What if Queen Victoria had married Marthinus Wessel Pretorius instead of Prince Albert?

[Elfwine]

What are the actual negatives? Just cause he’s not Royal doesn’t make him lesser.

In the context of Victoria's day? Yes, it does.

Frankly, it's enough of a negative to pretty much sink his chances on its own. It may be thing we're well rid of, but it's not something Victoria ignoring would end up as anything positive.

His appearance vs. Albert's is far too subjective for me to say whether or not he looks better than Albert or not, apart from whether or not him looking good would lead to love.

So if birth isn't enough of an issue, reposting this:
"Looking at the Britannica article on Pretorius, I wonder if he would actually make more friends than not.
This article here https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marthinus-Wessel-Pretorius Credit to Amy McKenna.
Specifically this part:

"Pretorius was elected president in 1857; in February 1860 he was also elected president of the Orange Free State. Boer factionalism combined with Pretorius’ own high-handed methods not only prevented the amalgamation of the two states but also led to civil war in the Transvaal."

Not that this is his entire record, but it's not what I'd call encouraging."

Considering the main point in his favor would be "winning over the Boers" and the assertion of him being a better statesman than Albert, I think that's a bit troubling as far as if he offers much of anything on the second.

He's not the worst man she could have married, but that's pretty meager praise.

 

[HRH the Duke of Puke]

In the context of Victoria's day? Yes, it does.

Frankly, it's enough of a negative to pretty much sink his chances on its own. It may be thing we're well rid of, but it's not something Victoria ignoring would end up as anything positive.

His appearance vs. Albert's is far too subjective for me to say whether or not he looks better than Albert or not, apart from whether or not him looking good would lead to love.

So if birth isn't enough of an issue, reposting this:
"Looking at the Britannica article on Pretorius, I wonder if he would actually make more friends than not.
This article here https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marthinus-Wessel-Pretorius Credit to Amy McKenna.
Specifically this part:

"Pretorius was elected president in 1857; in February 1860 he was also elected president of the Orange Free State. Boer factionalism combined with Pretorius’ own high-handed methods not only prevented the amalgamation of the two states but also led to civil war in the Transvaal."

Not that this is his entire record, but it's not what I'd call encouraging."

Considering the main point in his favor would be "winning over the Boers" and the assertion of him being a better statesman than Albert, I think that's a bit troubling as far as if he offers much of anything on the second.

He's not the worst man she could have married, but that's pretty meager praise.

All of that civil war in the Transvaal stuff happened after 1840, when I am suggesting he marry Victoria. In his later years, he was described as “an elderly man of great administrative ability”

Vs

 

[Elfwine]

All of that civil war in the Transvaal stuff happened after 1840, when I am suggesting he marry Victoria. In his later years, he was described as “an elderly man of great administrative ability”

Yes, it did. But so did his later years.

So I'm looking it as far as what ability he displayed at a time both and Albert were alive - it's hardly possible to say with absolute certainty what Albert would have been like if he lived long enough to be "eldery".

As for the photographs:
Since I've already said this is subjective, I'm dropping my personal opinion into this because it has as much weight as anyone here's:

I think Albert looks better. I like his mustache more.

 

[Strategos' Risk]

4) Pretorius had distant Chinese ancestry
- This wasn’t known at the time, it was only 1/32 of his ancestry, and even Princess Diana had some Indian ancestry (Pretorius’s great-great grandmother, Christina de Veij, was the daughter of Lim Inko, a Chinese convict who was banished to the Cape Colony and took the name “Abraham de Vey” upon his baptism)

Andries Pretorius does have a Keanu Reeves look to him

 

[Strategos' Risk]

Maybe this is too Europa Universalis or Game of Thrones, but couldn't a royal marriage be done between MW and not the queen herself but someone else important on the British side in order to cement some sort of alliance. Wouldn't such a marriage still be efficacious?

 

[Risenemperor7]

The Queen marrying essentially "some Afrikaaner dude from the Veld" would get a laugh at a party at best and a call to a duel at worst. It's that unthinkable in the 1840s. It would have been unthinkable in the 1940s too. Even Prince Philip, a grandchild of Queen Victoria himself, was considered a bad match for the late Queen Elizabeth because he was a foreigner (who had lived most of his life in the UK and was a Naval officer in the Royal Navy but had the "misfortune" to be born outside of it) and too low rank to marry a future Queen. Eventually he made it because the then Princess stuck to her guns and his pedigree was passable enough to squint at. Somebody also mentioned members of the Royal Family marrying people that were commoners... from the 1980s forward. If you can't see why these cases are immensely different from the time of Queen Victoria then you haven't done your homework.

