What if: Richard III manages to marry off Elizabeth of York before being overthrown?
- Thread starter RedKing
- Start date
Yes but my premise is that she manages to give him two children, a son and a daughter, not like 6 living ones. Also, unlike Catherine at this point she hasn't been pregnant like five times, which may have also affected Catherine's chances.
True, I am not saying it’s impossible, just that it is unlikely. Of course she could manage two children. It would also save England a third phase of the Wars of the Roses
Not necessarily. There's still EoY and her sisters, some of whom at least wiill have kids. And then there's Warwick and his sister.
The lack of a Lancastrian heir doesn't necessarily end the Wars - just leaves the Yorks free to quarrel among themselves.
True, but Warwick is in Richard’s custody and all of the women are likely to be married off to royal retainers.
The Lancastrians are still around* in the form of Buckingham (assuming he lives) and Henry Tudor.
* The Portuguese and Castilian are purposely ignored as Edward III passed an act prohibiting them from inheriting the throne, and depending on one’s view of the Beauforts, there are two different sets of Castilian claimants.
French support for Tudor did not unite the country behind Richard in OTL ...
The resources she'd need is more than Portugal can offer in the 1480s, which is the POD being proposed. Portugal is a small kingdom tied down by wars in Africa and Spain. It is already spread too thin and, what's more, her proposed Portuguese husband is not yet king, but "merely" a duke at this time. The country's fortunes will have changed dramatically come the reign of her husband, Manuel I, though.
I'm not sure what you're proposing re: France and Portugal. Are you imagine that Elizabeth of York would collaborate with Henry Tudor in France for some reason?
It's easy to ignore the Portuguese Lancastrian line when there's an Englishman (Welshman) for them to rally around and a proposed marriage to join disaffected Edwardians to the rump Lancastrian faction.
It becomes much harder to ignore the Portuguese when the person the Edwardians are most likely to support is there. At least, it would become so if Richard's reign is a rocky one. Some bright spark on the outs with Richard is sure to realize "Hey, don't they have Lancastrian blood too?" And once/if Elizabeth's husband takes the throne as he did in OTL and the Portuguese start rolling in gold from the spice trade, how long would it really be before her father's old supporters start showing up at the Portuguese court?
Agreed, the Lancastrian claimant would always be an Englishman if one was available.
This is also true, so an alt Edwardian court in Exile, in Portugal? I could see Manuel sponsoring his second son Duarte* to go and retake the English throne.
*Duarte being the Portuguese form of Edward.
Again, it would depend largely on Richard's reign. If he turns out to be the next Edward III, then there'd be no political support to displace his regime or stop the succession of his heir, if and when he had an heir.
No, I'm suggesting that Manuel couuld hire French mercenaries as Henry Tudor did - unless for some reason the French government objected to his doing so.
Actually, Isabel had no problem with Richard IIRC. There was even talk of a marriage between Edward of Middleham and one of her daughters OTL, and then when Ned died and Dickon was widowed, more talk of a Spanish infanta marrying Dickon
Fair. I stand corrected then. Maria of Aragon as Princess of Wales it can be.
Juana la Loca as queen of England instead of duchess of Burgundy, would be fascinating as well. Dickon, for all his faults, would probably treat her A LOT better than Philipp of Austria didFair. I stand corrected then. Maria of Aragon as Princess of Wales it can be.
I mean, I've heard Philip was abusive towards Joanna (or at least by our standards to day he was), so it would be hard to find her a worse husband.
Juana had a rum go of life. Abused by her mother to start with. Mean that's downright fucked up what Isabel used to apparently do to her. As to Philipp being abusive, while today it would be abuse, by today's standards, MANY marriages at that point were "abusive", even Fernando and Isabel's "love match". (Max of Austria-Mary of Burgundy is probably one of the FEW between 1450-1550 that WEREN'T abusive/neglectful by modern standards).
Really? I know Fernando was away often and could accidentally end up in the wrong chamber, but I don't realise it was abusive (unless that's what you meant). At least Mary and Max were happy together then.
One time (according to a story) Fernando actually wound up in the right chamber (namely, his wife's) with the wrong woman (Isabel walked in on Fernando with another woman on her bed).
Fernando and Isabel's marriage probably would've been fairly decent if Torquemada and Isabel's other confessor (ICR if it was Talavera or Ximenes) use to pit her against Fernando. It was partly why Fernando despised Torquemada. Isabel had a strong personality of her own, but Torquemada and Talavera used her piety to get her to do things that they wanted. For instance, she was (apparently) in favour of letting the Jews stay in Spain, Torquemada stormed into the room and threw his crucifix at Isabel's head (actually injuring her) and demanded "Judas betrayed Christ for thirty pieces of silver, now you would do the same?"
Another incident they told Isabel to stand firm on was to refuse to assist Fernando in his Italian ventures until Fernando had first helped her drive the Moors from Spain (mostly for the reason that "who knew how long that would take" so it was more a delaying tactic). Despite the fact that originally, the agreement was that Isabel would help Fernando once she was secure on the Castilian throne (i.e. once they'd defeated La Beltraneja). Equally, with the "wrong bed" episode, they urged Isabel to close her legs to Fernando until the mistress was sent away.
Now, as I say, Isabel had a strong personality/will of her own, it is highly probable that she might have done similar things without her "evil" confessors whispering in her ear. But that's not to say the marriage was "as happy" as is often portrayed. Fernando definitely resented it how he was routinely "humiliated" for doing what was, then, acceptable male behaviour (mean, Juana of Aragon in Naples, Leonor of Viseu in Portugal etc, weren't being encouraged in similar behaviour when they disagreed with their husband. Yes, they were "queens-consort" rather than "queens-regnant", but neither were exactly "powerless"). But Isabel also disrespected the Aragonese, she didn't understand how they worked, and once, when the Aragonese Cortes was proving "difficult" to Fernando, she suggested that "these are not loyal subjects". She didn't like her husband's bastards, and she humiliated them openly (again, whether this was at Torquemada or Talavera's urging is debatable). Fernando intended that his bastard son, Alfonso, be named bishop of Toledo (eventually) as a way of both "merging" Aragon-Castile but also as securing Toledo's "compliancy" to the crown. Isabel refused, very publicly announcing that only a Castilian could occupy the post (and implying that Aragonese were somehow "less") which was bullshit, because non-Castilians had occupied the position before (Sancho de Rojas was a Catalan - or at least, his father was - and spent most of his life in Aragonese service) and since (Ximenes' immediate successor, Guillermo de Croy was not even Spanish)
And all the while, people like Torquemada were preaching "wifely submission" and that line of things. Fernando had respect for Isabel's autonomy (it was hardly as though he couldn't), but I think his worst traits (philandering) were probably those that all kings of the day had (Joao II, Emperor Maximilian, Louis XI, Louis XII, Edward IV etc all had bastards) and some of them treated their wives far worse (both Louises treatment of their respective first wives was abominable, even by the standards of the day). Yet Isabel seemed to think that simply because she was the ruler of the more powerful realm, she had the whip hand and that she could treat Fernando as she chose.
Just my interpretation of the events.