The execution of Joan of Arc would come to mark the beginning of the end for the French Wars of Succession (1337-1498), as the Armagnac Party would never again rise to what it once was. The Valois and their allies would fight on for another seventy years, but with the victory of Edward the Red Prince at Vichy the future of a Dual Monarchy of France and England was secured, only being confirmed with the 1498 Treaty of Rome. The threat of encirclement with the Marriage of Anne of Brittany with Jean III of Burgundy, led to the breakdown of the Anglo-Burgundian alliance in 1490 when, unable to challenge the marriage, invaded Brittany during the Anglo-Franco-Breton War (1490-1492). Burgundy, unable to provide support against France due to rebellion fermented by the House of Lorraine, forced Brittany's surrender. While it was too late to annul the marriage, with Jean having consummated it, the Treaty of Le Verger effectively saw Brittany annexed into the French crown.
The Reformation presented new challenges to the unity of the thrones. The deep involvement of the Valois in aiding Zwingli's escape from Papal and Imperial imprisonment was too good a pretext to end any alternate succession, causing the Languedoc War (1532), and ending with the conquest of Languedoc & Auvergne, leaving only a rump Provencal state in the Azure Coast and in Rhone. In addition to the affairs of Provence, it also engaged in what became known as the Great Game with the Kingdom of Burgundy and the Crown of Aragon. The subject of these wars of influence came about with Navarre (which saw the conquest of the County of Foix & Bearn in 1516), the Italian Peninsula (which ended largely as a victory for the Aragonese, as most of the Peninsula, save Savoy, Genoa, Milan, and the Emilian Dukedoms fell under their influence, compared to only Savoy for the Dual Monarchy), and even the County of Provence (which easily fell into the Aragonese camp to save them from being destroyed by the Plantagenets.)
While aggressively fighting heresy abroad the Kings of Both Thrones were initially tolerant of Protestants. King Francois I was torn between dynastic links to the firmly Catholic Jagiellons of Bohemia and a large portion of his populace firm in their new faith. Further strife in England and in Aquitaine combined with the growing threat of Burgundy (long the champion of the Protestant cause) tipped the balance leading first to the Anglo-French Wars of Religion (1598-1614) both within the Kingdom and among its neighbors, and later after the defeat of the Protestants, the Exodus of the Protestant Huguenots to Burgundy, Scandinavia and Colonial New Burgundy (now the Seven Republics) and the Anglican Father Pilgrim and their followers to what they would call New England (now Beornia).
While England was briefly a viceroyalty under the Dukes of Gloucester, the throne would be forever undivided following the dissolution of the English Parliament by Henry VII in 1537, and its merging into the Estates General. The nobility with the exception of some distant provinces converged increasingly to Paris as French, became the official language throughout both kingdoms. This led to the gradual Francification of England as once English names were increasingly replaced by French. By the turn of the 19th century, French has become the primary common language in the Southern parts of England. The concept of a centralized Parliamentary body was revolutionary for its time, and, almost ironically, would influence the future legislative bodies of the Burgundian Estates-General, the Savoyard Subalpine Senate, the Aragonese Cortes and the Scandinavian Riksdag, among other European states.
The Anglo-French history in Ireland was also something of a peculiar moment. During the French Wars of Succession, English, and later Anglo-French control of the Island was left in the hands of the House of Fitzgerald, the Earls of Kildare as much time was spent in building a new administrative apparatus for both England and France. Because of this, the Kildares, along with the House of Desmond, both began to rule Ireland as if it was their own Kingdom. The issues, which had been building up during the twilight years of the reign of Henri VIII culminated in the three Irish Wars (1573-1579, 1583-1594 and the Nine Years’ War, 1598-1607). Which gradually saw Ireland pacified, the rebel Irish Lords killed and the King of England and France reaffirmed as Lord of Ireland.
With the unexpected ascension of James IV of Scotland to the Throne of the North in 1500 the Plantagenêts faced the threat of encirclement by the alliance of Burgundy and the former. The exodus of the early 17th century was compounded by wars against Burgundy and Scandinavia pushing emigration to the colonies of Plantagenia and Amazonie. However the pushing towards these colonies were not without strife there as well, as conflicts were rife between Colonial Vinland and New Burgundy, as well as against the Cherokee and Creek, among other First Nation Tribes.
Eventually, the Dual Monarchy secured its position as the unquestioned power in Western Europe amid the gradual decline of Spain. A period of relative peace in Europe allowed the Dual Monarchy to expand its influences abroad. The Dual Monarchy established trading posts along the coast of Sierra Lionne, allowed them to trade European goods for slaves to be sent to the New World. A series of wars with the Kingdom of Kandy (1696-1703, 1705-1715, 1716-1717) saw the entirety of Ceylon becoming an Anglo-French crown colony, allowing access to the Indian Ocean Trade through good relations with the Nasirid Sultans of Bengal. At the same time there was a great degree of expansion in the Anglo-French colonies in the New World, as colonial conflicts with Scandinavia, Burgundy and Spain, reinforced its mother country’s position. This period of colonial expansion was broken with the War of the Anglo-French Succession, leading to the independence of Plantagenia under a cadet branch of the House of Plantagenêt.
Remaining largely aloof during the opening stages of the Great German Wars allowed the industrial revolution to take hold and the Dual Monarchy seemed set to dominate this new realm as well. But the battles of the later war quickly demonstrated that the old rival Burgundy was again on the rise as even beaten and battered it remained victorious, losing only its other colony Amazonie to independence. The Dual Monarchy enters the middle of the 19th century as the ultimate global power, but for the first time in over a century its position does not appear unassailable in Anvers and courts beyond.
