The Windsors - A Short AH

[Eckener]

The BBC is interrupting its normal programs to bring you an important announcement.

This is BBC News from London. Buckingham Palace has announced the death of His Majesty King George VI. The palace said that the King died peacefully at Windsor Castle. The Queen and Prince Consort will remain at Windsor this evening and return to London tomorrow.
—---

Whereas it has pleased Almighty God to call to His Mercy our late Sovereign Lord George the Sixth of Blessed and Glorious memory, by whose Decease the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is solely and rightfully come to The Princess Patricia Mary Alexandra Victoria:

We, therefore, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of this Realm and Members of the House of Commons, together with other members of His late Majesty's Privy Council and representatives of the Realms and Territories, Aldermen, and Citizens of London, and others, do now hereby with one voice and Consent of Tongue and Heart publish and proclaim that The Princess Patricia Mary Alexandra Victoria is now, by the Death of our late Sovereign of Happy Memory, become our only lawful and rightful Liege Lady Victoria the Third, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of her other Realms and Territories, Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, to whom we do acknowledge all Faith and Obedience with humble Affection; beseeching God by whom Kings and Queens do reign to bless Her Majesty with long and happy Years to reign over us.

Given at St James's Palace this eleventh day of September in the year of Our Lord two thousand and twenty-two.

GOD SAVE THE QUEEN
—-

From The Windsors US News TV Special
Original Air Date: May 1, 2023

As Great Britain prepares to crown its newest Queen, we look back on the past 105 years of rule under the House of Windsor, created by Royal Decree in 1917 as the United Kingdom found itself in the throughs of a great struggle against Germany, with the monarchy wanting to distance itself from its Germanic roots. In an instant, the Sax-Coburgh and Gothas became the Windsors, and the nation applauded the patriotic effort. In the first decades under the new name, tragedy would become a regular specter, one that made the family feel almost haunted, according to the diary of then-Princess Mary.

The first tragedy struck a little over a year later, when Prince Albert perished in a pilot training accident, at the age of 22. The second eldest child of King George V, his loss in his prime shocked the nation and the family. Then, four months later, the youngest Child of George V and Queen Mary of Teck, Prince John, succumbed to his epilepsy and died as a result of a massive seizure in January of 1919. Despite their deep grief at the loss of two of their princes, the Windsors had to place their mourning to one side as they joined in with a jubilant nation at the surrender of Germany and the end of the Great War.

During the fighting, Princess Mary, the only daughter of George V, became an active volunteer at local military hospitals, and would, at the close of hostilities, keep up her volunteer work, despite the grumblings from her parents. Through her philanthropy, she would get connected with the 5th Earl of Carnarvon, and his son, Henry. Following the Earl’s death in 1923 and his son’s ascendancy to the Earldom, Princess Mary wed the young Earl in 1924 at the age of 27 and set out for what she thought would be a happy, quiet life in the country. She would give birth to her first child, Princess Alice, in 1925, with her two sons following in 1930 and 1933.

Tragedy again struck the Windsors in 1929, just months before the start of the Great Depression, when Prince Henry and Prince George were involved in a hideous car accident in Scotland. Both survived but were left paralyzed. Overcome with depression, and feeling guilty for having been the driver that maimed them both, Prince Henry took his own life the following year. Prince George then made it quietly known that, in the unlikely event that Prince Edward was unable to take the throne, he could not do so, since he would be unable to father any heirs and would abdicate.

This tragedy deeply shook the family, and increased pressure on Prince Edward, known as David by his family, to “step up” and prepare to be the heir he was born to be. However, much to the chagrin of King George and the Court of St. James, David was a partier and had several tawdry affairs with unsuitable, often married, women. If anything, the loss of yet another brother seemed to make David more careless, not less. In 1934, the prince met his future wife, and the source of much consternation for the Windsors, Wallis Simpson, a twice-divorced American. This relationship, even in its early days, produced many scandals, which would only intensify as King George V’s health began to wane.

