Louis I of Scotland?

*Hiss and crackle*

"Hello again, my lovelies. This is agent LaCroix reporting. Agent Edwards managed to shout himself hoarse getting the locals in this hotel to make what he considers proper tea so I'll be making this report."

*sounds of paper shuffling*

"Bernard II, Duke of Saxony, had no qualms about the son of the French King marrying his daughter but when he died with no direct male heir and Charles wanted control of Saxony trouble started. Well actually war started. Frederick III, the Holy Roman Emperor declared war on Charles, saying he wasn't the true Duke of Saxony and Charles called to his father for help. Louis XI, his father, was more than happy, well actually probably not that happy to be at war but willing enough to make war in order to ensure that Saxony remained a French possession. The Burgundians joined in on Frederick's side along with those Yorkists who had fled to Burgundy after their attempt to displace the Lancastrians failed. Florence joined the French although they mostly contributed coin from Medici coffers but the Condottieri those bought helped I'm sure.
In any case my illustrious ancestors fought well with the future Louis XII distinguishing himself on the field of battle. Later when he became king in 1483 he passed a law stating that all heirs must be trained with weapons and lead at least a company in battle before they may be crowned king. This caused trouble in the future but did prevent future kings from growing too estranged from the army or the lot of the common soldier. Considering what I've seen in various dimensions I'm calling this a good thing.

But back to the war, it lasted a good ten years and during the first two Louis XI wrangled troops and support from both Edward IV Plantagenet, his daughter's husband, and King Christian I of what he had started calling United Scandinavia.
It was declared over and a peace treaty signed in Geneva in June of 1475. Burgundy came to regret taking in the fleeing Yorkists as Great Britain annexed what is currently Belgium on our Earth and hold it to the present day. France took the rest of the former Duchy of Burgundy and all of Saxony except for Alsace which stayed part of the Holy Roman Empire.
United Scandinavia took Schleswig-Holstein and even expanded it slightly. Margaret of York was the only Yorkist of any standing left standing afterwards because she had gone to Austria when her stepdaughter married Maximilian.

This was a main turning point and affected Europe for decades to come if not longer. This is Agent LaCroix signing off."

*a small click then silence*
 
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Thanks to all for your help and comments

1466 - Louis (son of Louis XI) marries Maria de Medici
War starts between Saxony, France, King Christian's United Scandinavia, and Britain on one side and the Holy Roman Empire, Burgundy, and the remaining Yorkists in exile on the other.

1475 - War ends
Britain gets Belgium, France gets Saxony and all of the Burgundy except Alsace, and United Scandinavia gets Schleswig-Holstein and a little extra land.

1481 - King Christian I dies and is succeeded by his son Hans I as king of United Scandinavia

1483 - Louis XII is crowned
The new lands taken have now been pacified and consolidated.
Louis XII has one son who is now the 11th Dauphin and 3 daughters.
Marriages for the daughters are planned to nobles in the former Lorraine, Burgundy, and Saxony.

1484 - Louis XII passes a law stating all future monarchs must have led a company (at least) of troops in battle before becoming a king.
The 11th Dauphin takes charge of a regiment and fights in Italy as a mercenary captain. He spends 18 months in the field. He is not brilliant but he is competent after he returns he is named heir.

1487 - While visiting the court at København Louis the Dauphin becomes enamored of the daughter of a noble from Lødingen in Norway but his father wants him to marry Elena Ivanovna, the daughter of Ivan III, Grand Prince of Moscow and all Russia.
 
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I'm also trying to find out if my supposition that war between France and the Holy Roman Emperor will delay La Reconquista and the unification of Spain under Los Reyes Catolicos, Ferdinand and Isabella, and thus making them a bit too busy to fund Columbus in 1492. It seems there were also hiring mercenaries and even getting troops from France and Austria, if so they won't be able to count on those troops in this TL.

You mean the final Granada war? It didn't begin until the early 1480s. And while there were foreigners (Swiss, Portuguese and English come to my mind, more than French and Austrian actually) involved, they weren't really mercenaries but volunteers still filled with crusader spirit. Yet their numbers were extremely low, and Granada was still facing Castile and Aragon combined anway... under a special draft of every available men between 15 and 60 in some regions in fact... so Granada has not a chance in hell.

