Monarchs of England:
1547-1553: Edward VI (Tudor)
1553-1562: Jane (Grey) [1]
1562-1577: Edward VII (Grey) [2]
1577-1598: Margaret (Stanley) [3]
1598-1625: Henry IX (Stanley) [4]
Monarchs of England and Princes of Orange:
1625-1633: Henry IX & I (Stanley) [4]
1633-1654: David I (Stanley) [5]
1654-1701: William III & II (Stanley) [6]
1701-1708: Henry X & II (Stanley) [7]
1708-1730: David II (Stanley) [8]
Monarchs of England:
1730-1764: Henry XI (Ligonier) [9]
1764-1810: Mary I (Ligonier) [10]
Monarchs of Kingdom of Britain (Formerly the Kingdom of England and Scotland):
1810-1858: Richard IV (Beaufort) [11]
1858-1886: David III (Beaufort) [12]
1886-1918: Elizabeth I (Beaufort) [13]
1918-1982: William IV (Beaufort) [14]
[14] Elizabeth’s death extinguished the senior line of descent from Richard IV, so, in their search for an heir, Parliament was forced to trace back the family tree two generations, to the line of Richard IV’s second son, Phillip, Duke of Avondale (b.1820).
Phillip married Lady Elizabeth Georgiana Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, eldest daughter of the Duke of Sutherland in 1842, when he was 22 and she was just eighteen, and they had four daughters, Georgiana, Adelaide, Maria and Harriet, as well as three sons, Richard, George and Henry.
Richard died unmarried during the first Boer War, but George, who married Lady Victoria Alexandrina Spencer in 1877, left numerous descendants, including his eldest grandson, William, who, upon the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1918, was twelve years old. Despite his young age, however, William, was already Duke of Avondale, his father Richard having died at the Battle of the Somme two years earlier.
Duke of Avondale paled in comparison to the regnal coronet, however, and William, Elizabeth’s nearest male relative, for all he was only her second cousin once removed, was promptly installed as King of Britain, under the Regency of his paternal and maternal uncles, Lord Edward Beaufort and the sixth Earl Spencer.
Having a child on the throne may well have been the only reason that Scotland’s 1920 referendum for independence failed, as a significant proportion of the Scots, while disgruntled at the senior Beaufort line, were willing to give their new young King the benefit of the doubt and chose to either vote to remain within the Union or to abstain from voting entirely. In the end, the vote to remain won the referendum 56%-44%.
Even that was far too close a shave for the Regents, however, and they promptly embarked on a grand project to win over William’s Scottish subjects, using the young King’s Scottish heritage to their advantage. In 1921, fifteen-year-old William was sent to Merchiston school in Edinburgh to finish his education, before being enrolled in the Royal Navy as a Second Lieutenant and sent to Scapa Flow for naval training. He would eventually rise to the rank of Commodore.
It was during his years at Scapa Flow that William met and fell in love with Hope Madden, the third daughter of his First Sea Lord, Sir Charles Madden. He wanted nothing more than to marry his ‘darling Hope’, but unfortunately for Hope and William, the third daughter of a simple Baronet wasn’t seen as good enough for a King, particularly one who hadn’t had a particularly strong claim to the throne in the first place.
Parliament made it vitally clear that, if William wished to continue to receive the money set aside for him in the Civil List, then he needed to marry a foreign Princess, or at the very least an Earl’s daughter.
In the end, he married Princess Juliana of the Netherlands, second child and only daughter of Queen Wilhelmina in 1937, after meeting her at the Berlin Olympics the previous year. Their marriage was a rocky one, Juliana’s fierce Dutch Reformed piety clashing with William’s lukewarm Anglicanism, and the two of them fighting bitterly over William’s clear preference for Lady Hope, whom he created Countess of Inverness a year after his marriage to Juliana.
However, they did at least manage to secure the succession, with three children born in 1938, 1942 and 1948.
William always preferred his naval duties to his regnal ones, and the outbreak of World War Two in 1939, found him throwing himself into escort duty for supply lines across the Atlantic, much to his ministers’ horror, who feared greatly for Britain should he be killed, given his only heir was a fifteen-month-old child.
In the end, they compromised. William would be allowed to join the escorts if, and only if, he sent his family to safety in Canada. As such, Queen Juliana, accompanied by the heir to the throne, as well as by Lady Inverness and her two daughters, Lady Rosemary and Lady Georgiana, set sail for Halifax in Nova Scotia from Southampton in April 1940. William wouldn’t see them again, barring a brief three-weeks leave in late 1941, (the result of which was his second child, ________, who was born the following July....) until they returned from Canada in August 1945, by which time the royal children didn’t recognise their father. His eldest daughter by Lady Inverness however, most certainly did. Lady Rosemary melted hearts around the world by flying down the dock at Southampton to throw herself into her father’s arms, before remembering herself and pulling back from his embrace to drop him a perfect curtsy and salute, crying “God Save the King!” while William looked on proudly.
William’s heroic involvement in the war, however nerve-wracking it was for his ministers, did wonders for his popularity, particularly with his English subjects, while Juliana’s dropped critically in the wake of what was seen as her ‘abandonment’ of her royal duties. Her position as Queen was extremely shaky in the wake of her Canadian sojourn and only the birth of her youngest child, in January 1948, truly stabilised it again.
The rest of William’s reign was relatively peaceful. He oversaw the transition of India from a British Colony to a self-governing Dominion within the British Empire, and sent his heir, ________________ to South Africa, to learn to rule by being Governor-General there, when they came of age.
However, while William’s English and Scottish subjects adored him, and his Canadian subjects were very fond of Queen Juliana, the same could not be said for all his subjects. The Irish, in particular, were incensed by Britain’s refusal to let them leave the Empire, or even transition to Dominion status like India, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Various factions showed their disgruntlement in increasingly violent ways, with eventually fatal results. The heir’s happy years in South Africa would be brought to an abrupt end in July 1982, when William, attending a lunchtime concert given by the Royal Green Jackets, was killed by an IRA bomb that exploded under the bandstand where the musicians were performing.
William IV, ‘The Sailor King’, died on July 20th, 1982, at the age of 76, and was succeeded on the throne of Britain by ________________________
NB: I have *lots* of headcanon about this King, and it may not all have made it across clearly. Let me know if anything needs explaining!
1547-1553: Edward VI (Tudor)
1553-1562: Jane (Grey) [1]
1562-1577: Edward VII (Grey) [2]
1577-1598: Margaret (Stanley) [3]
1598-1625: Henry IX (Stanley) [4]
Monarchs of England and Princes of Orange:
1625-1633: Henry IX & I (Stanley) [4]
1633-1654: David I (Stanley) [5]
1654-1701: William III & II (Stanley) [6]
1701-1708: Henry X & II (Stanley) [7]
1708-1730: David II (Stanley) [8]
Monarchs of England:
1730-1764: Henry XI (Ligonier) [9]
1764-1810: Mary I (Ligonier) [10]
Monarchs of Kingdom of Britain (Formerly the Kingdom of England and Scotland):
1810-1858: Richard IV (Beaufort) [11]
1858-1886: David III (Beaufort) [12]
1886-1918: Elizabeth I (Beaufort) [13]
1918-1982: William IV (Beaufort) [14]
1] Jane Grey's rise to the throne is surrounded by controversy, scandal, intrigue. Jane is often seen as either an innocent pawn used by the men in her life, an empty headed fool, a conniving ice queen, or just a stoic, traumatized girl who is making the best of a bad situation.
Her cousin, Edward VI decided to make her his heir to prevent his Catholic sister, Mary from taking the throne. In defiance of his brother's will, he skipped both of his half sisters and named Jane as his heir. Many suspect his Lord Protector John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland's hand in this as his youngest son, Guildford was soon married to the future queen. Despite being opposites in personality, Guildford and Jane had a happy marriage with Guildford being known as a man who was extremely protective of his wife. In one incident, he punched his brother Robert for insulting her (the fact that Robert was in love with Jane's political rival did not help). Jane would get pregnant three times. She would make Guildford the Duke of Clarence despite he and his family pressuring her to make him king.
In July of 1553, Edward died and Northumberland immediately had the Lady Mary arrested, catching her fleeing from her Hudson home. He put he under house arrest at first, fearing that her popularity would spark outrage if he tried to put her in prison. Lady Mary would die in February 1554 of cancer (although rumors persist she was poisoned by either Northumberland or the Queen's Mother, Frances). Mary would commonly be known as the Queen that never was. It was also arranged for Elizabeth to be married to Eric of Sweden.
With both of her rivals removed from the game board, Jane was allowed a little bit more a free hand at ruling, although she was still being "advised" by the Dudleys and the Greys. She arranged a marriage for Margaret Clifford, daughter of her Aunt Eleanor, to Henry Stanley, the 4th Earl of Derby. She made a new act of succession, decreeing that if she were to die heiress, the crown would be passed to her sisters, their children then Margaret, her children.