The founder of the House of Windsor passed away at Sandringham on January 20, 1936, thrusting the reluctant Prince Edward to the throne as King Edward VIII. Right away, the King made it clear that he would not break things off with Mrs. Simpson, and instead intended to marry her. And right away, the Court and Parliament made it clear that under no circumstances could the King of the United Kingdom and the head of the Anglican Church wed a divorcee. Month followed month, with neither side budging. Both Princess Mary and Prince George implored their brother to break things off with Simpson and “do his duty,” but he refused. In the end, Edward VIII abdicated on December 20th, 1936. True to his promise, Prince George immediately made clear that he would also abdicate, thus thrusting Princess Mary to the throne. The Windsor’s third monarch, Queen Mary III, would reign from 1936 until 1971, overseeing Britain’s heroic fight against the Nazis and the end of the British Empire and transition to the Commonwealth in the post-war years.

—

 

[Eckener]

So, I started kicking this idea around while watching the coronation and discussing it with my students. I have the royals all worked out up to the present, as the start shows. If there is interest I'll write up the details for each of the reigns, starting with QMIII.

 

[Ramontxo]

I assume that the BBC news break at the beginning is using OTL language?
(I found it really interesting). Please follow with this

 

[Eckener]

I assume that the BBC news break at the beginning is using OTL language?
(I found it really interesting). Please follow with this

Thanks!!!

And yes, that’s from the OTL language from last September.

 

[Lalli]

Only thing is that queen would be Victoria II not III.

 

[Eckener]

Only thing is that queen would be Victoria II not III.

All I will say now is, just stay tuned. 😊

 

[Eckener]

From The Windsors US News TV Special
Original Air Date: May 1, 2023

Queen Mary III, the woman who wasn’t supposed to be queen. She’d been the third child of King George V and his wife, Queen Mary of Teck, and had had five brothers. Under the old rules of male primogeniture, the family had never imagined that their Princess Mary would one day be the ruler of the British Empire. Fate, however, had different ideas. Suddenly, she and her husband, who’d been minted as Prince Henry since their nuptials in 1924, along with their three children, were moving from their quiet country life at the Carnarvon family estate at Highclere Castle, west of London, into Buckingham Palace. The adjustment was abrupt for all of them, though according to confidants, none more so than Prince Henry. He’d been convinced that King Edward VIII wouldn’t abdicate, or that Prince George wouldn’t follow through with his plans to abdicate as well. Certainties shattered, the new lead royals moved into the seat of the British Monarchy on January 3, 1937.

With planning having already been underway for the Coronation of Edward, those plans were simply adapted for the new sovereign, and Queen Mary and her husband were crowned on May 12th, 1937 to much fanfare. However, there was already drama brewing at Court. A month before the ceremony, she let it be known that she wanted her eldest child, Princess Alice (formally, Princess Augusta Victoria Almina Alice), to be her heir, instead of her two younger sons, Prince Albert, and Prince Alexander. This shocked the court officials in on the plan from their Queen, and immediately raised objections. When Prime Minister Chamberlian was informed, he too raised objections and said under no circumstances would he support changing the laws that governed the tradition of succession. The new monarch was undeterred and would continue to seek a champion in government. In the meantime, she insisted that all three of her children be educated in a way that would ensure that any of them would be capable of sitting on the throne.

Very quickly, the personal issues of the family, and this question of succession, fell to the wayside as war clouds loomed. Once again, the United Kingdom was facing the prospect of war with Germany. Less than three years after taking the throne, Queen Mary would find herself a wartime leader, giving the first of many war speeches on September 3, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland. The Queen was adamant that the royal family remain in London even in the worst of the Blitz, and also insisted, despite loud protests from members of the court, that she and her family volunteer in the war effort on a regular basis. She resumed work helping in hospitals. Prince Henry worked as a mechanic. And while the two princes remained too young for regular volunteer work (though they did occasionally accompany their father), Princess Alice volunteered during the child relocation efforts and later at refugee shelters. Many historians believe that this high level of visibility for the young princess endeared her to the public and to some key politicians, which would lend aid to her mother’s cause of having her as heir once the war ended.

