Victoria feed Vicky herself, disasterous King of England

WI Queen Victoria was advised of the contreceptive side effect which often acompanies breast feeding.

She is know to have HATED being pregnant.

I think that upper and middle class Victorian babies would have been healthier because more would be fed by their own mothers.

Victoria would have had fewer children and therefore fewer sons.

The chance of none of her sons out living her and leaving legitimate heirs would increase

So what if Willy the Stupid is due to become King of England in Janaury 1901
 
Ignoring butterflies:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Victoria#Issue

Skipping Vicky for now . . .

Bertie (1841-1910) has three sons, only two whiched adulthood, and only one of which outlived Victoria (the future George V*) - Eddy died of pneunomia without issue and the last son dying in infancy.

Arthur (1850-1942) had one son (1883-1938)

Leopold (1853-1884) had only one son, who lived until he was seventy - although his children were born rather late (understandably as he was born in 1884).


* who had five sons.



What I'm trying to say is, it would be hard for Wilhelm to end up on the throne unless Victoria is very, very unlucky as a mother and grandmother judging by how she did with three sons OTL.
 
You missed out Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha also (though we could assume that he is out the succession due to being heir presumptive of the Duchy and acceding before his mother or elder brother die).
 
You missed out Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha also (though we could assume that he is out the succession due to being heir presumptive of the Duchy and acceding before his mother or elder brother die).

Ah, my bad.

That just adds another male if need be, however.
 
I assume the birth of a male heir and male spare before she marries the heir tothe King of Prussia

The two dying is possible.
 
WI Queen Victoria was advised of the contreceptive side effect which often acompanies breast feeding.

She is know to have HATED being pregnant.

I think that upper and middle class Victorian babies would have been healthier because more would be fed by their own mothers.

Victoria would have had fewer children and therefore fewer sons.

The chance of none of her sons out living her and leaving legitimate heirs would increase

So what if Willy the Stupid is due to become King of England in Janaury 1901

At the time of her marriage, the Princess Royal was 5th in line to the British throne. She had four older brothers, the chances of her becoming Queen were small - it would have required a monumental tragedy.

Had the Princess Royal's chances of succeeding to the throne been greater, i.e. if she only had 1 brother, then serious thought has to be given as to whether she would have still contracted a marriage with the future King of Prussia, at least not until her brother the Prince of Wales had produced a few heirs.

Its worth noting that Vicky was the only one of Victoria and Albert's daughters who made a truly dazzling dynastic match, Victoria was not especially ambitious for her daughters, Albert was, especially for Vicky but again that was perhaps influenced by her relative insignificance in terms of the succession.

Assuming Vicky did indeed still become German Empress and heiress presumptive to the British throne (she could never be heiress apparent, even after her mother had ceased being able to bear children), then her children would have no doubt been raised with greater awareness of their maternal heritage (Vicky's two younger daughters were certainly aware of it) and there would have to be some negotiation about the future education of a Prussian-British monarch.

The British parliament was not beyond legislating to determine the succession to ensure they got the monarchy they wanted, that is how the Hanoverians got the throne in the first place and I think certainly in the 1860s and 1870s when the British monarchy was deeply unpopular and unstable, the British government would have felt more powerful in negotiating suitable arrangements. I am thinking that there may have been some agreement that Vicky's second son would be his mother's British heir and he would have probably been sent to England.

Even assuming he did not and Vicky's elder son became King of Great Britain and German Emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm would not have become King of Great Britain in January 1901. His mother did not die until August 1901. She would have reigned as Victoria II.

There's always the possibility that the British parliament would legislate to deprive Vicky of her rights of succession and select one of her sisters as their mother's heir.
 
But at this time, Britain was definitely a constitutional monarchy. There is no way in hell that they would have obeyed Willy no matter what comes.
 
To go a little further...

One has to wonder whether the monarchy would even survive the 1860s?

I assuming the scenario we are working with is that the Prince of Wales either dies (perhaps from the typhoid that kills his father) or is unable to have a child with his wife Alix of Denmark.

In the death scenario, we are removing Edward and Alix, arguably the only reason the monarchy survived the 1860s. The Queen retired from public life, the public increasingly got annoyed and it was only Edward and his beautiful and popular wife that effectively kept the public image going. Remove them and you have an absent and increasingly unpopular Queen and an heiress who lives primarily in Berlin. How long is the monarchy going to survive?