As a stanch Protestant, Jane continued with Edward's policies. However, she took a softer touch with it came with Catholics. As one courtier would put it, she much rather debate than burn them for heresy. She also sponsored expeditions to the new world, Russia, and the East.
In 1556, she began to push back against her father and the Duke of Northumberland, going so far as removing them from her council, replacing them with advisors loyal to her. While Northumberland was pragmatic enough to realize that fighting with Jane would not help his cause, not to mention his son was her husband, one of his daughters was her lady-in-waiting, the Duke of Suffolk was enraged by what he felt was a betrayal of his daughter. Many modern depictions would show Henry Grey storming into Jane's chambers ready to beat with the inch of her life, with Jane, cold as ice, threatening to have her father arrested for treason if he even raised his hand at her.
While there is very little evidence to support that Henry and Frances Grey were physically abusive, let alone Jane threaten to arrest them if they ever hurt her once she became king, it is clear that in 1556, Jane was adamant to no longer be under the thumb of her relatives. Although Guildford was not pleased with his father ousting, he would continue to support his wife, keeping their arguments behind closed doors while maintaining a united front in public.
In 1559, Lords of the Congregation, made up of anti-French Protestant Scottish nobles, requested England's help in their war against Mary of Guise's regency. Now while some portrayals like to play up the rumored romance between the late King Edward and Jane Grey, often insisting that her agreement was born out of petty jealousy for her rival, it is clear by what was known of Jane's character that she truly believed in the rebels' caused and was determined to help them. (Of course Mary of Scots being the Catholic heir to the throne of England probably helped).
At first things looked pretty good until the French decided to retaliate by retaking Calais, something the English were unprepared for. This and the death of King Francis II, leaving Mary of Scots a widow, had Jane making a peace treaty with France and Scotland, calling back her troops. She allowed Queen Mary passage to Scotland through England, even hosting Mary at one point. While the meeting between the two queens was tense, it should be noted that neither woman seemed to overly hostile, even in their spirited debates on religion.
In October 1562, Jane would be stricken with smallpox. At first it was thought only to be a cold, but then it grew worse. Jane had her husband Guildford acting as regent as she languished in bed. There was hope that she would get better, but as the days went on, it was clear she would not. Her death was a devastating blow to the Dudleys and the Greys. The Duke of Clarence would wear black for the rest of his life and would not marry again. He would, however, stay on in the council as an advisor to Jane's eldest son, Edward.
Edward VII, painted by Nicholas Hilliard, c. 1577, to celebrate his upcoming marriage
[2] Edward VII was a Tudor in all but name. Tall, fair, and athletic he was a charming young man. He would never grow to be an old one.
Born in 1555, Edward VII was the oldest of Jane’s children, and was only 7 when she died. His father would work hard to keep him involved in the running of the country. And Edward grew up fascinated with England, their colonial expeditions and diplomatic relations. His exuberance was charming, and England adored him.
In 1577, at age 22, just days before his wedding, Edward’s horse would stumble coming out of a jump. He would fall and hit his head. He was succeeded by his niece, Margaret.
Miniature portrait of Queen Margaret of England, painted by Nicholas Hilliard shortly before her death
(3) Lady Jane Dudley, daughter of Queen Jane and the Duke of Clarence, was the second of three children and the eldest of two daughters, born in 1560, and married to her cousin, Ferdinando Stanley (1559 to 1594), during her brothers reign in 1576. Lady Jane was soon pregnant and gave birth to a daughter, Margaret, in early 1577, shortly before her brother died, with Jane dying of complications just days before the child's birth. Edward elevated his brother-in-law, Ferdinando, to Lord of the Isle of Wight, in absence of his own titles (Ferdinando used Baron Strange, a subsidiary title of his father's as a courtesy one at Court) and then Edward died.
Margaret, only months old, was Queen. Next in line to the throne was her fifteen year old Aunt, who the Privy Council determined, could not act as Regent, though it was determined she must marry with haste. As luck would have it, with the death of Margaret Stanley, and the fact that Katherine, Countess of Pembroke, and Mary, Baroness Grey de Wilton, remained childless, the Lord of (the Isle of) Wight, placed fourth in the line of succession himself, the first male, despite the Countess and Baroness being elder than him. From 1577 to 1595, the Regency of Wight took place, with the Earl of Pembroke and the Baron Grey de Wilton, playing significant advisory figures. The Lord placed consideration for Margaret's marriage in the hands of the Countess and Baroness and in 1593, the Queen was married to Maurice, Prince of Orange, ten years her senior. She would soon fall pregnant, and would have, like her mother before her, three children. Despite having reached majority in 1595, Margaret still placed a large amount of responsibility in her Regency Council to rule in her stead, with equal importance placed on their new military ties to the Dutch Republic as well as to their continued colonial efforts.
In 1589, at the age of twelve, she would travel to Edinburgh with her Great Aunt, the Duchess of Pembroke, to witness the marriage of David, the Duke of Albany, (son of Mary and her third husband, the Earl of Bothwell), and Anna of Saxony. The Duchess stressed to Margaret that a cordial relationship must he ensured with Scotland, as Mary of Scots and her sons had a legitimate claim to England and that the Privy Council did not desire them to press it.
When she later had her first child, Margaret would state her desire that they marry a child of (by then) David III of Scotland and Anna of Saxony.
Margaret would die in 1598 at the age of 21, in birth with a fourth child. Both mother and child would not survive, and Margaret would be succeeded by her son, Henry.
[4] Henry was only four when his mother died. England settled in for another long regency, starting to wonder if they would forever be cursed with child monarchs who kept dying at young ages. Per his mother's wishes, Henry was married to Elizabeth Stewart, daughter of King David and his wife, Anna of Saxony. The two had been engaged since they were both in their cradles and began writing to each other from the ages of six. They managed to create a close bound before Elizabeth even arrived to England in 1612. They would have a fruitful marriage, having thirteen children.
When Henry reached the age of majority in 1609, he was allowed to rule for himself. He maintained a good relationship with his father, the Prince of Orange, pledging to send English troops in support should Spain ever renew their attack. He also maintained a good friendship with his brother-in-law, Fredrick V, Elector of the Palatinate. When the thirty year war in 1618 broke out, Henry believed it was his duty as a Protestant to help his fellow reformers. However, his wife, his father, and his advisors begged him not to fight himself, as his heir was only six-years-old. Reluctantly, Henry acquiesced.
In 1625, Maurice, Prince of Orange died, and Henry was now the leader of the Dutch Republic. Henry would nominate his half-uncle and namesake to rule over the Dutch, wanting them to keep their nominal independence. When Spain attacked with their armada, the combined forces of the Dutch and English navy managed to make decisive victory, having attack Spain from both sides of the English channel.
While Henry was a diligent ruler, he had one major vice. His love for fine food. By 1630, he began to suffer from gout and would eventually die from it three years later, leaving his kingdom in the hands of his son, David.
(5) David was the second, but eldest surviving, son of Henry IX of England and his wife, Elizabeth Stewart. He had five older sisters and was born in 1623, which meant that he inherited both of his father's thrones when he was only ten. Yes, it did seem as if England would be forced to endure yet another period of Regency, this time under the Duke of York, before the King assumed the throne in his own right in 1641, shortly ahead of his marriage to his cousin, Hollandine of the Palatinate, and the two produced only two children, both in the five years after their marriage, who survived childhood. With the protracted periods of Regency that England had been through, the Privy Council sought to build their own powers and began to transform into the House of Representatives that we know today - with the assorted nobles selecting one of themselves to act as Speaker of the House, representing them to the Duke of York, as Regent, and subsequently the King himself in 1641. After the tumultuous Spanish Armada of his father's reign, David saw his reign being relatively peaceful other than the the occasional trade dispute as the Speaker of the House clashed with the Grand Pensionary of the United Provinces, Jacob Cats.
In 1654, David died of what is believed to be a heart attack and was succeeded by his son, William.
[6] William was born in 1643, named for his uncle and regent. In 1552, the King of Spain agreed to officially to recognize that the Netherlands or the Dutch Republic were no longer under Spanish rule in exchange for the marriage between the then Prince of Wales, William, and his newborn daughter, Margaret Theresa who was eight years, the Prince's junior. Two years later, King David died of a heart attack, leaving the Netherlands and England to once again fall under a regency. In King David's will, he urged the privy council to go forward with the Spanish match, not wanting there to be war with Spain while his son was still young. After years of negotiation, the marriage agreement was finalized and at age twelve Margaret Theresa came to England.