Despite the Queen’s plans, the royal children, especially the two younger princes, would be evacuated to Windsor after Buckingham Palace took a direct hit from German bombs on October 3rd, 1940, which leveled the front facade of the building, and sparked fires that wrecked at least half the building and made the palace uninhabitable. Queen Mary and Prince Henry would reside alternatively at St. James Palace and at Kensington for the remainder of the war. Prior to the attack, the Queen had ordered many of the most irreplaceable works of art and artifacts moved out of the palace (and indeed, out of London altogether), but the damage to the building itself was still a heavy blow to morale.

Tragedy would strike both the Royal Family and the British people as a whole in 1944, during Operation Steinbock, the last major Nazi air assault on London. In February, a bomb killed Henry, the Prince Consort. Then, in April, Winston Churchill and his wife fell victim to German bombs. Queen Mary helped the nation in mourning and would remain in black until after victory was secured a year later. She and her children would greet cheering crowds outside St. James’ Palace on August 10, 1945, to celebrate V-E Day mere hours after Prime Minister Eden announced that British and American forces had taken Berlin, and that Hitler had been captured while attempting to escape the day before.

In the immediate aftermath of the war, while Anthony Eden and his Conservative Party managed to hang on to power in the contentious 1947 General Elections, The Royal Family made preparations to wed her daughter, Princess Alice, to Arthur Willow, a commoner whom the princess had met during her war volunteer work. Despite the scandal at court, the public loved the match, and the Queen stuck by her daughter’s choice, and also renewed the call to end male primogeniture, which Eden decided to back despite reservations within his party - some credit this decision with his narrow electoral win that year. The following year, parliament would formally change the laws making the twenty-three-year-old Princess Alice the official heir to the throne.

While the United Kingdom began its road to recovery in the 1950s, and also saw the start of the transition from Empire to Commonwealth - a project which the Queen took close interest in - the monarchy did bump into controversy. First and foremost, Queen Mary herself landed in hot water after she spoke out in favor of the monarchist movement in the District of Hanover, which was holding its constitutional convention in 1952 and was considering whether to become a republic or a monarchy. As this was one of the British occupational districts in what had been Germany after the war, the Queen was visiting British servicemen in Hamburg and commented that she would be delighted to see relatives of hers restored to the Hanoverian throne. This stirred up quite a bit of controversy and forced the newly elected Labour government to distance itself from the comments and caused a rift between Downing Street and the Royal Family. In the end, the republican movement won out, giving birth to the Republic of Hanover, the second of five nations to be formed out of the former German Empire.

The second controversy came from the growing costs to rebuild Buckingham Palace. While the Conservatives had seen it as a priority, getting work started in early 1946, cost overruns and shortages had slowed work quite early on, so that by the 1952 General Election, only the exterior of the structure had been rebuilt, and the new Labour government wanted to cut back on expenditures they considered frivolous, when they saw higher priorities in rebuilding public housing, schools, and funding new services they’d campaigned for. When private comments of Queen Mary lamenting these cutbacks made their way into the left-wing press, there was quite a public outcry and saw an increase in republicanism grow for the first time in recent memory, briefly giving fodder to rumors that a pro-republican majority could be elected to parliament in the near future (unfounded rumors, and the movement would fizzle out within months). As a result of this controversy, and a lack of government support, Buckingham Palace would remain unfinished until the 1960s, and although it remains the formal seat of the Royal Family to this day, Kensington Palace became, and remains, the primary residence when the Windsors are in London.

 

[CountryUsedToBeBritish]

Tragedy would strike both the Royal Family and the British people as a whole in 1944, during Operation Steinbock, the last major Nazi air assault on London. In February, a bomb killed Henry, the Prince Consort. Then, in April, Winston Churchill and his wife fell victim to German bombs. Queen Mary helped the nation in mourning and would remain in black until after victory was secured a year later. She and her children would greet cheering crowds outside St. James’ Palace on August 10, 1945, to celebrate V-E Day mere hours after Prime Minister Eden announced that British and American forces had taken Berlin, and that Hitler had been captured while attempting to escape the day before.

