egafd.com

Saw all about this in a program on Channel 4 at the weekend. Fanstastic stuff, really amazing how the slightest thing can change the course of history.

Had this guys forefathers ruled, then Henry VIII would not of been king & England might of stayed a catholic country. James I would not of ruled both Scotland & England. Scotland would of had home rule hundreds of years ago, instead of been ruled from London.

Amazing stuff!!

Interesting stuff, but it didn't go far enough. King Michael I would not have been born---the dynasty would have done what it could to continue, and other marriages would have been made. As the Tudors broke with the Catholic Church for dynastic reasons, it's quite possible that England would have remained a Catholic country---and within a century there might have been a holy war with Scotland. Spain only went to war with England because of the Anglican "heresy", and so there may never have been an armada, the Spanish and English royal houses might have intermarried. Few if any puritans would have prospered in England, so there'd have been no pilgrim fathers to head to America.

One small change, and the whole tapestry of history can unravel. . . .

I thought this thread was going to be about Rev. Blair.

Interesting to see that it was an archer, things don't change very much.

Mart

This story is utter bollocks, historically. Where's the evidence ? Precisely.

Edward IV usurped the throne in 1461. He was not the heir of Henry VI. Even if he were illegitimate he could be made a legitimate heir presumptive by royal decree. One of the prominent heirs to Henry's throne (along with Edward's father, Richard duke of York) was Edmund Beaufort. He was an illegitimate grandson of John of Gaunt. his mother, Katherine Swynford married Gaunt after Edmund's birth.

The royal houses of Spain and England did inter-marry. Mary I Tudor married Philip II of Spain in 1554. English xenophobia made the union unpopular, not religious differences as witnessed by the equanimity with which she restored the Papal link by parliamentary decree in the same year. The catholic rite stayed popular for decades and was tacitly supported by Henry VIII and Elizabeth. What really did for catholicism was surely the refusal of the Stuart monarchy to separate the legislative and executive state from the Roman church and foreign influence.

I apologise for the rather intemperate tone but this sloppy history and duff historians trying to make a sad name for himself winds me up. Like the drivel that fucking idiot Graham Hancock writes, some people will take this as fact.

Don't mention that lying scrote Hancock, please, WB.

Oh, and my enjoyment of the other royal house theory was based around the ripples such a pebble in the pond of history would have caused. I still think the Church of England was born for purely dynastic reasons by that monster Henry VIII.

There is a small but sometimes interesting field of historiography in the 'What If..' line, initially popularised on radio by Christopher Andrew, a very good and reliable modern historian.

And I agree with you about the dynastic motive behind Henry VIII's divorce from Katherine. The Lancastrian and Yorkist conflicts of the previous century still burned deeply into the collective psyche of the English nobility. So securing a male heir within marriage became important for Henry.

But let's remember that the initial recriminations with Rome came from the use of the title 'Defender of the Faith' which Henry wanted to use as a means of altering ecclesiastical law without forever kissing the Pope's ring (or is that arse ?).

Wink
Sorry to be pedantic, but it's "would have", not "would of".

"Would of" is not in my opinion a grammatical error but simply due the care-less way many people now speak. Similarly, to me, it should be "different from" and not as lots of people say "different to". What say you???????.