Assuming Edward lives but is unable to have a child with Alix, Edward's behaviour is probably going to become even more extreme than it was, he would have got involved in more scandals and he would have become very unpopular, as he indeed did by 1870. By 1870 it was only Alix of Denmark who held the public image of the monarchy together and even her popularity is going to be diminished by her failure to do her duty and produce an heir - these things were inevitably blamed on the woman during this time.

Dangerous times indeed.
 
Few thoughts
If by some miracle (or tragedy) Victoria does end up heiress presumptive and you can get rid of all four of her brothers and their issue i have no doubt Parliament will intervene to amend the succession.
Possibly excluding the descendants of British princesses married to foreign rulers or the heirs to foreign thrones.
Which would exclude both Victoria and Alice and their issue.
Which would settle the succession on the Princess Helena and her English-born and raised children.
Her marriage in 1865 had caused a bit of a family-rift but she remained exceptionally close to her mother and given her strong views on nursing and women's rights would have made rather an interesting Queen considering she survived her mother and would have reigned from 1901 to 1923.
her surviving issue were -
Prince Christian d 1900 in the Boer War unmarried but had he moved up the succession then would undoubtedly have married.
Prince Albert d 1931
Princess Helena Victoria d 1948
Princess Marie Louise d 1956 Married 1891; Prince Aribert of Anhalt; no issue; divorced 1900

Interestingly delaying conception might not have made much difference given the birth dates of V & A's issue: the only ones with a short gap were Victoria and Edward (just under a year), Alice and Alfred (Just over a year) - 1840, 1841, 1843, 1844, 1846, 1848, 1850, 1853, 1857.

If Vicky falls heiress before her marriage then her husband would not have been the heir to the Prussian Throne (Parliament would never have sanctioned it) - if she falls heir later then it again depends on when.
If her children are young and her family agree to dispatch the second son to be educated in Britain (Victoria had reacted with reluctance when her brother in law tried consistantly to try and get her to send Alfred to Coburg for his education) - then parliament might be willing to name her second son Prince Henry as Victoria's heir - passing a bill excluding Vicky and her eldest son (similar to the Coburg succession for example).
If her children are older then I think it is more likely that Parliament will insist on Vicky's and Alice and their offspring being excluded - Victoria's reaction to that would be interesting but at the end it would be a Parliamentary decision.

There was an assasination attempt on Alfred Duke of Edinburgh in the 1860s that you could have succeed to remove him before his marriage.
And at a push you could give Arthur haemophilia like his younger brother Leopold and get rid of them both at some point before their marriages.
Depends when you get rid of the boys and how many of them.

Possible effects:

The Queen was personally unpopular in the 1860s after her widowhood, the monarchy did enjoy a resurge in popularity at times particularly the popularity of the new Princess of Wales (Alix of Denmark).
The height of any republican feeling was in the late 60s early 70s but was mitigated by an assasination attempt on Victoria and the illness of the Prince of Wales (who nearly died from Typhoid fever).
It quickly subsided and the longevity of the Queen helped increase the popularity of the monarchy.
No illness for Edward and things might be different but there was no strong parliamentary support for a republic.

No Edward VII means a less anti-prussian feeling at the British Court in the decade before the First World War (though unlike many in his family George V was less ill-disposed to his cousin the Kaiser), Edward was a major proponent of the Entente Cordiale with France and was very popular in France, though Britain remained a guaranteur of Belgium's integrity of course, no Edward VII also means no Alix of Denmark (whose anti-prussian sentiment like that of her sister Marie of Russia influenced both of their husbands), Edward's distaste for his nephew Wilhelm II was marred by Wilhelm's difficult relationship with his parents and in particular his British mother, given his character his exclusion from the British succession may mar his view of Britain even more.

Few points ref the Coburg Duchy.

