WI: Charles II of England marries Sophia of Hanover?

Wonder if Caterina will end up as duchess of Savoy then (as was originally proposed for her sister), since Louis XIV's out, and Juan José of Austria is too low ranking
The marriage to Juan José was part of a plan to achieve the peace with Spain. The Braganzas didn't care that much about his bastardy. The Duc de Beaufort, who was also from a bastard line of the Bourbons, was seriously considered to be her husband. Eventually she would marry anyone willing to support Portugal in their war with Spain. Maybe, if the conditions are different, she could marry the IOTL James II (if he doesn't marry Anne Hyde).
 
I'm going to go with they do have children:
Charles Louis 1661
Mary 1663
Henry 1666
Charlotte 1668
Sophia 1670
Frederick 1674

Sophia quickly learned English- sending her German attendants home to speed up the process (she did keep her kitchen staff). She established a court unique in Europe: the children were reared there, as were the children of James and Anne Hyde who were much healthier as a result. This allowed for the survival of 2 of James' sons: James, Duke of Cambridge and Edgar, Duke of Kendal. The Venetian Ambassoador's reports were constantly full of praise for Sophia who, despite her Protestantism, was the best mother of any Queen in Europe.
James children by Mary of Modena were even welcomed, though James chose not to have them brought up at court. So, sadly his daughters die in this timeline as they did originally. James (known to us as "the Old Pretender") is born sixth in line to the throne, never the less, Parliament passes an Exclusion Act in 1688 barring any Catholic, or anyone married to a Catholic from the succession.
 
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The marriage between Charles II of England and Sophia of the Palatine was decided upon in 1659, on the eve of his restoration to his rightful throne, was one that was both filled with love and hate. The actual meeting between the two took place in London on June 5th, shortly after Charles' own triumphant return. The young woman acquitted herself well to the court and her husband, and their marriage would produce 8 children over the next 12 years, of which 7 would survive childbirth. This, however, would be the only surefire success of a tumultuous relationship that would go on 25 years, until Charles' death in 1685.

Their first child, named Charles Frederick Stuart, was born somewhat prematurely on the 12th of February, 1661, but still proved to be a healthy child after some weeks with the his wet nurse. This success was tempered by the failure of the issue of the Duke of York's marriage, which Charles had been negotiating. His initial hope had been to marry him to Catherine of Portugal (Braganza)*, but instead his younger brother had announced his engagement to Englishwoman Anne Hyde. With this news, Charles exiled his brother from the court for a period of two months, then allowed him to return with his bride, who was given a place among Queen Sophia's ladies. James' son from his quick marriage, Charles Stuart, was made the Duke of Cambridge, but unfortunately died soon after.

The union between Charles and Sophia continued to be one of contentment for a time, with the birth of 3 children in the next 3 years: Mary Stuart (b.29th of December, 1661), Anne Stuart (b.8th of November, 1662) and the Duke of Clarence and Ross, Henry Stuart (b.4th of May, 1664). The unfortunate death of the Princess Anne in 1664, sometime in late March, almost caused the heavily pregnant Queen to miscarry due to grief and stress, but fortunately a healthy son was born in May. The Princess Mary's household was joined in 1662 by another Mary Stuart, the daughter of the Duke of York and Albany, who was joined in February of 1665 by the Lady Anne Stuart. Meanwhile, the Princes' household was joined, in 1663 by the second Duke of Cambridge, James Stuart, who would become close friends with the Duke of Clarence and Ross later in life.

In 1665, some weeks before the Queen announced her 5th pregnancy, the royal couple faced a falling out over his current mistress, Barbara Palmer. Although the tryst had been ongoing since 1661, it was the flaunting of her own 5th pregnancy and the lack of attention from her husband that sent Sophia of the Palatine off in a rage. She announced that she would be leaving the court for Edinburgh, bring a large court back to Scotland in a way not seen since the courts of Mary, Queen of Scots. After arriving there, she announced her own 5th pregnancy and on the 2nd of January, 1666, the Princess Charlotte Stuart was born. With another child to bind them together, the Queen returned to her husband for a time, having made him promise to send Lady Palmer away and to stay faithful to her. The whole practice was found to be an utter disaster.

