WI the Hundred Years' War was avoided.

What if the French nobility accepted Edwards claim to the French throne on the condition that upon his death the kingdom of England would be inherited by his second son and France by his oldest.
 
Hard, France followed Salic law. Though, it would be interesting to see it avoided, it would avoid a lot of death, but the English would also not really develop a true national identity, since that came almost entirely from Edward III going to war over the French Crown.
 
Hard, France followed Salic law. Though, it would be interesting to see it avoided, it would avoid a lot of death, but the English would also not really develop a true national identity, since that came almost entirely from Edward III going to war over the French Crown.
France didn't follow Salic law until a generation ago,when they decided to skip a potential bastard by simply just declaring that females aren't allowed to rule.If they didn't declare pure agnatic primogeniture as the succession law then,there's there's going to be a lot more people with better claim than Edward III.
 
That's never going to happen : french nobility didn't refused Edward because his rights were issued from women, but because he was a foreign king with little to no support within the kingdom, while Philippe de Valois definitely had such, and naturel du royaume (native from the kingdom).

As for Salic Law, I think you may be both confused (even if such confusion is widespread). Salic Law was a legal codex from Merovingian France, at this point diversely applied and whom one part pointed that a woman couldn't inherit the land of a man (which make sense, giving this land was trusted in exchange of a military service). This was used to enforce the Valois succession.
 
I'm sure we can find a way of getting King Edward on the throne of France, especially if he grows there and becomes King of France before being King of England, but it'll take many, many deaths, like an epidemic in the Louvre.
 
What if the French nobility accepted Edwards claim to the French throne on the condition that upon his death the kingdom of England would be inherited by his second son and France by his oldest.
Francewank. France never completely recovered from the HYW in terms of demographic dynamism.
 
I'm sure we can find a way of getting King Edward on the throne of France, especially if he grows there and becomes King of France before being King of England, but it'll take many, many deaths, like an epidemic in the Louvre.

Even if the entiere Capetian line, direct and undirect (meaning as well Navarrese line that had a clearly better claim than Plantagenet), just died out (and it's not like such a devastating epidemic is going to strike only, not only France, not only Paris but just a royal palace without nobody leaving the place), french high nobility isn't going to have a king they have no relation with and they consider foreign.

That's as simple as that.

Francewank. France never completely recovered from the HYW in terms of demographic dynamism.
Erm...What? France remained largely the main demographical country of Europe until to Napoleonic Wars.
While the plague (more than the war) was really devastating demographically, it didn't really impaired the demographical dynamism, even less on long term.
 
The French aren't going to accept Edward's claim to the throne. This was one of the reasons that the Salic Law was said to apply to the kingdom of France - to avoid such things. There's also the added complication that Edward, back when he was Prince of Wales, swore homage for the lands of Aquitaine. Obviously, he declared it didn't count OTL, because he was a minor, amongst other reasons. But those who didn't want an English king used it against him.


If you wanted to avoid the War, you'd be better off having John the Posthumous survive, or having another tactic to keep the Capetian line going. Even then, it's far from guaranteed that there'll be no war. OTL's 'Hundred Years War'* may not happen, but that doesn't mean there'll be peace. Without the Plantagenet claim on the French throne, there'll still be perennial war between England and France. As long as the Duke of Aquitaine is also the King of England, there'll be fighting between said Duke and the King of France. The Breton Civil War is unlikely to be butterflied, so both Edward and Philip are likely to meddle there. Edward's claim to the French throne is a reason, or justification for war, rather than the underlying cause.

Since 1066, more English Kings have fought France than been at peace, despite there being no claim. Why would Edward III and his successors change their tune?


*In reality, at least two separate wars, if not anything up to about half a dozen.
 
A more plausible thing might be the Tour de Nesle Affair not happening or not being discovered at all,which would mean that Joan II of Navarre will most likely also become Queen of France should she not have any brothers.
 
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A more plausible thing might be the Tour de Nesle Affair not happening or not being discovered at all,which would mean that Joan II of Navarre will most likely also become Queen of France should she not have any brothers.

I don't think it would be enough : the principle of male inheritence was quite well established at this point within Capetian succession : Brothers of Louis, and eventually Philippe had far more ties and support because Joan of Navarre had a really poor network (somethig rather hinted by the affair of the Tour de Nesle rather than caused by).
 
