Forks, branches and the last Plantagenet King
I suppose that many of us have wondered at one time or another what our lives would have been like if we had made a different decision at some crucial point; where would that fork in the road have taken us? This tangle of alternative paths and branches amounts to a set of parallel histories in which our lifeâand perhaps the whole worldâwould have been different. This idea has been a very fruitful one for literature and films (Fatherland by Robert Harris and One by Richard Bach immediately spring to mind), but in reality, it is almost impossible to predict what would have happened if an alternative path had been taken. You can reconstruct events easily enough when you know the actual end-point, but in a complex, interconnected system, there are so many potential alternatives ahead that you can’t predict the outcome given the events with any kind of certainty.
My mind took this uncharacteristically philosophical turn because we finally got around to watching our recording of Britain’s Real Monarch, in which Tony Robinson reports findings by Michael K Jones suggesting that Edward IV was illegitimate, thus changing the whole line of succession to the British throne. The evidence seems quite strong: either Edward was conceived at a time when his father Richard, Duke of York was in France, or he had a gestation of 11 months. So either his mother was a horse, or his father had fantastically heroic sperm. Oh, and his mother Cecily Neville was prepared to testify that he was a bastard.
The programme then went on to follow this line of succession, to see if they could trace the real British monarch. The search ended in a tiny Australian outback town with Michael Iâendearingly, a staunch republican1. He knew about his Plantagenet ancestry, but not that he was actually the rightful heir to the throne. I thought that he took the news pretty well, in the circumstances. His ancestors were titled (indeed, he is an Earl) but poor, after Henry Hastings (who would have been Henry X) blew the remaining family fortune (£5.5 million today!) backing a horse in the Derby of 1867. It was clear that Michael was very happy in his job (at an agricultural institute researching rice cultivation), his friends and his family, and remarkably phlegmatic about what might have been.
Watching him playing with his grandchildren, having a cold stubby with his mates at an Australian Rules football match, and driving a fork-lift truck I couldn’t help thinking that he would make a great King, if only because he so clearly doesn’t want to be one. We might also have a Queen Nolene and Princes Jet and Zakâhow cool would Prince Jet be? But then, if Michael _had_ succeeded the throne, would he be the same relaxed and carefree person?
I’d be amazed if there weren’t other examples of illegitimacy in the Royal lines2, so there are probably lots of potential alternative monarchs. But the programme mentioned a few dramatic changes to the history of Britain that might have happened if Michael’s line had gained the throne. Scotland might still be an independent country, and as Henry VIII would not have got to the throne, Britain might be a Catholic country. As a Catholic, Mr. Bsag was particularly pleased by the latter idea, but I pointed out that we might never have met.
My father’s ancestors were Huguenots. This Protestant movement, which developed in France in the 16th century, worried the Catholic church and monarchy (those darned monarchs again). In 1572, thousands of Huguenots were killed in the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in Paris. Facing death and political and religious repression, many Huguenots fled to friendly Protestant countries in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. They went to Holland, Germany and Switzerland, as well as to England, where they settled in Spitalfields, London.
But I’m falling into the same trap that I cautioned against at the start of this entry; history is so complex that I can’t point to one change in Royal succession and extrapolate to my father’s ancestors choosing to settle somewhere other than London. The problem is that thinking about ‘what ifs’ is fun, and therefore hard to resist!
1 U.S. readers: not that kind of republican: the opposite of a monarchist.
2 Patrilineal succession is a really bad idea in an age before DNA fingerprinting, and when Kings spend a lot of time fighting wars abroad.
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What a terrific little piece, thank you for it. The story of "Michael" was followed up by so-called Current Affairs shows here ... indeed, a very laid-back chap. Loved the definition of "stubby", BTW.
Thoughts about the "fork in the road" often rattle around my mind. If I had been able to acknowledge my sexuality earlier in life ... Would I be less introspective? Would I be more gregarious? Indeed, just how would I differ? But ... if I had done so, I would not have my two children. Very much a head banger ...
However, the saving grace, psychologically speaking, is that EVERYTHING in life is a series of sometimes small and somethings gargantuan decisions where a single path is chosen from a multitude of possibilities. It eases the trauma to acknowledge this.
As you say, thinking about "what ifs" is fascinating ... as is the process our brain (well mine, anyway) tends to go through when a decision is in the offing of playing out, as though in mime, a few of the consequences in our minds-eye.
