Queen Catherine I of England

At the end of 1560, Lady Catherine Grey married the son of Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset.
She married Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford.

Suppose Queen Elizabeth I names Catherine as her heir.
In 1603 Catherine becomes Queen Catherine I. What happens then?
 
Either James VI recognises this and leaves it alone, or he claims that he is the legitimate King of England and declares war to stake his claim. But England is more powerful than Scotland so that won't work without a tonne of French troops to support.

Either way, England and Scotland will remain independent from each other, most likely. No Stuarts on the English throne, which means no Hanovers and so on.
 
Suppose Queen Elizabeth I names Catherine as her heir.
In 1603 Catherine becomes Queen Catherine I. What happens then?


But Lady Catherine Grey died 26 January 1568.
Although for the will of Henry VIII, she was to be considered as a legitimate heir, her secret marriage to Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford, without the Queen's permission, brought down, definitively, her relationship with Elizabeth, who had disliked, from always, all the family Grey.
The legitimacy of her children was questioned.

Elizabeth I remained evermore silent on the succession. However, following the death of Lord Burghley (4 August 1598), his son Sir Robert Cecil became the queen's principal Secretary of State and the most influential privy councillor. The Earl of Essex Rebellion (February 1601) convinced Cecil that the succession must be settled before Elizabeth's death rather than leave the matter open.
In April 1601 James VI sent two envoys south and Cecil indicated his willingness to co-operate. An exchange of coded letters began, although a secret correspondence with a foreign monarch was an act of treason.
In March 1603 Elizabeth refused to eat and then took to her bed. Cecil prepared the proclamation announcing the transfer of the crown to James VI and sent it north for the king's approval. The English ports were closed, and extra watchmen patrolled the London streets. Catholics were kept under surveillance, and Lady Arabella Stuart was held captive at Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire. However, the unmarried Arabella enjoyed much support. After being ruled for 40 years by the unmarried Elizabeth I, was preferable James VI a married man with sons: succession ensured, peace and prosperity guaranteed.
An Accession Council met and proclaimed James VI, King of Scots, as James I, King of England and Ireland. On 5 April 1603 James VI and his wife, Anna, left Edinburgh promising that they would return in three years, and they were crowned on 25 July 1603 at Westminster Abbey.
 
Elizabeth almost died of smallpox in 1562. At that point Catherine is the most likely heir, as in they privy council was getting ready to proclaim her otl. At that point the minister who married Catherine probably comes forward and the kids are legit (til he waited til after Elizabeth was dead.

Catherine could live longer. On the other hand she seems to have had the political instincts a on par w/ Mary Queen of Scots.
 
Catherine Grey's marriage to Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, was in secret.
The 1536 Act of Succession to the Crown made it illegal for any member of the Royal Family to marry without the permission of the Monarch.
This automatically made the marriage null and void.
Any children would be illegitimate.
 
Catherine Grey's marriage to Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, was in secret.
The 1536 Act of Succession to the Crown made it illegal for any member of the Royal Family to marry without the permission of the Monarch.
This automatically made the marriage null and void.
Any children would be illegitimate.

Succession to the throne was also considered to "cure" any taint on one's blood (Henry VII was attainted when he succeeded).

Once Queen Katherine could simply legitimize her heirs as head of the English church and/or using her royal prerogative and/or via Act of Parliament. Mary and Elizabeth both inherited the throne being, legally, bastards, which bastardy they subsequently revoked.
 
Once Queen Katherine could simply legitimize her heirs as head of the English church and/or using her royal prerogative and/or via Act of Parliament. Mary and Elizabeth both inherited the throne being, legally, bastards, which bastardy they subsequently revoked.


I do not consider as correct this reconstruction.
Precisely because of the chaos caused, from the time of Henry VIII, by these children, first declared legitimate, then bastards, then, again, legitimate, everyone in the kingdom was looking for peace, stability and a legitimate succession, without conditions, blatant, clear, evident.

It was proposed that Queen Elizabeth died of smallpox in 1562.
In fact, in the reality, on 10 October 1562, the twenty-nine year-old Elizabeth I was taken ill at Hampton Court Palace, with what was thought to be a bad cold. However, the cold developed into a violent fever and it became clear that the young queen actually had smallpox. Elizabeth became so seriously ill with the disease that it was thought she would die.
We have decided that the queen dies.
But, before stating that Catherine Grey would succeed her on the throne, it is necessary to analyze, well, the situation: is worthy of a great novel!!!


