Dear everyone - thank you so for the lovely reviews! This was just a random thing I started writing to amuse myself and my history dork brain and I'm really flattered it struck a cord with people. So, to answer some questions/babble about some things.
-Women are still the ones who get pregnant - it's just that lineage is traced through the mother and the mother (as the giver of life) is considered the ruler (partially I am borrowing from various pre-historic societal structures and various traditions from around the world. Particularly the cult around the mother-goddess figure - who gives life and destroys life and rules because she is the one who is valuable - the one who can bring life in to the world. Men are basically considered to be good warriors/soldiers but no good at all at strategy - intelligence is not something that is prized - being a warrior/good caretaker is because well, someone needs to be able to look after the children - though daughters will spend more time with their mothers than sons. Anyway, Thomas More and Cromwell are both considered Odd And A Bit Suspect because they are quiet/thinky. Thomas More in particular because of not being in to war as a thing. *
-This universe, I haven't worked out the exact divergence but I think it may have been that the first strong tribal leaders ended up being women - and the various religions retained their mother goddess focused centre.
*In some places they would probably have been whipped for it. Cromwell was, as a child but he had an older sister who looked out for him and he got lucky because he could fight as well. More had a pair of doting parents and older sisters and basically, he made up for a lot of things by being a really really good parent so they could kind of overlook the 'wait, you overeducated your son' thing. Mostly. He was lucky in Alice.
-I haven't decided on whether Elizabeth will come along yet - because of course I could be evil and give Henry Anne's historical fate. Which might then involve Edward Tudor setting off something of a social revolution by becoming England's first King in his own right.
-What would you like to see happen, oh readers? (I'm happy to take suggestions - I apparently have writers block right now so am going to shamelessly ask for them) Which characters should be featured next?