While not a prudish woman, the Queen found her husband altogether too lustful for her own capacities. Despite their apparently frequent unions, it would not by until March of 1667 that she would announce her 6th pregnancy. With this excuse, the Queen gave the King her blessing to return to his mistresses, with the promise that he would not so openly flaunt them. Her current pregnancy came to a close on the 7th of October, with the birth of a 3rd son, William Louis, Duke of Gloucester and Kintyre. He joined the Princely Court with his cousin Edgar, Duke of Kendal, who's elder brother (a second Charles, who had also been a Duke of Kendal) had died a few months earlier, a fate shared by Edgar* in 1669.

The royal couple would welcome two more Princesses over the next 5 years. The Princess Henrietta Louisa Stuart was born on the 7th of July, 1670, while the youngest sister Isabella Stuart was born on the 29th of November, 1672. With his two youngest daughters being born, the King and Queen found happiness again, after the Lady Palmer played her hand too far and lost the love of Charles. As for the Duke of York, his first wife Anne Hyde died due to complications with breast cancer and childbirth. The issue of his second wife would take up all the time of the now non-pregnant Queen Sophia.

The Queen managed to talk the Duke out of a match with Maria d'Este, a daughter a the Duke of Modena. Instead, she found a match the managed to please both the parliament and her brother-in-law, Catherine of Hanover.** The wedding between the 14 year old Hanoverian Princess and the 40 year old English Duke took place in July of 1675, 4 years after the death of Anne Hyde. The couple would find each other quite attractive and the Duke was actually have said to have thanked the Queen for making him so good a match. It would produce 5 children, of which only the youngest daughter survived childhood.

Returning to Edinburgh in 1680 was a decision made in haste. Queen Sophia received news that a close friend had died, which led to the Queen facing a period of depression. On top of this, William III, Prince of Orange came to England to marry her daughter, leading to the Queen to refuse to say goodbye to her daughter and instead to send her a series of letters claiming abandonment despite her daughter's lack of real agency in the decision. In reality, the young woman found herself married to a man she had never met at the orders of a father she adored and the utter anger of a mother who she became extremely hurt by. Despite this, the marriage would be somewhat happy and the couple's only child, William, was born a year after the wedding.

Her next daughter, the Princess Charlotte, would marry barely a year later, to the Elector of Hanover's eldest son, George of Hanover. This match, yet another strong Protestant one, was offset in 1684 by the marriage between the Lady Mary Stuart of York and Francesco II d'Este, Duke of Modena, the brother of the spinster Maria d'Este (and former potential Duchess of York). This couple would never have any children.

*Catherine would later, in 1663, finally marry Juan of Austria, a bastard son of the King of Spain. The couple would undergo 4 pregnancies but no living children were born and, upon his death in 1679, she returned to Portugal and lived the rest of her life as part of the royal household. She was known for her piety and kind nature and was later considered for Sainthood.

**Ernest Augustus, Elector of Hanover had married, in 1660, Maria Gonzaga, the 32 year old elder sister of Duke of Mantua and Montferrat and the Holy Roman Empress. A pious Catholic, she managed to keep her faith even as her husband kept his. While her two sons, George and Charles of Hanover were raised in the Protestant faith, her daughter Catherine, the eldest of the 3 children, had been raised a Catholic. Her Catholicism had ruled her out in the discussions of a match with the Prince of Wales and a potential marriage to the Holy Roman Emperor had failed on the basis that she was too young and too informal to match him.

Because this is going a bit long:

The Royal Family


Charles II of England (b.1630: d.1685) m. Sophia of the Palatinate (b.1630: d.1714) (a)

1a) Charles Frederick III of Great Britain (b.1661: d.1710) m. Sophia Dorothea of Celle (b.1666: d.1698) (a), Hedvig Sophia of Sweden (b.1681: d.1708) (b)

1a) William III of Great Britain (b.1685)

2a) Edward Charles Stuart, Duke of Bedford (b.1688)​

2a) Princess Mary Stuart (b.1661) m. William III, Prince of Orange (b.1650: d.1702) (a)

1a) William IV, Prince of Orange (b.1681)​

3a) Princess Anne Stuart (b.1662: d.1664)

4a) Henry Stuart, Duke of Clarence and Ross (b.1664: d.1750) m. Sophia Hedwig of Denmark (b.1677: d.1735) (a)

1a) Lady Janet Stuart (b.1706)

