WI Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII's wife, gives birth to a son? A Catholic England??

A side thought: since Catherine of Aragon was Charles V's aunt, England could have become part of the Habsburgs empire. One of the family politic was to intermarry the several familiy branch in order to keep their possessions united.
If the hypothetical son of Catherine married a cousin, you could have an Habsburg empire covering large part of Europe...

Guess that the French kings would become quite paranoid :D
 
A side thought: since Catherine of Aragon was Charles V's aunt, England could have become part of the Habsburgs empire. One of the family politic was to intermarry the several familiy branch in order to keep their possessions united.
If the hypothetical son of Catherine married a cousin, you could have an Habsburg empire covering large part of Europe...

Catherine was a Trastamara (the Castillian and Aragonese royal house), not a Hapsburg. It was her brother in law, Philip (husband of Joanna of Castille) the one who started the house of Austria (Spanish Hapsburgs).

Of course that does not prevent her son to marry a hapsburg cousin -in fact Charles V did have four sisters, all of whom married kings (of France, Portugal, Denmark and Hungary-Bohemia)
 
A side thought: since Catherine of Aragon was Charles V's aunt, England could have become part of the Habsburgs empire. One of the family politic was to intermarry the several familiy branch in order to keep their possessions united.
If the hypothetical son of Catherine married a cousin, you could have an Habsburg empire covering large part of Europe...

Guess that the French kings would become quite paranoid :D

Not quite. The Castile-Aragon-Burgundy-Austria union was one huge coincidence. Or rather, leap of opportunism. The Hapsburgs had no precedent for keeping their family close by intermarriage (as Rakhasa points out, only Austria of the four abovementioned states was Hapsburg in the first place anyway), they instead had a history of buying or conquering areas ruled by weak lords, at least in the first few centuries. Also, I'll point out that on Charles V's abdication he specifically divided his inheritance up between his sons. Philip got Spain, including the Italian possessions, and the Netherlands. Ferdinand got Austria and the Imperial Crown. Philip, the elder son, was somewhat annoyed at missing out on the whole bundle and persuaded his dad Charles to make him Ferdinand's heir, but Ferdinand ignored this anyway. Thus Austria and Spain were only ever ruled by the same man for one generation.
 
Not quite. The Castile-Aragon-Burgundy-Austria union was one huge coincidence. Or rather, leap of opportunism. The Hapsburgs had no precedent for keeping their family close by intermarriage (as Rakhasa points out, only Austria of the four abovementioned states was Hapsburg in the first place anyway), they instead had a history of buying or conquering areas ruled by weak lords, at least in the first few centuries. Also, I'll point out that on Charles V's abdication he specifically divided his inheritance up between his sons. Philip got Spain, including the Italian possessions, and the Netherlands. Ferdinand got Austria and the Imperial Crown. Philip, the elder son, was somewhat annoyed at missing out on the whole bundle and persuaded his dad Charles to make him Ferdinand's heir, but Ferdinand ignored this anyway. Thus Austria and Spain were only ever ruled by the same man for one generation.

Yes I know. I wasn't really clear in my precedent post, isn't it? :p

Anyway the division of Charles empire happened after the POD, if I remember correctly. An Hapsburg related king of England could change the dinastic manouvres of many states during these years. For example the Stuarts could stay just soveraigns of Scotland and never get the opportunity to become rulers of England.
I wouldn't put down the possibility of an Hapsburg union in the years following the POD. Of course the dynamic of such union would be quite complicated and bloody too: no way that this would happen without a war like the succession wars of 18th century...
 
WI Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII's wife, gives birth to a healthy son that lives past his childhood?

Would Protestantism still penetrate in England? How will this ideas by recieved by the Court? Can English protestants flourish even if prosecuted by the government? IOTL Anglicans prosecuted other protestants, but I got the feeling that prosecutions would be nastier in TTL. What would be the effects of this?

Sociologically, would we see a more homogenous society, or one heavily diveded between Protestants and Catholics (which could lead to a religious war worst than the French ones)???

Any other ideas?


The antidote to butterflies is the spider web of momentum.

In OTL England went through several changes of official religion and religiously tinged rebellions. But it had no full blown war of religion, and fewer than 1000 people were executed for religion, including Elizabethan executions technically for treason. A mid 16th century Spanish observer noted that the English were very odd, because 'the question of religion is of the least importance to them.'

All of which suggests to me that the English just weren't up for a serious crisis of religion. Henry VIII was a zealous Catholic who went Protestant out of convenience; Elizabeth a Prostestant who disliked zealous Protestants and had distinctly 'high church' personal tastes. They are far more typical of the English than More or Cramner, or even Edward VI and Mary.

So Protestantism without an official foothold sputters in the face of fairly limited persecution, even sympathetic people tending to regard martyrs as a bit nutters. And someone like Cromwell will be shrewd enough to see that internal church reform defuses Protestant sentiment and provides a handy excuse to lay hands on church money. I see the end result Catholic England as a bit of a mirror image, 'Anglo-Catholic,' orthodox in doctrine but with its own ways of doing things.
 
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