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Lady Catherine Grey (25 August 1540 – 26 January 1568).
Henry VIII’s Will specified that, in default of heirs to his children, the throne was to pass to the heirs of his younger sister Mary Tudor, Dowager Queen of France, bypassing the line of his elder sister Margaret Tudor, represented by the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots. Edward VI confirmed this by letters patent.
The legitimate and legal heir, at that time, Lady Catherine Grey.
Queen Elizabeth allowed Lady Catherine and her sister Lady Mary to reside at Court, but no longer as maids of honor; they were 'ladies of the presence'. Queen Mary I had allowed them access to the privy chamber, that most private area; Elizabeth did not.
Furthermore, it was rumored that the Spanish wanted to marry Catherine to one of their royal noblemen. The Spanish naturally wanted Catherine as their pawn. It was known that Catherine was unhappy at court (so the Spanish ambassador, Count Feria, reported to his master) and might be persuaded to leave England. If not, they could always kidnap her. Elizabeth reacted by becoming quite amiable with Catherine, calling her «daughter» and restoring her to the privy chamber. She even mentioned formally adopting Catherine.
For poor Catherine was probably more frightened by this sudden friendliness than she was of Elizabeth's coldness!!!

Catherine had made the mistake of speaking insolently about Elizabeth in mid-1559. The envoy of Saxony's duke reported that Catherine had said «very arrogant and unseemly words in the hearing of the Queen and others standing by».
She had been rude to Elizabeth I, a proud woman inclined to make others regret their pride: Catherine had good cause to worry.

During this period, Catherine had sought personal solace with Edward Seymour. His title had been reinstated by the queen and his optimism grew. As early as March 1559, he had asked the duchess of Suffolk for Catherine's hand in marriage. Frances Grey agreed but counseled the young couple to be careful.
Edward should seek out members of the Privy Council who would be sympathetic to their suit; Frances herself would write to Elizabeth, but she became ill and died before the letter was sent off (20 November 1559).
The relationship may have died.

But, here it appears Lady Jane Seymour.
She was now in the later stages of tuberculosis and determined to secure her brother's future before she died. She loved him and wanted him to make this royal marriage, perhaps his path to wealth and greater prominence. She brought Catherine and Edward together again, encouraging a reconciliation.
In October 1560, Catherine and Edward solemnly declared their intention to marry.

In early December, Elizabeth decided to go to Eltham and hunt.
Catherine had a toothache and Jane was sick (as always), the queen was told. They would stay behind. Elizabeth left in early morning and, by 8 o'clock, Catherine and Jane had slipped out of Whitehall Palace and rushed to Edward's lodgings on Cannon Row: within the hour, the couple were married.
Their immediate circumstances did not change. They did not tell the Queen or anyone of the marriage. Instead, they continued their secret meetings, sleeping together several times in the palaces of Westminster and Greenwich. Lady Jane Seymour helped when she could.
But neither Edward or Catherine seemed to have a plan. How long did they expect to carry on furtively?

Jane Seymour died in March 1561.
At the same time Catherine received warnings from many prominent people, including Secretary of State William Cecil, to «beware of too great familiarity» with Edward. She denied any involvement with him.
At the same time Queen Elizabeth I had decided to send Edward abroad with Cecil's son Thomas, as part of a European tour to finish their education.
At the same time Catherine became pregnant!!! She had first suspected in early March; both Edward and Lady Jane agreed there was nothing to do but tell Elizabeth and beg forgiveness. But Jane died and Catherine stalled.
In mid-April, Edward left on the European trip. He left a letter, signed and officially sealed, which gave her all his lands and possessions if he should die overseas.

By mid-July, Catherine could no longer hide her condition.
She was forced to accompany Elizabeth on the annual summer progress.
In Ipswich, she finally broke down and confessed all.
But Lord Robert Dudley, Elizabeth I's favorite, listened to Catherine's story, told everything to the Queen.

Elizabeth was in no mood to be sympathetic to either Catherine or Edward.
Why?
Barring her personal dislike of the Greys, Elizabeth was in a furious tangle of emotions. She had recently struggled with the idea of marrying Dudley, the greatest love of her life; through the summer and autumn of 1560, she struggled to reconcile her royal duties and her heart's desire. In the end, she decided not to marry. But this personal struggle had affected her greatly - she was irritable and would suffer no mention of marriage or children.
Elizabeth asked why Catherine should be allowed to marry without the queen's permission, solely because she was in love?
Catherine possessed Tudor blood as well, she must be made to reconcile duty and passion, even as Elizabeth had done. Instead, she had been insolent and ungrateful; her marriage was the last straw for Elizabeth.
As heir presumptive, Catherine had gone too far; she had not only married without permission but she had wed a Seymour. They were notorious for their political ambitions.
Catherine and Edward are sent to the Tower.

