The Wars of the Roses

[John Cowan <cowan>]

I think I have figured out how the Wars of the Roses come out *There*.
Nice Guy Richard of York supports his nephew's claims, acts as Regent
until Edward VI is adult (grabbing plenty of gelt for himself on the
way, to be sure), and then relinquishes power to become the King's Good
Left Arm.  Edward's younger brother Richard dies of a flux of the bowels
(or was it a surfeit of eels?).  Edward has only one daughter, Margaret,
whom he offers to James IV of Scotland.  Their eldest son James V/I
inherits both thrones without opposition, to the relief of all concerned,
including Cambria, which has been watching carefully (as it did in the
time of King Stephen) and doing as little as possible.  "The Cambrians,
throughout the war, did nothing in particu-lar/And did it very well."
-- W.S. Gilbert.

(*Here*, of course, Richard usurps the throne as Richard III, becomes
increasingly intolerable, and loses it to Henry Tudor who becomes Henry VII.
Henry does marry his daughter Margaret to James IV, but James dies
prematurely while his son James V is still an infant, and his will,
which appointed his English wife guardian of the infant, is set aside
in favor of the Franco-Scottish Duke of Albany who turns away from England.
Personal union doesn't come until James VI/I after Elizabeth's death).

That way, we avoid the Great Divorce, the Dissolution of the Monasteries,
and the Church of England.  James V did create a quasi-episcopal Protestantism
(bishops are just administrative priests with no special hieratic position),
and perhaps a compromise with Knox was worked out to create Calvinist-
Episcopalianism, the position of the Church of Scotland *There*.

-- 
John Cowan					cowan@ccil.org
		e'osai ko sarji la lojban.