AHC: The Six Wives of Francis I

Francesco Carlini

What it says on the tin. Let's assume Henry duke of York was never king (Prince Arthur survives) and Francis I of France was the king with six wives instead.

Bonus if the number of wives can be raised beyond six (like in this challenge).
 

Victoria

Claude dies shortly after her marriage to Francis. The grief at his daughter's unexpected death worsens Louis XII's health and he dies a couple days later while in the middle of his negotiations to marry Mary Tudor. Francis becomes king and decides to marry his predecessor's intended in order to keep the alliance with England. It's agreed that their eldest son will marry Renée to keep Brittany in French hands. Mary, not having the best health, dies at some point in the mid 1520s.
Due to not being betrothed to Henry, Eleanor of Austria married Sigismund the Old so she's not available to marry Francis. Instead, he marries the recently widowed Mary of Austria. Neither of them want the match and Francis tries to have it an annulled. His search for an annulment becomes more desperate when his only son dies. Mary goes against her brother's wishes and agrees to end the marriage.
For his fourth marriage, he decides to marry Renée himself and have a son with her who will unite Brittany and France. Renée only agrees to it on the condition that Francis stop persecuting protestants, which he reluctantly does. The marriage is unhappy and she dies shortly after the birth of her daughter Anne. Francis doesn't mourn much because he already found a fifth wife: Anne Boleyn. In this timeline, she married a French courtier and never returned to England. She's a widow now and isn't interested in becoming the king's mistress but agrees to be his wife. She also shares some of Renée's reformist ideas, although she tries to implement them in ways that won't get France in trouble with Rome. That isn't enough for some at court and she's poisoned.
Francis, who was never too keen on the reformation to begin with, goes looking for a good catholic wife after this and marries one of the Emperor's Jagiellon nieces.
 
ordinarylittleme

ordinarylittleme

Francesco Carlini said:
What it says on the tin. Let's assume Henry duke of York was never king (Prince Arthur survives) and Francis I of France was the king with six wives instead.

Bonus if the number of wives can be raised beyond six (like in this challenge).
Click to expand...
I fail to see how the king in England can affect the marriages in France....but also, let's see:

Claude dies giving birth to Louise, who dies as IOTL. Brittany goes to Renee. In the meantime he tries to marry Mary Tudor (she dies on her way to France when her ship sinks). He remarries to his sister in law whom Francis marries with dispensation. Renee dies giving birth to a girl who gets Brittany but France needs a son. Francis remarries as IOTL to Eleanor of Austria. Eleanor dies in the 1528 sweat which ITTL takes place in France but not before having a few sons. Francis remarries to Anne Boleyn, this marriage is annulled due to consanguinity (Mary Boleyn).
 
FalconHonour

FalconHonour

Okay, here goes:

Claude dies of a miscarriage in 1514, Francis marries Mary Tudor the Elder in 1515.

Mary is already ill with consumption though, and several pregnancies weaken her health to the point where she dies in 1523.

After Pavia, Francis is forced to marry Eleanor of Austria as OTL. However, it soon comes out that Eleanor, unbeknownst to her brother, married Frederick of the Palatine in secret, making her marriage to Francis bigamous. The union is annulled, and Francis marries Catherine de Medici for her French and Italian inheritance in 1532, as soon as she turns 13.

Desperate for a son, he impregnates Catherine immediately, causing her death in childbirth, as she isn't mature enough to give birth yet.

During his year of mourning, Francis meets the beautiful widow Diane de Poitiers and marries her for lust. The two of them share a happy four years before Diane's death in a riding accident.

By 1536, the aging King wanted a nurse rather than a wife. When he met the twenty-four year old Catherine Parr at the celebration of his eldest daughter's marriage to the Prince of Wales, he was immediately smitten.

He married the young Dowager Baroness the following summer, and she remained his Queen until his death in 1547.
 
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Prince of Permsia

Here goes nothing

Six wives for Francis the First

1: Claude of France (1499-1519) (1)
1a Louise (1515-1518)
2a: Charllote (1516-) (2)
3a: Francis (1518-24) (3)
4a: Henry (1519-)
2: Beatrice of Portugal (1504-1523) (married 1521) (4)
5b: Charles (1521)
6b: Margret (1522-)
7b: Beatrice (1523)
3: Eleanor of Austria (1498-1558) (married 1525 and repudiated 1526) (5)
4: Rene of France (6) (1510-1532) (married 1526
8d: Claude (1527-
9d: Anne (1529-
10d: Louise (1531-
11d: Louis (1532-
5: Diane de Poltiers (1500-1540) (7) (married 1534)
12e: Francois (1535-
6: Anne de Pisseleu d'Heilly (1508-1580) (8)

(1) Francis treats poor Claude about as well as he did irl. She dies giving birth to Henry. Francis mourns her greatly, thinking of her far more than he ever did when she was alive. Henry will carry the guilt of killing his mother with him for the rest of his life, contriubding to his melancholy personality.
(2) Charlotte's measles are butterflied away. She is Francis's favorite daughter.
(3) The Duphan and his sister's fates are traded.
(4) Francis marries Beatrice as a proxy alliance with Charles V. He is attracted by the beauty and character of his wife and does not blame her in the slightest for the deterioration of relations with her brother. Louise of Savoy on the other hand does not like her, as she is far more assertive than meek kind Claude. She dies giving birth to a daughter in 1523 while her husband is on campaign in Italy. Despite the brief length of their marrige Francis will always say she is the wife he loved best and the one woman he remained completely faithful towards.
(5) Francis is forced to mary her after Pavia. He repudiates the marriage as soon as he returns to France. Charles V reluctantly recognizes this as part of the peace of Cambrai. Elanor goes on to wed the man she loved, Philip of the Palatinate.
(6) Needing a second son to secure his hold on Brittany Francis wed Claude's sister Rene. She proves to be a wife completely different from her meek sister. Like her sister, she was highly intelligent and a great patron of the arts and sciences. Despite her youth, Francis respects her and holds her in high regard. He keeps his affairs discreet.

