alternatehistory.com

A WI is practically suggested by the article in The Infallible Wikipedia:
He was created Duke of Gloucester and Earl of Cambridge by Charles II (in 1660), but died suddenly of smallpox not long afterwards, much to his brother's distress. Decades later, during the exclusion crisis, Henry was looked back on as a kind of 'lost leader'; as what might have been a legitimate, warlike, Protestant alternative to the equally unpalatable choices of the Dukes of York (later James II) and Monmouth (James Scott).

So we have a Protestant Stuart, not a royal bastard like Monmouth, who was a respected soldier in the European wars of religion. Let's say he doesn't catch smallpox and he lives. When Charles II pops his clogs, it's a choice between him and James, who may be the older brother but is a Catholic and takes orders from the court of France. No contest.

Of course, this is still quite significant, because it would mean Parliament was working its will to alter the line of succession, and James would probably still run away and try to raise pro-Catholic Jacobite rebellions in Scotland and Ireland, etc...but it means there's no need for a Glorious Revolution and no foreign Protestants on the throne. What happens?
Top