On one hand, the final victory in Europe took a few months longer and the Western Allies were the ones to take Berlin. Were the Russians doing more poorly, the British more outraged at the deaths of their Prince Consort and Prime Minister to convince the War Department that a few more thousand casualties is worth putting the Union Jack over the Reichstag building?

Oh, and Hitler was captured alive. That trial is going to be the trial of the century.

 

[Timdoeswhatever]

i am loving this and cant wait for more

 

[Eckener]

On one hand, the final victory in Europe took a few months longer and the Western Allies were the ones to take Berlin. Were the Russians doing more poorly, the British more outraged at the deaths of their Prince Consort and Prime Minister to convince the War Department that a few more thousand casualties is worth putting the Union Jack over the Reichstag building?

Oh, and Hitler was captured alive. That trial is going to be the trial of the century.

Yes, essentially. I figured I'd let butterflies do their thing. Brits are a bit more motivated to go into Germany, the Nazis put up a bit fiercer resistance in the East to prevent the Russians from getting into Germany, etc.

The whole point of this little TL is to show the alternate monarchs from QMIII on down to the present, so I'll throw in little details from the wider world but that mostly won't be my focus, at least for now.

i am loving this and cant wait for more

Thanks!

 

[Eckener]

Queen Mary III, on her birthday in 1969​

From The Windsors US News TV Special
Original Air Date: May 1, 2023

In 1957, Queen Mary III made her one and only trip to America, to commemorate the 350th anniversary of the founding of the Jamestown Colony. Adlai Stevenson, newly elected President of the United States, pulled out all the stops to welcome the Queen, Princess Alice, and her husband, Prince Arthur, and the two oldest royal grandchildren, 9-year-old Prince Albert and 5-year-old Prince Charles (Princess Elizabeth, barely two, remained in London). The royal entourage visited the site of the first English colony in Virginia, followed by a grand reception at the White House, along with tours of New York City and Boston, the latter two stops being escorted by then-Vice President Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., who made sure his hometown gave the royals a warm reception. Officially, the focus remained on the Queen, but this tour was seen by the palace as a preview of the next generation, with Britain’s future monarch, only 32 at the time, and her young family on full display.

As the 1960s arrived, and Britain embraced a new egalitarianism fostered by multiple Labour governments - and surviving a Torry revival from 1961 to 1964 - Princess Alice gained more and more prominence, embracing the mood of the people. A 1965 headline in the Guardian gave the future Queen one of her most famous labels, the “people’s princess.” There was rumor at the time that Queen Mary was quietly outraged at the attention her daughter received, close confidants of the late monarch stated that nothing could be further from the truth, that Queen Mary in fact reveled in seeing her daughter quite clearly being ready to lead.

Tragedy struck on September 21st, 1970, when Queen Mary III suffered a stroke that left her paralyzed on her right side. A second stroke on January 13th, 1971, left the monarch bed-ridden, though she would linger for months, briefly rallying in late May and early June of that year before ultimately passing away on August 13th, at the age of 74. The unplanned queen reigned over the United Kingdom for over 34 years, overseeing one of the most trying times in the nation’s history. Her funeral was televised live across the globe. President William Miller and his wife headed up the American delegation, along with former President Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., and former First Lady Ilo Wallace. Princess Alice became the fourth monarch from the House of Windsor, known to history as Queen Victoria II.

 

[Timdoeswhatever]

Princess Alice became the fourth monarch from the House of Windsor, known to history as Queen Victoria II.

why Victoria?

 

[Eckener]

why Victoria?

Princess Alice’s full name is “Princess Augusta Victoria Almina Alice,” and while she was known as Alice by her family and the press, she chose “Victoria” as a nod to tradition, which, as has been alluded to in the first post, her granddaughter will do as well in 2022.

