WI: Sucessful Gunpowder Plot

As another aspect of the more powerful British monarchy, wouldn't the nobility be powerless for a decade or so, letting the commons (either on their own initiative, or as puppets of the Regent/King/Queen) gain dominance over the aristocracy? Presumably, the House of Lords would all be there, so every title-holder in the country gets blown up, and their successors will be more likely to be below the age of majority or just inexperienced. Thus, more royal reliance on commoners as advisers, etc. while the commonality rally round their monarch, allowing him to take a more absolutist stance.

Not sure if everyone would be there - there was an upper limit on the number of Scottish peers, and attendance rates for the Lords has always been terrible.
 
The 1590s was a period of famine in England, and by the time Elizabeth died in 1603, the real wages of your average English labourer were at their all-time lowest for the entire millennium. Meanwhile Liz had been buying time for herself by selling monopolies to certain merchants - which everyone hated, and which jacked up prices, but meant the regime didn't have to reform the tax and revenue system right now.

Plus the war with Spain had gone for that entire time, and drifted from 'glorious undertaking' to 'grim ineffectual slog' for both parties, the rest of Elizabeth's foreign policy was pretty much a shambles, and the tenor of the court had gotten very unpleasant, with Elizabeth jerking people around about the prospective heir, and becoming increasingly fond of very, very bad favorites like the Earl of Essex.

James ended most of that. Except for the bad favorites, and honestly, he was generally much better at managing them and getting rid of them then Bess was.
 
The Winter Queen, the woman who helped kick off the Thirty Years War, is not someone I'd call sensible--the more I read about them, the more I'm convinced that all the sense in the entire damn Stuart line coalesced in one man, and that man is James VI & I
What about Charles !!?
 
What about Charles !!?

I assume you mean Charles II, not Charles the Worst, aka "The King Who Got His Head Chopped Off". And my answer to that is pretty simple--Charles II's reputation as "the Merry Monarch" tends to mask the less attractive aspects of his reign.

Like, you know, getting into a war with the Dutch and losing it badly.

Twice.

Charles II. Like his brother, the number is perfectly appropriate.
 
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The Winter Queen, the woman who helped kick off the Thirty Years War, is not someone I'd call sensible--the more I read about them, the more I'm convinced that all the sense in the entire damn Stuart line coalesced in one man, and that man is James VI & I--

Oooo... that's a scary claim, considering how much (i.e. little) sense James I&VI had! What's worse is I'm not sure you're wrong. :mad:
 
Oooo... that's a scary claim, considering how much (i.e. little) sense James I&VI had! What's worse is I'm not sure you're wrong. :mad:

James gets an undeservedly bad rap, largely because he was followed by the incredible failures that were his son and grandsons. Frankly the tendency in the historiography is to emphasize and exaggerate the problems of the last few years of his reign, many of which were hardly unique, and indeed, problems that pop up in any monarchy. Again, comparing James' reign to Elizabeth's and the contrast becomes almost brutal--and not in the way people tend to imagine. James essentially helped produced peace and prosperity for over twenty years--no mean feat. Elizabeth on other hand, stumbled into a war with an ally, while holding her potential allies against this foe at arm's length.

And then watching said war drag on for over a decade.
 
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Not sure if everyone would be there - there was an upper limit on the number of Scottish peers, and attendance rates for the Lords has always been terrible.

The English peerage was pretty small at the time. By my count:
47 Barons
2 Viscounts
22 Earls
1 Marquis
2 Dukes (the two Princes: Henry Frederick was Duke of Cornwall, and Charles was Duke of York)

Total: 74


I found a reference to Parliament noting members who were absent without leave for investigation of complicity in the plot. I can't find the full list, but the source does specify three arrests where suspicion was based mainly on failure to attend (Lord Mordaunt, Lord Stourton, and the Earl of Northumberland). If three lords were arrested based primarily on not attending, I expect there were few if any other unexcused absentees who weren't arrested.


Source:
http://books.google.com/books?id=JMRDAQAAMAAJ&pg=PT574#v=onepage&q&f=false

I can't find any info on excused absences, apart from Prince Charles.

In addition, of the peers who had adult heirs, a lot of those heirs held seats in the Commons.
 
The English peerage was pretty small at the time. By my count:
47 Barons
2 Viscounts
22 Earls
1 Marquis
2 Dukes (the two Princes: Henry Frederick was Duke of Cornwall, and Charles was Duke of York)

Total: 74

I've had a look at all of these except the barons, and, assuming all died apart from Charles and Northumberland, it appears that 13 of the 27 titles would be held by people under 21, taking into account Writs of Acceleration and MPs. Of these, 3 were held by underage people anyway (including Prince Charles), who would presumably have been absent from Parliament. If they were present as spectators, then perhaps their titles would have been inherited by adults, thereby bringing them out of minority. Also, 5 titles above Baron would have become extinct, but only the Earls of Suffolk and Montgomery would otherwise had issue OTL. The Dukedom of York would (legally) be merged in the Crown, unless Elizabeth became Queen. Obviously, all of the new Lords would have been relatively politically inexperienced at first. Therefore, we could expect a greater reliance on both the the Commons and Scottish and Irish peers to run the country over the next few years.

The peerages above baronial rank in minority on 6 November 1605 would be:
- the Earldom of Cumberland
- the Earldom of Huntingdon
- the Earldom of Sussex
- the Earldom of Bath
- the Earldom of Bedford
- the Earldom of Pembroke
- the Earldom of Hertford
- the Earldom of Essex
- the Earldom of Devonshire
- the Earldom of Salisbury
- the Montagu Viscountcy
- the Lisle Viscountcy

plus Charles I.
 
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