Then the other issue, the unification. I don't think it would be deeply altered either. It was a Castilian civil war with the sides supported by Portugal and Aragon respectively. France supported the Portuguese baked side briefly, yet it didn't amount to much as it consisted of a single offensive against Fuenterrabia/Hondarribia right on the Basque frontier that failed miserably IOTL.
 
Thanks for the info. Yes I did mean the final war against Granada.
I guess Spain will still be the same in my TL. Hmmmmmmmm.
I was thinking Columbus would sail under the banner of Florence and find the Azores first. Leading to the Medici and others having trading posts there.
They then try to get the major countries interested in this new "trade route".
Hmmmmmm I'll have to see what I can do.
 
Unfortunately the Azores were already inhabited by the time I'm writing about.
So the expedition to find the "western route to Asia" could hardly discover them. Of course this makes me wonder whether or not I could have Columbus sail for Portugal not Spain. Any comments?

Oh and here is the bit about the Azores in the fifteenth Century, if anyone wants to know.

The Azores were reputedly discovered about 1427 by Diogo de Senill (or Sevilha), a pilot of the king of Portugal. No traces of previous human habitation or visitation were found on any of them. Settlement began on Santa Maria about 1432 under Gonçalo Velho Cabral, a Portuguese official. São Miguel was settled in 1444 and Terceira some years later. By the end of the 15th century all the islands were inhabited, and trade with Portugal became well established.
 
Here is another map. Again be warned that I suck at maps and I thank the Alt Hist Wiki for the map that I started with.

MY TL.jpg.png
 
This is the whole timeline so far up until the period shown on the map.

1423 Louis de Valois, who would be Louis XI, the Spider King, was born.

1424 Margaret Stewart is born in Dec.

1436 is given in marriage to the 13 year old Louis, Duc d’Anjou, and 9th Dauphin on 24 June. Instead of casual clothes he wears his finest and takes the time to talk to her making a good impression on the like minded Margaret.

1437 Assassination attempt on James I is unsuccessful unlike in OTL. James takes the hint and stops trying to centralize power. He lives another seventeen years until 1454.

1439 At sixteen Louis is sent by his father to direct the defense of Languedoc against the English, and to put down the brigandage in Poitou, he succeeds with the covert help and advice of his wife who has been creating an intelligence web of her own devising but his full knowledge and endorsement. He learns that the nobles will want him to try to become regent supplanting his father but she shows him that the troops are insufficient for the task. He refuses their offer but doesn’t betray them to the king. He does blackmail them to help fund the intelligence web.

1441 Fighting the English with help of some of his wife’s countrymen.

1443 At twenty aided his father to suppress the revolt of the count of Armagnac. He comes home to find his wife pregnant with his son whom he names Louis after himself.

1444 A.D. He led an army of from 20,000 mercenaries and brigands against the Swiss of the canton of Basel. The heroism of some two hundred Swiss, who for a while held thousands of the French army at bay, made a great impression on the young prince. After an ineffective siege of Basel, he made peace with the Swiss confederation, and led his soldiers into Alsace to ravage the country of the Habsburgs, who refused him the promised winter quarters. I’m thinking he takes a fair bit of loot and takes some of the more disciplined and effective mercenaries into his service in his territory. Margaret would be dead this year in OTL of a fever but instead lives on in this TL. Her brother James, who became James II of Scotland in OTL dies instead at fourteen. James I is still king, not having been assassinated.

1444-1453 In these intervening years they retire to the Dauphine, his hereditary territory in the southeast of France, and start running it as if it were an autonomous kingdom. He comes to understanding with the Swiss whom he respects and gets the local nobles firmly on his side by one means or another. During this period he has two more children with Margaret. They are named Charles and Mary.

