WI: Mary I dies young

kernals12

Banned
Mary was Henry VIII's eldest daughter. She reigned after her brother died in 1553 until her own death 5 years later. Her reign was dominated by her attempts to bring catholicism back to England. 580 heretics were burned at the stake during this time, leading to her being labelled "bloody Mary". So what if she had died during childhood, a common occurence at that time? IOTL when she died, she was replaced by her half-sister Queen Elizabeth I. She made England protestant again and reigned during a period of stability in England. So it seems like there's nothing to lose by skipping over the reign of Bloody Mary.
 
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Lots of butterflies here.

By the time Elizabeth was born, Mary was already 17.

At any rate, if all of Henry VIII's children with Catherine of Aragon die in childhood, I suspect he will try to seek a divorce even sooner.
 
Hmm. Assume Mary dies not in childhood but in earlier adulthood, say in 1545. At this time her brother is the heir, and while she's in the line of succession, she's still illegitimate and has minimal political influence. Henry's on his last legs, so it won't change much for him.

Elizabeth gets a leg up, as she now comes after Edward.

OK then - in the latter years of Edward's reign, the "quasi-regent" Northumberland will try to get control of Elizabeth as he did Jane Grey OTL. However, I don't think he could engineer Elizabeth's marriage to his son Guildford, as he did with Jane. Elizabeth is 14 when Henry dies; 20 when Edward dies. Edward was 9 at his accession, and died at 15. Northumberland reached full power in 1551; Elizabeth was 18 and Edward 13.

Of course there could be butterflies: Northumberland might fail to displace the Lord Protector, Somerset. Would Somerset be ambitious enough to try to marry Elizabeth to a relative? His brother Thomas Seymour wanted her, and some historians think she was agreeable, despite the 33 years between them. OTOH Somerset didn't trust Thomas, and he was executed by the Regency Council OTL.
 
His brother Thomas Seymour wanted her, and some historians think she was agreeable, despite the 33 years between them. OTOH Somerset didn't trust Thomas, and he was executed by the Regency Council OTL.

She really wasn't. She tried avoiding him during the entirety of her stay with her stepmother. Today, we would call what Thomas did as sexual harassment of a minor.

Anyway, without Mary an annulment would happen earlier, which the Pope would grant more eagerly than IOTL, which means no break from the Church and no Elizabeth or Edward.

If she dies in adulthood, Edward wouldn't have to pass over his remaining sister since she's already Anglican, so no Queen Jane of the Nine Days, and no trying to return England to the Catholic faith for five years. Also, Elizabeth might actually get married since she won't be harassed by Phillip ITTL and she won't have an example of how disastrous an unpopular foreign match would affect England.

If she dies a few months after Elizabeth was born, people would immediately jump to conclusions that she was poisoned by the Boleyns, which might actually prompt the Empire into invading.
 
I just realized there's a fun idea if Mary conveniently dies of mysterious circumstances around the time Henry was falling out of love with Anne and is already plotting to get rid of her. He can very well pin Mary's death on the Howard-Boleyn clan and get rid of all of them in one fell swoop.
 
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