Pox

October 10, 1562 twenty-nine-year-old Queen Elizabeth I, was taken ill at Hampton Court Palace, with what was thought to be a bad cold. However, the cold developed into a violent fever, and it became clear that the young queen actually had smallpox.

Having no heir, a succession crisis was feared. Many Protestants were concerned that the devout Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots would try to claim the throne through her ties as the senior surviving descendant of Henry VII through her grandmother Margaret Tudor. So, the Protestants put forward Henry Hastings, 3rd Earl of Huntingdon as a potential successor through his ties to the previous English royal house of Plantagenet.

In our timeline Good Queen Bess would survive the bout of smallpox and would reign for forty-one more years and is considered to be one of the greatest British monarchs.

Yet what if Queen Elizabeth did not survive and what if Henry Hastings 3rd Earl of Huntingdon decides he would want to become King Henry IX of England?