King William was now a man of twenty and was less than impressed with his new bride. She was Catholic, unhealthy, Spanish, and that ugly Hapsburg jaw. However, William had been taught from a young age that a king must do his duty so despite his grumbling, he wed Margaret and then promptly spent his wedding night dancing, drinking, and sleeping with his mistress. Needless to say the marriage was not a happy one. Margaret was not a popular queen as she was quite adverse to the Protestant customs, and was quite unhappy not being able to practice her faith (despite that being one of the stipulations). She fell pregnant only once, and gave birth to a stillborn son in 1667. The strain of the pregnancy and the birth caused her to fall ill with a fever. She asked her husband about the baby, not knowing it had been stillborn. William in a moment of tenderness lied and said she had birthed a healthy son who would be king someday. When later asked about this, William admitted that he had been so cruel to her for so long that the least he could do was let her die happy.
Despite her unpopularity, William still ordered the customary six months of marriage. However, he also had his ambassadors searching for a new bride for him during that time as he lacked an heir (his brother, Henry, had died unmarried and heiress just six years earlier). He married for a second time in 1670 to Princess Wilhelmine Ernestine of Denmark. Although Wilhemlmine was certainly more popular with the people, she was not with her husband as he found her shy and solitary nature and the fact that she crippled to be a turn off.
By 1673, William requested a divorce, stating that the marriage had not been consummated. In exchange for her cooperation, William gave his former wife several manors in the countryside of England, and a hefty pension. After the divorce was finalized, William decided this time he was choosing his own bride, Elizabeth Wriothesley, widow of the the Earl of Northumberland who had returned from Italy just three years previous and caught the king's eye, ousting his previous long time mistress in the king's favor.
Elizabeth was a cultured woman who upon becoming queen, immediately used her court to invite many artists from Italy. Unlike William's previous two wives, she was a great lover of balls and masquerades. William and she were birds of a feather and their marriage was much smoother. She would give birth to two children. Sadly, Elizabeth would die of smallpox in 1690, leaving her husband a widow. William would wed Princess Elisabeth Sophie of Brandenburg. Despite the thirty year age gap and langue barrier, Sophie and William were able to have harmonious marriage, having two healthy children. Sophie would also be a doting stepmother to Elizabeth's children and would even become a lifetime friend of Wilheminine, even living with the later after the death of William.
While William dealt with his tumultuous love life, he also had foreign relation to handle. In 1672, before his divorce with his second wife, France invaded Rhainland. As King Louis was aware that the Dutch-Anglo alliance would be a strong opponent, they recruited Scotland and the Irish Catholics into helping them. William found himself being attacked by all sides. Worse Denmark was currently Scotland's ally despite the marriage between Wilheminine and William. Of course the fact that the king was planning on divorcing his wife being the worst kept secret in Europe probably didn't sway his brother-in-law to his side. However Denmark was currently feuding with Sweden so they opted to stay out of the mess.
Spain sided with King William when it became clear that France was after the Spanish Netherlands which also brought the aid of Emperor Leopold. The war lasted for six years with heavy loses on both sides. William barely escaped capture during the disastrous battle of Anterwp. It ended in 1678, with France conceding the Dutch territories, but keeping control of the Burgundian Netherlands.
In order to gain back money, he lost in the war, William focused on expanding the Dutch and English trade routes, expanding their colonies in the new world. When his first living child was born in 1679, the king decided to make a marriage pact with the Holy Roman Emperor, hoping to make an alliance against France. However when the nine year war broke out in 1690s, William refused to help, feeling that his coffers had scarcely recovered from the last war. This would infuriate Emperor Leopold who brake the betrothal. King Louis swooped in and offed one his grandchildren for a match instead in exchange for a peace treaty. The two monarchs would meet in Scotland in 1695 with King Charles I of Scots playing mediator. One part of the agreement was the sale of Louisiana.
Outside of marital troubles and wars, William had a strong thirst for knowledge, he loved to learn about new things, and was quite eager to fund universities, inventors, and scientists. He even founded a royal society for improving natural knowledge. He was gifted with a telescope for his sixteenth birthday and would spend hours looking up at the night sky. By the time he was twenty, he had built a laboratory adjacent to his own bedroom so he could perform his own experiments or watch the members of his society experiment themselves. It was often said the quickest way to drag William from a party or his mistress was to tell him that a new discovery had been made and watch as his eyes lit up like a child at Christmastide.
Unfortunately, this would led to his bad health in his later years as he began to experiment with mercury. In 1701, he would die of what would later be discovered as kidney failure. He was fifty-eight at the time, leaving his son Henry to inherit.
[7] Born in 1682 as the eldest son and second child of William III and his third wife Elizabeth Wriothesley, Henry Frederick (named after both of his grandfathers) was a sickly child that many expected to not survive childhood. However, Henry managed to live to adulthood and succeeded his father as King in 1701 at the age of 19, breaking the curse of the country having monarchs who began reigning as children.
The celebrations continued when Henry married Princess Joan of Navarre in 1703, which resulted in the birth of two children. Unfortunately, the King died in 1708 at the age of 26 from tuberculosis. This meant that his son, David would succeed him as the new monarch.
(8) Prince David, previously Duke of Oxford, born in 1698 was the youngest of King William's children with his fourth wife, Elizabeth Sophie. His elder brother was a sickly child, so it was assumed that David would be the one to succeed to the throne, but Henry reached his majority and became King - the first monarch to do so within several generations, breaking The Grey Curse. Unfortunately Henry died at 26 of tuberculosis, his children having died of a pox mere months prior, leaving Joan of Navarre, childless and widowed and the ten year old David to take the throne, again under a Regency. It was popular court gossip as a result that Henry had been fathered by one of the servants rather than King William, thus why he had appeared to break the curse. Henry's mother acted as Regent, breaking the tradition that the Regent was the most senior figure of majority in line to the throne. The Dowager Queen being Regent was a French tradition, something that Elizabeth was fond of, plus she retained some sense of power rather than being shuffled off quietly to a country house by the House of Representatives and the Speaker.
Joan of Navarre was fourteen years older than David, but Elisabeth negotiated with Joan's father that she would remain in England, be granted a courtesy title - Duchess of Windsor - and married to David on his sixteenth birthday. The pair married, but Joan failed to produce any children, meaning that as years went on, David and Elizabet knew that the future of the Monarchy rested with his sisters or their issue, as each married and bore issue. Ultimately, David would die in 1830, aged only 32 when the Thames barge he was traveling on caught fire and sank. Both his wife, and his mother, survived him and he was succeeded by his nephew via his eldest sister; Prince Louis Henry, 2nd Duke of Ligonier.
(9) With the death of David II, the House of Stanley did come to a rather anticlimactic conclusion. David, from the death of his brother, was the sole remaining member of the line and thus much was rested upon his young shoulders, only for it all to be cast asunder with his death in 1730. The Netherlands formally abolished the Stadtholdership, which from the reign of Henry IX had been largely titular by any means, and did choose a Republican governance. Even the Principality of Orange fell to the wayside, with the King of France; François V, using the hastily made excuse of possible uprisings to occupy the Principality.
and so, from an informal empire spanning noncontiguous parts of Europe, the House of Stanley came to an end. In England herself, David II was succeeded by the son of his eldest sister.
Princess Margaret, born in 1679, had firstly married Prince Eberhard Louis of Wurttemberg in 1693, but his death in 1698 ended their brief union, and so after a brief tour of the Holy Roman Empire and France, Princess Margaret returned to England, where she did meet, and promptly fell in love with Jean Louis Ligonier, a Officer of the English Army from a Huguenot family who migrated but the year prior. Within the year, the pair were married and as part of his Coronation Honours in 1702, Henry X and II had granted to Ligonier the title of Duke of Ligonier and formally granted him the position of Colonel-in-Chief of the Yeomen Guard, and the year after, in 1703, a son was born to the pair; Louis Henry.
It was in 1711 that the Princess Margaret fell ill, and did pass in the winter of that year, leaving her Husband and son, and five years after that the Duke of Ligonier himself did pass, in a fateful accident on the Isle of Dogs, where the musket of a Hunter did hit the Duke as he rode along the Riverside., and so the young Louis Henry was now Duke of Ligonier. For much of his life, there was no expectation to be the throne, as David II was young enough to have issue a plenty, and so the 2nd Duke of Ligonier had the kfie if many an English nobleman, serving in the army, undergoing a true noble education, but it was in 1730, as the young Duke was on the Isle of Wight, when he was made aware of his uncles passing, and so he began to sail hence to London.
Henry XI of England
With his Coronation, the young King did take his middle name; Henry, and thus was crowned as Henry XI of England. After the coronation, He did turn to his Advisors and was said to have handed them the reigns, stating "you may as well take the reigns of this kingdom, for rule is as foreign to me as the Land of the Rus".