Under the family pact - it was decided that in the event of Prince Albert's brother the Duke of Saxe Coburg Gotha dying without a male heir as looked extremely likely - Victoria and Albert's second son would succeed (to avoid the Duchy being ruled by the British King in personal union) - Alfred remained in the British Line of Succession (as his descendents do to this day).
Affie's only son died shortly before his father after a scandal and much pressure was put on Victoria's younger children and grandchildren - who had unlike Affie - not been expected to succeed - the Duke of Connaught and his son were adamant in refusing and in the end it went to Charles Edward the teenaged son of Leopold Duke of Albany.

I think if you exhaust the male descendants of Victoria and Albert - Coburg would have passed (through male primogeniture to the Portugeuse King descended from Prince Ferdinand Georg August of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and thence to the junior descendants of Ferdinand including the Bulgarian Royal family). So you would also have a succession crisis in the Duchy as well.


Issue: of V and A:
1)
Victoria,Princess Royal, b 1840
surviving issue:
Wilhelm II, German Emperor,
Princess Charlotte m Bernhard III, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen
Prince Henry m Princess Irene of Hesse and by Rhine
Princess Victoria married (1) Prince Adolf of Schaumburg-Lippe; he died 1916; no issue
Princess Sophie married Constantine I, King of the Hellenes; had issue
Princess Margaret married Prince Frederick Charles of Hesse
2) Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII 1841
surviving issue:
Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale d1892
George, Prince of Wales, later King George V m Princess Mary of Teck
Louise, Princess Royal m Alexander Duff, 1st Duke of Fife
Princess Victoria Never married
Princess Maud m Haakon VII of Norway
3) Princess Alice, later Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse 1843
surviving issue:
Victoria married Prince Louis of Battenberg, later Marquess of Milford Haven
Elisabeth (kd 1918) m. Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia (11 May 1857 - 17 February 1905)
Irene d 1953 married Prince Henry of Prussia
Ernest Grand Duke of Hesse d 1937 married 1) Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and had issue, divorced in 1903; married 2 )HH Princess Eleonore of Solms-Hohensolms-Lich (17 September 1871 - 16 November 1937) and had issue.
Victoria Alix kd 1918 m Nicholas II of Russia
4) Prince Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Duke of Edinburgh; Admiral of the Fleet 1844
surviving issue
Prince Alfred ("Young Affie") d 6 February 1899 Hereditary Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Princess Marie ("Missy") d 1938 m King Ferdinand I of Romania (1865-1927); had issue
Princess Victoria Melita d 2 March 1936 married (1) Ernst Ludwig, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine divorced 1901 m 2) Grand Duke Cyril Vladimirovich of Russia; had issue
Princess Alexandra d 16 April 1942 married Prince Ernst of Hohenlohe-Langenburg; had issue
Princess Beatrice d 13 July 1966 married Alfonso, Infante of Spain, 3rd Duke of Galliera; had issue
5) Princess Helena 1846, later Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg
surviving issue
Prince Christian d 29 October 1900 in the Boer War unmarried but had he moved up the succession then would undoubtedly have married.
Prince Albert d 27 April 1931
Princess Helena Victoria d 13 March 1948
Princess Marie Louise d 8 December 1956 Married 1891; Prince Aribert of Anhalt; no issue; divorced 1900
6) Princess Louise 1848 later Duchess of Argyll
no issue
7) Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn;
surviving issue
Princess Margaret m Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden and had issue
Prince Arthur m Princess Alexandra Duchess of Fife and had issue
Princess Victoria (Patricia) m Alexander Ramsey and had issue
8) Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany 1853 (had haemophilia)
surviving issue
Alice d 1981 m Prince Alexander of Teck (Later Earl of Athlone) and had issue
Charles Edward Duke of Saxe Coburg Gotha d1954 married and had issue
9) Princess Beatrice 1857, later Princess Henry of Battenberg
surviving issue
Prince Alexander of Battenberg (later Marquess of Carisbrooke) d 1960 m and had issue
Victoria Eugénie died 1969 m King Alfonso XIII of Spain and had issue
Prince Leopold of Battenberg (later Lord Leopold Mountbatten) d 1922 Suffered from haemophilia no issue
Prince Maurice of Battenberg kd 1914
 
At the time of her marriage, the Princess Royal was 5th in line to the British throne. She had four older brothers...

ITYM four younger brothers:

Albert Edward (1841)
Alfred (1844)
Arthur (1850)
Leopold (1853)

She was the eldest child (1840). Not that it matters, as all sons have precedence over any daughter.

