What if Bertie died in 1871?

Just a drop-in from the "Post 1900" board and my British political TLs. The question is this - what if Prince Edward ("Bertie") had died from the typhoid he contracted in early 1871?

His son, Prince Albert Victor, would become the second-in-line to the throne at the age of just seven with his younger brother third in line at the age of five and a half.

In OTL, he died of influenza in 1892 having been unable to marry the love of his life, Princess Helene of Orleans. It seems her parents wanted her to marry an heir and opposed her marriage to Albert, who was in OTL third in line after his father.

I wonder if, in a TL where Albert is the actual heir, Helene's father might have been more amenable to a possible marriage. Had the marriage proceeded, would he have still died in the influenza pandemic of 1892?

If not, he becomes King in 1901. If he does, it's entirely possible that he and Helene could have a child and that child becomes heir to Victoria. Otherwise, George V's reign starts nine years earlier than in OTL and presumably he marries someone other than Mary of Tek who of course never married his brother.

Any thoughts?
 
If Albert Edward dies in 1871 then Albert Victor is FIRST in line for the throne - I think this is what you meant, you just got the term wrong. The main problem with marrying Helene is that she is a Catholic and its illegal for the king to be wed to a Catholic.

This is not as clear-cut as it sounds of course. He COULD marry her and lose his place in the line of succession - as long as he has the permission of the Queen to marry. She could convert to Anglicanism and it would be OK. He could marry, lose his place but have children who are brought up as Anglicans and thus the succession would skip him and go to them.

OR, and its hardly beyond the bounds of possibility, the Act of Succession could be changed in his favour

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
Interestingly Albert Victor (Eddie) did indeed fall for Helene of Orleans.
She was willing to convert in order to marry and Queen Victoria (a bit of a romantic wasn't opposed to the idea though initially she'd suggested her granddaughter Princess Margaret of Prussia) neither was his mother the Princess of Wales.
It foundered as her father backed by the Pope refused to countenance it.
Eddie did his duty and proposed to another of his grandmother's preferred choices (Princess Victoria Mary of Teck - who was despite the name essentially English and who in the end married her dead fiance's brother the future George V)
Helene was rather unlucky apart from her attachment to Eddie she was the Empress Marie Feodorovna's preferred choice to marry the future Nicholas II which foundered on his fixed attachment to Alex of Hesse.
She ended up marrying the Duke of Aosta.
George V as Prince George of Wales was rather keen on his younger cousin Marie of Edinburgh (later Queen Marie of Roumania) - but both mother's weren't keen and she refused him.
 
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