Richard III wins the Battle of Bosworth instead of Henry VII

[greenhert]

What if Richard III had won the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 and not Henry VII? Could the House of York have ultimately won the Wars of the Roses instead of the House of Lancaster?

It could have happened, given that within the Wars of the Roses, the House of York won more battles against the House of Lancaster than it lost.

[andrewteale]

Jul 1, 2020 8:16:08 GMT greenhert said:

What if Richard III had won the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 and not Henry VII? Could the House of York have ultimately won the Wars of the Roses instead of the House of Lancaster?

It could have happened, given that within the Wars of the Roses, the House of York won more battles against the House of Lancaster than it lost.

Richard III was a very weak figure by the time of Bosworth. His son and heir had died the previous year; his wife had died a few months previously; his reputation had been permanently trashed by the disappearance of Edward V and Richard, Duke of York; and Titulus Regius had ended up giving him a succession problem. It's no coincidence that both summers of his reign (1484 and 1485) saw major Lancastrian insurgencies.

A lot of the answer to this question depends on the fate of Henry Tudor, who was pretty much the last Lancastrian left standing for the cause to rally around. If he escapes, the civil war would almost certainly have continued. If Henry is killed or taken prisoner, Richard's position becomes a lot better; but for as long as the succession is still a problem he won't be secure on the throne. Unless he could remarry and produce an heir it's entirely possible that the Lancastrian cause would return around a new claimant some years down the line.

In our TL Henry VII secured his throne by marrying Richard's niece Elizabeth of York, which went a very long way to uniting the two houses; but even then Bosworth Field was not the last word in the Wars of the Roses. It took the decisive Lancastrian win at Stoke Field two years later for the Yorkists to finally throw in the towel.

[Adam in Stroud]

Jul 1, 2020 17:01:00 GMT andrewteale said:

Jul 1, 2020 8:16:08 GMT greenhert said:

What if Richard III had won the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 and not Henry VII? Could the House of York have ultimately won the Wars of the Roses instead of the House of Lancaster?

It could have happened, given that within the Wars of the Roses, the House of York won more battles against the House of Lancaster than it lost.

Richard III was a very weak figure by the time of Bosworth. His son and heir had died the previous year; his wife had died a few months previously; his reputation had been permanently trashed by the disappearance of Edward V and Richard, Duke of York; and Titulus Regius had ended up giving him a succession problem. It's no coincidence that both summers of his reign (1484 and 1485) saw major Lancastrian insurgencies.

A lot of the answer to this question depends on the fate of Henry Tudor, who was pretty much the last Lancastrian left standing for the cause to rally around. If he escapes, the civil war would almost certainly have continued. If Henry is killed or taken prisoner, Richard's position becomes a lot better; but for as long as the succession is still a problem he won't be secure on the throne. Unless he could remarry and produce an heir it's entirely possible that the Lancastrian cause would return around a new claimant some years down the line.

In our TL Henry VII secured his throne by marrying Richard's niece Elizabeth of York, which went a very long way to uniting the two houses; but even then Bosworth Field was not the last word in the Wars of the Roses. It took the decisive Lancastrian win at Stoke Field two years later for the Yorkists to finally throw in the towel.

I've never thought about this one, but you make an interesting point about Richard's weakness and lack of heir. It's alleged that Richard was looking at marrying his own niece Elizabeth of York which might have resolved the issue but had obvious problems with canon law.

At Bosworth Richard supposedly charged straight at Henry with the aim of killing him, so death of Henry and Ricardian victory is quite plausible but you are raising the prospect of Richard then dying, maybe not that long after, with no male heir. (His brother Edward IV died of natural causes aged just short of 41 and Richard was a little short of 33 at Bosworth and not in good physical shape so one can imagine him dying in the early 1490s)

I suspect that whatever Titulus Regius said international politics would have recognised Elizabeth of York as heiress and like Mary of Burgundy a few years before she would have become the great prize in the European Marriage Stakes. Mary herself had died in 1482 and her husband Maximilian re-married twice, Ann of Brittany 1490-92 and Bianca Maria Sforza in 1494 - if the timing was right I can imagine him making a pitch for Elizabeth, possibly supported by Margaret of York (Elizabeth's aunt and Maximilian's former step-mother-in-law who had been key in fixing up Maximilian's marriage to Mary of Burgundy) An Anglo-Netherlandish marriage would have made a lot of geo-political sense and pulled England into the Habsburg monarchy, probably ending up in the Spanish-Netherlandish part. Probably making union with Scotland less likely as England would have been more oriented across the channel.