 

[Eckener]

Queen Victoria II on her 60th birthday, July 14, 1985
​

From The Windsors US News TV Special
Original Air Date: May 2, 2023

Queen Victoria II became the monarch of the United Kingdom at the age of 46, with a commoner husband, Prince Arthur, and three children: 23-year-old Prince Albert, 19-year-old Prince Charles, and 16-year-old Princess Elizabeth. By the time Queen Mary III died in 1971, her daughter had become a familiar figure not only in Britain, but across the globe, part of the late Queen’s plan to make sure her heir was prepared for her eventual role, and wouldn’t find herself scrambling as the late monarch had done in 1936. Thanks to this very public preparation, Queen Victoria II enjoyed wide popularity when she ascended the throne. Her coronation - the first to ever be televised - was a grand spectacle, but very open to the people, with Her Majesty insisting that the guest list include commoners and popular celebrities along with the royalty and nobility of other nations. The ceremony, which took place at Westminster Abbey on May 7th, 1972, was watched around the world by millions. First Lady Stephanie Miller and Second Lady Judy Agnew led the American delegation - U.S. Presidents have never attended the coronation of a British Monarch.

Since her youth, Queen Victoria II had been active in charity and volunteer work, something that agitated some of the more conservative members of the Court of St. James, but had been encouraged by the late Queen, and this did not lessen with the new monarch on the throne. If anything, Victoria II’s work with hospitals and orphanages only increased. The “People’s Princess” was now the “People’s Queen.” Her children continued this legacy, with Princess Elizabeth following her mother in working with hospitals, and the two princes getting involved with nature conservation. Prince Charles ended up in some hot water when he began attending anti-war and anti-armament protests, but this too endeared him to a generation of younger Britons, despite the apoplexy of courtiers.

The Queen herself caused some waves in parliament when she came out in support of the proposal of the UK to join the European Economic Community in 1972 and held several high-profile meetings with French, Hanoverian, and Prussian officials to help get them on board. The UK joined what has now become the European Federation in 1973, and Victoria II and her heirs have maintained staunch support for the organization and the continued integration of Europe.

When the AIDS epidemic first arrived in Britain, it was Queen Victoria II who helped lead the charge in destigmatizing the disease, continuing to volunteer at hospitals and meeting specifically with AIDS patients, and as a result, she began to call on Parliament to increase assistance and research into the disease and to also drop all remaining criminalization of homosexual behavior throughout the UK, something that would be done in 1984. This continued activism, however, created a rift between many conservative politicians and the House of Windsor, with some proposing that they threaten the Queen with removal if she didn’t tone down her political rhetoric. At the same time, Labour and Liberal politicians, who had usually been indifferent to the monarchy at best, found themselves with an unexpected ally - even though Queen Victoria II, nor her children, publicly endorsed any political party or politician outright. Throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, it would more likely be a Tory calling for the curtailing of the Royal budget than it would be a member of Labour.

When they weren’t stealing the headlines for their charity work, the royal children captivated the hearts of people all over the world with their romances. Prince Albert, the heir, was more traditional than his mother, marrying Princess Christina of the Netherlands in 1974. Princess Elizabeth married a British naval captain, Rupert Colpepper, in 1977. Prince Charles was the last to wed, marrying a commoner, Alexandra Bolton, a professor of medieval English history at Cambridge, in 1980. Speculations swirled about pending royal grandchildren and future heirs as the children married. However, tragedy would strike in 1981, when Princess Christina, pregnant with her and Prince Albert’s first child, died in childbirth along with their baby. He would spend many, many years in mourning over the loss of his wife and child.

Princess Elizabeth would produce the first royal grandbaby, Prince William (formally, George William Arthur) in 1979, and then Princess Alexandra (formally, Alexandra Mary Victoria) in 1982. Prince Charles’s first child, Princess Victoria (formally, Patricia Mary Alexandra Victoria), would come along in 1983, followed by Prince Peter (formally, Peter Charles Albert George) in 1985, Princess Catherine (formally, Catherine Beatrice Louisa) in 1988, and finally Prince Max (formally, Maxwell Albert David Arthur) in 1990. All the while, Prince Albert, Queen Victoria II’s heir, remained unmarried. There was building pressure for him to remarry and produce an heir, but he rebuffed such pressure from the courtiers out of hand, and even those coming from his family. He confided in a close friend that “if love comes and finds me again, I will take to it, but I won’t go on the hunt for it. And if it never finds me, Charles and Elizabeth have secured the dynasty.”

