A few things I was wondering, but didn’t want to post three separate threads for fear it would be seen as spamming.
1. Would it be possible for Henry VIII to marry a foreign wife once he’s disposed of Anne Boleyn? I know OTL he married Jane Seymour a few days later in 1536, but would it be so hard to renege on his promises to Jane, perhaps be willing to keep her as a maîtresse en titre instead (Jane doesn’t strike me as the greatest intellectual – certainly not in the same class as Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn and Katheryn Parr – so while her family would fume, the Seymours’ clout seems to stem from after Jane married the king and more importantly, after Edward VI had been born) and marry abroad? Would the Pope be willing to grant the necessary dispensation (if she’s a Habsburg/-relative) for the marriage? And what might the results be of Henry remarrying a foreign princess (if at all possible)?
2. Queen Jane Seymour survives. So there seems to be a plethora of threads about WIs pertaining to Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Anne of Cleves, even Kitty Howard and Katherine Parr, giving Henry a son, but precious few on Jane Seymour. How might it impact English history if she didn’t die in childbed? Assuming Edward’s birth hasn’t irreparably damaged her (I seem to recall it was a difficult birth, but I could be confusing the ballad ‘The Death of Queen Jane’ with real life), could she bear Henry one or two more kids before he gets to the point that he can’t father kids anymore?
3. Jane’s death. I get that Henry was ‘in love’ with her, and considered her the favourite wife for having borne his son and heir. But what strikes me as odd is that despite having buried three sons (two as infants and one as a sickly teenager) and lost several more, Henry was content to remain unwed for over two years (Jane died in October 1537, he married Anne in January 1540). Surely he must’ve been aware that despite the birth of his longed-for son, that children had a tendency to die infancy (as said, he’d buried two sons already), and one son was hardly insurance against the Anarchy 2.0 he so feared. So, what if Henry remarried more or less with the same frequency that he had after the dismissal of previous wives (he wasn’t even properly divorced from Catherine of Aragon when he and Anne Boleyn got married for the first time on November 14 1532 or later when they officially married in January 1533; he married Jane eleven days after Anne was executed; Anne of Cleves was divorced on 9 July 1540, Katherine Howard became Henry’s wife on the 28th; while Katherine Parr was married in July 1543 less than two years after the previous annulment).