Extremely inaccurate as Ferdinand was King only of Aragon since the death of Isabella while Renee was sister of the current Duke of Bourbon (jure-uxoris by the way) but her father had never held the Duchy. Still not a surprise considering the source
How successful would Henry VIII’s reforms be if there was a legitimate cadet rival Tudor line?
- Thread starter Avrorrange
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I dunno about that. In France for example, Gaston caused all kinds of trouble for Louis XIII while waiting for his middle-aged brother to die after his sister in law repeatedly failed to deliver a living son.It might precisely be Edmund thinking Henry NEEDS him that he thinks he could get away with causing mayhem.
Not terribly unusual then? Plenty of English princes did all that, especially uncles and cousins.
If the princes outright hated each other, why would it matter whether they shared their upbringing or not? That's largely an irrelevant thing. Some brothers just outright hated each other no matter how closely they were raised with one another. A lot of the French princes in the period as you mentioned had quite turbulent relations with their brothers and did rebel. A major problem you highlighted for this period was mainly not enough princes to fight their brothers with. In earlier periods when kings did have a lot of brothers, it wasn't unusual for them and their descendants to cause trouble.
Why should Joao II and Edward IV be considered exceptions? Clarence was all the proof you need that Kings can and will execute their brothers when they get out of line, especially for someone like Henry who has a massive ego. Also need to note that, unlike France where no cadet line has successfully overthrown the senior line(after the Capets took power anyway) until the House of Orleans, England had plenty of precedence of that happening, especially in living memory. The deposed kings did not end well. Quite a few princes were in fact executed as well if you look back into the Middle Ages.With that in mind, any plots by a younger brother would likely be treated far more harshly than elsewhere.
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One of the volumes of Spanish state papers IIRC. The only thing that stayed Henry's hand was that Katherine became pregnant with the future Mary I shortly thereafter. But it was concerning enough to Fernando to hear that the king and Wolsey were discussing the matter shortly after the stillbirth of November 1514. The Venetian ambassador blamed the discord between the two kings as the cause of this stillbirth
to give more weight to Kellan's idea, I would suggest you look at the numerous betrayals committed by the brothers/cousins of Otto I ( and his successors ) which usually ended in military action, the defeat of the rebel relative in question being subsequently the his pardon ( even if he had been a known recidivist ) or to the revolts started by the children of Henry IV ( with the support of Matilda of Canossa ) against their father / Emperor , or those of Richard the Lionheart and his brothers against their father ( it doesn't seem to me that any of them were killed ) none of these were ever exiled or worse executed, therefore what Kellan said is confirmed, given that such a solution was seen as an extremely extreme case and very poorly tolerated by society of the time
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There is a difference in how a father treats a rebelling son and how a brother/cousin treats a rebelling brother/cousin/uncle. Especially in England. The royalty family of England after 1066 were a bloody lot.Henry I killed his older brother and imprisoned the other one till his death;King John killed his nephew;Edward II executed his cousin;Isabella had her husband and brother in law executed; Richard II killed his uncle; Bolingbroke in turn had Richard II killed;Henry V had his cousin executed;Edward IV had Henry VI,his son and then of course Clarence executed; finally Richard III’s murder of his nephews. With that in mind, a brother plotting treason would extremely likely result in an execution by an egocentric king like Henry VIII, since a rebellion by a brother could very likely end with his deposition and death.
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Between BROTHERS...Richard III was said to have killed his nephews NOT his brothers
There is no difference between killing your nephews and killing your brothers except the former made it FAR worse, since you are literally killing children who committed no harm against you and could not fight back. I don’t see why people want to die on the hill to suggest it ain’t done when there’s plenty of evidence of it being done. Let me put this straight. Suppose Edmund successfully overthrew Henry much like Bolingbroke did Richard II(who was a cousin and a childhood playmate), do you honestly believe Henry VIII would have lived to his old age in light of the fate of all the other deposed kings? That should be your answer as to how Henry VIII would have dealt with a rebelling brother,and not pointing to how some other foreign king dealt with theirs.Even elsewhere, we had examples of Peter of Castile getting personally killed by his usurping half brother.
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It is not your fault at all. My comment was about the information of the Venetian writer who were quite faulty
There's nothing special about the relationships between brothers over those of other close family. And we saw plenty of conflict between English princely brothers going after one another -- Robert and William II and Henry I, Richard I and John, Henry III and Richard of Cornwall, Edward IV and George ...
All in all, I think people are projecting too much 21st century thinking about dynasty onto Henry, who as @Fabius Maximus said, was more concerned about God's displeasure than he was about a family name.
Funny thing is we have exactly such scenario playing out multiple times with rulers not giving a damn about what happens to the ‘dynasty’. Henry I didn’t have a legitimate son after the White Ship incident, but has a nephew who was Count of Flanders. Instead of compromising with him by saying getting a papal dispensation to marry Matilda to Clito when both of them were widowed around 1126, Henry I financed rebellions that killed William Clito. John was a middle-aged fellow without any legitimate children when he captured Arthur, still killed him. Richard II‘s heir according to Edward III’s entail would have been Bolingbroke(who was raised together with him as a form of brother), that didn’t stop Richard II from trying to eliminate Bolingbroke as a potential threat, reportedly even revoking Edward III’s entail and thus help causing the WotR. The primal instinct of a lot of kings was who cares about what happens after I die if the next king isn’t my descendant?Who is going to rebel against me if all the other significant claimants are dead?
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BTW, how powerful could Edmund have become if he was actually more competent than Henry and presented himself as the party of reason against Henry's excesses(no need to raise taxes to fight wars etc), like massive expenditures in failed wars?
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