Inspired by The Anne Boleyn Files and Tudor Society’s excellent video.
POD: Female Edward VI of England.
Henry VIII, King of England (1491-1547) m. Catalina, Infanta of Spain (1485-1536) m. Anne Boleyn (1501-1536) m. Jane Seymour (1508-1537) m. Anne of Cleves (1515-1558) m. Catherine Howard (1523-1542) m. Catherine Parr (1512-1548)
1a. Stillborn Daughter (1510)
2a. Henry, Duke of Cornwall (1511-1511)
3a. Stillborn Son (1513)
4a. Stillborn Son (1514)
5a. Mary, Queen of England (1516-1558) m. Philip II, King of Spain (1527-1598)
1a. Philip, King of England (1550-)
2a. Catherine, Princess of England (1552-)
3a. Edward, Duke of York (1553-)
6a. Stillborn Daughter (1518)
7b. Elizabeth, *claimant* Queen of England (1533-1553) m. Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick (1530-1553)
8b. Stillborn Son (1534)
9b. Stillborn Son (1536)
10c. Margaret, *claimant* Queen of England (1537-1603) m. Henri II, King of France (1519-1559)
1a. Louis XIII, King of France (1558 -)
2a. Charlotte, Princess of France (1560-)
Various events of note:
1. After King Henry VIII’s death, nine year-old Margaret was proclaimed Queen of England. Her reign was to last but nine days, as her elder half-sister Mary managed to assume the throne from the young child. Edward and Thomas Seymour, the heads of Margaret’s regency council, were executed. Mary quickly began the reunification of the Church of England with Rome, which made her popular.
2. Mary still ends of marrying Philip II of Spain, but this time she manages to have three healthy children before having her two phantom pregnancies of OTL. As for her sisters, Lady Elizabeth is declared illegitimate but still kept at court, and Princess Margaret is declared the legitimate heir until Mary bears a child. Once the succession is secured, Margaret is engaged to several different foreign heirs, but nothing is settled by 1553.
3. In 1553, the reunification with Rome is complete, and Mary announces that any who rebel against this change will be punished. Lady Elizabeth, ambitious, eloped with Ambrose Dudley, a devout Protestant nobleman, and the two incite a rebellion while Mary is sick with her third pregnancy and Philip is abroad. Despite her pregnant state, Mary famously incites her troops to fight in the name of “God, Church, and Truth” and the rebels are crushed. Ambrose is executed but Elizabeth is offered pardon on the condition that she converts to Catholicism and becomes a nun. She refuses, but Mary is unable to kill her sister. Elizabeth died of smallpox while in the tower, though some Protestants speared rumors that she had been poisoned.
4. Princess Margaret remained close to Mary during her reign and stayed in her good graces. Raised as a Catholic during her sister’s reign, she found an unexpected match in King Henri II of France, whose had lost two sons (Henri and Hercules) the same year he lost his wife, Catherine d’Medici, and twins infant daughters. Margaret and Henri cared little for each other, but Margaret did enjoy being Queen of France. After delivering a son, Louis, her husband died in a tournament accident celebrating the marriage between his daughter Elisabeth and Margaret’s brother-in-law, King Philip II. She delivered a posthumous daughter, Charlotte, and she became regent for her son, who ascended to the throne in 1564 after the death of his half-brother, Charles IX.