WI: King John foils Richard's ransom, siezes control?

Zioneer

Banned
Is there any way that Prince (King after Richard the Lionheart died) John of England could have foiled his brother's capture by the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI?

And after doing so (say King Richard dies soon after the foiled ransom) seizes control from the nobles, becoming a powerful king?
 
Phillippes gets back more land earlier.

Likely England totally kicked out of France.

=> No 100 year war ( or if there is, very different from OTL )

Possibly French conquest of England at the behest of the Pope or Louis takes the throne of England called by the barons and make it stick.
 
If this happened, likely all that would happen is that Richard would barter an agreement to dethrone John with his captors in exchange for a hefty ransom, or something. Princes dethroning their brothers happened (very occasionally) but generally only when the regnant King was seen as inept. Taking over the kingdom as regent would be nothing special but actually dethroning an imprisoned brother would be seen as a gross misconduct even by supporters of John and opponents of Richard, and this would make people more sympathetic to Richard...even if they did still intend on controlling him via military force.
 
I looks like you're looking for something that makes John a more capable ruler and gives him a reputation for being able to break the lords to his will. Perhaps something to consider as a POD might be John's first expedition to Ireland. It seems that his trip to Ireland was part of a plan to bring the barons under some sort of control, but it didn't turn out very well for him. If he succeeds, that might boost his reputation and self-confidence.
 
Phillippes gets back more land earlier.

Likely England totally kicked out of France.

=> No 100 year war ( or if there is, very different from OTL )

Possibly French conquest of England at the behest of the Pope or Louis takes the throne of England called by the barons and make it stick.

I don't follow: If Eddy III (or equivalent) wasn't busy wasting resources in France, the English would still be itching for conquest. I'd imagine the most likely result would be English conquest of Scotland by 1400, and subsequent cultural integration. Without the distraction of Anjou, etc, Ireland would fall next. Thus something approximating the UK of GB & I, but in ~1450...

Simon ;)
 
I don't follow: If Eddy III (or equivalent) wasn't busy wasting resources in France, the English would still be itching for conquest. I'd imagine the most likely result would be English conquest of Scotland by 1400, and subsequent cultural integration. Without the distraction of Anjou, etc, Ireland would fall next. Thus something approximating the UK of GB & I, but in ~1450...

Simon ;)


Which one don't you follow?

100 year war was essentially a french civil war in which one of the side happened to have ressources from an outline island.:D
Even IF the english king intervene in an alt french civil war, the fact that he doesn't have secure bases belonging to him and will have to depend totally on allies for bases on the continent and/or begin his ravaging expeditions with an opposed landing will change a lot of things from OTL.

French conquest of ENgland at the behest of the Pope nearly happened OTL, the troops and fleet were gathered. The operation was cancelled only because John submitted to the Pope. If John feels stronger...

OTL, Louis WAS called up by the british barons to take the crown of England. The only reasons this didn't stick is because of Guillaume Le Marechal and the convenient fact that John being dead, there was an acceptable british claiment. If John takes the crown earlier he will last longer on the throne, which means that he won't leave the door open to his heir just as the battles are in balance, which means less baronial support for the Plantagenet.....
 
I don't follow: If Eddy III (or equivalent) wasn't busy wasting resources in France, the English would still be itching for conquest. I'd imagine the most likely result would be English conquest of Scotland by 1400, and subsequent cultural integration. Without the distraction of Anjou, etc, Ireland would fall next. Thus something approximating the UK of GB & I, but in ~1450...

Simon ;)

Except that you need to remember how conquest was achieved in this period.

To put it simply: a conquest of Scotland would result in numerous garrisons in Scotland to force the Scots to accept the English as their overlords. The English Kings did not want the Scottish throne. They were quite happy to just insist on the Scots being their vassals, except that the Scots never stayed loyal to this idea. And after about 5 years usually those garrisons had been abandoned because of the cost or turfed out by the Scots. Maybe Edward would have launched a punitive expedition, but really with no appetite for English suzerainty it was surprisingly hard for the English to keep long-term control of Scotland. And I'm only thinking about how hard it is to keep control of the lowlands... I'll point out something here: Edward III did "conquer" Scotland. And like every other English expedition into Scotland (of which there were many) he failed to make it last.

An attack on the Irish similarly would achieve little. The Irish were too disparate, too prone to fight amongst themselves. It wouldn't actually be that hard for the English to attack Ireland and force the Irish to confer upon them the title of High King. What would be hard, like in Scotland, would be keeping it. The English only had a relatively worthless strip of land, Dublin excepting, in Edward's reign (and...at all, until the Irish clans were eventually broken down) which wouldn't serve well for a powerbase. And since Henry II's reign, half the Irish lords were Anglo-Irish, who had ancestors who had been English lords, and who were quite happy to live under total independence instead of bowing down to an invading Irish army. Even when some Irish did accept the English High King status (and it happened often enough) their rivals were then instantly galvanised into opposition to the English - and Irish lords always had rivals. The entire island was one big mess of marriage alliances, secret truces and warring clans. If Edward comes along and dispossesses the opposing lords...then what? If he plants more Englishmen in their place, history already shows him that those men would be transformed by the social scene around them and in about a generation would be as disloyal and culturally Irish as the rest of the island. And socially Europe isn't ready (mainly meaning: Ireland's clan structure is too strong) for a single unified government to work, at all.
 
Top