Personal Union during Distressed Times

Suppose that one kingdom in medieval times got attacked by an amphibious invasion from the Ottomans, despite not being an obvious target and in fact is waaaay out of the Ottomans' way for their navy (as in farther than the Spanish armada went on their planned path to England).

There is a crisis between the monarch who tried to centralize power and the nobles who don't. This erupted into a civil war which ended in concessions from the king,

The kingdom then faces three generalized revolts by peasants in three decades, at one point having 1/8 of the abled bodied males involved in the revolts.

All this time, the shipping industry starts to decline as outside factors cause sea trade to drop.

The monarch dies, leaving the way for a child king, who dies to a disease tree years later. According to the codified succession laws, males are chosen, but a son-less dynast has his/her oldest daughter take his position if s/he is dead too (what we call nowadays male preference primogeniture). The child king has no siblings. The previous king had no otherchildren. The previous king's mother was queen and all her lines are extinct too. Her father was king and he has no living descendants either. His father was king and does have many descendants through three other lines.

And the senior line points to... the archduchess consort of Austria, or consort of the Holy Roman Empire.

Assuming that the nobles don't have any anti-HRE sentiment, what is their reaction? Is it "oh shit"? I mean that's what the English had (at first when) they realized James VI of Scotland was King James I of England.
 

PhilippeO

Banned
Is Kingdom rich enough for Habsburg to invade ? Is Kingdom to far and poor to be rejected by Habsburg ? did junior line local nobility ? did junior line related to neighbouring kingdom ? is any noble powerful enough to pull a Braganza ? is there any faction among local nobles ? did any previous King has any bastard ? did any consort clan exists ?
 
Is Kingdom rich enough for Habsburg to invade?

Let's say it is rich even after the drop in shipping. However, it has no land boarder with the Hapsburgs.

did any previous King has any bastard ?

Nope. The succession laws don't allow bastards, but let's keep things simple and say there were no loving bastards.

did any consort clan exists ?

Let's say yes.

Also... I wonder if the local nobility in this case would care.

In OTL, the English nobility didn't like the idea of a Scottish king ruling over them for some time, although they warmed up to the idea soon enough. In OTL, the Sicilian nobility (controlled by Aragon) was wary of the Catholic Monarchs and children from the marriage, until the Reconquista gave the monarchs a huge legitimacy boost. In OTL, a lot of Hungarian nobility didn't like the idea of a personal union with Austria at first, but they eventually agreed as long as the Hapsburgs gave them a good deal, which was evict the Ottomans. Which the Hapsburgs totally did not do successfully for three decades, which makes me wonder why the nobility whose fathers that only supported the union to get the Ottomans out didn't feel cheated.

Long story short, it seems that a lot of these countries had nobility didn't like the idea of personal unions at first. This was despite the fact that there was no (or few) bad sentiments to the other country who is going to be part of the personal union or future union.

They would be a lot of cases where the local nobility would really not want a personal union. For example, in Denmark from the 1300s to the 1600s, if a succession resulted in a Hapsburg being King of Denmark, everyone would be like "noooo! We hate them" Likewise, if France didn't have salic law and the lawful heir was the Archduchess of Austria, they would "discover" Salic law just to keep him away.

In my case there isn't overly anti-Imperial or anti-Hapsburg sentiment. It seems that the examples I gave with no bad sentiments show that nobles often are wary of personal unions anyways. In my case, I'm wondering if the nobles care who is king anymore (or queen in this case) as long as the new monarch isn't a tyrant. They went through so many pressures in 35 years, I'm wondering if the usual wariness to personal unions is turned to apathy.
 
Top