alternatehistory.com

The Stuart kings of England certainly had a...well, I don't know if obsession is the right term...but an interest in marrying their house to the Habsburgs.

A Spanish marriage for Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, Charles's elder brother who had died in 1612, had been proposed by his mother Anne of Denmark. After his death she supported the idea of a Spanish marriage for her daughter Elizabeth, but in 1613 Elizabeth married a prominent Protestant prince. For her second son Charles, there were candidate marriages mooted from Savoy and Tuscany, as well as Spain and France.

The idea was resurrected by James I for Elizabeth's eldest son - Hereditary Prince Friedrich Heinrich of the Palatinate - to marry a daughter of the Spanish king; later resurrected as a plan to marry Karl I to Maria Leopoldina of Austria-Tyrol. Charles I was aghast when his eldest daughter, Mary, was married to the prince of Orange (since said prince had previously been betrothed to her younger sister, Elizabeth) since he had entertained hopes of marrying her to Baltasar Carlos. And then again Charles II was offered a marriage with the dowager Empress (Eleonora Gonzaga) or with Caterina Farnese to dissuade him from marrying Catherine of Braganza. Charles' counter was that he marry Margarita Teresa (with succession rights intact) whilst Minette now marry her jilted bridegroom, Leopold I. Unsurprisingly, this idea foundered too.

Now what if one of these marriages (you can decide which one of these unlikely matches might be the most likely) to go through. How might Europe fare if the caroussel of royal marriages were to go on an alternate spin to what it had?
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