What PoD would be needed so that British parliament weren’t so prejudiced against James VII & II’s Catholicism?

[Charles III Stuart]

The so-called “Glorious Revolution”, which was in reality nothing more than an insurrectionary coup motivated by religious bigotry.
That said, William of Orange belonged nowhere near the British throne, as someone Irish, I of course despise William and support the Jacobites. The Hanoverians were slightly better than William, but that’s of course a very low bar.

Mary II and Queen Anne were fine, though. Sure, they weren’t the most senior heirs, but they were at least Stuarts (with a fully British mother) and children of the king (instead of merely great-grandson of the King, the way Georg Ludwig Welf was.)

So what if James was deposed in 1688, the throne went to Mary alone (with William as Prince Consort or Duke of Edinburgh or something), and then, when Mary died, the throne went to Anne, and then, to the Old Pretender when Anne dies. Even if the Old Pretender doesn’t marry Sobieska (and thus, no Bonnie Prince Charlie [which would have been a major loss, BPC was one of the greatest and most inspirational leaders and adventurers ever] or his brother Cardinal Henry Stuart, Duke of York), I assume that he would have kids, and that his sons would be under a lot more pressure to have legitimate heirs than BPC was in real life.

But sadly, religious bigotry put foreigners who didn’t care about Britain or even bother learning English on the throne. It’s indisputable that the Hanoverians were terrible for Britain but especially for Ireland. Even if the Old Pretender had converted to Anglicanism, he still wouldn’t have mistreated the Irish Catholics to near the same extent as the wee bit German lairdie did.

The Hanoverians also preferred to patronize their fellow Germans in artistic and musical fields, to the point that pretty much all well-known English composers were before the Hanoverian usurping of the throne, or in the Victorian era and later on (I know Victoria was a Hanover, but she was raised by her mother’s non-Hanoverian family, because her father was dead)

They also changed the pronunciation of English and made British and American accents diverge. The reason Brits don’t say the r at the end of words is because Germans don’t, either, and no one wanted to correct the King. Same with either pronounced eye-their.

 

[isabella]

You are forgetting who William of Orange was also pretty high in the English line of succession (just after James II‘s line) being son of Charles I’s eldest daughter… If he had heirs from another marriage they would be the next-in-line after Anne’s death.

 

[Charles III Stuart]

You are forgetting who William of Orange was also pretty high in the English line of succession (just after James II‘s line) being son of Charles I’s eldest daughter… If he had heirs from another marriage they would be the next-in-line after Anne’s death.

He should have never gotten the throne, for the same reason Prince Philip (also in the Line of Succession) never got it. At least Prince Philip seemed to be a good man with a great sense of humor.

 

[Mikestone8]

Too make any noticeable change you need to prevent the Gunpowder Plot - and even that might not be enough.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

They also changed the pronunciation of English and made British and American accents diverge. The reason Brits don’t say the r at the end of words is because Germans don’t, either, and no one wanted to correct the King. Same with either pronounced eye-their.

That sounds like one of these linguistic just-so stories, TBH. Pronunciation naturally changes over time, and so different accents in different parts of the world naturally tend to diverge.

Too make any noticeable change you need to prevent the Gunpowder Plot - and even that might not be enough.

The Gunpowder Plot was a response to anti-Catholic persecution, so you'd probably need an earlier PoD. Maybe if Elizabeth's anti-Catholic laws are less harsh -- e.g., if non-attendees at Anglican services aren't financially crippled with continuous fines -- you'd have a larger, more visible recusant population, and the Protestant mainstream would be more inclined to accept their existence (without granting them equal status, obviously).

 

[Nuraghe]

That sounds like one of these linguistic just-so stories, TBH. Pronunciation naturally changes over time, and so different accents in different parts of the world naturally tend to diverge.

The Gunpowder Plot was a response to anti-Catholic persecution, so you'd probably need an earlier PoD. Maybe if Elizabeth's anti-Catholic laws are less harsh -- e.g., if non-attendees at Anglican services aren't financially crippled with continuous fines -- you'd have a larger, more visible recusant population, and the Protestant mainstream would be more inclined to accept their existence (without granting them equal status, obviously).