Dec 1444 Charles is born to Margaret on the Louis’ estate in the Dauphine.
Louis and Margaret set out to govern his principality as though it were an independent state. He dismissed the governor; he determined advantageously to himself the boundaries between his state and the territories of the duke of Savoy and of the papacy; and he enforced his authority over perhaps the most unruly nobility in Western Europe, both lay and ecclesiastical. The right of private warfare was abolished; the bishops were obliged to give up most of their temporal jurisdiction, the scope of their courts was limited, and appeals to Rome were curtailed. On the other hand, Louis granted privileges to the towns and consistently used their alliance to overthrow the nobility. He watched the roads, built new ones, opened markets, protected the only bankers of the country, the Jews, and reorganized the administration so as to draw the utmost revenue possible from the prosperity thus secured.

1446 Margaret gives birth to her third child whom she names Mary.

1452. He marries his younger son to the eight year old daughter of the Duke of Savoy. He does this to seal a secret treaty with the duke of Savoy which was to give him right of way to Genoa, and make arrangements for a partition of the duchy of Milan.

1453 Charles VII starts worrying that the people like his bright and ambitious son better than he and he starts planning a Royal procession to the city Louis has made his home. It is a thinly disguised attempt to bring a large number of troops with him when he requires Louis come back to court. Charles comes to visit his son sooner than in OTL but Louis has a very similar reaction. It is clear to both Louis and Margaret that he is worried about a coup and even though they do not plan one, they do not want to take chances on Royal Mercy so they flee to her father in Scotland.

They flee to Scotland where shortly after they arrive James I dies and Margaret becomes Queen. Her brother James has already been dead some years of disease. Louis is Prince Consort and now that he is “the power behind the throne” sets his formidable will to expanding his own intelligence apparatus. He squashes all rumors about the coincidental nature of the king’s death the year after they arrive and builds goodwill both in secret and in public as he is also her general and his battle plans in case of English attack are widely considered genius. He would command during whatever small skirmishes or border incidents there were if possible.

Also in this year:
July 17 1st battle at Castillon: French beat English troops
July 23 Battle at Gavere: Philip the Good beats Gentse rebellion
October 19 2nd Battle at Castillon: French beat English, end of hundred year war

1454 Margaret gives birth to her fourth and last child, a daughter she names Anne.
(obviously this means last child to live long enough to make any history. The unfortunate truth is that all too many children did not survive in this century. It is likely that were others as well as possible miscarriages but I won't refer to them after this. I just wanted you all to know it was because of squeamishness rather than ignorance.)

1461 He gets word that Charles VII is dying and that his brother will get to Paris first. He arranges for riots and public condemnation to delay the coronation. Meanwhile he gathers an army of Scots and mercenaries and sets sail leaving his son to watch out for his mother’s interests in Scotland. Charles the Bold is one of his allies in the endeavor. He arrives in Paris after his father’s death but his planned diversions have kept Charles, Duc de Berry from assuming the throne. Agents provocateur has spread rumors and suspicions about the king dying so soon after the Duc de Berry’s arrival in Paris. He settles the unrest, crowns himself king, and has his brother imprisoned on suspicion of treason and regicide. After he and his troops have secured Paris he names his eighteen year old son the tenth Dauphin and proclaims he will be king of both Scotland and France.
After a somewhat biased trial he executes his brother in public before the crowd.
Meanwhile in England the year had seen several large battles and a large victory for the new Duke of York who was now calling himself King Edward IV. Queen Margaret, Henry VI, Somerset, and Edward of Westminster fled to Scotland where Margaret, Queen of Scots welcomed Margaret, Queen of England with courtesy if not great warmth since the English Queen, Margaret of Anjou was her husband’s cousin.

1462 Louis XI is considering dynastic Marriages. At eighteen his elder son has been a bachelor much longer than he. He considers possible marriages for his other daughter as well. He communicates with his relative Marie of Anjou and offers her assistance from both France and Scotland but at a price. He wants Calais and for his daughter to wed the Prince of Wales, her son known ITTL as Edward the Hale. She agrees and gets her husband, Henry VI to agree as well and a formal document is drawn up and signed by Louis, Henry, and both Margarets. It states that Calais belongs to France, that the Prince of Wales, Edward the Hale of Westminster would marry Mary, Princess of Scotland and France, and it states that all three countries were bound to each other’s defense in wartime.
Thus a hatchet is buried that would otherwise cause much strife. It wasn’t quite that easy of course and there was much grumbling in all three countries but it wasn’t allowed to progress much beyond grumbling.
The marriage is held in Paris, while war is vigorously pursued on the island.