The investigation was still continuing when, on 21 September, Catherine went into labor. She delivered a healthy son, christened Edward.
Cecil, understood Elizabeth's personal feelings in the matter, and urged the Queen to clemency.
But the greatest problem for the couple is another: neither Catherine or Edward could produce evidence of their marriage; they said it had happened, but they could not even produce the minister, and the only other witness, Lady Jane Seymour, was dead.
Elizabeth turned the entire matter over to the Church and, on 10 May 1562, the Archbishop of Canterbury ruled there had been no marriage between Edward and Catherine.
They were officially censured for having committed fornication
; there would be a fine and imprisonment, to be determined by the Queen's mercy.

Summing up, Lady Catherine Grey, in October 1562:
1. was imprisoned in the Tower;
2. was accused of fornication;
3. the public image of her is destroyed: it appears as a woman driven by passion, not rational, naive, unprepared to reign;
4. was hated by the Queen: she has spoken so insolent against the Queen and, in the past, she has been accused of conniving with Spain;
5. her marriage is not declared valid by the Archbishop of Canterbury;
6. her children, therefore, are not declared legitimate.

Now, after the chaos caused in the succession from the time of the death of Henry VIII, and with the presumed desire for peace, tranquility, prosperity and freedom, who would support a figure so weak and mistreated?



It says that
in they privy council was getting ready to proclaim her otl. At that point the minister who married Catherine probably comes forward and the kids are legit (til he waited til after Elizabeth was dead.

It's true: in the reality, the Council met to decide who would succeed to the throne - not unnaturally, many (including Cecil) supported Catherine Grey.
But William Cecil (13 September 1520 – 4 August 1598), Lord Burghley, was a two-faced Janus, a skilled diplomat, who knew to take the side stronger (and more profitable): although Cecil was determined to prevent another Catholic from succeeding to the English throne, when his efforts to persuade Elizabeth to marry came to nothing, he persuaded himself to accept Mary Queen of Scots as dynastic heir, judging Lady Mary Grey unsatisfactory, even if she was the nearest Protestant pretender.



Lady Mary Grey (c. 1545 – 20 April 1578).
Mary, the youngest sister of Lady Catherine and potential Protestant heiress to the crown after her, suffered from dwarfism and kyphosis and face was very ugly.
Was not a candidate for which many knights would have spent themselves: there were no insurance with her.



Lady Margaret Clifford, Countess of Derby (1540 – 28 September 1596).
Another suitable heiress. Margaret was the only surviving daughter of Henry Clifford, 2nd Earl of Cumberland and Lady Eleanor Brandon, second daughter of Mary Tudor, Dowager Queen of France. According to the will of Henry VIII, Margaret was in line to inherit the throne of England after the three Grey sisters.
Lady Margaret married Henry Stanley, Lord Strange and then 4th Earl of Derby (September 1531 – 25 September 1593) at Westminster on 7 February 1555. Queen Mary I gave her the confiscated Dudley family jewels and robes as a wedding gift.
In 1557, Margaret was openly asserting that Lady Jane’s treason had excluded her sisters, Catherine and Mary Grey, from the succession, thus making Margaret Queen Mary’s heiress presumptive.
She excluded Elizabeth Tudor because Elizabeth was not a Catholic.

Lady Margaret was, but that did little to increase support for her claim. The «poor esteem» in which Lord and Lady Strange were held kept Philip II from backing them.
Early in Elizabeth Tudor’s reign, she was not generally regarded as a likeable woman.
She was a spendthrift.
In 1558, Margaret quarreled with her father-in-law, the Earl of Derby, over money matters.
increasingly overburdened by debts, they certainly did not enjoy the affection of Queen Elizabeth and their political weight was rather marginal.



Then there were the people who, with their intrigues, had a significant influence.
Lord Robert Dudley (24 June 1532 or 1533 – 4 September 1588).
Lord Robert Dudley was joined to Philip II’s forces in their successful campaign at St-Quentin (10 August 1557). In 1558, when Mary died and Elizabeth became Queen, Lord Robert was appointed her Master of the Horse, and became her close favourite. Despite his marriage to Amy Robsart, Elizabeth established strong attachment to him, much to the chagrin of Elizabeth’s Secretary of State, William Cecil, who strongly disliked Dudley.
In 1560, Cecil always mistrusted him and immediately planted rumours that Amy Robsart's death, first wife of Dudley, had been killed, casting a slur on Lord Robert. He had undoubtedly that Elizabeth had contemplated marriage to him.
Despite this, Dudley remained as a leading statesman. He remained for some time at the centre of English politics as a result of his close association with Elizabeth, but Dudley was not trusted by his colleagues.
He would assure her loyalty to the side stronger, and was in political relationship with the Duke of Norfolk
.

Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk (10 March 1536 – 2 June 1572).
Thomas Howard was brought up as a Protestant under the care of his aunt the Duchess of Richmond, but a vein of Catholicism was never far below the surface.
On the accession of Queen Mary I in 1553, he was appointed First Gentleman of the Bedchamber, aged seventeen and, in the following year, became 4th Duke of Norfolk on the death of his grandfather. As the senior peer of the Realm, he now became Earl Marshal.
On her accession in 1558, Elizabeth was anxious to be reconciled with Norfolk and appointed him a Knight of the Garter. He strongly disapproved of the attention she was showing to Lord Robert Dudley (whose father had been largely responsible for his father’s death) and he considered William Cecil, Elizabeth’s Secretary of State, to be ‘low born’. In November 1559, he was appointed Lieutenant-General of the North, a post that he reluctantly accepted, seeing it, probably correctly, as a means of distancing him from Court.
Although he outwardly conformed as a Protestant, he had strong Catholic sympathies. He was one of a group of patrician Conservatives at the opposite end of the political spectrum to the ‘low-born’ Cecil.
He strongly supported Elizabeth for refusing to put religion ahead of dynastic right when considering the English succession.


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But there was an heir strong enough to claim the crown and gather around him the most consensus?
Sure. This heir, or better, this heiress, was Lady Margaret Douglas, and her husband Matthew Stuart, 4th Earl of Lennox, one of Scotland's leading noblemen.
They were rich, powerful, with overt rights, legally married, with legitimate heirs, and they could bring peace inside and outside the kingdom.

Lady Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox (8 October 1515 – 7 March 1578)
Margaret Douglas was the daughter of Margaret Tudor, Queen Dowager of Scotland and her second husband, Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus.
In 1544, Matthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox had realised that his suit to marry Marie of Guise, in expectation of being recognised as heir to the Scottish throne, was not going to succeed. He set off for England and, in a complete volte face, offered to support Henry VIII, if permitted to marry Margaret. Her strong dynastic connections suited his ambitions every bit as well, despite her headstrong reputation. Notwithstanding his French upbringing, Lennox would espouse whatever religious persuasion suited his objectives. He adopted a Reformist stance with Henry, portraying himself as a foil for her Catholic excesses, and commended himself as the Protestant claimant to the Scottish throne.
Lennox was soon dominated by the astute Margaret, who compensated for his lack of political finesse.

With Catherine Parr as his Queen, on 6 July 1544, Henry attended Lennox’s and Margaret’s wedding ceremony at St. James’s Palace.
This created a connection «sufficiently gratifying to her ambition and followed by a mutual affection». As a dowry, he provided the valuable Templenewsam estates in Yorkshire and is reputed to have told her that, if his own children should die childless, he «should be right glad if heirs of her body succeeded to the Crown».
She had never made any secret of her Catholicism and, out of sight of the English Court, became a catalyst for Catholic intrigue among local families. When Henry learned this, he excluded her from the English succession under his will.

When Edward VI died of consumption on 6 July 1553, the Catholic Mary Tudor became Queen of England, and Margaret returned to Court to luxuriously furnished apartments in the Palace of Westminster. She was given precedence over Elizabeth, who remained illegitimate in Catholic eyes, making her the Catholic heir to the English throne.
On Mary Tudor’s death and Elizabeth’s accession, Margaret again retired to Yorkshire, but was closely watched by Elizabeth’s advisers, who gathered evidence against her.
Margaret was still acting as a centre for Catholic intrigue
She now realised that her own political ambitions were over and focused all her considerable skills on promoting her son Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, as heir to both the Scottish and English thrones.

With the death of Henry II of France in a jousting accident, Margaret took the opportunity to send her thirteen-year-old son, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, with his tutor John Elder to offer his condolences to Mary Queen of Scots, who has become Queen Consort of France.
He delivered a letter from Lennox petitioning for the restoration of the Lennox estates in Scotland. Following Francis’s death, the wily Margaret again sent Darnley, now aged fourteen, with her condolences.
She plied Mary with the advantages of a marriage to her son, which would combine their close claims to both the Scottish and English thrones. She even suggested that they should replace Elizabeth.



It says that the Henry VIII’s Will had bypassed the line of his elder sister Margaret Tudor; but, after excluding all the heirs of Mary Tudor, Dowager Queen of France, who remained?
It says that the Will of Henry VIII, besides, prevented at foreigners to inheriting English lands and to succeeding to the throne (from the 1351 statute that forbids monarchs not born in England).
It says that the father of Lady Margaret, Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus, was a Scottish; but Lady Margaret was born at Harbottle Castle in Northumberland, northernmost county of England: English-born and therefore exempt from the exclusion.
It says that the husband of Lady Margaret was a Scottish; but Lord Lennox was a Scottish exile, and the children of the couple were born in England (Henry at Temple Newsam, Leeds, Yorkshire, and Charles at Rufford, Nottinghamshire): English-born and therefore exempt from the exclusion.

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To Matthew and Margaret, by the grace of God, King and Queen of England, France and Ireland, Defenders of the Faith,
LONG LIVE AND PROSPERITY


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