WI Lord Henry Brandon Lives

For all of his six year life, Lord Henry Brandon, eldest child of the Duke of Suffolk and Mary Tudor, possessed the twin qualifications of being both English AND male (well, after FitzRoy was born, legitimate too). Unfortunately he died in 1522. There had been a whisper of marrying him to the Lady Mary (I), but it was never followed up. What if Lord Henry, Earl of Lincoln, had survived?
 
He would, as you indicate, make the ideal male candidate for the hand of either of Henry VIII's daughters. It is likely that Henry and, in time, Edward VI would make free use of him in their dynastic maneuverings to ensure a secure, Anglican succession.

A marriage with the Princess Mary probably wouldn't happen in time to prevent Catherine of Aragon's disgrace - I imagine Henry VIII going back and forth between his nephew and international projects capable of furthering his continental ambitions, never quite settling on anything.

Henry Brandon might thus end up giving up on the eternal wait and marrying elsewhere - Margaret Douglas would be a judicious match to sideline the chance of a Stewart succession, Margaret Courtenay to bolster his heirs Plantagenet strain, Ursula Pole for similar reasons, a Howard or some other Boleyn cousin once Anne attained ascendancy, or even his father's rich ward Elizabeth Lisle. In which case a son of his might later contend for the hands of Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots, assuming heads don't roll before that.
 
For all of his six year life, Lord Henry Brandon, eldest child of the Duke of Suffolk and Mary Tudor, possessed the twin qualifications of being both English AND male (well, after FitzRoy was born, legitimate too). Unfortunately he died in 1522. There had been a whisper of marrying him to the Lady Mary (I), but it was never followed up. What if Lord Henry, Earl of Lincoln, had survived?

Take away Anne Boleyn and its logical to think Henry VIII might have taken a more rational approach to the succession. A healthy nephew, roughly the same age as his only surviving legitimate child, a daughter would have been the perfect solution.

A marriage between young Henry and Mary would have resolved the issue, it had the support of Henry's mother Mary Tudor. Catherine of Aragon may have dreamed of an Imperial marriage between her daughter and nephew but that was never going to really ever happen given the age difference.

Catherine of Aragon would have still died and Henry VIII would have almost certainly remarried and potentially could have fathered a son or sons but by then its entirely possible Princess Mary could have produced a couple of Lincoln grandsons as back up.
 
With a butterflying away of Henry Brandon, Earl of Lincoln’s (b. 1516) death, he remains the premier candidate to succeed his uncle, Henry VIII. While it would severely deprive England of the possibility of a foreign alliance, it would give the male-heir-obsessed Henry VIII a successor king of his own bloodline. If Mary produces a son in the early 1530s, by the time of her father’s death (for the sake of our own sanity, let’s assume his OTL death date), that child, who will either be named Henry or Charles (the first is more likely), is “old enough for reigning and ruling” (at least seventeen).

Does Henry VIII pass the crown directly to his grandson? Or does it go first to Mary or Henry (perhaps as joint sovereigns)? That said, I’ve read that Henry I’s intention with Empress Matilda’s remarriage was that she produce a son, who would then be Henry’s successor. Unfortunately, when he died, Matilda’s oldest son wasn’t old enough to rule by himself.

Also, what does a butterfly in 1522 (namely Lincoln’s death), mean for the Reformation in England? The Great Matter? Henry VIII’s other five wives? Does Henry wait for a grandson (which might not arrive as if by post-order)? Or is Miss Boleyn still slated to be Katherine of Aragon’s successor?
 
I would think that by the time Catherine died, Henry would already have finished with Anne and gone on to other mistresses.
 
Surely the Pope, and perhaps the Emperor would be more for this solution (the Emperor if only to keep Mary out of French hands), perhaps his Holiness adding the caveat to legitimize any and all successors born from Henry and Anne Boleyn as OTL? But then what happens if Mary-Lincoln have a boy, and Anne's pregnancies still progress as OTL?
 
This is just an idea I've had bouncing around for a while, it doesn't move too quickly from the OTL for now, mostly since I'm uncertain of Henry's behavior with a surviving possible male heir (i.e. if it will change or stay the same)



1522 – Young Lord Henry Brandon, eldest child of the duke of Suffolk and the former French queen, recovers from a particularly violent but unknown illness. Lord Henry’s cousin, the Princess Mary, only legitimate child (although she has both a bastard half-brother and sister) of the king has recently been betrothed to her twenty-two year old cousin, the most powerful man in the world, Charles, Holy Roman Emperor, King of Spain (which also happens to include all the good bits of Italy the French want and which don’t belong to the Holy Roman Emperor, as well as most of the known world over the Atlantic Ocean), and Duke of Burgundy.

1523 – The French queen gives birth to another son, named Charles, after his father. The former queen of Scots – older sister to the French queen – gives birth to son, Robert Douglas, by her second husband, the Earl of Angus.

1524 – Lady Mary Boleyn gives birth to a daughter that everyone at court is ninety-nine percent sure is the king’s illegitimate daughter. However, unlike with his two older bastards, there is no fanfare, nor even a public acknowledgement. Although, Mary is very hastily married off to Sir William Carey, a gentleman of the king’s privy chamber.

1525 – In June, Queen Katherine’s failure to produce a son is highlighted by the investiture of both the King’s bastard son, Henry FitzRoy, as Duke of Richmond & Somerset, Earl of Nottingham, “with precedence over all nobles save the issue of the king lawfully begotten”, and of Lord Henry Brandon as Earl of Lincoln. It is considered telling by those in the know, as well as later historians, that FitzRoy’s titles of Richmond and Somerset have both been elevated from their previous earldom status, making the boy a “double duke” in a time where, as a modern biographer puts it: ‘the only dukes were the king’s uncle [Norfolk] and the king’s brother-in-law [Suffolk] and now the king’s bastard’.

However, the glimmer of hope extends in the fact that her daughter, Mary, future Holy Roman Empress and Queen of Spain, is sent to the Welsh Marches at Ludlow Castle, where Katherine’s ill-starred marriage to the late Prince Arthur had played out. Mary will serve as the king’s representative on the Welsh Marches, with many of the royal preroragtives that would normally be borne by a legitimate brother.

1526 – The Emperor-King Charles with Henry VIII’s permission, breaks his engagement to the soon-to-be-ten year old Princess Mary, in order to wed the more age-appropriate Infanta Isabel of Portugal. Naturally, Queen Katherine is rather upset at this, since she saw her daughter as the next Empress Matilda – wife of the Holy Roman Emperor, and Queen of England in her own right.

Mary Boleyn, the king’s former dalliance, is delivered of a son. Although legally the boy is the son of Sir William Carey, the whispers at court abound that Mary Boleyn hasn’t barred the king from her bed just because she’s married. Then again, the French king has also referred to her as ‘that great prostitute’.
 
One problem - Henry Brandon b 1516 died in 1522 however his younger brother also called Henry Earl of Lincoln born in around 1523 and lived until 1534

So Henry VIII did have a male nephew throughout the whole business of ending his marriage to Catherine and marrying Anne and it didn't prevent him from pursuing the desire for a new wife and a legitimate male heir of his own.

Had the younger Henry lived then of course he provides an alternate succession on Edward VI's death - a male English and likely Protestant heir.

Age wise he hovers between Mary and Elizabeth so either might work well as a match if it came to it.
 
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