User blog comment:Scrawland Scribblescratch/TL Suggestions/@comment-32656-20120924035143/@comment-32656-20120925021058

You need to look around a touch more, SS.

Bartholomew went to England first. France was something he did after that. And Chris~ had already gotten involved with the Spanish court long before then.

Apparently, Henry VII of England was thinking about agreeing to the overall proposal when Chris' got on the Spanish payroll in 1486.

Without Ferdinand - who, apparently, was the main reason for the Spanish financing the trip - Spain would be a lost cause, and Chris would not bother there.

France was too busy, and economically invested, in actions in Italy, to give money to a trip they believed would fail. They wouldn't do it here, either.

The French people would not do any of those things. Even when they were offered near-literal pails of gold, they would not move otl. There is nothing you can do to change that. The French monarchs having those beliefs would make that feeling on the part of the people even worse.

I would make the argument that for much of the Seven Years' War otl, Britain did have a stupid leader. And they still, quite frankly, beat the French up.