2a) Robert Stuart, Duke of Clarence and Ross (b.1710)

3a) Lady Ursula Stuart (b.1715)​

5a) Princess Charlotte Stuart (b.1666: d.1729) m. George of Hanover (b.1664: d.1697) (a)

1a) George I, Elector of Hanover (b.1683)

2a) Charles of Hanover (b.1685: d.1690)

3a) Sophia of Hanover (b.1689)

4a) Ernest Adolphus of Hanover (b.1692)

5a) Margaret of Hanover (b.1696)​

6a) William Louis Stuart, Duke of Gloucester and Kintyre (b.1667: d.1690) m. Sophie Amalie of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp (b.1670: d.1710) (a)

1a) Lady Catherine Stuart (b.1687: d.1698)

2a) Lady Henrietta Stuart (b.1690: d.1691)​

7a) Princess Henrietta Louisa Stuart (b.1670: d.1741) m. John George IV, Elector of Saxony (b.1668: d.1694) (a)

1a) Margaret of Saxony (b.1690)

2a) Theresa of Saxony (b.1690)

3a) John V, Elector of Saxony (b.1692)

4a) Anna of Saxony (b.1695)​

8a) Princess Isabella Stuart (b.1672 d.1711) p. Unknown (a)

1a) Thomas Stuart (b.1693) - bastard​
The Family of York
James Stuart, Duke of York and Albany (b.1633: d.1701) m. Anne Hyde (b.1637: d.1671) (a), Catherine of Hanover (b.1661: d.1712) (b)

1a) Charles Stuart, Duke of Cambridge (b.1660: d.1661)

2a) Lady Mary Stuart (b.1662: d.1713) m. Francesco II d'Este, Duke of Modena (b.1661: d.1694) (a)

3a) James Stuart, Duke of Cambridge (b.1663: d.1700)

4a) Lady Anne Stuart (b.1665: d.1719) m. Charles Paulet, 2nd Duke of Bolton (b.1661: d.1722) (a)

1a) Miscarriage (c.1686)

2a) Miscarriage (c.1688)

3a) Isabel Paulet (b.1689: d.1690)

4a) Miscarriage (c.1691)

5a) Edward Paulet (b.1693: d.1699)

6a) Miscarriage (c.1694)

7a) Miscarriage (c.1696)

8a) Miscarriage (c.1697)

9a) William Paulet (b.1700: d.1701)

10a) Miscarriage (c.1701)​

5a) Charles Stuart, Duke of Kendal (b.1666: d.1667)

6a) Edgar Stuart, Duke of Kendal (b.1667: d.1669)

7a) Lady Henrietta Stuart (b.1669: d.1669)

8a) Lady Catherine Stuart (b.1671: d.1671)

9b) Richard Stuart, Duke of Kent (b.1678: d.1680)

10b) Lady Margaret Stuart (b.1681: d.1681)

11b) Charles Stuart, Duke of Kent (b.1684: d.1689)

12b) Lady Theresa Stuart (b.1687: d.1690)

13b) Lady Grace Stuart (b.1690: d.1758) m. Charles de Bourbon, Duke of Berry (b.1686: d.1714) (a) m. Louis Armand II, Prince of Conti (b.1695: d.1727) (b)

1a) Marie Adelaide de Bourbon (b.1709)

2a) Nicholas de Bourbon, Duke of Berry (b.1712)

3b) Marguerite de Bourbon (b.1716)

4b) Jeanne de Bourbon (b.1719)

5b) Therese de Bourbon (b.1723)

6b) Anne de Bourbon (b.1726)​
 
The marriage between Charles II of England and Sophia of the Palatine was decided upon in 1659, on the eve of his restoration to his rightful throne, was one that was both filled with love and hate. The actual meeting between the two took place in London on June 5th, shortly after Charles' own triumphant return. The young woman acquitted herself well to the court and her husband, and their marriage would produce 8 children over the next 12 years, of which 7 would survive childbirth. This, however, would be the only surefire success of a tumultuous relationship that would go on 25 years, until Charles' death in 1685.