This all put me in mind of "The Road not Taken" by Robert Frost ...
"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference."----- yes, superb post... feel free to correct me on this point, if you know: it's my understanding that the Huguenots forced Richelieu to keep France Catholic-- he had serious differences with the Pope, but for a number of reasons, couldn't actually side with the Huguenots... and, yes, this Authentic Australian would almost certainly never have been born; royalty would have married differently...
by stacy @ 25/01/2004 10:01 pm • Permalink •
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While I don't believe in fate, I do think that to an extent, character is destiny, and that should you have made different choices, still in most cases you would arrive in a similar place in your life. The only thing I can think of that really changed the course of my life was meeting my wife. If she had been drinking at another pub that night, I actually have doubts that I would ever have married and had children, which are together with her, the most wonderful blessings in my life.
by ThoughtBadger @ 26/01/2004 1:01 am • Permalink •
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Is there an internal contradiction in what you say, TB? How can you arrive at a similar destination when inputting totally different co-ordinates? I am beginning to understand that there is a fate that is different from character ... something outside of the individual or the race ... that channels ... not sure ...
How do you know you would not have married? Meeting someone in a pub is relatively random ... and no matter who, you would still probably think of your children as your blessings ... they are YOUR nature and YOUR nurture ... what do you think?
In my case, I feel that if I had known (or been able to acknowledge) why I felt such an outsider all those years, my character and my destiny may have been different. I acknowledge that all this is conjecture ... but often discussion throws up something to chew upon.
by Julie @ 26/01/2004 2:01 am • Permalink •
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I ended up not bothering to watch that show because to be honest it seemed a little spurious to me given that the direct line was broken 3 years or so after the death of Edward IV by the usurpation of Henry Bolingbroke (Henry VII). I suppose if it had been realised then Micheal would have had a greater chance of being killed off by Henry like he did to all the other direct claimants to the throne.
by Jo @ 26/01/2004 2:02 pm • Permalink •
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There is a contradiction in what I say, because we are just indulging in speculation (unless someone here happens to have a Time Machine) and I am in two minds about it anyway! But just as there are tides in history that are bigger than any single person or occasion, I also have the suspicion that character is more significant than the turn of events in the long run. But it is just conjecture, (or perhaps faith).
by ThoughtBadger @ 26/01/2004 4:01 pm • Permalink •
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Julie: Thanks! It is fascinating to think what would have happened, but as you say, it's a cumulative thing, and so many other things might have ended up worse. I think that you have to acknowledge that "this is the way things are", and realise that you wouldn't be the person you are how without everything you've gone through - good and bad. I love Robert Frost, by the way, and that poem is one of my favourites by him.
Stacy: I don't know for sure, but this piece suggests it might be true: http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/95sep/richelieu.html Some of the Huguenots were highly politicised and looking for power, while the majority just wanted to be able to live peacefully and practise their faith without interference.
ThoughtBadger: I think that I agree that there is a fairly determined element to people's characters, though I would call it 'genetics' rather than 'destiny'! Determined is perhaps the wrong word, though, as your personality is of course influenced by your experience. But in some senses, you also seek out a particular kind of environment because of your personality, so it works both ways. I would suspect there would be an overall similarity in trajectory of your paths in these alternative histories, though the details would differ. I'm just guessing, here
Remind me to tell the story of how Mr. Bsag and I met sometime...
Jo: Yes, as I said, I'm sure that you could reconstruct it in a number of different ways. But I still found it an interesting programme, and the personal stories of the people involved were fascinating.
by bsag @ 26/01/2004 8:01 pm • Permalink •
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By coincidence I just happened to be reading about Hugh Everett's 1957 quantum theory about multiple (nay, infinite) universes, in which all these alternative parallel universes really exist (because Schrodinger's quantum wave function doesn't collapse at all, apparently...
). Very mind-boggling, but somehow reassuring to know that, somewhere, there's a universe with an even less successful version of me in it...! (I don't care to think of the infinite multitude of more successful versions...)
by pete @ 27/01/2004 12:02 pm • Permalink •
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pete: That sounds like one of those theories that you need to read about after getting outside a stiff drink!
by bsag @ 27/01/2004 7:01 pm • Permalink •
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