Tensions existed in the marriage over her failure to produce a son and her Rene's alleged sympathy for heresy. She also got along badly with Louise of Savoy, who sought to dominate her like she did with all of her son's wives. Rene's hatred for her was particularly fierce as she accused the Queen dowager of bullying her older sister into an early grave. By 1533 she is at the height of her influence at court, having outlived Louise of Savoy, had her marriage recognized as valid, and being pregnant with what she was sure was a long-awaited son. Unfortunately, the delivery proved fatal. A grieving Francis named the boy Louis in honor of Rene and Claude's father.

(7) Both grieving for their respective spouses, Francis and Diane fell into each other’s arms. She had been a great companion to both Claude and Rene and being with her reminded the King of those two excellent ladies. This marriage greatly upset his son Henry, who was rumored to be in love with her. It also caused a great scandal at court as Diane was of low birth. She would bear Francis one son and prove a dutiful consort, turning a blind eye to his many affairs. She would die after being thrown from a horse in 1540
(8) In a fit of religion, Francis would marry his longtime mistress on his deathbed.
 

Cate13

Francis I, King of France, born 1494, died 1555, married a) Susanne of Bourbon, Duchess of Bourbon [1], born 1491, died 1512; b) Claude of France, Duchess of Brittany [2], born 1499, died 1524; c) Mary Boleyn [3], born 1499, died 1532; d) Sibylle of Cleves [4], born 1512, died 1535; e) Diane de Poitiers [5], born 1500, died 1542; f) Maria of Austria, born 1528


1a) Anne of France, Duchess of Bouron, born 1509​
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2a) Agnes of France, born 1511​
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3b) Louise of France, born 1515, died 1518​
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4b) Charlotte of France, born 1516, died 1524​
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5b) Francis of France, born 1518​
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6b) Henry of France, born 1519​
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7b) Madeleine of France, born 1520​
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8b) Charles of France, born 1522​
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9b) Margaret of France, born 1523​
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10c) Elisabeth of France, born 1527​
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11c) John of France, born 1530​
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12d) Mathilde of France, born 1535​
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13f) Jeanne of France, born 1544​
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14f) Phillip of France, born 1545​
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15f) Ferrand of France, born 1547​
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16f) Mary of France, born 1548​
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17f) Beatrice of France, born 1550​
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18f) Judithe of France, born 1552​
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19f) Louis of France, born 1553​
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20f) Bonne of France, born 1555​



[1] Louis XII makes a short lived recovering and manages to have a son with Anne of Brittany. Now that he does’t need Francis as an heir (and because he wishes for little Charles to inherit Brittany and France he doesn’t want Claude to have a powerful husband), but still very fond of the vivacious boy, he weds Francis to the Bourbon heiress. Always frail, she dies from a winter chill, though gossip that her death may have been hasted by her mother-in-law linger for years.


[2] After the death of Charles, Dauphin of France, Francis was returned to heir apparent. So, shortly after the death of his first wife, he was wed to Princess Claude. After basically a giving birth every year, Claude’s health deteriorated and she passed away from complications due to a miscarriage.


[3] Unlike OTL, Mary Boleyn is simply in a bad mood when approached by Francis the first time and so disinclined his advances. He is intrigued and continues to pursue Mary. Mary realizes she can wield considerable influence without sacrificing her reputation (at least completely) and so continues to refuse to consummate the relationship. As her father sees the influence she has she isn’t recalled back to England to get married, and so when Claude dies, Francis purposes marriage and she accepts.

Amusingly, her younger sister would follow her steps, and in 1529 Anne Boleyn weds the King Henry. The two sisters wield considerable influence and work to strengthen the alliance between France and England as well as supporting Protestants. This is obviously unpopular and in 1532, Queen Mary’s hunting party is attacked and she is assassinated.


[4] To show that he wouldn’t cave to pressure, and to spite the assassins, Francis chose a Protestant for his fourth wife. The two had a cordial working relationship, and it’s believed that its during this time that Francis truly began embracing Protestant doctrine. Sibylle passed away in childbirth.


[5] Due to butterflies, the princes Francis and Henry are never sent as hostages to Spain, and Henry never imprints on Diane. So, when the widowed Francis meets the widowed Diane, there is no squiky impediment. Francis is known to have remarked that Diane reminded him of his beloved Mary in appearance, temperament, and education. Diane bears this with remarkable equanimity. She and Francis have no children, though several of her step-granddaughters are named for her. With the higher than OTL pressure Diane leans more heavily into her beauty regimen, and overdoses on her ‘drinkable gold.’


[6] Initially Francis had no plans on remarrying, he had plenty of sons, and was really enjoying sleeping around. But after France and England* crushed the Empire’s forces at Milan, he demanded a bride. Since his eldest two sons were already betrothed (Francis to Isabella of Navarre**, and Henry to Catherine de Medici), Francis married Maria of Austria himself. Their marriage was contentious as they argued over everything…. absolutely everything.

But both tended to bring that same passion into other parts of their lives and so they had many children. Some say Francis’s death can be attributed to overexerting himself in their marriage bed.


* France and England remained close, even after the death of Mary Boleyn.
** with France and England weighing in on Navarre’s side, they don’t loose all their lands to Aragorn. Then after her brothers’ deaths, she becomes Queen of Navarre
 
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