Indeed. Your best bet is to knock off Philippe Augustus before he has a son.
Then likely one of the Blois or Champagne grandsons of Louis via his daughters with Eleanor gets in.
Of course this ignore butterflies such as possible longer retention of the royal election and such
 
Indeed. Your best bet is to knock off Philippe Augustus before he has a son.
Then likely one of the Blois or Champagne grandsons of Louis via his daughters with Eleanor gets in.
Of course this ignore butterflies such as possible longer retention of the royal election and such
There's a better way. Under King John, Phillipe Auguste's eldest son wanted to invade England and prepared for it but was stopped by a Papal excommunication threat.
Remove it and after a few years you have a Franco-English P.U.
 
Edward III had a brother, I think Edward III could install his brother John to the French throne instead.

And how could he do that?Why would the French nobles accept him?Edward's claim was rubbish even if agnatic-cognatic succession was to be applied.There's also the fact that if he was to install his brother by force,he may as well take it for himself,given the effort and that France was richer than England .
 
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And how could he do that?Why would the French nobles accept him?Edward's claim was rubbish even if agnatic-cognatic succession was to be applied.There's also the fact that if he was to install his brother by force,he may as well take it for himself,given the effort and that France was richer than England .

Leaves his brother in charge of England and takes France for himself. ASB but still cool.
 
Erm...What? France remained largely the main demographical country of Europe until to Napoleonic Wars.
While the plague (more than the war) was really devastating demographically, it didn't really impaired the demographical dynamism, even less on long term.

To be fair, France's population just kinda kept going back and forth between various numbers between 16 and 20 million from 1200 to 1700. It didn't actually grow.
 
Though, it would be interesting to see it avoided, it would avoid a lot of death, but the English would also not really develop a true national identity, since that came almost entirely from Edward III going to war over the French Crown.

I'm not really sure of that really. I believe that much of the strife between the English and French came because they had developed separate identities, not the other way around. Culturally and linguistically the English and French monarchy were already drifting apart pretty quickly even before the war. Edward I spoke English and Edward II was known for spending a great deal of time with lowborn English and likely spoke it well if not as a first language. Court functions and law were almost entirely in French but by the middle of the 13th century it was a second language and had acquired a function much like Church Latin, formal, unchanging, and not a living language. Henry of Grosmont, the Duke of Lancaster noted in 1354 that (writing in French) "if the French is not good, I must be excused, because I am English and not much accustomed to French". If one of the most prominent men in England who spent years in France doesn't read or write much in French I can't imagine anyone else is either out side of lawyers and court functions.

The Hundred Years War may have accelerated the political split between the English and French nobility but the English were already definitely English.
 
To be fair, France's population just kinda kept going back and forth between various numbers between 16 and 20 million from 1200 to 1700. It didn't actually grow.
Then again, you're forgetting the Great Plague, that ravaged european demographies (killing off between 1/3 and 1/2 of the population).
Depending of the guestimates, it means that from a population with 20 millions in mid-XIVth century, it felt up to 12 by the XVth, only to turn back to 20 millions in 1500.
Reaching your original population after a loss representing 2/5 of it, in less than two centuries (in spite of being in a really unsecure context, socially speaking) is what I call demographical dynamism.

The apparent stabilization of the next two centuries can be partially explained by the context, rather than "ho no, medieval people stop to breed and France lost all its population forever" while the regular loops are more easily explained by their imediate context. By the XVIth century, Wars of Religion and climatic impairement of the second half of the century certainly prelieved their tool, or with Louis XIV's wars (or again climatic issues of the early XVIIIth century).

The Hundred Years War may have accelerated the political split between the English and French nobility but the English were already definitely English.
Basically, you may confuse linguistical and cultural distinction (that was, I wholly agree quite clear at this point) and clear political dinstinction : nobody really saw harm in the King of England ruling over parts of France (and generally not his subjects), unless in term of dynastical interest for Capetians.

Not that you didn't have a political distinction (that is more a product of the cultural and legal shifts of the XIIIth century than the result of Capetian/Plantagenêt wars; but it didn't realised itself until the HYW at the point it was clear not only for the nobility and elites, but for popular classes as well, on all the kingdom.

Of course, it wasn't the only part that made a french national identity appear, far from it : hints of such thing appears since the late Carolingian period in struggle with Ottonians and when people ceased to say Carlenses to name the inhabitants of Western Francia.
But, the HYW represented a clear qualitative jump, with a popular identity no longer based on dynastical ties but as well on culture and political identity and present within all the kingdom.
 
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