Plausability and consequences Keeping Stuarts off English throne

Could there have been another legitimate heir to Elizabeth other than James the sixth of Scotland?

If so how huge are the effects. I assume England avoids Civil War. I wonder if Charles would be as stupid as in otl?

Does this have any effects on relations between England and Ireland?
 
Charles had an older brother, so he might not gain a crown at all.

And short of Elizabeth herself having an heir, I believe James has the best blood claim - someone else taking the throne seems likely to be at least a bit controversial.

I imagine there's some possibility of different effects, but English claims and wars and nastiness in Ireland started before James.
 
There were several alternatives - but no obvious reason to prefer any of them to James.

i) Lady Arabella Stuart. She was James' cousin, and unlike him had been born in England, which some lawyers held to giver her a better claim to the throne. There were various rumours of plotting on her behalf, and she died in the Tower.

ii) Edward Seymour, Lord Beauchamp. He was the son of Catherine Grey, sister of the unlucky Lady Jane. Under henry VIII's will, which gave preference to the heirs of his younger sister Mary, Beauchamp had an arguable claim, but in 1403 still hadn't secured recognition of his legitimacy (his mother's marriage had been clandestine). A son of his did a similar secret marriage to Arabella Stuart, but was luckier than his bride and eventually managed to mend his fences with the King. After that they gave the stuarts no trouble.

iii) Lady Anne Stanley. Descended from Mary's younger daughter, she inherited that claim if Beauchamp was considered a bastard. Afaik though, she never made any claim to the throne.

There's no knowing whether any of them would have ruled better than the Stuarts, but in any case it would probably have meant losing the union with Scotland, which might have emant more wars with that country.
 
Around the 1590s, opinion in England's governing circles coallessed around James. The major points in his favor:
  • As a reigning King already, his style and policies were know quantities.
  • He was an adult man, unlike all the likely rivals except Seymour. England had had reigning queens for several decades, and Elizabeth was very popular, but it was a very sexist time and Elizabeth was regarded as a one-of-a-kind special case.
  • Seymour in particular was problematic as an alternative successor because Seymour was legally a bastard: his parents had married secretly, the priest had gone missing, and the only other witness had died by the time the marriage became public. The Privy Council investigated at the time and declared the marriage invalid. This was reversed only after James had been on the English throne for several years.
  • The legal theory behind James's claim to the throne was very simple and pointed unambiguously to James. Arabella's claim required explaining why James should be skipped over (either because he was a foreigner, or because Margaret Tudor's first marriage was morgantic for the purpose of the English succession). And both the Seymour and Stanley claims relied on the Third Act of Succession overruling normal succession rules, and the two claims stepped on each others' toes.
  • Personal union between England and Scotland was considered very desirable, and had been near the top of England's foreign policy wish-list since the reign of Henry VII.
  • James had an heir and a spare, securing the succession after him. Seymour was the only rival claimant who likewise had an heir and a spare.
  • James had been actively campaigning for his claim for some time, successfully convincing various English political factions that they would benefit from his coming to the throne.
  • James had the Scottish army with which to press his claim if he were denied. The other claimants were largely powerless to block James on their own. So the political establishment could back James and get a clean succession, or back a rival and get a throne war.
  • The major Catholic powers in Europe had long backed the claim of James's mother Mary Queen of Scots over Elizabeth, and James was Mary's successor. James successfully played this into widespread international approval for his claim, while still remaining Protestant himself so he'd be acceptable to Protestant England. This had three practical advantages to James's claim from the English perspective:
    • Putting James on the throne made an honorable peace with Spain more likely.
    • If James were denied and pressed his claim by force, he'd likely be supported by one or more Catholic powers.
    • Crowning James would put to rest the long-standing bogeyman of Infanta Isabella's claim to the English throne (as the daughter of a former King Consort of England, and as the geneologically senior (except for her brother, who'd abdicated his claim in her favor) heir of the House of Lancaster).
The best chance of getting someone other than James on the English throne would be to have Elizabeth die earlier, before opinion coallesed around James. The earlier you go, the weaker the argument for James gets.

If Elizabeth dies in the early 1590s, Arabella is the likely heir. At the time Elizabeth seemed to favor her, and opinion in favor of James hadn't really started snowballing yet.

Before 1568, Elizabeth's heir is either Catherine Grey (very strong legal claim, and tentatively supported by Elizabeth until Catherine's secret marriage to Edward Seymour (Lord Beauchamp's father)) or Henry Hastings (weak claim based on descent from the House of York, but a fairly strong political position).

Between 1568 and 1587, Catherine Grey is dead, but Mary Queen of Scots is still alive. Mary would probably try to press her own claim, but would almost certainly be strongly opposed by English Protestants. James's juniority to Mary would put him out of the running. I don't have a good feel for which alternate claimant would be the most likely in this time period.
 
Make Arabella heiress over James is very difficult and only the foreign birth can be useful because she was James' first cousin (her father was the younger brother of James' father)
 
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