WI Louis XII And Mary Tudor Have A Son

I think that it's also worth repeating what was said about the importance of the order of succession and legitimacy in France. From the time of the Hundred Years' War onward, France is almost unique in Medieval Europe in that the constitutional theory surrounding the succession to the throne is highly developed.

France may be unique in the degree to which the rules were followed, but the rules were not unique to France. The many instances of foreign princes succeeding to hereditary thrones, and of bits of territory held by hereditary possession for centuries argues otherwise.

Consider the preposterous inheritances of Charles V. Not just the extent of them, but the variety - from whole kingdoms down to minuscule counties, scattered across half Europe. Yet his title was automatically accepted in all these places.

France is not England and it has a completely different set of precedents, traditions and customs--in other words, you could never get something like the Wars of the Roses or a Henry IV or Richard III style usurpation (at least by this time in history).

Even in England, neither of those takeovers worked out. The Lancastrian claim was dubious, and by Shakespeare's time that was universally accepted. Richard's accession blew up almost at once.

Then England accepted a Scottish king of dubious parentage. (Mother recently executed by England, father a debauched goon murdered with probable mother's connivance.) But he was heir by primogeniture.

The accessions of William III and George I are both examples of the importance of blood right. (Parliament did not dare displace James outright, they waited till he ran away; and they dared not go outside the royal succession by blood.)

It's also important to remember that about a century before this, the legitimacy of Charles VII was questioned and he was actually repudiated by his mother as a bastard. Still, he managed to overcome his enemies and maintain power in the far more dire circumstances of the English occupation.

Excellent point - I hadn't known this.
 
What would a surviving Brittany be like? Francois and Claude's son would unite Angoulemne and Brittany. However, I don't expect Brittany to last that long as an independent ducky. France is too centralised and powerful, unless a foreign power gives Brittany strong support. If someone makes a TL out of this, I can imagine Brittany marrying back into the French. Then again, there could be a personal union with an enemy of France, like Anglo-Brittany, though I'm not sure if that could survive. What about Hapsburg Brittany:eek:?! All in all, I think Brittany won't last beyond several generations, if they're lucky till the 17th century.
 
What would a surviving Brittany be like? Francois and Claude's son would unite Angoulemne and Brittany. However, I don't expect Brittany to last that long as an independent ducky. France is too centralised and powerful, unless a foreign power gives Brittany strong support. If someone makes a TL out of this, I can imagine Brittany marrying back into the French. Then again, there could be a personal union with an enemy of France, like Anglo-Brittany, though I'm not sure if that could survive. What about Hapsburg Brittany:eek:?! All in all, I think Brittany won't last beyond several generations, if they're lucky till the 17th century.

If there was the possibility of Habsburg Brittany we would see a repeat of the invasion under Charles VIII. NO way would France allow itself it be surrounded on three fronts, not if they could help it.
 
If there was the possibility of Habsburg Brittany we would see a repeat of the invasion under Charles VIII. NO way would France allow itself it be surrounded on three fronts, not if they could help it.

I agree. In terms of personal unions, think that an Anglo-Breton situation is more likely, given the historical relationship between the two countries. However, I can also see Brittany managing to survive on its own, at least for several centuries, if its dukes are clever enough. It was realtively wealthy and centralised, and it had a history of managing to prosper and endure even in far worse situations (if memory serves). Perhaps it will end up being something like OTL's Savoy or Lorraine: at times allied to France, at others in opposition with its enemies—at which time it might suffer an invasion, but be restored after the end of the war (this happened several times to both Savoy and Lorraine over the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries).

I think it's also important to remember that the Valois dukes descended from François will be the first princes of the blood and have vast estates in France. That is going to make their situation infleuntial at the best of times and at least awkward in the worst. Think the Constable de Bourbon but ten times worse, since Brittany is far larger, more centralised and wealthier than the Bourbonais duchy, and it has a much longer history of political and cultural independence from France.
 
Re: Breton independence

Let's game this out. Let's say you have Louis XII's heir, whom I'll call Charles IX for simplicity's sake. And regardless of who has the regency, essentially Louise of Savoy and Francis of Angouleme accept his legitimacy as the king of France. At that point, if I am Mary or whoever is entrusted with the interests of the infant king, I would say I'm ahead of the game by virtue of him not contesting the succession. I would not want to then provoke Francis by leading an army against his duchy or his wife's duchy, which would then force him into the field and may lead him to make a claim to the throne as a reprisal. Francis I was very much a prince in the mode of the young Henry VIII, and would likely welcome the provocation.