If by some wild set of coincidences, Kaiserin Victoria or her son became heir apparent, the most likely proceeding would have been for Vicky or Willy to disclaim the inheritance and let it pass to one of Vicky's younger sisters or that sister's children.

A union of crowns was, obviously, politically impossible. The political leadership in both countries would oppose it; Vicky would not want it; and even Willy, vain, foolish, and headstrong as he was, would not insist on it.

Also, politically, a foreign heir would be very problematic by that time. We're talking circa 1900, and relations between Britain and Germany were getting very awkward. So any of Willy's younger brothers would be unacceptable too.

Princess Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse (1843), would be next, but she died in 1878. Her eldest daughter Victoria (1863-1950) would be suitable, as she was married to Louis Battenberg (later Mountbatten), who was of German origin, but had served in the Royal Navy since age 14. Their eldest son George (1892-1938) was considered very bright (expert in mathematics); the second was Louis Mountbatten.

George married a Romanov countess in 1916 and had a son.

(I wonder if this marriage was the inspiration for a similar marriage in Peter Dickinson AH mystery novel King and Joker. KandJ is basically a mystery set in Buckingham Palace circa, involving the royal family, but rather than subject the real royal family to auctorial invasion, Dickinson invented a fictional royal family, complete with line of descent. The Russian lady, now Queen Dowager, is a minor character.)
 
Each son of Queen Victoria had brushes with death.

Prince Alfred - Assassination attempt, 12 March, 1868
Prince Arthur - Fenian Raid, May 25, 1870 (general military service as well, not just this date)
Prince Edward - Typhoid, Winter 1871
Prince Leopold - Perished 28 March, 1884, Haemophilia

If all four perish at these events we get:

Prince Alfred - no issue
Prince Arthur - no issue
Prince Edward - Full issue
Prince Leopold - Full issue

I am thinking the most likely conclusion of this will be Emperor Wilhelm II allowing his brother, Prince Henry, 2nd son of Princess Victoria, to relinquish his claim on the German throne. It is the least messy succession wise, not jumping to much.

After that, having it go to Edward's first born George (OTL George V) is a close second.

I will say that this will likely result in an earlier death for Victoria as well since such tragedy will weigh heavy upon her. Also, the monarchy will face major tarnish with such a crisis, already being unpopular with a hermit Empress, who ITTL will be even more estranged from the public, and without Prince Edward's public appearances Republican movements will likely be stronger.
 
Just wanted to also add that Prince Albert Victor might possibly live in such a scenario, and would be a likely candidate for King, and likely not a well liked one...
 
why is it everyone assumes William II of Germany would still be the ass he was in otl?...if there was more of a chance of him coming to the throne (after his mother), the British wouldve made sure to have being part of his education and his parents wouldve seperated him from the rest of the prussian family...or at least tried to diminish their influence earlier on.

Hed still be Prussian/German and probaly still be uptight and such, but mabye enough to not be the dick he was.
 
why is it everyone assumes William II of Germany would still be the ass he was in otl?...if there was more of a chance of him coming to the throne (after his mother), the British wouldve made sure to have being part of his education and his parents wouldve seperated him from the rest of the prussian family...or at least tried to diminish their influence earlier on.

Hed still be Prussian/German and probaly still be uptight and such, but mabye enough to not be the dick he was.

I agree but nobody is going to let him have both thrones. He'd probably keep one and Prince Henry would have the other.
 
Aside from the interesting political ramifications, I'm surprised that no-one here has pointed out that it would be a massive breach of royal decorum for Victoria to breast-feed her children, even in private. It was one of those "incredibly ungenteel" things that any woman who could afford a wetnurse would never do. It would be like her walking around in hotpants rather than the full dresses and undergarments women were expected to wear.

Anyway, yes, interesting debate though. For those talking of a union of the crowns, bear in mind that Parliament's response to a union of the UK and Hanover was to pass a law saying that the monarch had to apply to Parliament for permission to leave the country every time they wanted to go abroad, and that being abroad for more than one year in one go was considered a violation of the monarch's contract to their country. Those laws still stood - they still stand to this day IIRC. Parliament would, in other words, threaten their way into either having the happy couple ruling both realms from London, or into forcing a division of the crowns.
 
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