Any option which comes out of the war, even a random no-name pretender enforcing demands, is almost certainly better than having Henry live. Honestly, if Henry manages to have a kid, it's probably worth restarting simply because otherwise he will probably live a long and healthy life while England slowly regresses to the stone age. * The war of the roses, which is actually a blessing in disguise.

In the meantime, two things will probably happen. Trying to actually hold Calais is a liability because of the permanent French core, but the boost to mercantilism from the decision is extremely useful. * If you kept Calais, take the staple port decision and then lower autonomy there and accept rebel demands to defect to France. This will knock the two biggest colonizers out of the race for a good while and let England start colonizing at tech 4. If you want, you can fabricate a claim on the Canary islands. You will need to wait for exploration ideas to core them, but the overextension is tiny so it doesn't really matter.

It's not possible to keep a permanent blockade around portugal, but if you put a temperory one you should be able to take the atlantic islands from them. Portugal's allies will also get bored and be willing to peace out for minor concessions after a while. Eventually, France will be willing to peace out in exchange for their territory (try to keep Calais if you possibly can). * Meanwhile, use your main army to conquer the remaining Irish OPMs and bring the entire British isles under your control. Once your war with scotland is done, send a few troops to occupy the Portuguese Atlantic islands and just wait them out. Send in your fleet and sink their navies and they won't be able to touch you. Castille is worse, but both are managable for England. They will probably bring in either Castille or Aragon. * At the same time, once your trade conflict with Portugal is fabricated, break your alliance and declare war.

Just get to fabricating more claims in Ireland. Don't bother raising relations with them yet, and jack up autonomy in conquered provinces. When you're done, annex any Irish OPMs who allied them, then take Aberdeen and vassalize Scotland. * You should be able to steamroll the Scottish army, even with highland reinforcements. Declare war on Scotland, and then start fabricating claims on any Irish minors who are not allied with Scotland. * As soon as you have a claim in Scotland, check which of the Irish states they are allied with. As soon as you've sent the diplomat, you can recall the fleet again. * Send your light ships to protect trade in Seville (the option opens up when your merchant arrives) and start fabricating a trade conflict on Portugal. * In the meantime, start fabricating a claim on a Scottish province (Aberdeen is ideal, as holding it allows you to claim Orkney) and send a merchant to the Seville trade node. You'll need the manpower later as this is going to be a long war. It's difficult but possible to successfully get both armies out, although since England starts over its force limits if an army gets caught and damaged, just disband or consolidate it. * Evacuate as many troops as possible from the continent. Here's my standard England start in detail. Personally, I favour an isolationist England with minimal involvement on the continent (although I'll sometimes take the two centres of trade in the Netherlands from Burgundy) England's national ideas are geared towards becoming a naval powerhouse and as such England can win wars without even needing to put troops on the ground in Europe most of the time. True, after that, it will be God-mode, but there are other strategies with England which are way easier to pull off. What you need to accept really is that, even if you manage to win the hundred years war, it will exert such a massive cost that you will probably spend the first century of the game recovering from it.

Europa universalis 4 england