[Adam in Stroud]

Jul 1, 2020 10:02:30 GMT @kipper1 said:

Jul 1, 2020 8:16:08 GMT greenhert said:

What if Richard III had won the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 and not Henry VII? Could the House of York have ultimately won the Wars of the Roses instead of the House of Lancaster?

It could have happened, given that within the Wars of the Roses, the House of York won more battles against the House of Lancaster than it lost.

That would have been a very bad thing. At the time England's trade was based on the export of raw materials, chiefly wool. It didn't make much, it was a backward country even by the standards of the time, the equivelent of those poor third world countries today who rely on the production of raw materials. It was Henry VII who brought in the fiscal and trade policies that enabled the development of English manufacturing and laid the foundations for the country's later wealth and power

Cloth manufacture (as opposed to export of raw wool) had been a significant English industry displacing wool for at least 150 years before Henry VII. Wool exports were heavily taxed to pay for the Hundred Years War, manufactured cloth wasn't, you can join the dots yourself.  Whole English towns such as Lavenham and, ahem, Stroud were built from scratch as a result of this shift.

[slon]

Which side would the Stanleys have been on?
It would have made a difference around here

[andrewteale]

Jul 1, 2020 19:23:33 GMT Adam in Stroud said:

Jul 1, 2020 17:01:00 GMT andrewteale said:

Richard III was a very weak figure by the time of Bosworth. His son and heir had died the previous year; his wife had died a few months previously; his reputation had been permanently trashed by the disappearance of Edward V and Richard, Duke of York; and Titulus Regius had ended up giving him a succession problem. It's no coincidence that both summers of his reign (1484 and 1485) saw major Lancastrian insurgencies.

A lot of the answer to this question depends on the fate of Henry Tudor, who was pretty much the last Lancastrian left standing for the cause to rally around. If he escapes, the civil war would almost certainly have continued. If Henry is killed or taken prisoner, Richard's position becomes a lot better; but for as long as the succession is still a problem he won't be secure on the throne. Unless he could remarry and produce an heir it's entirely possible that the Lancastrian cause would return around a new claimant some years down the line.

In our TL Henry VII secured his throne by marrying Richard's niece Elizabeth of York, which went a very long way to uniting the two houses; but even then Bosworth Field was not the last word in the Wars of the Roses. It took the decisive Lancastrian win at Stoke Field two years later for the Yorkists to finally throw in the towel.

I've never thought about this one, but you make an interesting point about Richard's weakness and lack of heir. It's alleged that Richard was looking at marrying his own niece Elizabeth of York which might have resolved the issue but had obvious problems with canon law.

At Bosworth Richard supposedly charged straight at Henry with the aim of killing him, so death of Henry and Ricardian victory is quite plausible but you are raising the prospect of Richard then dying, maybe not that long after, with no male heir. (His brother Edward IV died of natural causes aged just short of 41 and Richard was a little short of 33 at Bosworth and not in good physical shape so one can imagine him dying in the early 1490s)

I suspect that whatever Titulus Regius said international politics would have recognised Elizabeth of York as heiress and like Mary of Burgundy a few years before she would have become the great prize in the European Marriage Stakes. Mary herself had died in 1482 and her husband Maximilian re-married twice, Ann of Brittany 1490-92 and Bianca Maria Sforza in 1494 - if the timing was right I can imagine him making a pitch for Elizabeth, possibly supported by Margaret of York (Elizabeth's aunt and Maximilian's former step-mother-in-law who had been key in fixing up Maximilian's marriage to Mary of Burgundy) An Anglo-Netherlandish marriage would have made a lot of geo-political sense and pulled England into the Habsburg monarchy, probably ending up in the Spanish-Netherlandish part. Probably making union with Scotland less likely as England would have been more oriented across the channel.