I would say that to avoid all the violent anti-Catholicism of English origin, a Pod would be needed even prior to the Invincible Armada, which would avoid the association between Catholic = foreigner / traitor much promoted by the Elizabethan government, therefore it would be necessary to act at least from 1570 ( year of his excommunication ) onwards, or changing the governments of Edward and Mary and the last years of Henry VIII, with the aim of having a stronger Catholic faction than Otl which forces the sovereign to seek a compromise with them ( as well as making it at least independent from foreign support, thus preventing France or Spain from having an absolute monopoly on assistance to British Catholics ) although I believe that a change in the reign of Charles I could partly alleviate the situation of Catholics particularly in Ireland ( if the Graces manage to be approved by the local parliament )

 

[AsukaEMP]

It’s indisputable that the Hanoverians were terrible for Britain but especially for Ireland. Even if the Old Pretender had converted to Anglicanism, he still wouldn’t have mistreated the Irish Catholics to near the same extent as the wee bit German lairdie did.

Care to clarify how the Hanoverian kings in particular shafted Ireland? I'm not aware of anything particularly noteworthy happening in Ireland during the 18th century that hadn't been in the making for centuries since the Tudor conquest and their plantations.

 

[Mad Bad Rabbit]

The POD is Henry VIII having different sperm.

 

[Charles III Stuart]

Care to clarify how the Hanoverian kings in particular shafted Ireland? I'm not aware of anything particularly noteworthy happening in Ireland during the 18th century that hadn't been in the making for centuries since the Tudor conquest and their plantations.

The Hanoverians upheld the Protestant Ascendancy, and George III explicitly refused to give Catholics rights.

 

[Evil Crusader]

It's pretty much unavoidable, I'd wager. The Anglican confession had to be different and distrustful of Catholicism, or just be subsumed again into it. There hardly is a middle ground.

 

[Nuraghe]

The Hanoverians upheld the Protestant Ascendancy, and George III explicitly refused to give Catholics rights.

well George III was doing this, because he was well aware of what happened to the last ruler with ""pro-Catholic tendencies"" ( one was beheaded while the younger son was literally overthrown and exiled ) so he didn't want to end up like them, also the his being very religious and faithful to the principles of Protestantism prevented him from doing the right thing ( he knew it was right, but he felt in some way he was betraying the ideals of his coronation ) so the problem is not him, but the deep-rooted and carcinogenic anti English popery which was combined with the very present racism towards the Irish ( who normally at the time were considered heretics if it went well, traitors children of the devil if it went badly, when viewed with the London mentality of the period )

 

[Jeff Goldplum]

(and thus, no Bonnie Prince Charlie [which would have been a major loss, BPC was one of the greatest and most inspirational leaders and adventurers ever]

OP's username certainly checks out.

The POD would have to be either Henry VIII has a son with Catherine of Aragon, or Henry VIII puts out his own Pragmatic Sanction and gets Parliament to agree to Mary being his heir.

 

[Kellan Sullivan]

Essentially, want to keep James around? Kill Louis XIV off before 1688. Shouldn't be too difficult. Have his fistula operation in 1686 not be successful (it was little short of a miracle that it was successful OTL). That removes the person who's got nearly a third of James II's parliament in his pocket AND probably limits the worst excesses of the Edict of Fontainebleau.

Alternatively,let someone let it slip that both the pope and the Holy Roman Emperor are backing Bill, cue them seeing him as Trojan Horse

 

[Rognvald]

But sadly, religious bigotry put foreigners who didn’t care about Britain or even bother learning English on the throne. It’s indisputable that the Hanoverians were terrible for Britain but especially for Ireland. Even if the Old Pretender had converted to Anglicanism, he still wouldn’t have mistreated the Irish Catholics to near the same extent as the wee bit German lairdie did.

So the dynasty that saw Britain establish itself as THE undisputed European big dog in India, that saw the Spanish and French fleets rendered unable to effectively contest the RN’s dominance post-Trafalgar, witnessed the British economy take off like a rocket with the Industrial Revolution… was “indisputably bad” for Britain?

 

[Nuraghe]

Essentially, want to keep James around? Kill Louis XIV off before 1688. Shouldn't be too difficult. Have his fistula operation in 1686 not be successful (it was little short of a miracle that it was successful OTL). That removes the person who's got nearly a third of James II's parliament in his pocket AND probably limits the worst excesses of the Edict of Fontainebleau.