For the next Decade and a half, the King watched while the Advisors of his uncles and grandfather managed and governed in his name. It was only in 1746, with the passing of the chief minister; Lord Stockton, that the king was asked to assume the rule of the kingdom by his council, and so Henry XI did begin his rule in Ernest. It was in 1735 that he had taken a wife, the daughter of the 2nd Duke of Bolton, and had a many great children with her; eleven pregnancies in total, with seven children surviving, but alas the later years were not kind to the children, and thus only three of them did make it past the age of twenty.
It was in the year of 1764, at the age of 61, that Henry XI did pass, and his reign is remembered dearly for the peace and mercantile prosperity it brought. He was succeeded by his daughter, Mary.
[10] Mary, who had been named after her ancestress Mary Tudor, Queen of France, was the eldest of the surviving three daughters of Henry XI, being born in 1740. As heiress presumptive, she had been married off domestically to the younger Henry Somerset, 5th Duke of Beaufort at the age of twenty-one. The couple were fruitful, having fifteen healthy children - ten sons and five daughters - but it was known that both were unfaithful to each other, the marriage itself was cold and distant, and rumors floated that the queen secretly took female lovers due to her many female favorites at court while heiress. As sovereign, she was a connoisseur of music and applied arts, and patronized artists and craftsmen in her lifetime. Although her accession was at first welcomed by politicians of all parties, she would see her early reign being marked by political instability, largely generated as a result of her ambiguous religion and sexuality. This was resolved eventually, with the dismissal of all of her favorites and public displays of piety, and in her widowhood she always wore black in mourning for her husband. She aided the Royal Academy of Arts with large grants, and diverted colonial expansions to the north and south instead of the west. . She was also, in her old age, a recreational botanist who contributed towards the development and expansion of Kew Gardens in Southwest London. Under her, the agricultural revolution reached its peak and great advancements were made in fields such as science and industry. Adored by her subjects to the end of her days, she would peacefully die in her armchair, holding the hand of her beloved heir, Richard.
[11] Richard was the eldest surviving son of Henry, Prince of Wales and Mary II, Queen of Scotland. He was also the grandson of Mary I, Queen of England and Henry Somerset, 5th Duke of Beaufort. Mary I had arranged a marriage between her eldest son and the then Princess of Scotland in an effort to unite the two Royal Houses and the Kingdoms to create a united Isle of Britain in the future. The union between the two produced seven children of which Richard was the oldest having been born in 1776 and thus became second in line to the throne behind his father and was third in line to the throne of Scotland behind his mother and grandfather, James IX, King of Scotland. Tragedy however came upon the kingdom as Richard’s father, the then Prince of Wales, died in 1789 after a short illness believed today to have been Typhoid Fever.
With his father’s passing Richard became heir apparent as the new Prince of Wales. After the death of Henry, his wife entered a deep depression that prolonged into her reign as Queen of Scotland which only worsened her health and it was decided that Richard would be regent due to many believing that Mary was unfit to rule. Due to the combined factors Mary only reigned six years from 1796 to 1802 and Richard became the King of Scotland as Richard I. Richard’s brief reign as solely the King of Scotland was a peaceful one improving infrastructure and basic livings for the common people. Richard’s most notable project as king would be the construction of a national mental health hospital dedicated to his mother who he had seen living in torment after the death of his father. Richard was only king for eight years when he received word that his grandmother was ill and immediately rode to London where he stayed with her in her final hours.
After the death of Queen Mary, Richard was crowned King of England as Richard IV but would later unite the titles together as the Kingdom of Britain and began his reign with ease, continuing his efforts in Scotland and expanding them to England. Richard would only have four years of peace as the King of Britain for he would become part of the War of the Sixth Coalition against the French Empire. England had not fought in the previous coalition wars due to Mary I not wanting to risk losing the prospect of a United Isle due to France having good relations with Scotland but now Richard decided that the time was right to join the conflict and after over a year of war the French Empire surrendered. A debate however, began between members of the coalition as to whether the House of Bourbón should be placed back on the throne due to several members believing that their mismanagement and total disregard of the common people led to the French Revolution in the first place. After much discussion it was decided that Louis Philippe, Duke of Orléans and a member of a cadet branch of the House of Bourbón would become King of France while the House of Bourbón would be allowed to reside in France which Richard supported.
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Now that the war was over many in England believed that it was time for Richard to find a wife but he was in no rush to do so being quoted to have said: “It will not be me to find a wife, but for a wife to find me.” Though many feared that he would never find a wife they would not have to worry long as Richard would meet his future wife less than a month later during the coronation of Louis Philippe as King of the French which Richard was invited to attend. Whilst there Richard would meet Adélaïde d’Orléans, the sister of the now King Louis Philippe I of France and the two would dance together during the celebration after the coronation. After his return to England, Richard would exchange letters between him and Adélaïde and after a few months of writing one another Richard would travel to France yet again to ask for her hand in marriage and the two would be married the following year. Richard and Adélaïde’s marriage would be a happy one with both having a genuine love for each other and together they would produce 7 children.
Richard expanded his colonies to some extent during his reign, expanding only to hold as much as he could handle and never overextending his reach. Richard also consolidated smaller colonies into larger ones where he could and reorganized their political structures for what was best for them individually and put free natives in positions of power creating some of the largest self-sustaining colonies in the world. To see how the colonies were doing Richard would go on a over a year long trip around the world with his family inspecting the colonies himself reorganizing them as needed. Eventually Richard reached Africa where he met with colonial officials and tribal leaders alike to see how the colonies there were doing and experienced something that would change his life forever. While inspecting the more distant villages Richard would see in the distance a field being harvested by slaves some no younger than four years old and upon seeing this the king reportedly broke down in tears. Once back in London the had not yet been finished when he himself would draft and sign the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade effectively ending slavery across the empire. The Act was also famous for changing colonies from being designated as Imperial Holdings under the British Empire to Federal Holdings under the Federative Colonies of the Kingdom of Britain.
Richard would also expand the Bank of England by merging it with the Bank of Scotland to form the Bank of Britain. Richard would also reform the government by putting in checks and balances so that the king could not longer sign documents without the approval of Parliament. He would also make it so that there would be term limits on Prime Ministers and Members of Parliament. Richard also promoted agriculture, science, and the arts. Richard also found a pastime in painting and would paint several notable pieces of art that he would put on display in the British National Museum of Art.
Richard would however be filled with sorrow in 1847 when his wife, Adélaïde, would die. Richard would however put it upon himself to not fall into depression and would begin to seek counseling where he would come up with the philosophy that would become adopted by mental health institutions across Britain: “Though ones who you love may move on to paradise above, remember to live earnestly and teach what you have learned to those who need it most.” Richard would live for 11 more years before dying in 1858 at the age of 82. Richard would be seen by historians as a reformer and a visionary while the large majority of people would see him as a kind and selfless servant of the people. Before passing Richard would be able to teach his heir, David in what he had learned throughout his life.
[12] Richard and Adélaïde choose the name David, for there had been two King Davids of England and Scotland respectively so it seemed right to name their first born son, David. He was born in 1817, a wedding night babe as he was called. The Prince of Wales grew up in his father's shadows, and he would admit later on his deathbed, that it chafed, but he never grew resentful. Instead, David decided to make his own mark. He decided to travel the Americas, partaking in an expedition to the Amazon jungle.
He returned to England in 1840, just in time for his father to insist that he took up his duties as heir which included finding a wife. To his surprise, David had already chosen a wife. A Brazilian woman by the name of Juliana Fontes, he met during his travels. There was plenty of blacklash, not to mention racists slurs being thrown around. Always compassionate, not to mention madly in love with his own wife, Richard agreed to the marriage between David and Juilena despite the jeers and mockery.
Juleina faced plenty of classism and racism during her years as Princess of Wales, but she was a resilient and shrewd woman, quite apt of learning languages (her father worked as a translator for a living, and had taught his children) and was quick at learning statecraft. She and David had four children. Sadly in 1556, they both fell ill with influenza after a trip to Spain. While David would get better, Juliena would die, throwing the prince of Wales into a deep depression. He would refuse to remarry. His signature beard was often said to be worn as his sign of mourning.
In 1858, his father would die. The new King David would threw a lavish funeral, deciding his father deserved nothing but the best. His reign was notably peaceful, but altogether unremarkable. Perhaps the most interesting was in 1873, when he published his memoirs from his travels of his youth. His health begun to decline again in 1880, going steadily down until he died in 1886 of a fever.
[13]
Elizabeth was the youngest of David and Juliana's four daughters, born in 1859, but she would be the only one who survived the bout of influenza which killed her three older sisters. Haunted by the deaths of her mother and sisters she grew up a quiet and withdrawn girl, yet the sense of "do what you want as long as it doesn't hurt anybody" instilled in her by her father always stayed steadfast. She obediently married the man he selected for her, the older and widowed Brownlow Cecil, 4th Marquess of Exeter whose wife Isabella had died of health issues. The couple did not have any surviving children despite years of marriage, which concerned her father greatly.
