King Who Might Have Been: Alphonso of Chester, 1273-1284

English history is full of Kings and Queens who might have been, Edward the Black Prince, Edward V and Richard of York, Arabella Stuart and Charlotte of Wales.  Then there was Alphonso of Chester.  King Alphonso of England has a nice ring to it, but it never happened.

Alphonso (1273-1284), was one of the many children of Edward I and Eleanor of Castile who never lived to grow up.  He was born in Gascony, which was claimed by both the Plantagenets and Eleanor's Castilian family.  He was, thus, named for a maternal grandfather and his uncle, King Alfonso X of Castile.  Uncle Alfonso even traveled to Gascony, despite the distance and the tension, to stand godfather for his nephew's baptism.  Alfonso was made Earl of Chester and given a household of his own to oversee his training to become the future King of England.  At the age of ten, he was betrothed to Margaret of Holland.  In preparation, a beautifully hand-illuminated psalter was created to celebrate the marriage. 

Then, tragedy struck.  A little brother Edward had just been born and Alphonso took sick and died at Windsor of unexplained causes.  His parents were heartbroken and buried their Alphonso in the Edward the Confessor chapel at Westminster Abbey.  It would be Edward who survived to become the next king of England, Edward II, who ranks as one of the worst kings England ever had.  If Alphonso had lived, would he have been a better credit to the Plantagenet dynasty, a warrior and lawgiver like his father?  We will never know now.  As for the Psalter, it was set aside.  Several years later, another team of workers finished it for the wedding of Alphonso and Edward's sister Elizabeth to John of Holland.  The differences in the quality of workmanship of the two groups of illuminators can be discerned in the finished product, which is still on display at the British Library in London.