Edward IV was in many ways like his grandson Henry VIII - dashing, handsome, athletic in his younger years, wildly popular with the people, made a spectacularly bad marriage choice, and really let himself go once middle age hit. It's not exaggerating much to say that Edward ate himself to death. We can probably expect Richard to draw some lessons from what happened to his brother. As for his physical shape, his scoliosis didn't stop him getting into the thick of things at Bosworth. Physically, he could probably have lived ten years longer than his brother. Politically, he'd made too many enemies to last that long.

Queen Anne Neville had died in March 1485. I don't normally have much sympathy for the Yorkist cause, but the rumour suggesting that Richard was considering marrying Elizabeth of York sounds too good to be true. Apart from the obvious consanguinity problem, Elizabeth was illegitimate because of Titulus Regius. Henry Tudor had publicly pledged to marry her if he became king, so I wonder if the rumour was just a piece of fake news aimed at the Lancastrian camp. On the other hand, assuming that Richard defeats Henry and doesn't marry Elizabeth of York, who does he marry? None of the major European powers would be likely to ally themselves with England by sending a suitable princess given the continuing non-appearance of the Princes in the Tower and the diplomatic issues arising from that.

If we assume that Richard dies a few years after Bosworth (naturally or not) having failed to remarry and/or produce an heir, international opinion may well have been in favour of Elizabeth of York inheriting - but would English public opinion have been ready to accept a female monarch? The experience of the Empress Matilda had not been great and was remembered by the nobles. We could see a new civil war break out between Elizabeth (very possibly coming out of a long exile or imprisonment) and a male claimant: perhaps Edward Plantagenet, Duke of Warwick (who in our TL was imprisoned by Henry VII, and eventually executed after getting too mixed up with Perkin Warbeck for his own good) or more likely John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln (who in our TL was killed leading the Yorkist forces at Stoke Field).

[Adam in Stroud]

Jul 1, 2020 20:58:17 GMT andrewteale said:

Jul 1, 2020 19:23:33 GMT Adam in Stroud said:

I've never thought about this one, but you make an interesting point about Richard's weakness and lack of heir. It's alleged that Richard was looking at marrying his own niece Elizabeth of York which might have resolved the issue but had obvious problems with canon law.

At Bosworth Richard supposedly charged straight at Henry with the aim of killing him, so death of Henry and Ricardian victory is quite plausible but you are raising the prospect of Richard then dying, maybe not that long after, with no male heir. (His brother Edward IV died of natural causes aged just short of 41 and Richard was a little short of 33 at Bosworth and not in good physical shape so one can imagine him dying in the early 1490s)

I suspect that whatever Titulus Regius said international politics would have recognised Elizabeth of York as heiress and like Mary of Burgundy a few years before she would have become the great prize in the European Marriage Stakes. Mary herself had died in 1482 and her husband Maximilian re-married twice, Ann of Brittany 1490-92 and Bianca Maria Sforza in 1494 - if the timing was right I can imagine him making a pitch for Elizabeth, possibly supported by Margaret of York (Elizabeth's aunt and Maximilian's former step-mother-in-law who had been key in fixing up Maximilian's marriage to Mary of Burgundy) An Anglo-Netherlandish marriage would have made a lot of geo-political sense and pulled England into the Habsburg monarchy, probably ending up in the Spanish-Netherlandish part. Probably making union with Scotland less likely as England would have been more oriented across the channel.

Edward IV was in many ways like his grandson Henry VIII - dashing, handsome, athletic in his younger years, wildly popular with the people, made a spectacularly bad marriage choice, and really let himself go once middle age hit. It's not exaggerating much to say that Edward ate himself to death. We can probably expect Richard to draw some lessons from what happened to his brother. As for his physical shape, his scoliosis didn't stop him getting into the thick of things at Bosworth. Physically, he could probably have lived ten years longer than his brother. Politically, he'd made too many enemies to last that long.

Queen Anne Neville had died in March 1485. I don't normally have much sympathy for the Yorkist cause, but the rumour suggesting that Richard was considering marrying Elizabeth of York sounds too good to be true. Apart from the obvious consanguinity problem, Elizabeth was illegitimate because of Titulus Regius. Henry Tudor had publicly pledged to marry her if he became king, so I wonder if the rumour was just a piece of fake news aimed at the Lancastrian camp. On the other hand, assuming that Richard defeats Henry and doesn't marry Elizabeth of York, who does he marry? None of the major European powers would be likely to ally themselves with England by sending a suitable princess given the continuing non-appearance of the Princes in the Tower and the diplomatic issues arising from that.