1463 Isabella of Bourbon dies two years early. Charles the Bold is offered the hand of Anne, sister of Louis XI, in marriage but only if Burgundy stays out of the war of course. He was also offered the hand of Margaret of York if he joined in on the Yorkist side.
Philip the Good refuses for his son and Charles marries Margaret of York. Burgundians forces join in the battles raging through England.

1464
- January 9 1st meeting of States-General of Netherlands

- February
In OTL Christian I of Denmark and Norway, who was also serving as King of Sweden, is declared deposed from the latter throne. His deposed predecessor Charles VIII of Sweden is re-elected to the throne.
In this TL his upcoming marriage to Anne, Princess of France and Scotland and daughter of Louis XI of France helps get him re-elected due to the savvy and financial assistance of his future in-laws.
Christian I meets with representatives of Louis and Edward the Hale about joining the war to offset the Burgundians.

- April 25
– Battle of Hedgeley Moor: Yorkist forces under Lord Montague defeat Lancastrians under Sir Ralph Percy, who is killed. Same outcome as in OTL but ITTL the month also features the marriage of Christian I to Anne de Valois making her Queen of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.
Christian states he wants one of the Hebrides or one of the Channel Islands in return for getting in to the war. This does not go over well.

- June 19 French King Louis XI forms postal service

- August 30 – Pope Paul II succeeds Pope Pius II as the 211th pope.

- September - Charles the Bold dies on the field of battle. Christian I stops pressing for land in return for his help and his army joins the field of battle on the island. The remaining Burgundian forces return home in disarray. Louis XI casts covetous glances at Burgundian lands as does the Holy Roman Empire. Charles' daughter Mary tries to keep the state independent with the assistance of her stepmother Margaret.


1465 - With help from France, Scotland, and a United Scandinavia under Christian I the Lancastrians bring and early end to the wars of the roses.
Henry VI dies shortly after being restored to his throne but his wife, his son and his daughter in law are more than capable of taking care of the kingdom. Margaret of Anjou would be Queen Mum if I have this right and her son Edward would be Edward IV but a different one than Edward IV IOTL.

1466 - Louis (son of Louis XI) marries Maria de Medici
War starts between Saxony, France, King Christian's United Scandinavia, and Britain on one side and the Holy Roman Empire, Burgundy, and the remaining Yorkists in exile on the other.

1467 - Queen Anne bears Christian I a son whom they name Hans.

1475 - War ends
Britain gets Belgium, France gets Saxony and all of the Burgundy except Alsace, and United Scandinavia gets Schleswig-Holstein and a little extra land.

1481 - King Christian I dies and is succeeded by his son Hans I as king of United Scandinavia

1483 - Louis XII is crowned
The new lands taken have now been pacified and consolidated.
Louis XII has one son who is now the 11th Dauphin and 3 daughters.
Marriages for the daughters are planned to nobles in the former Lorraine, Burgundy, and Saxony.

1484 - Louis XII passes a law stating all future monarchs must have led a company (at least) of troops in battle before becoming a king.
The 11th Dauphin takes charge of a regiment and fights in Italy as a mercenary captain. He spends 18 months in the field. He is not brilliant but he is competent after he returns he is named heir.

1487 - While visiting the court at København Louis the Dauphin becomes enamored of Beate, the daughter of a noble from Lødingen in Norway but his father wants him to marry Elena Ivanovna, the daughter of Ivan III, Grand Prince of Moscow and all Russia. This could have gotten sticky but after a long and private talk with his uncle Christian Louis sends Beate to his estate in the southeast of France and agrees to marry Elena.
 
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*Hiss and crackle*

"Hello again, my lovelies. This is agent LaCroix reporting. Agent Edwards managed to shout himself hoarse getting the locals in this hotel to make what he considers proper tea so I'll be making this report."

