John IV of Anglia (The Kalmar Union)

The reign of John IV is often regarded a failure however this picture is largely coloured by the events of his final years on the throne. For much of his reign Anglia grew in strength and wealth as his government built on the advances made by Anna II.

Born in 1575, the great-grandson of William III of Anglia, via William's daughter Estrid, John inherited the county of Leuven in 1591. His small patrimony was simply one of a myriad of small lordships which Brabant had been divided by successive Anglian and Luxembourg monarchs and did not even contain the city which had given the family name (it was a direct possession of the Luxembourg crown). His father had made some political capital out of the troubled conversion of Henry VIII to Lutheranism however John had not lived up to the promise, perhaps due to the young age at which he had succeeded, and despite his best efforts, played a disappointingly small part in the busy Luxembourg court.

Succession
By 1610 it was painfully clear to Anna II and her ministers that she could no longer withstand the rigors of governing the kingdom. With no children of her own at this point and no surviving younger siblings the privy council was forced to look further afield. Much of her wider family had already been ruled out thanks to all Catholics being disbarred from the throne. Gaze finally fell on John of Leuven, directly descended from William III and a Lutheran to boot, his right of succession was quickly passed by the Anglian Witenage while Charles III of Luxembourg was petitioned to consent.

The legal hurdles duly surmounted, John was brought to Anglia with the intention of crowning him co-king to avoid any messy handover of power. In the end however Anna II abdicated on the same day as his coronation meaning he assumed the full responsibilities of the crown.

However Anna's presence loomed large, and both John and his wife, the shy Amalia, were booed publicly. At the opening of the Witenage in May 1611 John's maiden speech in stilted Anglian was simply drowned out by calls for Anna's restoration. For much of that summer the high-ranking ministers of the realm shuttled back and forth between the Witenagehuis, John and Anna to find a solution. Eventually Anna solved the issue for them, leaving Anglia completely to live with her mother in Hesse-Kassel.

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Family
John married Amalia of Kortenaken on 4th June, 1596. They would have three children:


 * Christina (1599-1604)
 * John (1608-1670)
 * Margaret (1610-1623)