Queen Pocahontas.

Kaze

Banned
In IRL -James Ist nearly had John Rolfe, husband of Pocahontas , placed in the Tower for the scandal of marrying a royal (James considered Pocahontas a "princess") without his permission. After meeting Rolfe's wife, James Ist decides not to but does write a book condemning the use of Tobacco.

Now for the new idea... I just had...

What if King James was single at the time? What kind of scandal would happen if James married Pocahontas instead producing the next King? Would it give him and his heirs better claims on North America?
 
I think James’ sanity would be heavily questioned, just for starters. Did Pocahontas ever convert to Christianity?
 
I couldn't see it happening. What could he possibly gain from marrying her? However, I could see James marrying a scion of a noble family off to Pocahontas.
 
This would require a massively different native situation to make sense as a choice for James. He and his heirs didn't need strong claims on North America to take it OTL; whatever limited recognition of native tribes as kingdoms there was, the English colonists were happy to just settle and conquer whatever they could outright. The only way a European royal is marrying a native princess is if the native nation is massively more formidable than OTL.
 
This would require a massively different native situation to make sense as a choice for James. He and his heirs didn't need strong claims on North America to take it OTL; whatever limited recognition of native tribes as kingdoms there was, the English colonists were happy to just settle and conquer whatever they could outright. The only way a European royal is marrying a native princess is if the native nation is massively more formidable than OTL.

Or SEEMS to be. If Powhatan can exert enough power on the ground then he might seem to be a kingdom in European style. It would be a mixture of maximising everything on his part, and small numbers of Europeans over-awed by the display

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
It wouldn't make any sense to marry native girl. There is not any political reason to do that. James I doesn't have marry someone native princess that he could take over North America. Her tribe even didn't have much land anyway.
 
Not a Queen, but how about a secret marriage that is discovered only later?
Years? Decades? Centuries?

That would be hellish scandal if it is found during James' lifetime or only just years after his death. And what if this secret marriage produce child and even if that child is a boy and he lives longer than his father? This would make succession question pretty messy if James has been too in public marriage and it has too produced son. Easier thing would be keep Pocahonthas as mistress. Then there is not risk of scandal.
 
In IRL -James Ist nearly had John Rolfe, husband of Pocahontas , placed in the Tower for the scandal of marrying a royal (James considered Pocahontas a "princess") without his permission. After meeting Rolfe's wife, James Ist decides not to but does write a book condemning the use of Tobacco.

Now for the new idea... I just had...

What if King James was single at the time? What kind of scandal would happen if James married Pocahontas instead producing the next King? Would it give him and his heirs better claims on North America?

If Pocahontas was married to John Rolfe as in OTL, how exactly would James do this? Is that not bigamy or is she just going to pull a Henry VIII and have the marriage annulled/dissolved because he is King? This would pretty much destroy his reputation and make him a laughing stock. Not to mention, Rolfe and Pocahontas's son, Thomas, was ALREADY born when she went to England. What is James I supposed to do about him? And why exactly would Rebecca Rolfe (as she was also known) go along with this?
 
Can't help but think that would cause a scandal if it's discovered early enough.
That would be hellish scandal if it is found during James' lifetime or only just years after his death. And what if this secret marriage produce child and even if that child is a boy and he lives longer than his father? This would make succession question pretty messy if James has been too in public marriage and it has too produced son. Easier thing would be keep Pocahonthas as mistress. Then there is not risk of scandal.
Even if Pocahontas is kept as a mistress and she gives birth to no heir I still imagine the rumor of a possible (Though false.) alt-kinship could be used to discredit other heirs as soon as it is discovered.
Like: «In fact the Jacobites are not who they say they are: they are the descendants of a non-European mistress!».
 
Even if Pocahontas is kept as a mistress and she gives birth to no heir I still imagine the rumor of a possible (Though false.) alt-kinship could be used to discredit other heirs as soon as it is discovered.
Like: «In fact the Jacobites are not who they say they are: they are the descendants of a non-European mistress!».

I doubt that. Many kings had openly mistresses and children. There wasn't much moral issues over that. And I am not sure if people would care about her ethnic background much. DIdn't such racialims to have been thing sometimes in end of 18th century?
 
I doubt that. Many kings had openly mistresses and children. There wasn't much moral issues over that. And I am not sure if people would care about her ethnic background much. DIdn't such racialims to have been thing sometimes in end of 18th century?

Regardless of the OP's validity WRT becoming queen, you're spot on here. Racial "awareness" insofar as superiority/inferiority wouldn't exist as we know it in the 16th-17th Century; what mattered more was religion/culture. That in turn was warped into modern ideas of racism due to input from several factors that began in the 18th Century (across all the colonizing countries, in some shape or form). Her ethnic background, provided her conversion and "Englishness" in culture, wouldn't be as big a factor, if at all. How to get those things to the satisfaction of the folks back home, that's a somewhat trickier proposition.
 

Kaze

Banned
[QUOTE /]If Pocahontas was married to John Rolfe as in OTL, how exactly would James do this? Is that not bigamy or is she just going to pull a Henry VIII and have the marriage annulled/dissolved because he is King? This would pretty much destroy his reputation and make him a laughing stock. Not to mention, Rolfe and Pocahontas's son, Thomas, was ALREADY born when she went to England. What is James I supposed to do about him? And why exactly would Rebecca Rolfe (as she was also known) go along with this?[/QUOTE]


Not if Rolfe has an unfortunate accident with a headsman at the Tower of the London - executed for hubris of marrying a royal without his permission. Now she is a convenient widow.
 
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