If we assume that Richard dies a few years after Bosworth (naturally or not) having failed to remarry and/or produce an heir, international opinion may well have been in favour of Elizabeth of York inheriting - but would English public opinion have been ready to accept a female monarch? The experience of the Empress Matilda had not been great and was remembered by the nobles. We could see a new civil war break out between Elizabeth (very possibly coming out of a long exile or imprisonment) and a male claimant: perhaps Edward Plantagenet, Duke of Warwick (who in our TL was imprisoned by Henry VII, and eventually executed after getting too mixed up with Perkin Warbeck for his own good) or more likely John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln (who in our TL was killed leading the Yorkist forces at Stoke Field).

Yes, the resemblance of Henry VIII to Edward IV has always struck me too - also both ginger I believe, which Henry VII wasn't, so I suspect the red hair of the Tudors came from there. Physically it seems to me that the later Tudors were Yorks.

On Richard III's physique, I'm going by the TV documentary in which I recall his bones showed that in the three years of his reign his diet had radically changed (remarkably, to me, as he was hardly a pauper before he became king) due to the need for continual royal banquets, which were a tool of government - his intake of meat and rich foods had dramatically increased, so I'm guessing he would have had similar weight problems to his brother and Henry VIII (though of course the latter lived to 56) but with the spinal problems on top.

On Elizabeth - I don't think the nobility did remember Matilda tbh, it was 400 years before, but I agree the prejudice against female rulers would have mattered - I suspect Margaret of Anjou would have been more in their minds. Warwick and Pole would undoubtedly have been candidates - wasn't Pole designated heir by Richard? I forget - but Warwick's problem would have been that he was still a child in 1485 - my foreign prince scenario is based on the idea that a proven adult male ruler might have been needed in a hurry, as was the case in Burgundy. Might have depended on whether there was risk of another foreign claimant (as was the Burgundian case) e.g. a French claim via Margaret of Anjou or Henry V's queen! Though on balance Pole looks the obvious choice - we'd have had King John II

[Adam in Stroud]

Jul 1, 2020 19:42:30 GMT slon said:

Which side would the Stanleys have been on?
It would have made a difference around here

The winning side.

[cj]

Jul 1, 2020 19:28:58 GMT Adam in Stroud said:

Jul 1, 2020 10:02:30 GMT @kipper1 said:

That would have been a very bad thing. At the time England's trade was based on the export of raw materials, chiefly wool. It didn't make much, it was a backward country even by the standards of the time, the equivelent of those poor third world countries today who rely on the production of raw materials. It was Henry VII who brought in the fiscal and trade policies that enabled the development of English manufacturing and laid the foundations for the country's later wealth and power

Cloth manufacture (as opposed to export of raw wool) had been a significant English industry displacing wool for at least 150 years before Henry VII. Wool exports were heavily taxed to pay for the Hundred Years War, manufactured cloth wasn't, you can join the dots yourself.  Whole English towns such as Lavenham and, ahem, Stroud were built from scratch as a result of this shift.

You also may have come across Worstead in Norfolk.

[iang]

The one issue that might have been a problem for "Lancastrians" is that Henry Tudor was pretty much last man standing on the Lancastrian side (which is why he was the claimant when in actual fact his claim was pretty tenuous in blood). If Henry had been killed, even if Richard then died subsequently without an heir, who would have been a potential domestic candidate, if we rule out Adam's foreign prince scenario?
And England was hardly a backward country in the late 1400s - look at the impact of the wool trade on East Anglian towns

[Adam in Stroud]

Jul 2, 2020 11:22:17 GMT iang said:

The one issue that might have been a problem for "Lancastrians" is that Henry Tudor was pretty much last man standing on the Lancastrian side (which is why he was the claimant when in actual fact his claim was pretty tenuous in blood). If Henry had been killed, even if Richard then died subsequently without an heir, who would have been a potential domestic candidate, if we rule out Adam's foreign prince scenario?
And England was hardly a backward country in the late 1400s - look at the impact of the wool trade on East Anglian towns

To some extent the idea of "Yorkist" and "Lancastrian" factions feuding over decades is just wrong - contrary to a lot of popular accounts, there was no dispute between York and Lancaster from 1400 to about 1455 - the then Duke of York died at Agincourt as literally Henry V's right hand man and Richard of York was a loyal and effective servant of Henry VI up to the 1450s when he finally got pissed off by the latter's incompetence.

