WI: Mary Stuart married Henry II of France

alexmilman

Jan Olbracht said:
Read OP-Francis dies in 1554. Charles OTOH is almost 8 years younger than Mary, so he is unlikely to marry her.
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Speaking of OP, Catherine gave birth to Margaret on May 14, 1553 and to Hercule François on 18 March 1555 so her death during the childbirth in 1554 is rather unlikely. If we assume that the child in question is Hercule François and move Catherine's death to 1555, then her death does not automatically mean death of the child (not in OP, which makes such a guess legitimate :)) and HII still has 3 male heirs. Well, not to mention that the whole story regarding the death from grief is more "romantic" than realistic: she already has one of her sons dead (Louis the Duke of Orleans) and after his death produced 6 more children two of which died soon after being born without any visible harm to Catherine's mental or physical health. Anyway, even with 2 remaining sons, there is no obvious reason for HII to marry a child-queen of Scots: in 1554 she is 12 and there are years to wait till she would be able to produce a child.

BTW, sorry to say so but your point about Charles' age as an obstacle does not hold water because situation when the bride was older than the groom was not such a big problem in the royal mariages: even putting aside the case when the wife was just slightly older (Isabella and Ferdinand), Henry VIII (b. 1491) was 6 years younger than Catherine of Aragon (b. 1485), Mary Tudor (born 1516) was 11 years older than Phillip II (born in 1527), Mary Stewart (b. 1542) was 2 years older than Francis II (b. 1544) and 3 years older than Darnley (b. 1545), Catherine of Sweden, sister of Gustav Adolf (b. 1584), was 5 years older than her husband John Casimir, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken-Kleeburg (b. 1589), and I'm sure that the fans of a genealogy can produce more examples. :)
 
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