Dear angy,
What a challenging question! Of course, no one can really answer
"what-would-have-been-if" questions; all thoughts must necessarily
remain speculative.
If Lady Jane Grey is not beheaded, she must have been victorious in
the struggle for power with Edward VI's oldest sister Mary who also
claimed the throne. Maybe she had managed to defeat Mary by more
purposefully and cunnigly playing the "Protestant Card" against her
Catholic rival. Anyway, the result had been that Mary's head had
fallen instead of Jane's.
So the year 1554 would have seen a dead Mary, a crowned Jane, and a
prince consort Guilford Dudley. I'll exclude the latter from my
speculations since it would take an expert for Tudor history and in
particular for his biography to figure out how his character would
have influenced things. Instead, I'll confine myself to thinking about
the more obvious results of this alteration of events.
Since Mary is dead, she can't marry Philip, crown prince of Spain. But
this automatically means that there will be no Spanish claims to power
in England. This will become important at a later time. For the
moment, we have a Protestant queen in a Protestant country (I know
that the Anglican church is theoretically not Protestant, but that's a
detail for experts only). No anti-Protestant massacers like under
"Bloody Mary" would happen. This would have a huge impact on the
collective consciousness of the English people. Anti-Catholic
sentiment would not grow as strong as it did in reality; at the same
time, anti-Spanish sentiment would also not develop as much as it
happened since there were no Spanish counselors taking influence on
English interior matters.
From that point on, all speculation becomes very difficult. Certainly,
without the marriage between Philip and the English queen, Spain had
no claims in England. But the Spanish Habsburgs were zealous
propagators of their Catholic faith nevertheless. Besides the fact
that the Protestant English were heretics in his eyes, Philip had
reason to detest them and their queen Jane. After all, the heretics
had executed the faithful Catholic Mary Tudor he was supposed to
marry. Emerging hostility, even war between the two kingdoms had been
very likely, even in this alternate history.
What would have happened in the years to come? It's impossible to say.
The only thing that's for sure is that England will lack one of the
most legendary figures: There will never be a "Virgin Queen"
Elizabeth, no Gloriana, providing her name to an entire era. Instead,
Jane I is married and will presumably have children to follow her on
the throne. The Tudor family will continue to rule England. But it
will be an England that must exist without a ruler that shaped
national identity like no one else before her and like few, if any
after her. It will be a very different England, with a very different
self-perception.
I hope these views of mine are what you expected.
All the best,
Scriptor |
,
0 Comments
)