Their first child, named Charles Frederick Stuart, was born somewhat prematurely on the 12th of February, 1661, but still proved to be a healthy child after some weeks with the his wet nurse. This success was tempered by the failure of the issue of the Duke of York's marriage, which Charles had been negotiating. His initial hope had been to marry him to Catherine of Portugal (Braganza)*, but instead his younger brother had announced his engagement to Englishwoman Anne Hyde. With this news, Charles exiled his brother from the court for a period of two months, then allowed him to return with his bride, who was given a place among Queen Sophia's ladies. James' son from his quick marriage, Charles Stuart, was made the Duke of Cambridge, but unfortunately died soon after.

The union between Charles and Sophia continued to be one of contentment for a time, with the birth of 3 children in the next 3 years: Mary Stuart (b.29th of December, 1661), Anne Stuart (b.8th of November, 1662) and the Duke of Clarence and Ross, Henry Stuart (b.4th of May, 1664). The unfortunate death of the Princess Anne in 1664, sometime in late March, almost caused the heavily pregnant Queen to miscarry due to grief and stress, but fortunately a healthy son was born in May. The Princess Mary's household was joined in 1662 by another Mary Stuart, the daughter of the Duke of York and Albany, who was joined in February of 1665 by the Lady Anne Stuart. Meanwhile, the Princes' household was joined, in 1663 by the second Duke of Cambridge, James Stuart, who would become close friends with the Duke of Clarence and Ross later in life.

In 1665, some weeks before the Queen announced her 5th pregnancy, the royal couple faced a falling out over his current mistress, Barbara Palmer. Although the tryst had been ongoing since 1661, it was the flaunting of her own 5th pregnancy and the lack of attention from her husband that sent Sophia of the Palatine off in a rage. She announced that she would be leaving the court for Edinburgh, bring a large court back to Scotland in a way not seen since the courts of Mary, Queen of Scots. After arriving there, she announced her own 5th pregnancy and on the 2nd of January, 1666, the Princess Charlotte Stuart was born. With another child to bind them together, the Queen returned to her husband for a time, having made him promise to send Lady Palmer away and to stay faithful to her. The whole practice was found to be an utter disaster.

While not a prudish woman, the Queen found her husband altogether too lustful for her own capacities. Despite their apparently frequent unions, it would not by until March of 1667 that she would announce her 6th pregnancy. With this excuse, the Queen gave the King her blessing to return to his mistresses, with the promise that he would not so openly flaunt them. Her current pregnancy came to a close on the 7th of October, with the birth of a 3rd son, William Louis, Duke of Gloucester and Kintyre. He joined the Princely Court with his cousin Edgar, Duke of Kendal, who's elder brother (a second Charles, who had also been a Duke of Kendal) had died a few months earlier, a fate shared by Edgar* in 1669.

The royal couple would welcome two more Princesses over the next 5 years. The Princess Henrietta Louisa Stuart was born on the 7th of July, 1670, while the youngest sister Isabella Stuart was born on the 29th of November, 1672. With his two youngest daughters being born, the King and Queen found happiness again, after the Lady Palmer played her hand too far and lost the love of Charles. As for the Duke of York, his first wife Anne Hyde died due to complications with breast cancer and childbirth. The issue of his second wife would take up all the time of the now non-pregnant Queen Sophia.

The Queen managed to talk the Duke out of a match with Maria d'Este, a daughter a the Duke of Modena. Instead, she found a match the managed to please both the parliament and her brother-in-law, Catherine of Hanover.** The wedding between the 14 year old Hanoverian Princess and the 40 year old English Duke took place in July of 1675, 4 years after the death of Anne Hyde. The couple would find each other quite attractive and the Duke was actually have said to have thanked the Queen for making him so good a match. It would produce 5 children, of which only the youngest daughter survived childhood.

Returning to Edinburgh in 1680 was a decision made in haste. Queen Sophia received news that a close friend had died, which led to the Queen facing a period of depression. On top of this, William III, Prince of Orange came to England to marry her daughter, leading to the Queen to refuse to say goodbye to her daughter and instead to send her a series of letters claiming abandonment despite her daughter's lack of real agency in the decision. In reality, the young woman found herself married to a man she had never met at the orders of a father she adored and the utter anger of a mother who she became extremely hurt by. Despite this, the marriage would be somewhat happy and the couple's only child, William, was born a year after the wedding.

