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alternatehistory.com
When Your Gone, I’ll Still Be Bloody Mary: An Alternate History
Written by Austin Ross
Prologue: Love is just a history that they may prove
Despite many reports that as she grew with age, The Queen’s once attractive figure was in all actuality quite short, and did not cut an imposing figure. As one Spanish Courtier wrote, The Queen was rather flabby than fat, she is of white complexion and fair, and has no eyebrows. Yet despite her apparently relatively common features seen through the eyes of high Spaniard standards, the Twenty-eight year old King of Napes, Milan and Jerusalem viewed his "cara y muy amada tia", as one of the most beautiful creatures in the world. We have many reports from the Queen’s Ladies-in-waiting; that upon their wedding night, that the King eagerly consummated his marriage, despite some difficulty on the part of the Queen, who had prepared herself the life of a maid and not allowed for any man to enter her chambers before that summer night.
As the weeks turned into months, signs continued to become visible on the form of the Queen that Phillip had indeed performed his marital duty. Court Doctors had confirmed that the Queen’s Belly had grown considerably as well as swelling in her breasts and elsewhere. In the month of April 1555, the royal couple moved to Hampton Court, which was closer to London and the Queen would be able to rally her supporters to her cause in the case of an uprising. During her time at Hampton, she was visited by her sister the Lady Elizabeth, and the two reconciled after her younger half-sibling reiterated formally her lack of involvement in the recent Thomas Wyatt’s rebellion.
The Event which nations across the continent of Europe has waited for took place at Daybreak on Tuesday, April 30th 1555. Bells rang out across all of London, that the good Queen Mary had given birth to healthy son. Although she experienced hours of pain, and there was much danger in a thirty-nine year old woman giving birth in an age of such medical uncertainty. According to a letter that Phillip wrote to his father Emperor Charles V, what was one to expect from an heir who could potentially become King over England, France, Naples, Jerusalem, Ireland, Spain, Sicily, Austria, Milan, Burgundy, Branbant, Hapsburg, Flanders and Tyrol.
King Phillip satisfied the hopes of the Englishmen who waited eagerly outside of Hampton, as they watched as the young consort raised his heir from a window in the palace. In a magnificent display of excitement, shops were closed as the commons rushed to mass and huge block parties erupted over all London. According to Thomas Gresham, the English Ambassador the Netherlands, The Queen was brought to bed of her young Prince, who she aptly named after the shared ancestor John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster; John of the House of Tudor-Hapsburg. A new era in the world was about to begin…
King Phillip II and I offering John, Prince of Wales to Victory, by Titian ca. 1555