Similarly the opposition to Richard III was largely not Lancastrian as such, in the course of just three years he fell out with
- the Woodvilles, who were the family of Edward IV's queen
- Lord Hastings, Edward IV's boyhood friend
- Buckingham, who was an early supporter of Richard himself
- Cardinal Morton, who was essentially a loyalist - he stayed loyal to Henry VI at cost of exile right up to the latter's death, then was loyal to Edward IV until the latter died, was loyal to Edward's sons to the extent of going into exile after they went into the Tower, and was then Henry VII's right hand man
- the Stanleys, who switched sides regularly

Except for the various Yorkist pretenders I don't think the point was to put the House of Lancaster or York on the throne so much as "This guy" (Richard II/Henry VI/Edward IV in 1469/Richard III) "has got to go, who else is there?" Having the York and Lancaster claims made it easier to find someone but as you say Henry Tudor's claim was very thin, the real issue was that Richard III was clearly intolerable. I think if Henry had died at Bosworth the opposition would have coalesced around someone else within the York line such as Pole or later on Warwick - or a foreign prince married to an English princess. But I'm pretty sure there would have been a challenge because Richard's approach tore up all previous alliances

[adlai52]

Jul 1, 2020 22:14:53 GMT cj said:

Jul 1, 2020 19:28:58 GMT Adam in Stroud said:

Cloth manufacture (as opposed to export of raw wool) had been a significant English industry displacing wool for at least 150 years before Henry VII. Wool exports were heavily taxed to pay for the Hundred Years War, manufactured cloth wasn't, you can join the dots yourself.  Whole English towns such as Lavenham and, ahem, Stroud were built from scratch as a result of this shift.

You also may have come across Worstead in Norfolk.

A lot of the reform of the English state had begun under Edward IV. Henry VII gets a lot of credit for continuing these reforms, but there was a clear direction of travel being set before he came to the throne.

That said - assuming Henry Tudor dies at Bosworth - with no obvious heir and major nobles continuing to bicker among themselves, its likely that the power of the Crown remains weak and that the pace of these changes will be slowed.

Without Henry VII and his concentration of royal power, something continued by his son, its hard to tell where that leaves England post-Richard III. Richard was only 32 when he died, so he could easily reign for another twenty years or more.

Although Richard had enough time to cement his power, remarry and produce an heir following a victory at Bosworth. The unrest during his reign suggests then he could be ousted by disaffected Yorkists (a key base for Henry Tudor pre-Bosworth), this could lead to John de la Pole or maybe Edward Plantagenet (son of Richard's brother Clarence) taking the throne? 

[matureleft]

While few would speak up for Richard III from a modern perspective he was a man of his time. Ruthless, certainly. Relatively competent in military terms. And a mild reformer in his brief reign. He had, however, accumulated too many enemies among Yorkists (let alone Lancastrians) to be a monarch of a stable country. If somehow he had survived he might have done OK - the reforms were interesting and suggested a more complex mind than is typically portrayed.

Henry VII, much abused as sharp, tight-fisted and innovative in tax-raising - Morton's Fork from my childhood history lessons - was effective in restoring the authority of the Crown after decades of near anarchy, rebuiding much of the economy and cautiously positioning the country within Europe. Within the context of absolute monarchy, not bad.

[Sibboleth]

Jul 2, 2020 17:34:32 GMT matureleft said:

Henry VII, much abused as sharp, tight-fisted and innovative in tax-raising - Morton's Fork from my childhood history lessons - was effective in restoring the authority of the Crown after decades of near anarchy, rebuiding much of the economy and cautiously positioning the country within Europe. Within the context of absolute monarchy, not bad.

He essentially established the Rule of Law across the country (i.e. England and Wales) which is not a minor accomplishment.