This whole premise is ASB as hell

 

[Strategos' Risk]

This whole premise is ASB as hell

And that's why it owns. There should be a directory of premises with really out-of-the-box thinking, backed by copious research, yet are still ASB as hell.

 

[Risenemperor7]

And that's why it owns. There should be a directory of premises with really out-of-the-box thinking, backed by copious research, yet are still ASB as hell.

Won't disagree with that, what I am currently working on is basically this. I have no problem with ASB's in general

 

[HRH the Duke of Puke]

Yes, it did. But so did his later years.

So I'm looking it as far as what ability he displayed at a time both and Albert were alive - it's hardly possible to say with absolute certainty what Albert would have been like if he lived long enough to be "eldery".

As for the photographs:
Since I've already said this is subjective, I'm dropping my personal opinion into this because it has as much weight as anyone here's:

I think Albert looks better. I like his mustache more.

Pretorius seems to have better health overall than the sickly Albert. After all, he made it to 81 in a time when most people didn’t even see their 60s.

Andries Pretorius does have a Keanu Reeves look to him

Based on the family tree I linked to in OP, it seems the Chinese man was an ancestor of Andries’s wife (Marthinus’s mother), although it seems Andries had an Indian ancestor (just like Princess Diana)

The Queen marrying essentially "some Afrikaaner dude from the Veld" would get a laugh at a party at best and a call to a duel at worst. It's that unthinkable in the 1840s. It would have been unthinkable in the 1940s too. Even Prince Philip, a grandchild of Queen Victoria himself, was considered a bad match for the late Queen Elizabeth because he was a foreigner (who had lived most of his life in the UK and was a Naval officer in the Royal Navy but had the "misfortune" to be born outside of it) and too low rank to marry a future Queen. Eventually he made it because the then Princess stuck to her guns and his pedigree was passable enough to squint at. Somebody also mentioned members of the Royal Family marrying people that were commoners... from the 1980s forward. If you can't see why these cases are immensely different from the time of Queen Victoria then you haven't done your homework.
This whole premise is ASB as hell

Prince Philip was the great-great-grandson of Victoria, and I think part of the issue with him were his ties to Germany, specifically having sisters who married Nazis. I believe his loyalties to Britain were not assured/accepted by many people in the government on account of this.
If Elizabeth put her foot down for Philip Mountbatten, there’s no reason that Victoria couldn’t have put her foot down for Marthinus Wessel Pretorius.

And that's why it owns. There should be a directory of premises with really out-of-the-box thinking, backed by copious research, yet are still ASB as hell.

I thought it was an interesting premise.

Won't disagree with that, what I am currently working on is basically this. I have no problem with ASB's in general

ASBs?

 

[ordinarylittleme]

ASBs?

This

 

[HRH the Duke of Puke]

This

Thanks
I still don’t think this qualifies, though. He was the son of a Prime Minister of a sovereign nation who was also a Commandant General, he was not just some common fellow.

 

[ordinarylittleme]

Thanks
I still don’t think this qualifies, though. He was the son of a Prime Minister of a sovereign nation who was also a Commandant General, he was not just some common fellow.

Commoner, maybe not. Royal, definitely not. What was wanted in a consort was Good Royal Blood - which is why Philip of Greece was suitable, because he had that, whether or not his royal title in Greece got stripped or not.

 

[VVD0D95]

Thanks
I still don’t think this qualifies, though. He was the son of a Prime Minister of a sovereign nation who was also a Commandant General, he was not just some common fellow.

He was too low ranking to marry. He brings no immediate benefit to the U.K., and Victoria was set on Albert. Furthermore her own family was pushing her to Albert. Not some random dude from rhe arse end of nowhere.

 

[ordinarylittleme]

He was too low ranking to marry. He brings no immediate benefit to the U.K., and Victoria was set on Albert. Furthermore her own family was pushing her to Albert. Not some random dude from rhe arse end of nowhere.