*sounds of paper shuffling*

"Bernard II, Duke of Saxony, had no qualms about the son of the French King marrying his daughter but when he died with no direct male heir and Charles wanted control of Saxony trouble started. Well actually war started. Frederick III, the Holy Roman Emperor declared war on Charles, saying he wasn't the true Duke of Saxony and Charles called to his father for help. Louis XI, his father, was more than happy, well actually probably not that happy to be at war but willing enough to make war in order to ensure that Saxony remained a French possession. The Burgundians joined in on Frederick's side along with those Yorkists who had fled to Burgundy after their attempt to displace the Lancastrians failed. Florence joined the French although they mostly contributed coin from Medici coffers but the Condottieri those bought helped I'm sure.
In any case my illustrious ancestors fought well with the future Louis XII distinguishing himself on the field of battle. Later when he became king in 1483 he passed a law stating that all heirs must be trained with weapons and lead at least a company in battle before they may be crowned king. This caused trouble in the future but did prevent future kings from growing too estranged from the army or the lot of the common soldier. Considering what I've seen in various dimensions I'm calling this a good thing.

But back to the war, it lasted a good ten years and during the first two Louis XI wrangled troops and support from both Edward IV Plantagenet, his daughter's husband, and King Christian I of what he had started calling United Scandinavia.
It was declared over and a peace treaty signed in Geneva in June of 1475. Burgundy came to regret taking in the fleeing Yorkists as Great Britain annexed what is currently Belgium on our Earth and hold it to the present day. France took the rest of the former Duchy of Burgundy and all of Saxony except for Alsace which stayed part of the Holy Roman Empire.
United Scandinavia took Schleswig-Holstein and even expanded it slightly. Margaret of York was the only Yorkist of any standing left standing afterwards because she had gone to Austria when her stepdaughter married Maximilian.

This was a main turning point and affected Europe for decades to come if not longer. This is Agent LaCroix signing off."

*a small click then silence*

* a hissing crackle*
"Well don't stop there man! Is the place suitable for exploration and/or trade with our Anglo-Frankan World Union or not? We've only found three good candidate out of the 43 we've checked previously and you've brought in two of them. Please tell me lightning has struck a third time."

"Well my lovelies I'd have to say trade with these people would be delicious! They've got 7 different strains of cocoa plant growing and they are excellent at mixing it into foods and beverages. They also have the loveliest coffee, it tastes even better than it smells unlike the coffee back home. I swear I'm going to retire here! If I ever manage to gather the nerve to go back that is."

"If you don't 'gather the nerve' we'll jolly well haul you back! Now aside from apparently decadent foods do they have anything else to trade?"

A large sigh escapes La Croix, "Well they are mostly behind us in tech. Edwards thinks it is the lack of wars. They had no World Wars here. The last war was 150 years ago when the French and British warred over the peninsula we call Florida back home. Here it is La Fleur but the former British Colony to the north, Vespuccia, tried to take it "en passant" as it were and discovered the French were more than willing to fight about it.
Unknown to them they had just won the war the Vespuccians had counted on to divert French attention. It dragged on for a few years because of the length of French supply lines but once the Venetians, who control most of the Carribbean in this TL, declared themselves allies of the French and secured their logistics chain it was enough to bring them to the bargaining table. That was back in the 1890s locally and their last real war."

There is a loud slurping sound, "Ahhhh, with such lovely food and drink nothing worries but the prospect of excessive weight gain. I really need to find a way to send you a map before we return. It makes me giggle whenever I look at it." He slurped some more then sighed, "My wife won't care but my mistress will leave me if I get too fat so I guess I really should return soon. We have several history books and atlases and hours of recordings so you can study the languages. The English is warped but understandable and the French is almost unchanged. The Scandinavian tongues have all blended into one but I'm sure it will present no great difficulty to our experts. They produce food is sufficient quantities that they could well afford to trade it to us and they'll want our high tech toys I am sure. In short we've done it again and I hope you have a medal or two to pin on us when we get back.
La Croix signing out!"
 
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