As the de facto Princess of Wales, she and her husband had carried out many public-facing duties and even went on two world tours, though critics decried this as an enormous waste of money in a time when many people struggled to scrape together enough for basic living. Fluent in six languages, she traveled far and wide across Europe on numerous state visits to meet her distant relatives, ignoring such criticism, for she was related to nearly every other living European monarch. As queen, she broke with constitutional precedent by being vocally political; her conservativism with regard to women's rights was very divisive, but some of her views were very progressive (she denounced the n-word and the concept of yellow peril).
During the first world war, she largely engaged in hospital work although she controversially offered political asylum to the deposed Tsar, Nicholas II and his immediate family. She herself would never leave Britain, declaring that she would only be dragged away in a coffin, a statement that was very popular with her subjects. She would end up dying shortly after the war ended, some say due to stress. Her reign would see the rise of socialism, communism, fascism, Irish republicanism, and the Scottish independence movement, all of which radically changed the political landscape of the British Empire. As she died childless, she would be succeeded by her second cousin once removed, William, 5th Duke of Avondale.
Her cousin, Edward VI decided to make her his heir to prevent his Catholic sister, Mary from taking the throne. In defiance of his brother's will, he skipped both of his half sisters and named Jane as his heir. Many suspect his Lord Protector John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland's hand in this as his youngest son, Guildford was soon married to the future queen. Despite being opposites in personality, Guildford and Jane had a happy marriage with Guildford being known as a man who was extremely protective of his wife. In one incident, he punched his brother Robert for insulting her (the fact that Robert was in love with Jane's political rival did not help). Jane would get pregnant three times. She would make Guildford the Duke of Clarence despite he and his family pressuring her to make him king.
In July of 1553, Edward died and Northumberland immediately had the Lady Mary arrested, catching her fleeing from her Hudson home. He put he under house arrest at first, fearing that her popularity would spark outrage if he tried to put her in prison. Lady Mary would die in February 1554 of cancer (although rumors persist she was poisoned by either Northumberland or the Queen's Mother, Frances). Mary would commonly be known as the Queen that never was. It was also arranged for Elizabeth to be married to Eric of Sweden.
With both of her rivals removed from the game board, Jane was allowed a little bit more a free hand at ruling, although she was still being "advised" by the Dudleys and the Greys. She arranged a marriage for Margaret Clifford, daughter of her Aunt Eleanor, to Henry Stanley, the 4th Earl of Derby. She made a new act of succession, decreeing that if she were to die heiress, the crown would be passed to her sisters, their children then Margaret, her children.
As a stanch Protestant, Jane continued with Edward's policies. However, she took a softer touch with it came with Catholics. As one courtier would put it, she much rather debate than burn them for heresy. She also sponsored expeditions to the new world, Russia, and the East.
In 1556, she began to push back against her father and the Duke of Northumberland, going so far as removing them from her council, replacing them with advisors loyal to her. While Northumberland was pragmatic enough to realize that fighting with Jane would not help his cause, not to mention his son was her husband, one of his daughters was her lady-in-waiting, the Duke of Suffolk was enraged by what he felt was a betrayal of his daughter. Many modern depictions would show Henry Grey storming into Jane's chambers ready to beat with the inch of her life, with Jane, cold as ice, threatening to have her father arrested for treason if he even raised his hand at her.
While there is very little evidence to support that Henry and Frances Grey were physically abusive, let alone Jane threaten to arrest them if they ever hurt her once she became king, it is clear that in 1556, Jane was adamant to no longer be under the thumb of her relatives. Although Guildford was not pleased with his father ousting, he would continue to support his wife, keeping their arguments behind closed doors while maintaining a united front in public.
In 1559, Lords of the Congregation, made up of anti-French Protestant Scottish nobles, requested England's help in their war against Mary of Guise's regency. Now while some portrayals like to play up the rumored romance between the late King Edward and Jane Grey, often insisting that her agreement was born out of petty jealousy for her rival, it is clear by what was known of Jane's character that she truly believed in the rebels' caused and was determined to help them. (Of course Mary of Scots being the Catholic heir to the throne of England probably helped).
At first things looked pretty good until the French decided to retaliate by retaking Calais, something the English were unprepared for. This and the death of King Francis II, leaving Mary of Scots a widow, had Jane making a peace treaty with France and Scotland, calling back her troops. She allowed Queen Mary passage to Scotland through England, even hosting Mary at one point. While the meeting between the two queens was tense, it should be noted that neither woman seemed to overly hostile, even in their spirited debates on religion.
In October 1562, Jane would be stricken with smallpox. At first it was thought only to be a cold, but then it grew worse. Jane had her husband Guildford acting as regent as she languished in bed. There was hope that she would get better, but as the days went on, it was clear she would not. Her death was a devastating blow to the Dudleys and the Greys. The Duke of Clarence would wear black for the rest of his life and would not marry again. He would, however, stay on in the council as an advisor to Jane's eldest son, Edward.
Edward VII, painted by Nicholas Hilliard, c. 1577, to celebrate his upcoming marriage
[2] Edward VII was a Tudor in all but name. Tall, fair, and athletic he was a charming young man. He would never grow to be an old one.
Born in 1555, Edward VII was the oldest of Jane’s children, and was only 7 when she died. His father would work hard to keep him involved in the running of the country. And Edward grew up fascinated with England, their colonial expeditions and diplomatic relations. His exuberance was charming, and England adored him.
In 1577, at age 22, just days before his wedding, Edward’s horse would stumble coming out of a jump. He would fall and hit his head. He was succeeded by his niece, Margaret.
Miniature portrait of Queen Margaret of England, painted by Nicholas Hilliard shortly before her death
(3) Lady Jane Dudley, daughter of Queen Jane and the Duke of Clarence, was the second of three children and the eldest of two daughters, born in 1560, and married to her cousin, Ferdinando Stanley (1559 to 1594), during her brothers reign in 1576. Lady Jane was soon pregnant and gave birth to a daughter, Margaret, in early 1577, shortly before her brother died, with Jane dying of complications just days before the child's birth. Edward elevated his brother-in-law, Ferdinando, to Lord of the Isle of Wight, in absence of his own titles (Ferdinando used Baron Strange, a subsidiary title of his father's as a courtesy one at Court) and then Edward died.
Margaret, only months old, was Queen. Next in line to the throne was her fifteen year old Aunt, who the Privy Council determined, could not act as Regent, though it was determined she must marry with haste. As luck would have it, with the death of Margaret Stanley, and the fact that Katherine, Countess of Pembroke, and Mary, Baroness Grey de Wilton, remained childless, the Lord of (the Isle of) Wight, placed fourth in the line of succession himself, the first male, despite the Countess and Baroness being elder than him. From 1577 to 1595, the Regency of Wight took place, with the Earl of Pembroke and the Baron Grey de Wilton, playing significant advisory figures. The Lord placed consideration for Margaret's marriage in the hands of the Countess and Baroness and in 1593, the Queen was married to Maurice, Prince of Orange, ten years her senior. She would soon fall pregnant, and would have, like her mother before her, three children. Despite having reached majority in 1595, Margaret still placed a large amount of responsibility in her Regency Council to rule in her stead, with equal importance placed on their new military ties to the Dutch Republic as well as to their continued colonial efforts.
In 1589, at the age of twelve, she would travel to Edinburgh with her Great Aunt, the Duchess of Pembroke, to witness the marriage of David, the Duke of Albany, (son of Mary and her third husband, the Earl of Bothwell), and Anna of Saxony. The Duchess stressed to Margaret that a cordial relationship must he ensured with Scotland, as Mary of Scots and her sons had a legitimate claim to England and that the Privy Council did not desire them to press it.
When she later had her first child, Margaret would state her desire that they marry a child of (by then) David III of Scotland and Anna of Saxony.
Margaret would die in 1598 at the age of 21, in birth with a fourth child. Both mother and child would not survive, and Margaret would be succeeded by her son, Henry.
[4] Henry was only four when his mother died. England settled in for another long regency, starting to wonder if they would forever be cursed with child monarchs who kept dying at young ages. Per his mother's wishes, Henry was married to Elizabeth Stewart, daughter of King David and his wife, Anna of Saxony. The two had been engaged since they were both in their cradles and began writing to each other from the ages of six. They managed to create a close bound before Elizabeth even arrived to England in 1612. They would have a fruitful marriage, having thirteen children.
When Henry reached the age of majority in 1609, he was allowed to rule for himself. He maintained a good relationship with his father, the Prince of Orange, pledging to send English troops in support should Spain ever renew their attack. He also maintained a good friendship with his brother-in-law, Fredrick V, Elector of the Palatinate. When the thirty year war in 1618 broke out, Henry believed it was his duty as a Protestant to help his fellow reformers. However, his wife, his father, and his advisors begged him not to fight himself, as his heir was only six-years-old. Reluctantly, Henry acquiesced.
