Tudor Variations
Henry the Inquisitor: Arthur lives a little longer and leaves an heir, also named Arthur. Prince Henry follows his father's original career plan and takes holy orders. As the regent for his young nephew, he stamps out any traces of heresy he can find in England, and he finds plenty. England remains a staunch ally of Spain and its Hapsburg relations, and takes part in the religious wars on the continent on the side of the Pope. No specifically English colonies are developed, though many English emigrate to the Spanish colonies. By the middle of the 17th Century, Protestantism has been suppressed everywhere in Europe south of the Baltic Sea.
Mary, Protestent Queen of Scots: The Rough Wooing succeeds, and the infant queen is seized by the English instead of being spirited away to France. Raised as a Protestant, Mary fulfills Henry VIII's fondest posthumous hope by marrying Edward VI and producing a Prince of Wales after Edward's death. The thrones of England and Scotland are united by blood and Calvinism. Henry of Navarre decides Paris does not require a mass, and marries Elizabeth the Princess Royal (Daughter of Jasper I, King of England, Scotland, and the Isles) instead of Marie d'Medici. He promises to respect Catholic rights to worship in the Edict of Paris in 1598, but his grandson, a rather different Louis XIV, revokes the edict in 1685, leading to an diaspora of French Catholics.
|