his parents to donate significant funds (what would have been the Duke of Clevelands allowance) to the Royal College of Physicians every year for the following decade after his death in order to support research onto polio.
When he died, it was at the launch of a new Royal Navy ship named after his grandfather, the HMS King George, suffering a heart attack during the canon salute.
[5] When the loss of his brother came at the age of 14, Charles was devastated. While his parents were understandably mournful, Charles fell into a severe melancholy. The carefree, almost immature, child that had been a light in the palace would never return. When he recovered he was a different person. Now the young prince was stubborn, cold, and trying deliberately to act like his late brother, constantly the mature one. When Charles turned 18 he purchased a commission in the 3rd Lifeguards Cavalry, and be deployed to India. There he found himself in, what he would later admit, was the most becoming and most enjoyable position he ever knew. The young prince quickly found himself tested by the Rajput war (1848) in which the Mahratta states and the Rajputs allied to force Britain off the continent. The 23 year old Left Tennant quickly proved himself an able and reliable Commander and fighter. By the end of the war in 1853, in which britain annexed all of India except Kashmir and Pakistan, Crown Prince Charles was the Colonel of his regiment and up for promotion to brigadier. However it was at this time that scandal would strike the house of Gloucester. Prince Charles had met a woman whom he had married without royal approval. A Hindi Maratha woman named Chaaya Pulekar, the daughter of a noble serving Britain. While it would be a scandalous moment for Britain monarchy, with the help and approval of his mother, Charles would eventually receive grudging tolerance from his father, but it would come at the cost of his commission. His father would order him honorably discharged from service with rank and honors, and ordered him home to Britain.
When his father died, it nearly sent Charles into another fit of melancholy, but with the help of his wife and the queen mother, Charles would recover quickly to assume the throne. Inheriting an Empire that now held land on four continents, he would have much to do. His greatest test as a monarch would come two years later with the French Succession Crisis of 1865. The late king Louis the XV had died with his eldest children being a set of triplet sons, out of whom he had chosen no heir. Austria backed Charles the XIII, Prussia backed the Huguenot Francis III, and Spain backed Louis XVI who was married to Spanish king Phillip V's daughter Isabella. In this great crisis it would fall to Britain to be the mediator. Influenced by his Wife and Mother speaking in favor of the more tolerant Protestant king, Charles threw the weight of Britain behind Francis III. While no one knew it at the time, the following decade and a half would see the Political landscape of Europe altered forever. When the war finally ended in 1874 Europe was forever changed. The Hapsburg Monarchy in Spain was overthrown by its people and replaced with the first republic on European soil, Austria was stunted by Hungarian independence and Prussia absorbing Bohemia, and A unified Germany would be created with the assistance of Britain and Francis III the King of France. After this great tumult Charles reign was fairly calm. the last Indian states were peacefully annexed, the empire in Africa expanded, and Alaska was purchased from Russia, expanding the Dominion of Canada to reach from Atlantic to Pacific. The last major conflict of his reign came when the Ottoman empire collapsed in 1904. yet, with british mediation, even this would be relatively short. By 1908 a kingdom of Turkey had been established, and various tribally oriented nations, namely the Kingdom of Kurdistan, the kingdom of Lebanon, the kingdom of Palestine, and the Sultanates of Mesopotamia. King Charles would pass away peacefully in his sleep on March 9th, 1913, the same day that his wife passed earlier that morning. He would leave the empire larger and more stable than any time in its history, but with His eldest child, Arthur, being a devout Hindu (some said Charles converted early on) their would undoubtedly be friction and contention when they took the throne.
[6] The first member of a royal family to be born on the British isle to openly self identify as a non-Caucasian was seen at the time as extremely controversial.
Born in 1859, his name was chosen to be a positive reminder to his paternal heritage rather than concentrating on the maternal trait.
Although baptised and encouragingly raised in the Anglican faith, Arthur would convert to Hinduism at the age of 16, when he was told that this could cause a political and constitutional crisis, he quickly replied “there is only a rule prohibiting Catholic and member married to a Catholic from succeeding to the throne. Hinduism is not Catholicism.”
At 21, Arthur found love at a wedding of his close cousin, Prince Edward of Kent.
Lady Helen Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, daughter of Liberal Politician and future Viceroy to India Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava and his wife, Hariot Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava.
The pair were married five years later in 1875, enjoying nearly forty years of happy marriage.
Succeeding the throne at the late age of 54, he had already had fourteen plotted assassinations on him and his family foiled.
However no one could have predicted or stop, David Copeland, a lone-wolf white-supremacy English-nationalist, from blowing up the carriage holding King Arthur, Queen Helen and their eldest daughter, Princess Victoria, while on route to Westminster Abbey for the coronation.