In 1625, Maurice, Prince of Orange died, and Henry was now the leader of the Dutch Republic. Henry would nominate his half-uncle and namesake to rule over the Dutch, wanting them to keep their nominal independence. When Spain attacked with their armada, the combined forces of the Dutch and English navy managed to make decisive victory, having attack Spain from both sides of the English channel.
While Henry was a diligent ruler, he had one major vice. His love for fine food. By 1630, he began to suffer from gout and would eventually die from it three years later, leaving his kingdom in the hands of his son, David.
(5) David was the second, but eldest surviving, son of Henry IX of England and his wife, Elizabeth Stewart. He had five older sisters and was born in 1623, which meant that he inherited both of his father's thrones when he was only ten. Yes, it did seem as if England would be forced to endure yet another period of Regency, this time under the Duke of York, before the King assumed the throne in his own right in 1641, shortly ahead of his marriage to his cousin, Hollandine of the Palatinate, and the two produced only two children, both in the five years after their marriage, who survived childhood. With the protracted periods of Regency that England had been through, the Privy Council sought to build their own powers and began to transform into the House of Representatives that we know today - with the assorted nobles selecting one of themselves to act as Speaker of the House, representing them to the Duke of York, as Regent, and subsequently the King himself in 1641. After the tumultuous Spanish Armada of his father's reign, David saw his reign being relatively peaceful other than the the occasional trade dispute as the Speaker of the House clashed with the Grand Pensionary of the United Provinces, Jacob Cats.
In 1654, David died of what is believed to be a heart attack and was succeeded by his son, William.
[6] William was born in 1643, named for his uncle and regent. In 1552, the King of Spain agreed to officially to recognize that the Netherlands or the Dutch Republic were no longer under Spanish rule in exchange for the marriage between the then Prince of Wales, William, and his newborn daughter, Margaret Theresa who was eight years, the Prince's junior. Two years later, King David died of a heart attack, leaving the Netherlands and England to once again fall under a regency. In King David's will, he urged the privy council to go forward with the Spanish match, not wanting there to be war with Spain while his son was still young. After years of negotiation, the marriage agreement was finalized and at age twelve Margaret Theresa came to England.
King William was now a man of twenty and was less than impressed with his new bride. She was Catholic, unhealthy, Spanish, and that ugly Hapsburg jaw. However, William had been taught from a young age that a king must do his duty so despite his grumbling, he wed Margaret and then promptly spent his wedding night dancing, drinking, and sleeping with his mistress. Needless to say the marriage was not a happy one. Margaret was not a popular queen as she was quite adverse to the Protestant customs, and was quite unhappy not being able to practice her faith (despite that being one of the stipulations). She fell pregnant only once, and gave birth to a stillborn son in 1667. The strain of the pregnancy and the birth caused her to fall ill with a fever. She asked her husband about the baby, not knowing it had been stillborn. William in a moment of tenderness lied and said she had birthed a healthy son who would be king someday. When later asked about this, William admitted that he had been so cruel to her for so long that the least he could do was let her die happy.
Despite her unpopularity, William still ordered the customary six months of marriage. However, he also had his ambassadors searching for a new bride for him during that time as he lacked an heir (his brother, Henry, had died unmarried and heiress just six years earlier). He married for a second time in 1670 to Princess Wilhelmine Ernestine of Denmark. Although Wilhemlmine was certainly more popular with the people, she was not with her husband as he found her shy and solitary nature and the fact that she crippled to be a turn off.
By 1673, William requested a divorce, stating that the marriage had not been consummated. In exchange for her cooperation, William gave his former wife several manors in the countryside of England, and a hefty pension. After the divorce was finalized, William decided this time he was choosing his own bride, Elizabeth Wriothesley, widow of the the Earl of Northumberland who had returned from Italy just three years previous and caught the king's eye, ousting his previous long time mistress in the king's favor.
Elizabeth was a cultured woman who upon becoming queen, immediately used her court to invite many artists from Italy. Unlike William's previous two wives, she was a great lover of balls and masquerades. William and she were birds of a feather and their marriage was much smoother. She would give birth to two children. Sadly, Elizabeth would die of smallpox in 1690, leaving her husband a widow. William would wed Princess Elisabeth Sophie of Brandenburg. Despite the thirty year age gap and langue barrier, Sophie and William were able to have harmonious marriage, having two healthy children. Sophie would also be a doting stepmother to Elizabeth's children and would even become a lifetime friend of Wilheminine, even living with the later after the death of William.
While William dealt with his tumultuous love life, he also had foreign relation to handle. In 1672, before his divorce with his second wife, France invaded Rhainland. As King Louis was aware that the Dutch-Anglo alliance would be a strong opponent, they recruited Scotland and the Irish Catholics into helping them. William found himself being attacked by all sides. Worse Denmark was currently Scotland's ally despite the marriage between Wilheminine and William. Of course the fact that the king was planning on divorcing his wife being the worst kept secret in Europe probably didn't sway his brother-in-law to his side. However Denmark was currently feuding with Sweden so they opted to stay out of the mess.
Spain sided with King William when it became clear that France was after the Spanish Netherlands which also brought the aid of Emperor Leopold. The war lasted for six years with heavy loses on both sides. William barely escaped capture during the disastrous battle of Anterwp. It ended in 1678, with France conceding the Dutch territories, but keeping control of the Burgundian Netherlands.
In order to gain back money, he lost in the war, William focused on expanding the Dutch and English trade routes, expanding their colonies in the new world. When his first living child was born in 1679, the king decided to make a marriage pact with the Holy Roman Emperor, hoping to make an alliance against France. However when the nine year war broke out in 1690s, William refused to help, feeling that his coffers had scarcely recovered from the last war. This would infuriate Emperor Leopold who brake the betrothal. King Louis swooped in and offed one his grandchildren for a match instead in exchange for a peace treaty. The two monarchs would meet in Scotland in 1695 with King Charles I of Scots playing mediator. One part of the agreement was the sale of Louisiana.
Outside of marital troubles and wars, William had a strong thirst for knowledge, he loved to learn about new things, and was quite eager to fund universities, inventors, and scientists. He even founded a royal society for improving natural knowledge. He was gifted with a telescope for his sixteenth birthday and would spend hours looking up at the night sky. By the time he was twenty, he had built a laboratory adjacent to his own bedroom so he could perform his own experiments or watch the members of his society experiment themselves. It was often said the quickest way to drag William from a party or his mistress was to tell him that a new discovery had been made and watch as his eyes lit up like a child at Christmastide.
Unfortunately, this would led to his bad health in his later years as he began to experiment with mercury. In 1701, he would die of what would later be discovered as kidney failure. He was fifty-eight at the time, leaving his son Henry to inherit.
[7] Born in 1682 as the eldest son and second child of William III and his third wife Elizabeth Wriothesley, Henry Frederick (named after both of his grandfathers) was a sickly child that many expected to not survive childhood. However, Henry managed to live to adulthood and succeeded his father as King in 1701 at the age of 19, breaking the curse of the country having monarchs who began reigning as children.
The celebrations continued when Henry married Princess Joan of Navarre in 1703, which resulted in the birth of two children. Unfortunately, the King died in 1708 at the age of 26 from tuberculosis. This meant that his son, David would succeed him as the new monarch.
(8) Prince David, previously Duke of Oxford, born in 1698 was the youngest of King William's children with his fourth wife, Elizabeth Sophie. His elder brother was a sickly child, so it was assumed that David would be the one to succeed to the throne, but Henry reached his majority and became King - the first monarch to do so within several generations, breaking The Grey Curse. Unfortunately Henry died at 26 of tuberculosis, his children having died of a pox mere months prior, leaving Joan of Navarre, childless and widowed and the ten year old David to take the throne, again under a Regency. It was popular court gossip as a result that Henry had been fathered by one of the servants rather than King William, thus why he had appeared to break the curse. Henry's mother acted as Regent, breaking the tradition that the Regent was the most senior figure of majority in line to the throne. The Dowager Queen being Regent was a French tradition, something that Elizabeth was fond of, plus she retained some sense of power rather than being shuffled off quietly to a country house by the House of Representatives and the Speaker.
Joan of Navarre was fourteen years older than David, but Elisabeth negotiated with Joan's father that she would remain in England, be granted a courtesy title - Duchess of Windsor - and married to David on his sixteenth birthday. The pair married, but Joan failed to produce any children, meaning that as years went on, David and Elizabet knew that the future of the Monarchy rested with his sisters or their issue, as each married and bore issue. Ultimately, David would die in 1830, aged only 32 when the Thames barge he was traveling on caught fire and sank. Both his wife, and his mother, survived him and he was succeeded by his nephew via his eldest sister; Prince Louis Henry, 2nd Duke of Ligonier.