Alternatively,let someone let it slip that both the pope and the Holy Roman Emperor are backing Bill, cue them seeing him as Trojan Horse

Ehm Kellan, look that the fact of Innocent XI strongly supporting William has not yet been totally confirmed by historians ( at least the Italian ones ) because it is true that he disagreed with some of James' policies ( especially because Louis was very good at selling him as one of his very faithful agents to his enemies ) it is not certain that he supported the deposition of James, rather he agreed with financing William in fighting Louis on the continent and trying to separate England from Paris, but without a change of government ( as the myth that he was the to have the Te Deum sung, after the glorious revolution, in that period he had just died, it was Alexander VIII who did it )

 

[Fabius Maximus]

well George III was doing this, because he was well aware of what happened to the last ruler with ""pro-Catholic tendencies"" ( one was beheaded while the younger son was literally overthrown and exiled ) so he didn't want to end up like them, also the his being very religious and faithful to the principles of Protestantism prevented him from doing the right thing ( he knew it was right, but he felt in some way he was betraying the ideals of his coronation ) so the problem is not him, but the deep-rooted and carcinogenic anti English popery which was combined with the very present racism towards the Irish ( who normally at the time were considered heretics if it went well, traitors children of the devil if it went badly, when viewed with the London mentality of the period )

English anti-Catholicism had cooled somewhat by George III's time, plus the monarch was increasingly becoming a rubber stamp, so anyone unhappy with Catholic Emancipation would be more likely to blame Parliament rather than George. George III's opposition was more because he'd taken an oath on his coronation to uphold the Established Church, and he felt that allowing his subjects to reject that Church would violate his oath.

 

[Nuraghe]

English anti-Catholicism had cooled somewhat by George III's time, plus the monarch was increasingly becoming a rubber stamp, so anyone unhappy with Catholic Emancipation would be more likely to blame Parliament rather than George. George III's opposition was more because he'd taken an oath on his coronation to uphold the Established Church, and he felt that allowing his subjects to reject that Church would violate his oath.

I know this very well, in fact I think I wrote it in my comment (at least I hope), however it is worthy of note to remember the welcome that the Londoners gave to the papal ambassador in 1772 ( it was so cold that he is not there and was no longer there until to 1929 ), without forgetting the Gordon riots or the reaction of the 13 colonies to the Quebec act, ah yes, how to exclude the " papal aggression " of 1851 ( simply the formula Papist = foreigner / traitor / invader / Spanish inquisitor / Irish / oppressive / Universal monarchy and loss of the "liberties" of the Protestants, was tremendously rooted in the British mentality )



It also doesn't help that after the Reformation, the Irish Catholic clergy went out of their way to prevent Rome from reaching an agreement with London on the issue of ecclesiastical hierarchy in the British Isles, as they feared ( rightly ) that Parliament might gain a greater grip on the island to the detriment of the last Irish autonomy that remained free from London control ( it was only under Charles I that the high ecclesiastical leaders of the Emerald Isle did not fear a similar development, but rather supported it, due to the king's promise to alleviate the situation , which led to the creation of the 51 articles called Gracies )

 

[Kellan Sullivan]

I have a slightly weird way of getting this result- perhaps also ensuring William doesn't get a look in as king TTL.

Any of Mary's pregnancies- 1679, 1680 and twins in 1681- being carried to term. but only a singular pregnancy.

Now, why would this affect things? Well, for one, while William III and Mary II had no kids by the GR, they were attractive to Parliament and to the English. But, give them a son who's born and raised in Holland, is a Calvinist and speaks Dutch as a first language...sprinkle with traditional English xenophobia and set to broil...the ones who supported William and Mary OTL might have pause for thought. Deposing a Catholic and (perceived) absolutist king is one thing. But replacing him with a foreign born Protestant- specifically a brand of Protestantism associated with the Puritans in the common mindset- who happens to have an heir is not necessarily a good thing. OTL, William and Mary's "heir" until they had a child of their own, was an open question. There were two or three attempts that William made to adopt James Francis Edward Stuart OTL, but none succeeded and ultimately the "wholly English", as she called herself in the first address to parliament, Anne succeeded.

