Personally, I can’t see any of them replacing Churchill. It wasn’t just a matter of his policies - it was also his character which inspired people to follow him. Others might have said the same things but would people have listened?
I don’t know about very different. Richard III was quite competent and I’m not sure just how differently he would have steered England relative to Henry VII. Perhaps the most curious difference in his regime was/would have been its rooting in the north, highly anomalous in English history. But I would suspect that in a generation or two the south’s greater population and economic base would have returned that flip-flopping of political influence back to the status quo.
Re: William Audelin, the death of William Clito, son of Robert Curthose, was also very significant. Much as Henry seemed to have resist the idea, there were some in his court that actively backed Clito to succeed him after the White Ship disaster. Clito’s deprivation of his Normandy inheritance was still considered distinctly squirrely in many circles and he was not only friendly with the French king, as the last legitimate male-line member of the Norman dynasty he was an evocative choice. Given how quick much of the nobility jumped ship from Maud for female-line descendant Stephen after Henry died, it is likely William could have had the throne in a cake-walk.
Further he had become count of Flanders. This may seem less significant on maps than Greater Anjou/ Aquitaine, but in fact like Normandy or the Isle-de-France, it was tightly centralized and administered and immensely wealthy to boot. The counts of Flanders could raise more knights than the king of France could from his personal demesnes. Further the economies of England and Flanders were deeply intertwined throughout the medieval and renaissance periods, as English wool fueled the Flemish textile industry. A William III Clito combining the two wealthiest principalities in France, tightly integrated with England, would have possibly been even more powerful than the Angevin empire of Henry II ( which was far more subdivided and contentious to rule ).
Napolean couldn’t have conquered Hitler! They weren’t even alive at the same time!
Yes, but if Napoleon had lived to the age of 170 years, and was still Emperor of France, Hitler would not have dared to attack France in 1939. Instead, he would have sought territory in the East (where the Romanovs would still be ruling, since World War I would not have happened).
Yes, he should have thought long and hard about where to put his seamen.
the Spanish Armada had submarines?
If you can sell Harry Turtledove on this idea, I will definitely read it.
If Churchill was not PM, well maybe Operation Compass would have continued and seen the end of the Axis in Africa, instead of the ill fated greek expidition. Or Singapore might have actually been defended.
Even if someone had accepted an end to hostilities, it would have only been temporary (like the ones in the Revolutionary/Napoleaonic wars were and most likely the UK would have reentered the conflict. No one power on the continen t was always the UK’s aim and had been for 400 years by that time. The absence of WSC is not going to change it.
James VI & I had an eldest son, Prince Henry. He was being primed to be a wise successor but he died in 1612. If he’d lived there might have been no civil wars, no regicide, no 1688 revolution and perhaps no Union of the Parliaments.
If one of James II’s sons with his first wife had lived there would perhaps have been no Glorious Revolution. It was caused when his 2nd (Catholic and Italian) wife Maria de Modina gave birth to a healthy son; James’s Catholicism had only been tolerated because he had no sons with his Catholic wife so the throne would pass to the Anglican daughters of his (English and Anglican) first wife. However, James II had to fight a brief civil war when he came to the throne (more of an insurrection really) against one of his illegitimate nephews (James Scott, D. of Monmouth). Though Scott had a following due to his Protestantism the fact that he was illegitimate was alone enough to invalidate him as successor. Had James’ had a legitimate son I wonder if he would have fought a father v. son war had they bypassed him due to religion.
And what comes next you can read here (Turtledove, natch).
Harold Godwinson’s not dying (and winning) at Hastings would’ve meant a wholly different England.
Catherine of Aragon dying before marrying Henry would’ve meant England as Catholic country for much longer
Actually I think that you’ll find that Napoleon was the “Man in the Iron mask” and Hitler was the original “Wandering Jew” and as both were space aliens who landed from UFOs originally and were immortal anyway,not only is my idea feasible but is the most likely version of what really happened historically.
Its only because the Illuminati have censored history books worldwide that it is not more commonly known,dont you know ANYTHING?