Her next daughter, the Princess Charlotte, would marry barely a year later, to the Elector of Hanover's eldest son, George of Hanover. This match, yet another strong Protestant one, was offset in 1684 by the marriage between the Lady Mary Stuart of York and Francesco II d'Este, Duke of Modena, the brother of the spinster Maria d'Este (and former potential Duchess of York). This couple would never have any children.

*Catherine would later, in 1663, finally marry Juan of Austria, a bastard son of the King of Spain. The couple would undergo 4 pregnancies but no living children were born and, upon his death in 1679, she returned to Portugal and lived the rest of her life as part of the royal household. She was known for her piety and kind nature and was later considered for Sainthood.

**Ernest Augustus, Elector of Hanover had married, in 1660, Maria Gonzaga, the 32 year old elder sister of Duke of Mantua and Montferrat and the Holy Roman Empress. A pious Catholic, she managed to keep her faith even as her husband kept his. While her two sons, George and Charles of Hanover were raised in the Protestant faith, her daughter Catherine, the eldest of the 3 children, had been raised a Catholic. Her Catholicism had ruled her out in the discussions of a match with the Prince of Wales and a potential marriage to the Holy Roman Emperor had failed on the basis that she was too young and too informal to match him.

Because this is going a bit long:

The Royal Family


Charles II of England (b.1630: d.1685) m. Sophia of the Palatinate (b.1630: d.1714) (a)

1a) Charles Frederick III of Great Britain (b.1661: d.1710) m. Sophia Dorothea of Celle (b.1666: d.1698) (a), Hedvig Sophia of Sweden (b.1681: d.1708) (b)

1a) William III of Great Britain (b.1685)

2a) Edward Charles Stuart, Duke of Bedford (b.1688)​

2a) Princess Mary Stuart (b.1661) m. William III, Prince of Orange (b.1650: d.1702) (a)

1a) William IV, Prince of Orange (b.1681)​

3a) Princess Anne Stuart (b.1662: d.1664)

4a) Henry Stuart, Duke of Clarence and Ross (b.1664: d.1750) m. Sophia Hedwig of Denmark (b.1677: d.1735) (a)

1a) Lady Janet Stuart (b.1706)

2a) Robert Stuart, Duke of Clarence and Ross (b.1710)

3a) Lady Ursula Stuart (b.1715)​

5a) Princess Charlotte Stuart (b.1666: d.1729) m. George of Hanover (b.1664: d.1697) (a)

1a) George I, Elector of Hanover (b.1683)

2a) Charles of Hanover (b.1685: d.1690)

3a) Sophia of Hanover (b.1689)

4a) Ernest Adolphus of Hanover (b.1692)

5a) Margaret of Hanover (b.1696)​

6a) William Louis Stuart, Duke of Gloucester and Kintyre (b.1667: d.1690) m. Sophie Amalie of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp (b.1670: d.1710) (a)

1a) Lady Catherine Stuart (b.1687: d.1698)

2a) Lady Henrietta Stuart (b.1690: d.1691)​

7a) Princess Henrietta Louisa Stuart (b.1670: d.1741) m. John George IV, Elector of Saxony (b.1668: d.1694) (a)

1a) Margaret of Saxony (b.1690)

2a) Theresa of Saxony (b.1690)

3a) John V, Elector of Saxony (b.1692)

4a) Anna of Saxony (b.1695)​

8a) Princess Isabella Stuart (b.1672 d.1711) p. Unknown (a)

1a) Thomas Stuart (b.1693) - bastard​
The Family of York
James Stuart, Duke of York and Albany (b.1633: d.1701) m. Anne Hyde (b.1637: d.1671) (a), Catherine of Hanover (b.1661: d.1712) (b)

1a) Charles Stuart, Duke of Cambridge (b.1660: d.1661)

2a) Lady Mary Stuart (b.1662: d.1713) m. Francesco II d'Este, Duke of Modena (b.1661: d.1694) (a)

3a) James Stuart, Duke of Cambridge (b.1663: d.1700)

4a) Lady Anne Stuart (b.1665: d.1719) m. Charles Paulet, 2nd Duke of Bolton (b.1661: d.1722) (a)

1a) Miscarriage (c.1686)

2a) Miscarriage (c.1688)

3a) Isabel Paulet (b.1689: d.1690)

4a) Miscarriage (c.1691)

5a) Edward Paulet (b.1693: d.1699)