The Anglo-Dutch Wars are still in recent memory, and given that the only reason William III even got a look in as king OTL was because he threatened to take his army back to Holland and leave them to deal with James II alone if they didn't. But there would be the matter of his son, Billy Junior (BJ). Sure, if BJ is born in 1681, he's only 7yo at the time of the revolution, and can be "Anglicized", but that's a bit harder to do at 9-10yo (the 1679 birth). Particularly since the Dutch Estates are going to be insisting the BJ remain in Holland for his education. Or the Dutch Estates are going to jettison him only too gladly- they refused to accept William's successor OTL as well, and they can use the whole "foreign king" clause to avoid accepting BJ- and then England will end up being dragged into wars with the Dutch where BJ tries to reclaim his paternal heritage.

 

[Kellan Sullivan]

the dynasty that saw Britain establish itself as THE undisputed European big dog in India, that saw the Spanish and French fleets rendered unable to effectively contest the RN’s dominance post-Trafalgar, witnessed the British economy take off like a rocket with the Industrial Revolution… was “indisputably bad” for Britain?

except the dynasty had nothing to do with that. That was Parliament. And in India, the East India Company- Britain wasn't the "top dog" in India until after the company's collapse, since the company ran India as practically a private fiefdom. Parliament had to regularly bail them out when they went bankrupt.

But if you want to say the dynasty oversaw that, then they also need to take credit for the explosive growth of the Atlantic slave trade, the loss of the American Colonies, the Highland Clearances post Culloden, the expulsion of the Acadiens, the Licensing Act of 1737- which was essentially government censorship lasting until 1968*- and so on and so forth.

I'm not saying the Stuarts were all that- they certainly had their own sets of flaws- but James II for one was extremely anti-slavery (as was, ironically, George III), the American colonies rebelled against Parliament's behaviour not against the king personally- or rather, if they were rebelling against the king, it was because they felt he should control parliament better. Neither Charles II nor James II- despite the libels published against them- ever enforced censorship on such a scale as what Walpole drove in 1737. And the Highland Clearances were politically motivated- to root out the supporters of the Stuarts and grant the land to Hannoverian supporters.

*yes, there had been censorship before this, but it had been under the control of the "Master of the Revels" and not strictly enforced. The Licensing Act was a big driver of the OTL First Amendment

 

[Charles III Stuart]

well George III was doing this, because he was well aware of what happened to the last ruler with ""pro-Catholic tendencies"" ( one was beheaded while the younger son was literally overthrown and exiled ) so he didn't want to end up like them, also the his being very religious and faithful to the principles of Protestantism prevented him from doing the right thing ( he knew it was right, but he felt in some way he was betraying the ideals of his coronation ) so the problem is not him, but the deep-rooted and carcinogenic anti English popery which was combined with the very present racism towards the Irish ( who normally at the time were considered heretics if it went well, traitors children of the devil if it went badly, when viewed with the London mentality of the period )

Why do you say that George knew Catholic Emancipation was right? He wasn't the tyrant the Americans portrayed him as, but none of those Hanoverians liked Catholics at all. Their entire raison d'etre was anti-Catholic bigotry.

As someone who is Irish, there's no doubt in my mind that things would have gone far better for us without the "Glorious Revolution" (really an illegal usurpation of the British throne). And, no, I don't think Parliament getting more power vis-a-vis the monarchy was a worthy tradeoff. An absolutist Catholic monarch would have been better for Ireland than George or especially William is. It's interesting that, while lots of things named after bigoted figures of the past have been renamed, the College of William and Mary still bears that name.

I have a slightly weird way of getting this result- perhaps also ensuring William doesn't get a look in as king TTL.

Any of Mary's pregnancies- 1679, 1680 and twins in 1681- being carried to term. but only a singular pregnancy.