Henry VIII would be in a difficult position. The default English foreign policy even at this point is to minimize and handicap France, but he's been placed in a situation where his sister and nephew are the ones he would hamstring by intervening on behalf of Brittany.

So really it comes down to Charles V and whether he would emerge as some kind of guarantor for Brittany.

And it's all made more difficult by the fact that the heirs involved are all male. The preferred method of peaceful or quasi-peaceful reabsorption of Brittany was marriage. But Charles is male, and Francis's first two sons by Claude in OTL are Francis and Henry, starting in 1518. Charles V is too young to be breeding in earnest, with Philip V will not to be born until 1527 and Charles's sisters too old for anyone here.

So I think it's going to be a delicate balance of power. The winner of this will likely be Princess Mary Tudor (Henry VIII and Catherine's daughter) who will be aggressively courted by both her cousin Charles and the younger Francis, either of whom would be the first Valois kings of England.

The loser gets Catherine de Medici.
 
Re: Breton independence

Let's game this out. Let's say you have Louis XII's heir, whom I'll call Charles IX for simplicity's sake. And regardless of who has the regency, essentially Louise of Savoy and Francis of Angouleme accept his legitimacy as the king of France. At that point, if I am Mary or whoever is entrusted with the interests of the infant king, I would say I'm ahead of the game by virtue of him not contesting the succession. I would not want to then provoke Francis by leading an army against his duchy or his wife's duchy, which would then force him into the field and may lead him to make a claim to the throne as a reprisal. Francis I was very much a prince in the mode of the young Henry VIII, and would likely welcome the provocation.

Henry VIII would be in a difficult position. The default English foreign policy even at this point is to minimize and handicap France, but he's been placed in a situation where his sister and nephew are the ones he would hamstring by intervening on behalf of Brittany.

So really it comes down to Charles V and whether he would emerge as some kind of guarantor for Brittany.

And it's all made more difficult by the fact that the heirs involved are all male. The preferred method of peaceful or quasi-peaceful reabsorption of Brittany was marriage. But Charles is male, and Francis's first two sons by Claude in OTL are Francis and Henry, starting in 1518. Charles V is too young to be breeding in earnest, with Philip V will not to be born until 1527 and Charles's sisters too old for anyone here.

So I think it's going to be a delicate balance of power. The winner of this will likely be Princess Mary Tudor (Henry VIII and Catherine's daughter) who will be aggressively courted by both her cousin Charles and the younger Francis, either of whom would be the first Valois kings of England.

The loser gets Catherine de Medici.

Could Mary be married to her cousin Charles of France? Or would that be unlikely?
 
Could Mary be married to her cousin Charles of France? Or would that be unlikely?

Unlikely, IMO. I think that it's more likely that she is betrothed to François' eldest son. An Anglo-Breton alliance would be very advantageous to both parties, who already have strong historical ties to one another. And, assuming Henry VIII and Catherine are unable to have a son ITTL, a Breton Duke is far more palatable as a husband for Mary to the English nobility than a Spanish or French king.

Most likely, the treaty is drafted to be something along the lines of the betrothal contract between Edward V and Anne of Brittany in OTL (which of course never came to pass): any personal union will be designed to be temporary, with the couple's oldest son inheriting England and their second son getting Brittany, with England promising to support Brittany with money and troops in the event of a French invasion.
 
Unlikely, IMO. I think that it's more likely that she is betrothed to François' eldest son. An Anglo-Breton alliance would be very advantageous to both parties, who already have strong historical ties to one another. And, assuming Henry VIII and Catherine are unable to have a son ITTL, a Breton Duke is far more palatable as a husband for Mary to the English nobility than a Spanish or French king.

Most likely, the treaty is drafted to be something along the lines of the betrothal contract between Edward V and Anne of Brittany in OTL (which of course never came to pass): any personal union will be designed to be temporary, with the couple's oldest son inheriting England and their second son getting Brittany, with England promising to support Brittany with money and troops in the event of a French invasion.

I hope this doesn't result in Anglo-Brittany, because I like an. Independent Brittany. Still, it's easy for Henry VIII to have two sons, Edward VI to survive or Mary to have no issue.
 
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