WI: Richard III had won the Battle of Bosworth Field?

Well, I couldn't get anything done Monday or Wednesday, but in my defense I just started a new job this week. Here's a Friday update regardless.

The Battle of Bosworth Field is one of the most famous battles of late medieval England and, thanks to Shakespeare, the one that most people remember when they hear of the Wars of the Roses. It was on Bosworth Field, August 22 1485, that Henry Tudor defeated Richard III of the House of York (itself a cadet branch of the House of Plantagenet) and took the throne of England, bringing an end to the 331-year rule of the Plantagenet dynasty and inaugurating the reign of the House of Tudor.

But what if...the outcome had been reversed, so that Richard had won at Bosworth instead? Henry Tudor's victory was not an inevitability, and Richard's defeat had more to do with treachery by several of his lords rather than any tactical genius on Tudor's part. He was betrayed by Thomas Stanley, who was Tudor's stepfather and showed little regard for the life of his son George (a hostage taken by Richard before the battle), and Henry Percy the 4th Earl of Northumberland, who resented Richard's refusal to grant him more authority over the north of England. Percy held his forces back at a critical juncture in the battle (when the Yorkist infantry under a more loyal vassal, the Duke of Norfolk, was defeated by its Lancastrian counterpart under the Earl of Oxford) while Stanley actually attacked Richard when he mounted his last desperate charge towards Tudor's position, dooming him.

So, what if either or both of these lords had stayed loyal? With their numbers strengthening his already numerically superior army, Richard would in all likelihood have won handily. If Northumberland stays loyal, the Yorkist infantry is reinforced at an important turning point and never falters, eventually resulting in the collapse of the numerically now far inferior Tudor foot: Richard never even has to engage in his famous charge. If Stanley aids Richard or even just holds back when the King charges at Tudor's position, Richard will almost certainly kill Tudor - he came extremely close to doing the job in our timeline, smiting Tudor's banner-bearer with one blow of his lance and unhorsing another of his bodyguards - and win the battle that way.

So, what happens in the medium to long term? Well, for one thing, the Wars of the Roses is effectively over. Richard will have eliminated the last viable Lancastrian claimant in Henry Tudor (who wasn't even a member of the House of Lancaster, another cadet branch of the Plantagenets, but was matrilineally related to them through the Beauforts, a branch of legitimized Lancastrian bastards). The House of York can reign securely from here on out.

Richard's immediate priority, besides hunting down and exterminating any Lancastrian stragglers, will be to find himself a new wife. His first wife, Anne Neville, died five months before the battle and their only child, Edward of Middleham, had died the year before at the age of ten. Thus, to secure his bloodline, Richard will need to remarry and father more sons as soon as he can. Historically, he was trying to negotiate a marriage to Joanna, Princess of Portugal when he was killed.

An alternative wife would be his niece, Elizabeth of York. Marrying her could smooth over tensions within the Yorkist faction between those who supported Richard and the partisans of the children of his brother and predecessor Edward IV, chiefly the family of Edward's wife Elizabeth Woodville. She has the problem of having been bastardized by Titulus Regius, the act of Parliament that made Richard king over her brothers (the Princes in the Tower, Edward V and Richard, Duke of York) in the first place.

In any case, if Richard marries either woman and father children with her, the future looks fairly bright for the House of York: they will have an England that is finally stable thanks to the extirpation of the heirs of the rival House of Lancaster, and opportunities to expand their influence abroad against Scotland (ruled by a weak king, James III) and France (soon to fall into its own civil war between the regency of Anne de Beaujeu and the great magnates of the kingdom). England will probably involve itself more heavily on the continent, as Richard had been a fervent advocate of war with France during the reign of Edward IV.

If Richard has no more children, the House of Plantagenet will come to an end with his later death anyway, and be replaced by the House de la Pole - Richard had named John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln and his nephew by his middle sister Elizabeth, his heir after the death of his own son. In this case, King John II may face challenges from supporters of the Plantagenets who rally around either Richard's other living (though imprisoned) nephew Edward, Earl of Warwick and son of Richard's third brother George, Duke of Clarence or an impostor like the ones who challenged Henry Tudor's reign historically, such as Lambert Simnel (who pretended to be the Earl of Warwick) and Perkin Warbeck (who pretended to be Richard Duke of York, the younger Prince in the Tower).