To think Richard III blatantly killed the Princes in Tower?

Who knows what would have happened if Percy had shown up too though? And imagine having to guess what Stanley would do.

I get them via the "PocketCasts" app. (I try to swerve Google and Apple and BBC sounds wherever possible).

Another consequential death was that of Prince Henry, son of HVIII and KoA, who lived for only a month. If he had survived to adulthood, likely no divorce (plus his sister Mary would have been married much younger and possibly borne children)

...and Richard III was odds on winner at Bosworth with twice the size of army and holding the high ground. If he hadn't rushed in with a small team to finish Henry early he'd almost certainly have won.

In fact, you could argue he deliberately took a massive risk early to end the battle at the start and save a very large number of lives. (We'll never know to what extent that was his motivation.)

Reading this thread, it reminds me how things can turn on a sixpence. Who would’ve thought that the capable and strong Edward IV would be dead at 40? If he had lived even 5 years more, Edward V would’ve been crowned, no problem.

Once you realise that the Normans still own England, you find yourself marvelling at the mechanism that has kept it so. You also realise why every little tinpot dictator makes getting their (male, naturally) offspring into a top English public school. Presumably they believe (and history is behind them) that's the secret to embedding your family at the top table.

The Norman hold on "our" land has survived, countless uprisings, the anarchy, the black death, musical chairs of the throne, religious revolution, a civil war, geographical consolidation, endless wars with Europe, then two world wars to boot. And they are sill there. The knotweed of England.

Casual readers might start to understand why there's a "right" and a "wrong" history to remember.

The recent long series on the Saxons and then the Norman conquest was an eye opener for me in a period of history I'd never been that interested in. Totally turns it on its head from how did the Norman conquest happen to why it then ended up being the last invasion for so long given how valuable England was as an asset. When school history very much talks about the arrow in Harold's eye and what if the Normans hadn't tricked his army...Stamford Bridge barely gets a look in!

In which case we heard the same episode 😀

The inevitability of England being conquered by someone just happened to dovetail with the Norman claim and their secret weapon.

When you follow the broad wake of "English" and then British history since the Roman conquest, then what is striking is how for almost all of it, England played a pivotal role in between the Scandiwegan countries and more mainland Europe of France, Spain and the other bits 😀

DNA doesn't lie.

I listen on Apple podcasts but they're on all the main players - Spotify/Acast etc. You can download any of them and the basic accounts are free.

I've got a RIH membership which was a present. I don't make as much use of it as I could - I can't really be bothered with the Discord forum as it's just yet another place to go on the internet. I do like the fact I can listen to their long series in one go on a trip when they're first released. And they do general little chat episodes where they often talk about tiny elements of bigger things that can stray into counterfactual territory which can be good. They do tend to get their mates kids on to talk to though which we always find a tiny bit annoying.

If I had to put money on it, I’d suspect that they were killed by someone fairly close to him within the royal circle, who thought it was what he probably wanted, and that they’d gain favour by having done it.

Some of the rest of history podcasts are on bbc player. Where do people listen otherwise as I’m not very technical Tia

Thanks for that !

I suspect some here already knew, but this popped into my feed today

https://dramaquarterly.com/bbc-confirms-launch-for-historical-king-conqueror/

Absolutely. A Lutheran England would have looked very different. That was another thing I'd been mulling over actually - whether it would have been possible to take it that far. I guess it's just unknowable as the imaginary political ecosystem is a mystery.

They get a lot of mentions on history threads but The Rest is History did a great couple of podcasts (can't remember exactly how many) on their 'favourite' counterfactuals, with very much a split approach on the value of them. I think they are just really interesting and let people analysis what elements of actual events led to them happening etc but the argument that even by choosing what we consider a 'pivotal' moment to consider we are pre-judging what led to them happening is also very valid - are they ever genuinely open conversations?

I'm getting flashbacks to my historiography papers now.

If you take all of this as frothing, and that an English (what about Scotland ?) reformation was inevitable in one shape or form then the next "what if" you can thrown into the mix is what sort of protestantism would have prevailed ? Because a striking feature of the English reformation is how it isn't Lutheran. And that plays a part in the way England (and later Britain) engaged with the rest of Europe. And thence to our legacy of Empire. If you assume that having mucked around with all other variables this one thing remains constant. And there we stray - very gingerly - into contemporary politics. Because there is a strain of populism that requires the belief the British Empire was somehow an inevitability to create a narrative for it's claim to power.

Whenever I've heard historians discuss counterfactuals, it's very much with a weary eye - the suggestion being that while there are "moments in history" that we use as pivot points, they tend to be artificially constructed. 1066 being a good example. Even if Harold had won, there is no way William would not have returned the next year. When he would have won. Or the year after that. And if you change "just one thing" in your retelling you still have no way of knowing what else could change unless you start adding the twiddles that conspiraloons keep lying around.

And here, the "what if" seems less clear ... what if Edward had been crowned ? What if Henry Tudor had not pursued his claim ? What if there had been no Bosworth ?

As Henry VIII demonstrated , religion in the middle ages was as much about politics as it was about sky fairies (so no change there). Is there a world in which in order to garner alliances, England still became protestant, just to take on the French ? Particularly when you blend in strategic dynastic marriages which mixed Catholic and Protestant (looks north to Mary Stewarts tangled reign).

It's possible the haemophilia was a chance mutation rather than evidence of hanky panky - although Victoria is so far down the line now, we are in another universe.

No matter how you try to slice and dice it, all the probabilities point to Richard being in someway responsible for Edward V not having a long and happy reign. That is where the lowest point of evidence lies. Any other suggestion needs something to move the ball from that resting point up the side of the bowl. And that needs an energy that hasn't yet been identified.

Yes - pulmonary hantavirus is thought likely - caught by airborne virus from rodent droppings - one reason why it affected the rich is thought to be that their houses would be swept more often sending the viruses airborne

Yes

so many what ifs in history.

Oh I see.

Yes, I think that if EIV had a son over the age of 18 at the time of his death, it’s a lot less likely that Richard would have become king. But also, Richard would probably have felt less threatened by the woodvilles at that point.

Yes, my reaction to the initial post re the consequences of no Henry VIII was to think that was no given.

DH and I both have a history background. I love counterfactuals and he loathes them, as he thinks we all overstate the importance of an individual event or person. I think that isn't always the case. We have to agree to disagree quite often.

For this one I think it's obviously impossible to know whether any future monarch would have played a part in a move to Protestantism but I agree that we were a nation ripe for conversion in many ways. Potentially we might have reached a more Protestant place quicker if we hadn't gone via Henry's pragmatic English Catholic church.

Yes so would have been an adult so maybe not so easy to overthrow.

So to move things on a little, where do people stand on the debate re inevitability? Eg the Reformation..huge debate still in academia about if England would have ended up Protestant anyway (history of Lollardy, uneasy relations with the Church as a competing authority, large swell in Protestant learning in the universities etc) Vs individual triggers, ie Henry's need for a son / Anne Bolyen.

If anyone has read Ben Elton's Time after Time he does a brilliant take on this wrt WW1.

@NewAgeNewMe E of Y was the oldest, so would have been king on EIV’s death if she was male.

The book Henry VII: Winter King by Thomas Penn is really good. There's a TV version on YouTube presented by the author.

I always forget about Prince Henry, probably because Charles I was such a personality.