WI/AHC: The Saxon Electoral Vote Gets Removed from the Wettins to the Saxe-Lauenburgs?

And can it be simplified to father>eldest son?

A glance at the Saxe-Lauenburg family tree here makes it extraordinarily confusing to keep it straight. Part of the reason is that there is enough inbreeding going on that its making the Habsburgs weep (with joy, probably), and also, what's with so many of the dukes marrying "older" women? I mean, Dukes August (2e wife), Julius Heinrich (wives 1e and 2e), and Princes Franz Albrecht and Franz Karl all married women that were either older than they were or at least menopausal by the time they wed. Small wonder the line went extinct.

Was Saxe-Lauenburg so unimportant that it had to make do with the cast-offs (near menopausal princesses of Brandenburg or Oldenburg etc) that the major houses threw at them? Or was there a reason why these men were marrying to women whose chances of producing an heir were slim to impossible?
 
Age aside the dynasty follows basic salic law with partible inheritance. Each son is allowed land and his father's title. The marital issues might be a result trying to reduce the number of sons, whether by self or rival dynast interest (eldest = most senior which wouldn't follow father-son pattern).
 
Age aside the dynasty follows basic salic law with partible inheritance. Each son is allowed land and his father's title. The marital issues might be a result trying to reduce the number of sons, whether by self or rival dynast interest (eldest = most senior which wouldn't follow father-son pattern).

Wasn't there an attempt at some point during the 16th century to change all that (I think Magnus II was the guy, but he might have been one of the ones opposed to it). Why wasn't it successful? And could it have been? Or rather, what if it had been? Could things look less...Byzantine? Cause I'm pretty sure the Ottoman succession is easier to disentangle.
 
Wasn't there an attempt at some point during the 16th century to change all that (I think Magnus II was the guy, but he might have been one of the ones opposed to it). Why wasn't it successful? And could it have been? Or rather, what if it had been? Could things look less...Byzantine? Cause I'm pretty sure the Ottoman succession is easier to disentangle.
Possibly. There's so much upheaval that it's the 30yw and revamp of the imperial circles that clears things up. Iirc of course.
What was probably needed was something like the Electoral territory inviolation being applied to Duchies too, that way there's a sole ducal Saxe Lauenburg line with comital cadets that are subservient to ducal interests. That or something like the wars of unification the Wittelsbachs did whenever they got too many.

Plus didn't it take until the 1700s for Lauenburgs to drop claim to Saxon Electoral title too? Maybe they could be successful there?
 
Possibly. There's so much upheaval that it's the 30yw and revamp of the imperial circles that clears things up. Iirc of course.
What was probably needed was something like the Electoral territory inviolation being applied to Duchies too, that way there's a sole ducal Saxe Lauenburg line with comital cadets that are subservient to ducal interests. That or something like the wars of unification the Wittelsbachs did whenever they got too many.

Plus didn't it take until the 1700s for Lauenburgs to drop claim to Saxon Electoral title too? Maybe they could be successful there?

The ideal time to reinstate them (IMHO) as electors of Saxony would've been when Karl V stripped Johann Friedrich of the electoral dignity and handed it to his cousin. Although I think the Saxe-Lauenburgs were bordering obsolescence by that point - yet, if you think about it, it would've been a shrewd move on Karl's part. The duke of Saxe-Lauenburg's daughters/sisters were the queens of Denmark and Sweden, so by removing the electorate from the Wettins to the Lauenburgs he could've secured his northern flank and made nice with Denmark (where he was championing the rights of his nieces/brother-in-law over the actual king IIRC) and Sweden at the same time. But it's probably too shrewd by half for Karl.
 

Kaze

Banned
Most succession crisis are like that - confused jumble of who has the legitimate claim. Where-in it all boils down to -

a. do you have the local people support for their leader?
b. do you have a claim?
c. do you have the church or some other power backing you?
d. do you have the crown jewels?
e. do you have an army?

It usually comes down the option "e" -- Sailic Law can be ignored if you have a large enough army, where in you can get the other letters in due course.
 
Most succession crisis are like that - confused jumble of who has the legitimate claim. Where-in it all boils down to -

a. do you have the local people support for their leader?
b. do you have a claim?
c. do you have the church or some other power backing you?
d. do you have the crown jewels?
e. do you have an army?

It usually comes down the option "e" -- Sailic Law can be ignored if you have a large enough army, where in you can get the other letters in due course.

Fair enough.

Magnus was married to a Swedish princess, although their only son predeceased him, leaving only illegitimate issue. But, at least, going off wiki, this is what happened.
  • Magnus II's father, Franz I, abdicates due to his bad debts - he'd actually gone so far as to pawn part of the duchy (I'm not sure to who)
  • Magnus, as Swedish commander and with the aid of Sophia Vasa's dowry agreed to redeem the debts - guess what, he didn't
  • His father and brothers got upset and staged a successful coup against him
  • Dad reascends the throne. Magnus tries to take back Lauenburg a couple times. Fails a couple more times. His wife leaves him (he's a drunk and abusive)
  • Dad recognizes his third son, Franz II (the successful military commander that's responsible for getting rid of Magnus), but in doing so violates primogeniture
  • The estates regard this as irregular and illegitimate
  • Magnus appeals to Rudolf II to endow him with the throne. Rudolf recognizes Franz II (due to a prior arrangement with Franz I)
  • Magnus goes off in a huff. Gets trapped in Hamburg and then locked up in Ratzeburg Schloss for the rest of his life.
I can see a couple of possible PODs here:
1) Magnus doesn't pawn off further lands.
2) The coup against him is unsuccessful
3) Instead of his third son (and thus pissing off the Estates and having to make a deal with the emperor), Franz I recognizes his eldest son's only son, Gustav as heir, with Franz (II) as regent if the boy should ascend as a minor.

Personally, I like 1) or 3). Gustav would be 11 when Grandpa Franz dies, (and IIRC from the OTL grand duchess of Tuscany, majority would've been 10years away). However, I'm not sure if Gustav's got the brains for it. He shot himself by accident and died of the resulting infection OTL. But let's say that it was the excessive spoiling that turned him into a mommy's boy (his uncles, Johan III and Carl IX of Sweden thought so - Carl actually going so far as to remove the boy from his mother's care, since he regarded the coddling as ruining the boy), and that in a better environment (like being raised by Franz II) he can do better.
 
New question: how can the Saxe-Lauenbergs make it that when Karl V removes the electoral vote from the Ernestine Wettins, he gives it (not to the Albertine branch) but to them? Could it happen? Maybe Karl decides the Wettins in general are a bad bunch (too Reformist). However, since the duke of Lauenburg's sisters are married to the king of Denmark, the king of Sweden and the count of Oldenburg, I'm not sure he can paint himself in a more favourable light...
 
Top