(9) With the death of David II, the House of Stanley did come to a rather anticlimactic conclusion. David, from the death of his brother, was the sole remaining member of the line and thus much was rested upon his young shoulders, only for it all to be cast asunder with his death in 1730. The Netherlands formally abolished the Stadtholdership, which from the reign of Henry IX had been largely titular by any means, and did choose a Republican governance. Even the Principality of Orange fell to the wayside, with the King of France; François V, using the hastily made excuse of possible uprisings to occupy the Principality.
and so, from an informal empire spanning noncontiguous parts of Europe, the House of Stanley came to an end. In England herself, David II was succeeded by the son of his eldest sister.
Princess Margaret, born in 1679, had firstly married Prince Eberhard Louis of Wurttemberg in 1693, but his death in 1698 ended their brief union, and so after a brief tour of the Holy Roman Empire and France, Princess Margaret returned to England, where she did meet, and promptly fell in love with Jean Louis Ligonier, a Officer of the English Army from a Huguenot family who migrated but the year prior. Within the year, the pair were married and as part of his Coronation Honours in 1702, Henry X and II had granted to Ligonier the title of Duke of Ligonier and formally granted him the position of Colonel-in-Chief of the Yeomen Guard, and the year after, in 1703, a son was born to the pair; Louis Henry.
It was in 1711 that the Princess Margaret fell ill, and did pass in the winter of that year, leaving her Husband and son, and five years after that the Duke of Ligonier himself did pass, in a fateful accident on the Isle of Dogs, where the musket of a Hunter did hit the Duke as he rode along the Riverside., and so the young Louis Henry was now Duke of Ligonier. For much of his life, there was no expectation to be the throne, as David II was young enough to have issue a plenty, and so the 2nd Duke of Ligonier had the kfie if many an English nobleman, serving in the army, undergoing a true noble education, but it was in 1730, as the young Duke was on the Isle of Wight, when he was made aware of his uncles passing, and so he began to sail hence to London.
Henry XI of England
With his Coronation, the young King did take his middle name; Henry, and thus was crowned as Henry XI of England. After the coronation, He did turn to his Advisors and was said to have handed them the reigns, stating "you may as well take the reigns of this kingdom, for rule is as foreign to me as the Land of the Rus".
For the next Decade and a half, the King watched while the Advisors of his uncles and grandfather managed and governed in his name. It was only in 1746, with the passing of the chief minister; Lord Stockton, that the king was asked to assume the rule of the kingdom by his council, and so Henry XI did begin his rule in Ernest. It was in 1735 that he had taken a wife, the daughter of the 2nd Duke of Bolton, and had a many great children with her; eleven pregnancies in total, with seven children surviving, but alas the later years were not kind to the children, and thus only three of them did make it past the age of twenty.
It was in the year of 1764, at the age of 61, that Henry XI did pass, and his reign is remembered dearly for the peace and mercantile prosperity it brought. He was succeeded by his daughter, Mary.
[10] Mary, who had been named after her ancestress Mary Tudor, Queen of France, was the eldest of the surviving three daughters of Henry XI, being born in 1740. As heiress presumptive, she had been married off domestically to the younger Henry Somerset, 5th Duke of Beaufort at the age of twenty-one. The couple were fruitful, having fifteen healthy children - ten sons and five daughters - but it was known that both were unfaithful to each other, the marriage itself was cold and distant, and rumors floated that the queen secretly took female lovers due to her many female favorites at court while heiress. As sovereign, she was a connoisseur of music and applied arts, and patronized artists and craftsmen in her lifetime. Although her accession was at first welcomed by politicians of all parties, she would see her early reign being marked by political instability, largely generated as a result of her ambiguous religion and sexuality. This was resolved eventually, with the dismissal of all of her favorites and public displays of piety, and in her widowhood she always wore black in mourning for her husband. She aided the Royal Academy of Arts with large grants, and diverted colonial expansions to the north and south instead of the west. . She was also, in her old age, a recreational botanist who contributed towards the development and expansion of Kew Gardens in Southwest London. Under her, the agricultural revolution reached its peak and great advancements were made in fields such as science and industry. Adored by her subjects to the end of her days, she would peacefully die in her armchair, holding the hand of her beloved heir, Richard.
[11] Richard was the eldest surviving son of Henry, Prince of Wales and Mary II, Queen of Scotland. He was also the grandson of Mary I, Queen of England and Henry Somerset, 5th Duke of Beaufort. Mary I had arranged a marriage between her eldest son and the then Princess of Scotland in an effort to unite the two Royal Houses and the Kingdoms to create a united Isle of Britain in the future. The union between the two produced seven children of which Richard was the oldest having been born in 1776 and thus became second in line to the throne behind his father and was third in line to the throne of Scotland behind his mother and grandfather, James IX, King of Scotland. Tragedy however came upon the kingdom as Richard’s father, the then Prince of Wales, died in 1789 after a short illness believed today to have been Typhoid Fever.
With his father’s passing Richard became heir apparent as the new Prince of Wales. After the death of Henry, his wife entered a deep depression that prolonged into her reign as Queen of Scotland which only worsened her health and it was decided that Richard would be regent due to many believing that Mary was unfit to rule. Due to the combined factors Mary only reigned six years from 1796 to 1802 and Richard became the King of Scotland as Richard I. Richard’s brief reign as solely the King of Scotland was a peaceful one improving infrastructure and basic livings for the common people. Richard’s most notable project as king would be the construction of a national mental health hospital dedicated to his mother who he had seen living in torment after the death of his father. Richard was only king for eight years when he received word that his grandmother was ill and immediately rode to London where he stayed with her in her final hours.
After the death of Queen Mary, Richard was crowned King of England as Richard IV but would later unite the titles together as the Kingdom of Britain and began his reign with ease, continuing his efforts in Scotland and expanding them to England. Richard would only have four years of peace as the King of Britain for he would become part of the War of the Sixth Coalition against the French Empire. England had not fought in the previous coalition wars due to Mary I not wanting to risk losing the prospect of a United Isle due to France having good relations with Scotland but now Richard decided that the time was right to join the conflict and after over a year of war the French Empire surrendered. A debate however, began between members of the coalition as to whether the House of Bourbón should be placed back on the throne due to several members believing that their mismanagement and total disregard of the common people led to the French Revolution in the first place. After much discussion it was decided that Louis Philippe, Duke of Orléans and a member of a cadet branch of the House of Bourbón would become King of France while the House of Bourbón would be allowed to reside in France which Richard supported.
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Now that the war was over many in England believed that it was time for Richard to find a wife but he was in no rush to do so being quoted to have said: “It will not be me to find a wife, but for a wife to find me.” Though many feared that he would never find a wife they would not have to worry long as Richard would meet his future wife less than a month later during the coronation of Louis Philippe as King of the French which Richard was invited to attend. Whilst there Richard would meet Adélaïde d’Orléans, the sister of the now King Louis Philippe I of France and the two would dance together during the celebration after the coronation. After his return to England, Richard would exchange letters between him and Adélaïde and after a few months of writing one another Richard would travel to France yet again to ask for her hand in marriage and the two would be married the following year. Richard and Adélaïde’s marriage would be a happy one with both having a genuine love for each other and together they would produce 7 children.
Richard expanded his colonies to some extent during his reign, expanding only to hold as much as he could handle and never overextending his reach. Richard also consolidated smaller colonies into larger ones where he could and reorganized their political structures for what was best for them individually and put free natives in positions of power creating some of the largest self-sustaining colonies in the world. To see how the colonies were doing Richard would go on a over a year long trip around the world with his family inspecting the colonies himself reorganizing them as needed. Eventually Richard reached Africa where he met with colonial officials and tribal leaders alike to see how the colonies there were doing and experienced something that would change his life forever. While inspecting the more distant villages Richard would see in the distance a field being harvested by slaves some no younger than four years old and upon seeing this the king reportedly broke down in tears. Once back in London the had not yet been finished when he himself would draft and sign the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade effectively ending slavery across the empire. The Act was also famous for changing colonies from being designated as Imperial Holdings under the British Empire to Federal Holdings under the Federative Colonies of the Kingdom of Britain.
Richard would also expand the Bank of England by merging it with the Bank of Scotland to form the Bank of Britain. Richard would also reform the government by putting in checks and balances so that the king could not longer sign documents without the approval of Parliament. He would also make it so that there would be term limits on Prime Ministers and Members of Parliament. Richard also promoted agriculture, science, and the arts. Richard also found a pastime in painting and would paint several notable pieces of art that he would put on display in the British National Museum of Art.