These words proved prophetic. Albert never remarried before a heart attack struck him while he was attending an environmentalist conference in New York City on May 11, 2003, and he died a few hours later at a local hospital. Suddenly, Prince Charles and his children were in line for the throne. A little over a year later, Victoria II would succumb to her own battle with cancer, making her 52-year-old son the new King, Britain’s first since 1936.

 

[Eckener]

King George VI, and his wife, Queen Alexandra, at their coronation in 2005.​

From The Windsors US News TV Special
Original Air Date: May 3, 2023

Less than two years into the reign of George VI, the world was rocked by the 2006 Valentines’ Day Bombings, simultaneous attacks carried out by Islamic extremists in Washington, D.C., New York City, London, Paris, Rome, and Jerusalem. The attack in London, of course, killed Prime Minister Andrew Winters along with more than a dozen other members of parliament when that bomb went off at Westminster Palace. In the United States, it was just dumb luck that the bomb that took out the White House didn’t kill President Elizabeth Dole, who had come down early for a meeting in the West Wing. Had she been in the residence like on a normal day, it would have been Vice President George W. Bush leading the Euro-American Alliance into the Middle East at the start of the decade-long struggle against Islamic extremism, first in Afghanistan, then spilling over into Iraq and Pakistan. A mere 48 hours after giving a defiant speech to the world, with the smoldering rubble of the White House in the background, the American president arrived in London to meet with the new Prime Minister, Thomas Gregson, and with His Majesty the King. The leaders were photographed outside the damaged Palace of Westminster, where King George VI gave his memorable “We Shall Prevail” speech. Within weeks, NATO forces would begin bombing Afghanistan as the War on Extremism began.

Later that same year, the King’s eldest daughter and heir, Princess Victoria, wed Richard Miller, the son of an American diplomat with whom the princess had been involved with since before the death of her uncle. There had been some rumblings that this match had become unsuitable since her father had become the heir and then the monarch, but the 23-year-old princess held her ground, and the love story captured the hearts of many on both sides of the Atlantic, and was seen by people in both countries as a symbol of the alliance between the United States and Great Britain. Their first child, Prince Albert Henry Arthur (known to most simply as Prince Arthur) would be born in 2009, the first of three children to date.

The royal family would become intimately wound up in the saga of the War on Extremism fairly early on, with Prince Peter, the King’s second oldest child, being posted to active duty in Afghanistan in 2008, then helping in the invasion of Iraq in 2009, before finally seeing action in Pakistan in 2011 during the outbreak of that country’s civil war. It was there that the prince, 26 years old at the time, would be critically wounded in fighting outside Islamabad, ultimately losing his right leg below the knee. It would be this injury that would convince the palace, and the King, to keep Prince Max out of frontline service when he received his own military posting in 2012. Prince Catherine started doing humanitarian volunteer work in occupied Afghanistan in 2011, and would remain in the area off and on even after her older brother’s injury caused the palace to raise new concerns about her activities.

Prince Peter had, of course, married in between deployments in 2009, to Paulina Browns, a very traditional match that pleased everyone involved, including the most conservative courtiers. His sister Catherine, however, shocked the nation, and the world, when she announced in 2014 she would be marrying a Jordanian doctor Firas Hamed, whom she’d met during her humanitarian work. Many in court and in government tried to block the union, but King George VI came out very publicly in support of her daughter’s choice of a husband.

The year after, the Euro-American Alliance announced the end of the War on Extremism. The occupied territories would be administered by the UN for the time being, as new nations based on more ethnic lines would be drawn up. Of course, peace in the Middle East wasn’t permanent, but politics in the region had shifted permanently, and that form of religious extremism had been largely repudiated, though not extinguished.

