AH Challenge. Divide The United Kingdom
- Thread starter WorldWarZ
- Start date
Deleted member 5719
Have a look on the search feature, there's been millions of suggestions on here for divided Britains.
Any surviving British Empire is likely to grant significant autonomy to the Dominions, which will make it very likely that Ireland would want the same status, then, Scotland might. These would be Kingdoms within the Empire, of course.
As others have said, there have been myriad other threads about this. There are hundreds of ways Scotland can remain independent, Ireland can revolt, and a few ways Wales can, though once it's been annexed then it becomes much harder to reason for the creation of a Welsh state because until recently the Welsh weren't fiercely independent in the same way the Scots and Irish were.
To answer your second question, though, it's unlikely. Ireland had a running period of adversity with its own Parliament and the Catholics had no power, locally or nationally, until Catholic Emancipation. Likely Irish independence would be followed by a period of weak government as the country struggled to work out how it should govern itself and who should govern it. Also, the French and Spanish expressed a desire repeatedly OTL to conquer Ireland and would likely do the same in TTL, "for the good of the Catholics". Either way, Ireland was pretty poor and unlikely to manage any colonisation. Scotland had a similarly poor local economy - indeed, this was the very reason for their union with England. The Scots attempted to found a colony in Central America with the Darien Scheme, but it was poorly thought out and they were completely inexperienced in colony-founding. As a result, the colony was a disaster, and barely lasted three months. That one colonial attempt virtually bankrupted the country - it is estimated to have costed 1/5 of all the money in Scotland, and that is an example of Scotland's poor economy, not how much they spent, the Darien Scheme was relatively cheap - and that cost forced them into reliance on English money, which facilitated the Act of Union 1707. Scotland just doesn't have the money to try colonialism, and even if it managed it, it's likely to have its colonies conquered in record-quick time by France, Portugal or the Dutch as it has frankly no way of defending them at all. The Welsh did manage to colonise Patagonia, but they always knew they could never do much and kept their attempts extremely low-key - single colonies with only a few hundred people in a couple of places and that was it. Again, it's unlikely the Welsh could support anything more.
Righto. so for my idea for all the nations to go their own ways would be hard then?
As I am welsh I am trying to find a way for a TL wherein Wales becomes its own countrym free of ties to United Kingdom.
What POD would I need for this to happen along with the scots and irish to find their own feet, any POD where wales was given more power and wealth.
I read somehwere in a thread someone did, unsure who of a pan celtic & gaelic empire called I'm unsure if I am correct Tar Thiar Mor where wales, scotland and ireland basically formed a ti-national empire
As I am welsh I am trying to find a way for a TL wherein Wales becomes its own countrym free of ties to United Kingdom.
What POD would I need for this to happen along with the scots and irish to find their own feet, any POD where wales was given more power and wealth.
I read somehwere in a thread someone did, unsure who of a pan celtic & gaelic empire called I'm unsure if I am correct Tar Thiar Mor where wales, scotland and ireland basically formed a ti-national empire
I Blame Communism
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There was a Scottish East India Company. They called it the "British East Indie Company".
How early can we go? Scotland can obviously keep it independence in various ways (I don't know much about Wales), as can Ireland, but if I could diverge in 1066, the answer to the question would be pretty obvious. Do we mean post-1707? For Scotland that's very hard. Ireland? Something can probably done with the French revolution...
Heh, heh.There was a Scottish East India Company. They called it the "British East Indie Company".
Ya, really why OWN a piddling little empire, when you can RUN the world's largest!
I Blame Communism
Banned
Fot Scotland to "find its own feet" would require several things. Whether the Union of the Crowns can still happen depends on what you men by "our feet", but basically we need access to major markets outside England, which requires England to be less of a Sovereign of the Seas.
When? The scenario is an extremely unlikely cliche under any circumstances but post-Scottish-reformations it's ASB.
I'd say your best bet, short of writing a modern-day TL, is going to writing a TL in which those three are never properly integrated in the first place. Keeping England more involved on the continent would be a start, but at least break the Tudor inheritance passing to the Scots thing. Once they have become part of the state it's hard for them to escape as territorial integrity is so important for England. Furthermore, you'll need to find some way to consolidate the fact that England has a disproportionately high percentage of the British Isles' natural resources. You'll probably need to make the new states become quite accomplished at agriculture before finding niche products they can export to get their economies started.
Have Gladstone's Home Rule Bill for Ireland go through. Scotland soon after that and Wales may go for a bit of self-rule itself. Wouldn't be full independence, so much as devolution, but things may evolve from there.