6a) Miscarriage (c.1694)

7a) Miscarriage (c.1696)

8a) Miscarriage (c.1697)

9a) William Paulet (b.1700: d.1701)

10a) Miscarriage (c.1701)​

5a) Charles Stuart, Duke of Kendal (b.1666: d.1667)

6a) Edgar Stuart, Duke of Kendal (b.1667: d.1669)

7a) Lady Henrietta Stuart (b.1669: d.1669)

8a) Lady Catherine Stuart (b.1671: d.1671)

9b) Richard Stuart, Duke of Kent (b.1678: d.1680)

10b) Lady Margaret Stuart (b.1681: d.1681)

11b) Charles Stuart, Duke of Kent (b.1684: d.1689)

12b) Lady Theresa Stuart (b.1687: d.1690)

13b) Lady Grace Stuart (b.1690: d.1758) m. Charles de Bourbon, Duke of Berry (b.1686: d.1714) (a) m. Louis Armand II, Prince of Conti (b.1695: d.1727) (b)

1a) Marie Adelaide de Bourbon (b.1709)

2a) Nicholas de Bourbon, Duke of Berry (b.1712)

3b) Marguerite de Bourbon (b.1716)

4b) Jeanne de Bourbon (b.1719)

5b) Therese de Bourbon (b.1723)

6b) Anne de Bourbon (b.1726)​

No Elizabeths or Ruperts or Edwards Sophie's kids? Odd
 

Stolengood

Banned
Without Catherine of Braganza, no tea in Britain -- she popularized it. Now there's a knock-on few people think of.
 
Interesting scenario/idea. I always love a good 'House of Stuart survives' thread. I'd assume that Charles's kids would be and remain Anglican, aside from a daughter marrying a Catholic King (like Dauphin of France or King of Portugal, as examples). This also means that much of the later events in Charles's reign (the Popish plot and the exclusion crisis) never happen or are much weaker than OTL. Therefore, Parliament is never able to slowly gain more power during Charles's reign and isn't in a position to help cause a Glorious Revolution. Something else to consider is Mary and Anne's marriages. If they aren't the heiresses then I doubt the former would still marry Prince Willem III of Orange, though I can't guess who Anne's match would be.
 
Interesting scenario/idea. I always love a good 'House of Stuart survives' thread. I'd assume that Charles's kids would be and remain Anglican, aside from a daughter marrying a Catholic King (like Dauphin of France or King of Portugal, as examples).

Thanks. I'm not too su about any of Charles and Sophia's children marrying a Catholic. Sophia's mother, Elizabeth Stuart, threatened to disown any of her children who converted to Catholicism, like Edward who married Anna Gonzaga, and Louise Hollandine who became a Cistercian nun and then an abbess. I'm not sure about Sophia's personal views, but she was born and raised in the strongly Calvinist Netherlands, and while her third son, Maximilian William, converted to Catholicism before her death, we don't know what her reaction was.

This also means that much of the later events in Charles's reign (the Popish plot and the exclusion crisis) never happen or are much weaker than OTL. Therefore, Parliament is never able to slowly gain more power during Charles's reign and isn't in a position to help cause a Glorious Revolution.

Yeah, but Parliament and other anti-Royalist forces are still going to have a sense of superiority and moral righteousness, seeing as they were victorious in the civil war and invited Charles back themselves instead of being forced to. And, even IOTL after the civil war, the confrontational Stuart monarchs aren't going to back down.

This also means that much of the later events in Charles's reign (the Popish plot and the exclusion crisis) never happen or are much weaker than OTL. Therefore, Parliament is never able to slowly gain more power during Charles's reign and isn't in a position to help cause a Glorious Revolution. Something else to consider is Mary and Anne's marriages. If they aren't the heiresses then I doubt the former would still marry Prince Willem III of Orange, though I can't guess who Anne's match would be.

Since the POD is before James' marriage to Anne Hyde, Mary and Anne may not be born. James and Anne Hyde might ended up having a surviving son. Or if they are born, they wouldn't necessarily be the people they were IOTL.
 