In 2017, Prince Max made the shock at Princess Catherine’s announcement of a husband pale in comparison, when he announced that he was gay, coming out via an emotional post on the social media site Portrait. Speculation immediately swirled as to whether or not the Crown would allow the King’s youngest son to continue as a senior royal, and whether or not a member of the royal family could be involved in a same-sex marriage, something that had only been legalized four years before.
In the end, the king backed his youngest son, just as he had Princess Catherine. In 2019, Buckingham Palace hosted its first-ever same-sex wedding, as Prince Max married his boyfriend of seven years, Charles Everwood.

The cerebral hemorrhage that cut short King George VI’s life caught everyone by surprise, coming just five days after his 70th birthday. No one in Great Britain had expected to have this transition to a new monarch for years to come, with the King seeming to have been in perfect health.

 

[TheBeanieBaron]

Are there any differences in the other European monarchies from OTL?

 

[Eckener]

Are there any differences in the other European monarchies from OTL?

Yes, though as of yet I haven't worked any of that out in any detail. ITTL I have Princess Catherine of the Netherlands marry into the British royal family instead of her OTL Cuban exile husband. At least one of the former German states will likely restore their monarchy (either/both Prussia and Bavaria spring to mind, but I haven't set anything in the canon as of yet). There would be other changes too, but I've been pretty zeroed in on the Windsors.

I do feel like ITTL the British monarchy will feel less out of touch (and that's just an outside observer's view, so I may have that wrong) compared to OTL, possibly similar to some other smaller OTL monarchies. This is due in part to not having the same monarch for 70 years (in that same span that OTL Elizabeth II reigned, here we have three), and this group of royals have been more openly involved in projects and causes popular with the people.

 

[Rattenfänger von Memphis]

If there is interest I'll write up the details for each of the reigns, starting with QMIII.

There is definitely interest. Kudos to you, Eckener. This ATL is a very believable, alternate world and I especially enjoy the casual, throwaway comments that make the reader wonder “how did that come to be?

Examples are : the British taking Berlin at the end of World War II (and capturing Hitler alive), alternate U. S. Presidents Kennedy ( as in Joseph P., not JFK), William Miller and Henry Wallace; a gay male royal marriage in Britain, Churchill dead from German bombs and Eden winning the post World War II British election, another “People’s Princess” that wasn’t Diana, Germany being divided into 5 different nations after World War II, at least one of which becomes a monarchy, and more.

I enjoy the accompanying pictures too. I recognized Princess Margaret's although she isn't in this ATL.

I look forward to reading more of your creative ATL.

 

[Eckener]

There is definitely interest. Kudos to you, Eckener. This ATL is a very believable, alternate world and I especially enjoy the casual, throwaway comments that make the reader wonder “how did that come to be?

Examples are : the British taking Berlin at the end of World War II (and capturing Hitler alive), alternate U. S. Presidents Kennedy ( as in Joseph P., not JFK), William Miller and Henry Wallace; a gay male royal marriage in Britain, Churchill dead from German bombs and Eden winning the post World War II British election, another “People’s Princess” that wasn’t Diana, Germany being divided into 5 different nations after World War II, at least one of which becomes a monarchy, and more.

I enjoy the accompanying pictures too. I recognized Princess Margaret's although she isn't in this ATL.

I look forward to reading more of your creative ATL.

Thanks!

As I stated in the second post, this was just kind of a wild hair that started when watching coronation coverage last month, and I just sort of went with it. I *do* have a full list of US Presidents and VPs, mostly looking at real OTL candidates that were considered or lost in primaries, not completely new people. Beyond that, and a list of the alt-British monarchs and their children, it's been mostly on the fly as I write, just dropping hints of the wider world into the narrative as side notes. After I do the last installment from the "TV Special" I may dive into other components as well.

And yes, as for pictures, once I got past "Queen" Mary, all the pictures had to be of OTL people. ITTL, Mary has different children, so couldn't use her actual ones, AND most of the royals we are familiar with OTL don't exist ITTL, so I went with using some of their pictures (Margaret for Victoria II, Prince Edward as George VI, and I have Zara Tindall queued up as Victoria III).