Richard would however be filled with sorrow in 1847 when his wife, Adélaïde, would die. Richard would however put it upon himself to not fall into depression and would begin to seek counseling where he would come up with the philosophy that would become adopted by mental health institutions across Britain: “Though ones who you love may move on to paradise above, remember to live earnestly and teach what you have learned to those who need it most.” Richard would live for 11 more years before dying in 1858 at the age of 82. Richard would be seen by historians as a reformer and a visionary while the large majority of people would see him as a kind and selfless servant of the people. Before passing Richard would be able to teach his heir, David in what he had learned throughout his life.
[12] Richard and Adélaïde choose the name David, for there had been two King Davids of England and Scotland respectively so it seemed right to name their first born son, David. He was born in 1817, a wedding night babe as he was called. The Prince of Wales grew up in his father's shadows, and he would admit later on his deathbed, that it chafed, but he never grew resentful. Instead, David decided to make his own mark. He decided to travel the Americas, partaking in an expedition to the Amazon jungle.
He returned to England in 1840, just in time for his father to insist that he took up his duties as heir which included finding a wife. To his surprise, David had already chosen a wife. A Brazilian woman by the name of Juliana Fontes, he met during his travels. There was plenty of blacklash, not to mention racists slurs being thrown around. Always compassionate, not to mention madly in love with his own wife, Richard agreed to the marriage between David and Juilena despite the jeers and mockery.
Juleina faced plenty of classism and racism during her years as Princess of Wales, but she was a resilient and shrewd woman, quite apt of learning languages (her father worked as a translator for a living, and had taught his children) and was quick at learning statecraft. She and David had four children. Sadly in 1556, they both fell ill with influenza after a trip to Spain. While David would get better, Juliena would die, throwing the prince of Wales into a deep depression. He would refuse to remarry. His signature beard was often said to be worn as his sign of mourning.
In 1858, his father would die. The new King David would threw a lavish funeral, deciding his father deserved nothing but the best. His reign was notably peaceful, but altogether unremarkable. Perhaps the most interesting was in 1873, when he published his memoirs from his travels of his youth. His health begun to decline again in 1880, going steadily down until he died in 1886 of a fever.
[13]
Elizabeth was the youngest of David and Juliana's four daughters, born in 1859, but she would be the only one who survived the bout of influenza which killed her three older sisters. Haunted by the deaths of her mother and sisters she grew up a quiet and withdrawn girl, yet the sense of "do what you want as long as it doesn't hurt anybody" instilled in her by her father always stayed steadfast. She obediently married the man he selected for her, the older and widowed Brownlow Cecil, 4th Marquess of Exeter whose wife Isabella had died of health issues. The couple did not have any surviving children despite years of marriage, which concerned her father greatly.
As the de facto Princess of Wales, she and her husband had carried out many public-facing duties and even went on two world tours, though critics decried this as an enormous waste of money in a time when many people struggled to scrape together enough for basic living. Fluent in six languages, she traveled far and wide across Europe on numerous state visits to meet her distant relatives, ignoring such criticism, for she was related to nearly every other living European monarch. As queen, she broke with constitutional precedent by being vocally political; her conservativism with regard to women's rights was very divisive, but some of her views were very progressive (she denounced the n-word and the concept of yellow peril).
During the first world war, she largely engaged in hospital work although she controversially offered political asylum to the deposed Tsar, Nicholas II and his immediate family. She herself would never leave Britain, declaring that she would only be dragged away in a coffin, a statement that was very popular with her subjects. She would end up dying shortly after the war ended, some say due to stress. Her reign would see the rise of socialism, communism, fascism, Irish republicanism, and the Scottish independence movement, all of which radically changed the political landscape of the British Empire. As she died childless, she would be succeeded by her second cousin once removed, William, 5th Duke of Avondale.
[14] Elizabeth’s death extinguished the senior line of descent from Richard IV, so, in their search for an heir, Parliament was forced to trace back the family tree two generations, to the line of Richard IV’s second son, Phillip, Duke of Avondale (b.1820).
Phillip married Lady Elizabeth Georgiana Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, eldest daughter of the Duke of Sutherland in 1842, when he was 22 and she was just eighteen, and they had four daughters, Georgiana, Adelaide, Maria and Harriet, as well as three sons, Richard, George and Henry.
Richard died unmarried during the first Boer War, but George, who married Lady Victoria Alexandrina Spencer in 1877, left numerous descendants, including his eldest grandson, William, who, upon the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1918, was twelve years old. Despite his young age, however, William, was already Duke of Avondale, his father Richard having died at the Battle of the Somme two years earlier.
Duke of Avondale paled in comparison to the regnal coronet, however, and William, Elizabeth’s nearest male relative, for all he was only her second cousin once removed, was promptly installed as King of Britain, under the Regency of his paternal and maternal uncles, Lord Edward Beaufort and the sixth Earl Spencer.
Having a child on the throne may well have been the only reason that Scotland’s 1920 referendum for independence failed, as a significant proportion of the Scots, while disgruntled at the senior Beaufort line, were willing to give their new young King the benefit of the doubt and chose to either vote to remain within the Union or to abstain from voting entirely. In the end, the vote to remain won the referendum 56%-44%.
Even that was far too close a shave for the Regents, however, and they promptly embarked on a grand project to win over William’s Scottish subjects, using the young King’s Scottish heritage to their advantage. In 1921, fifteen-year-old William was sent to Merchiston school in Edinburgh to finish his education, before being enrolled in the Royal Navy as a Second Lieutenant and sent to Scapa Flow for naval training. He would eventually rise to the rank of Commodore.
It was during his years at Scapa Flow that William met and fell in love with Hope Madden, the third daughter of his First Sea Lord, Sir Charles Madden. He wanted nothing more than to marry his ‘darling Hope’, but unfortunately for Hope and William, the third daughter of a simple Baronet wasn’t seen as good enough for a King, particularly one who hadn’t had a particularly strong claim to the throne in the first place.
Parliament made it vitally clear that, if William wished to continue to receive the money set aside for him in the Civil List, then he needed to marry a foreign Princess, or at the very least an Earl’s daughter.
In the end, he married Princess Juliana of the Netherlands, second child and only daughter of Queen Wilhelmina in 1937, after meeting her at the Berlin Olympics the previous year. Their marriage was a rocky one, Juliana’s fierce Dutch Reformed piety clashing with William’s lukewarm Anglicanism, and the two of them fighting bitterly over William’s clear preference for Lady Hope, whom he created Countess of Inverness a year after his marriage to Juliana.
However, they did at least manage to secure the succession, with three children born in 1938, 1942 and 1948.
William always preferred his naval duties to his regnal ones, and the outbreak of World War Two in 1939, found him throwing himself into escort duty for supply lines across the Atlantic, much to his ministers’ horror, who feared greatly for Britain should he be killed, given his only heir was a fifteen-month-old child.
In the end, they compromised. William would be allowed to join the escorts if, and only if, he sent his family to safety in Canada. As such, Queen Juliana, accompanied by the heir to the throne, as well as by Lady Inverness and her two daughters, Lady Rosemary and Lady Georgiana, set sail for Halifax in Nova Scotia from Southampton in April 1940. William wouldn’t see them again, barring a brief three-weeks leave in late 1941, (the result of which was his second child, ________, who was born the following July....) until they returned from Canada in August 1945, by which time the royal children didn’t recognise their father. His eldest daughter by Lady Inverness however, most certainly did. Lady Rosemary melted hearts around the world by flying down the dock at Southampton to throw herself into her father’s arms, before remembering herself and pulling back from his embrace to drop him a perfect curtsy and salute, crying “God Save the King!” while William looked on proudly.
William’s heroic involvement in the war, however nerve-wracking it was for his ministers, did wonders for his popularity, particularly with his English subjects, while Juliana’s dropped critically in the wake of what was seen as her ‘abandonment’ of her royal duties. Her position as Queen was extremely shaky in the wake of her Canadian sojourn and only the birth of her youngest child, in January 1948, truly stabilised it again.
The rest of William’s reign was relatively peaceful. He oversaw the transition of India from a British Colony to a self-governing Dominion within the British Empire, and sent his heir, ________________ to South Africa, to learn to rule by being Governor-General there, when they came of age.
However, while William’s English and Scottish subjects adored him, and his Canadian subjects were very fond of Queen Juliana, the same could not be said for all his subjects. The Irish, in particular, were incensed by Britain’s refusal to let them leave the Empire, or even transition to Dominion status like India, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Various factions showed their disgruntlement in increasingly violent ways, with eventually fatal results. The heir’s happy years in South Africa would be brought to an abrupt end in July 1982, when William, attending a lunchtime concert given by the Royal Green Jackets, was killed by an IRA bomb that exploded under the bandstand where the musicians were performing.
William IV, ‘The Sailor King’, died on July 20th, 1982, at the age of 76, and was succeeded on the throne of Britain by ________________________
NB: I have *lots* of headcanon about this King, and it may not all have made it across clearly. Let me know if anything needs explaining!
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