I suppose the only way this TL can happen is if Albert was born "Alberta".

 

[HRH the Duke of Puke]

Commoner, maybe not. Royal, definitely not. What was wanted in a consort was Good Royal Blood - which is why Philip of Greece was suitable, because he had that, whether or not his royal title in Greece got stripped or not.

I don’t really understand why they cared about Royal blood so much. Pretty sure the idea that monarchs were untouchable demigods ended with Cromwell.
And the Queen Mother was a commoner (technically noble, still not Royal)
Generally, I think inbreeding is bad.

He was too low ranking to marry. He brings no immediate benefit to the U.K., and Victoria was set on Albert. Furthermore her own family was pushing her to Albert. Not some random dude from rhe arse end of nowhere.

His immediate benefit is closer relations with the Boers, who control a piece of valuable land the British Empire wants.

 

[ordinarylittleme]

I don’t really understand why they cared about Royal blood so much. Pretty sure the idea that monarchs were untouchable demigods ended with Cromwell.
And the Queen Mother was a commoner (technically noble, still not Royal)
Generally, I think inbreeding is bad.

Oh, inbreeding is very bad. The Habsburgs are proof. But they did care about it.
But the Queen Mother is much more recent than Queen Victoria. As was Philip of Edinburgh.

 

[Risenemperor7]

I don’t really understand why they cared about Royal blood so much. Pretty sure the idea that monarchs were untouchable demigods ended with Cromwell.
And the Queen Mother was a commoner (technically noble, still not Royal)

Whether you understand it or not is irrelevant because they cared about it. That is why I said this was Alien Space Bats aka practically impossible. I am not dissing the timeline or you or anything but it is not even remotely possible. It's so impossible in fact that her possible insistence on it would fuel a part of the court at the time which included her Mother mind you that wanted to declare her unable to rule and hysterical and swear in a Regent. Her uncle too was making moves to convince Parliament to swap them about. And you have to remember that the British Parliament had even then, immense power over the Monarch. They could make laws regarding the Succession, the Civil List even casually declare that a member of the Royal Family is not eligible to take the Throne. Even the most supportive of politician would be convinced that she was slightly wrong in the head if she barged in one day with that idea and think of British interests which would be immensely more hurt than benefited out of the whole affair. Hell, even herself wouldn't even contemplate it, she was far more interested in other royals. For a time she was enamored with a Russian Prince and her romance with Albert is legendary but in general, she knew that whatever husband could be found would be found within the established Royal environment of Europe, she never gave any inclination that she thought otherwise.

 

[SenatorChickpea]

Other people have addressed the many reasons this would never happen because of the nature of royal marriages, so let's take a moment to look at the politics of it:

Why, in the 1830s, are the British possibly concerned with what they believe to be an irrelevant group of farmers in South Africa, many of them migrating out of direct British rule anyway?

You're reading the concerns of the 1880s-1900s backwards. The Boers became a strategic concern for Britain because they ended up sitting on vast amounts of gold and diamonds, and as a result the economic centre of southern Africa shifted away from the Cape to an area outside British suzerainty. With the completion of a railway to the Portuguese coast in Mozambique, the British colonies in Natal and the Cape were facing a massive decline in customs revenue from the Rand- and all this added up to a potential federation of South Africa, even a federation dominated by Anglo-South Africans that was not a British colony. That's what is feared in the Selborne memorandum, that's what was feared by Milner and Chamberlain and Rhodes and Jameson.

Absolutely none of is is true or predictable when Victoria was unmarried. Absolutely none of it.

There is no reason- none- why the British Royal Family or the British government would decide to marry the Crown Princess to someone they perceived as a colonial nobody for no strategic advantages and for a humiliating loss of prestige.

 

[SenatorChickpea]

Put it this way: This is like asking 'why didn't Victoria encourage her eldest son to marry a Saudi princess, which might have secured Britain an oil fortune in the twentieth century?'

Leaving all personal, racist, religious or societal reasons that that didn't happen aside, it's trying to solve a geopolitical issue seventy years in the future when no one at the time could possibly have predicted that issue would arise.

 

[Risenemperor7]

Put it this way: This is like asking 'why didn't Victoria encourage her eldest son to marry a Saudi princess, which might have secured Britain an oil fortune in the twentieth century?'

That's a very good analogy, I wish I had thought it myself