Now, why would this affect things? Well, for one, while William III and Mary II had no kids by the GR, they were attractive to Parliament and to the English. But, give them a son who's born and raised in Holland, is a Calvinist and speaks Dutch as a first language...sprinkle with traditional English xenophobia and set to broil...the ones who supported William and Mary OTL might have pause for thought. Deposing a Catholic and (perceived) absolutist king is one thing. But replacing him with a foreign born Protestant- specifically a brand of Protestantism associated with the Puritans in the common mindset- who happens to have an heir is not necessarily a good thing. OTL, William and Mary's "heir" until they had a child of their own, was an open question. There were two or three attempts that William made to adopt James Francis Edward Stuart OTL, but none succeeded and ultimately the "wholly English", as she called herself in the first address to parliament, Anne succeeded.

The Anglo-Dutch Wars are still in recent memory, and given that the only reason William III even got a look in as king OTL was because he threatened to take his army back to Holland and leave them to deal with James II alone if they didn't. But there would be the matter of his son, Billy Junior (BJ). Sure, if BJ is born in 1681, he's only 7yo at the time of the revolution, and can be "Anglicized", but that's a bit harder to do at 9-10yo (the 1679 birth). Particularly since the Dutch Estates are going to be insisting the BJ remain in Holland for his education. Or the Dutch Estates are going to jettison him only too gladly- they refused to accept William's successor OTL as well, and they can use the whole "foreign king" clause to avoid accepting BJ- and then England will end up being dragged into wars with the Dutch where BJ tries to reclaim his paternal heritage.

6% British William (same level of British ancestry as George I and the Old Pretender - they all shared the same partially-British great-grandfather [James VI & I] and none of their other ancestors had any British ancestry) and 56% British Mary (also a great-grandchild of James, but had a fully British mother) would have had a 31% British child, i.e. about 5 times as German as George I was, and even a child who comes to England age 10 still will have less of an accent and seem less foreign in terms of mannerisms than a wee bit German lairdie who came over at age 54. The song I linked in my last sentence is a pretty good summation of how Scottish people felt about having their Stuart dynasty replaced by the German Hanoverian dynasty.

56% British Anne (Mary's only full sibling to survive) had one child, Prince William, that lived to 11. All the others died as babies. He was 28% British, and raised in England. Had he lived long enough to produce at least one heir, the whole Hanoverian debacle could have been diverted.

I do really feel sorry for Queen Anne, though. Sure, she screwed the Old Pretender over at the very end of her life, but having 8 miscarriages, 5 stillbirths, 4 children die as babies, and your one child who actually makes it to double digits dies less than a week after his 11th birthday...that must have been completely awful, even by the standards of that time. I don't blame her for her fondness for brandy one bit.

And still, Mary and Anne, even if not the most senior heirs by male-preference primogeniture, were still children of James VII & II, and were, like I said, 56% British (vs George and William's 6%). I wouldn't have minded that much if the throne had gone
James VII & II - 1685-1688
Mary II - 1689-1694
Anne - 1694-1714
James VIII & III - 1714-1766
Charles III - 1766-1788
Henry IX - 1788-1807

Even better would have been
James VII & II - 1685-1688
Anne - 1689-1714
James VIII & III - 1714-1766
Charles III - 1766-1788
Henry IX - 1788-1807

Or
James VII & II - 1685-1701
Anne - 1701-1714
James VIII & III - 1714-1766
Charles III - 1766-1788
Henry IX - 1788-1807

I like Anne better than Mary because, as I said earlier in this post, I feel sorry for her losing all those children, and she was less involved in the "Glorious Revolution" than her sister Mary, and Prince George of Denmark seemed a decent chap, as opposed to the Calvinist fanatic and butcher William of Orange. Did William's invasion make the geopolitical situation of the Netherlands better? Yes. However, being Irish, I don't care about the geopolitical situation of the Netherlands when William led to my ancestors becoming fourth-class citizens in their own homeland for centuries. I would have happily let France invade and annex the Netherlands if it meant William kept his grubby little fingers away from Ireland.

Then, of course, we're out of Stuart heirs. But if the Jacobites had prevailed in 1745, Bonnie Prince Charlie would have probably married and had legitimate heirs shortly after, and his brother Henry would have probably not been allowed to become a Cardinal.

Scotland became second fiddle when the Union of the Crowns, and later, the Act of Union happened (because Scotland was coerced and bullied into it) , but at least the royal house was Scottish. Then, in 1714, they didn't even have that anymore. If only Bonnie Prince Charlie had won...