[Adam in Stroud]

Jul 2, 2020 17:34:32 GMT matureleft said:

While few would speak up for Richard III from a modern perspective he was a man of his time. Ruthless, certainly. Relatively competent in military terms. And a mild reformer in his brief reign. He had, however, accumulated too many enemies among Yorkists (let alone Lancastrians) to be a monarch of a stable country. If somehow he had survived he might have done OK - the reforms were interesting and suggested a more complex mind than is typically portrayed.

Henry VII, much abused as sharp, tight-fisted and innovative in tax-raising - Morton's Fork from my childhood history lessons - was effective in restoring the authority of the Crown after decades of near anarchy, rebuiding much of the economy and cautiously positioning the country within Europe. Within the context of absolute monarchy, not bad.

This is my problem with most Ricardians - they want to ignore the standards of the times and pretend that if you deposed someone with a good claim to be king you could safely do anything other than kill them. The standards of the time rightly or wrongly judged him a usurper and killer of his own nephews and condemned him for it. He had to go.

But I don't think you can say he had piled up enemies in a short time and was competent - managing the political classes was key to kingship and he failed where his brother and successor succeeded. And don't buy into the idea that he inherited an unstable country - it had been at peace for 12 years before he came to the throne (the idea of Wars of the Roses as continuous war over decades is simply untrue - there were several short periods of very isolated violence with none of the sieges or pillaging that characterised the 100 Years War) It was Richard who made it unstable by systematically eliminating through kangaroo trials or plain murder the main supporters of his brother's regime.

Nor was he the great war leader often portrayed - he lost the only battle he ever commanded, against an inexperienced opponent with a cobbled together army at that. (He was in a subordinate role at Tewkesbury and his Scottish campaign was very small beer.) I'm not sure his record as a reforming king stands much examination either, there's a nasty puritanical and misogynistic streak in some of his domestic policy.

[matureleft]

Jul 2, 2020 18:05:05 GMT Adam in Stroud said:

Jul 2, 2020 17:34:32 GMT matureleft said:

While few would speak up for Richard III from a modern perspective he was a man of his time. Ruthless, certainly. Relatively competent in military terms. And a mild reformer in his brief reign. He had, however, accumulated too many enemies among Yorkists (let alone Lancastrians) to be a monarch of a stable country. If somehow he had survived he might have done OK - the reforms were interesting and suggested a more complex mind than is typically portrayed.

Henry VII, much abused as sharp, tight-fisted and innovative in tax-raising - Morton's Fork from my childhood history lessons - was effective in restoring the authority of the Crown after decades of near anarchy, rebuiding much of the economy and cautiously positioning the country within Europe. Within the context of absolute monarchy, not bad.

This is my problem with most Ricardians - they want to ignore the standards of the times and pretend that if you deposed someone with a good claim to be king you could safely do anything other than kill them. The standards of the time rightly or wrongly judged him a usurper and killer of his own nephews and condemned him for it. He had to go.

But I don't think you can say he had piled up enemies in a short time and was competent - managing the political classes was key to kingship and he failed where his brother and successor succeeded. And don't buy into the idea that he inherited an unstable country - it had been at peace for 12 years before he came to the throne (the idea of Wars of the Roses as continuous war over decades is simply untrue - there were several short periods of very isolated violence with none of the sieges or pillaging that characterised the 100 Years War) It was Richard who made it unstable by systematically eliminating through kangaroo trials or plain murder the main supporters of his brother's regime.

Nor was he the great war leader often portrayed - he lost the only battle he ever commanded, against an inexperienced opponent with a cobbled together army at that. (He was in a subordinate role at Tewkesbury and his Scottish campaign was very small beer.) I'm not sure his record as a reforming king stands much examination either, there's a nasty puritanical and misogynistic streak in some of his domestic policy.

I'd agree with most of that (perhaps the exception being your dismissal of his reforms in those terms) - my remarks were hardly Daughter of Time stuff! And you'll note my support of Henry's record. However it's fair to say that there was some apprehension about having another child king controlled by nobles and relatives. Henry VI had been a disaster and that was pretty fresh history. So Richard wasn't a lone force in becoming king.

[iang]

I think the key is what happens to Hastings. Hastings had been Edward's most loyal supporter. Whatever else you excuse, it is difficult to justify (by any standards), what happened to Hastings (and it begs the question of why, and was it to do with the princes). And it would seem likely that this left a widespread feeling of "if he can do that to Hastings, who is he not going to do it to if it suits him?". The irony is, there's (unlike Clarence) relatively little hint of any of this pre 1483. Power corrupts?