Thanks. I'm not too su about any of Charles and Sophia's children marrying a Catholic. Sophia's mother, Elizabeth Stuart, threatened to disown any of her children who converted to Catholicism, like Edward who married Anna Gonzaga, and Louise Hollandine who became a Cistercian nun and then an abbess. I'm not sure about Sophia's personal views, but she was born and raised in the strongly Calvinist Netherlands, and while her third son, Maximilian William, converted to Catholicism before her death, we don't know what her reaction was.

Actually, AFAIK, Elizabeth's threat stemmed directly from Louise's flight and conversion. When she found out Henrietta Maria (sister-in-law) was involved she penned a letter demanding how she (Henrietta Maria) would like it if she (Elizabeth) took Minette from her and converted her to Calvinism.

Considering that she entertained ideas of a French catholic match for Rupert, forgave Eduard fairly quickly and was even willing to swallow her pride and see Karl marry an archduchess to get his patrimony back, it seems to me that her maternal instincts usually trumped religious differences
 
There was still the claim to kingship of France (which even the Hanoverians kept going for a while) so marriages there aren't totally out of bounds. In a timeline with plenty of heirs, the plain fact is each Prince or Princess is going to have a finite number of marriages available- so it could depend more on who and what any negotiations bring about. Supposing Philip IV of Spain and Mariana had a daughter in 1659 or 1660? Such a one (Maria SomethingorOther) would be quite a catch, if you could beat the Austrians or Bavarians to her. Conversely, no one would "know" this in 1659 or 1660.
 
Thanks. I'm not too su about any of Charles and Sophia's children marrying a Catholic. Sophia's mother, Elizabeth Stuart, threatened to disown any of her children who converted to Catholicism, like Edward who married Anna Gonzaga, and Louise Hollandine who became a Cistercian nun and then an abbess. I'm not sure about Sophia's personal views, but she was born and raised in the strongly Calvinist Netherlands, and while her third son, Maximilian William, converted to Catholicism before her death, we don't know what her reaction was.



Yeah, but Parliament and other anti-Royalist forces are still going to have a sense of superiority and moral righteousness, seeing as they were victorious in the civil war and invited Charles back themselves instead of being forced to. And, even IOTL after the civil war, the confrontational Stuart monarchs aren't going to back down.

Lets be honest here. If, for example, Charles II thinks a French match to the Dauphin for a daughter would be a good alliance and is able to pull the marriage off he's gonna do it. Sophia wouldn't have much choice in that regard. Plus Sophia had no problems with her niece Elizabeth Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orléans converting and marrying a Catholic. Hell they were very close to each other for their entire lives. Finally, just because her mother Elizabeth was anti-Catholic doesn't mean Sophia would be.

As to Parliament, doesn't matter. Legally the clock was set back to 1641, the eve of the civil war. The commons that restored Charles II were rabidly pro-Monarchy and pro-Anglican and didn't have much in common with the Long Parliament. As the end of Charles II's reign (1681-1685) proved, people wanted one King, not 500 or so mini-Kings (paraphrasing a quote by Charles II). No danger of a Catholic monarch means the opposition has much less of a leg to stand on.
 
Without the Catholic reign of James and the Glorious Revolution you will never have the Parlamentary Monarchy or the Exclusion of the Catholics from the line of succession (and the exclusion of someone married to a Catholic will be absolutely impossible: Stuarts often married Catholic princesses or thinked to do it). Maria Beatrice of Modena will likely be married to someone or became a nun as she wished but her brother is an unlikely match for Mary of York, while a Catholic match (Bourbon or Habsburg) for at least one of the daughters of Charles and/or the Prince of Wales is very likely
 
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Parliament executed a King, and then restored his son, that alone could be considered the birth of Parliamentary Monarchy. And the Penal laws were enacted to strengthen the Anglican Church: Parliament legislation on religion which had little to do with the succession. When Parliament tried to enact exclusion laws, Charles could only delay them by dissolving Parliament. (Eventually that did work: support for Exclusion weakened). I put a successful Exclusion act in my timeline (1688) both as a nod to when the Glorious Revolution occurred, and as an Act of Parliament under Charles III who wouldn't be as tolerant (as Charles II) of James, Duke of York -a stubborn uncle who continues in adhering to Rome and producing Catholic heirs.
 
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How would a Stuart instead of Hanoverian succession affect the American Revolution? Would there be as many Hessian and other German mercenaries, that was one of the lesser charges during the war as to why those on the fence should join the Revolutionary cause.
 
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