[andrewteale]

Jul 2, 2020 17:28:18 GMT adlai52 said:

Jul 1, 2020 22:14:53 GMT cj said:

You also may have come across Worstead in Norfolk.

A lot of the reform of the English state had begun under Edward IV. Henry VII gets a lot of credit for continuing these reforms, but there was a clear direction of travel being set before he came to the throne.

That said - assuming Henry Tudor dies at Bosworth - with no obvious heir and major nobles continuing to bicker among themselves, its likely that the power of the Crown remains weak and that the pace of these changes will be slowed.

Without Henry VII and his concentration of royal power, something continued by his son, its hard to tell where that leaves England post-Richard III. Richard was only 32 when he died, so he could easily reign for another twenty years or more.

Although Richard had enough time to cement his power, remarry and produce an heir following a victory at Bosworth. The unrest during his reign suggests then he could be ousted by disaffected Yorkists (a key base for Henry Tudor pre-Bosworth), this could lead to John de la Pole or maybe Edward Plantagenet (son of Richard's brother Clarence) taking the throne? 

Warwick had a better claim than Pole in bloodline, but wasn't seen as eligible to inherit the throne because his father Clarence had been attainted. The evidence from our TL is that Warwick was ineffective and probably a bit dim, and of course he was a minor at the time of Bosworth. If he had got to the throne it would probably be as a figurehead while the barons schemed around him - rather like Henry VI. Pole is much more obvious a contender for Richard's throne, and would have had the political and military clout to make a serious bid if and once he had fallen out with Richard sufficiently.

[adlai52]

Jul 2, 2020 18:59:47 GMT andrewteale said:

Jul 2, 2020 17:28:18 GMT adlai52 said:

A lot of the reform of the English state had begun under Edward IV. Henry VII gets a lot of credit for continuing these reforms, but there was a clear direction of travel being set before he came to the throne.

That said - assuming Henry Tudor dies at Bosworth - with no obvious heir and major nobles continuing to bicker among themselves, its likely that the power of the Crown remains weak and that the pace of these changes will be slowed.

Without Henry VII and his concentration of royal power, something continued by his son, its hard to tell where that leaves England post-Richard III. Richard was only 32 when he died, so he could easily reign for another twenty years or more.

Although Richard had enough time to cement his power, remarry and produce an heir following a victory at Bosworth. The unrest during his reign suggests then he could be ousted by disaffected Yorkists (a key base for Henry Tudor pre-Bosworth), this could lead to John de la Pole or maybe Edward Plantagenet (son of Richard's brother Clarence) taking the throne? 

Warwick had a better claim than Pole in bloodline, but wasn't seen as eligible to inherit the throne because his father Clarence had been attainted. The evidence from our TL is that Warwick was ineffective and probably a bit dim, and of course he was a minor at the time of Bosworth. If he had got to the throne it would probably be as a figurehead while the barons schemed around him - rather like Henry VI. Pole is much more obvious a contender for Richard's throne, and would have had the political and military clout to make a serious bid if and once he had fallen out with Richard sufficiently.

There also seems to be some speculation that Warwick wasn't competent, although a lot of that seems to be related to him spending his life post-Bosworth  imprisoned. Eitherway, given his age a Henry VI situation would probably be the most likely outcome if he became King while still a minor and with memories of how that worked out the first time round still fresh I agree that someone like Pole would be more likely to emerge as King. 

[J.G.Harston]

Jul 2, 2020 17:03:44 GMT Adam in Stroud said:

To some extent the idea of "Yorkist" and "Lancastrian" factions feuding over decades is just wrong - contrary to a lot of popular accounts, there was no dispute between York and Lancaster from 1400 to about 1455 - the then Duke of York died at Agincourt as literally Henry V's right hand man and Richard of York was a loyal and effective servant of Henry VI up to the 1450s when he finally got pissed off by the latter's incompetence.

Wasn't the "red vs white" thing a bit of ahistorical rewriting by Henry VII to give a simply-digested narrative that legitimised his supremacy? At the back of my mind is that it wasn't even called the War of the Roses until Victorian times in their version of Ladybird Book of Kings and Queens.