Is it Possible for a Scottish Empire?

Emperor-of-New-Zealand

Kicked
Is it at all possible that Scotland could avoid becoming the disaster is became in the early 18th Century and be a major colonial power?

I'm a Scottish patriot (my username refers to my current residence, not my ethnicity), and I struggle to find threads focussed on Scotland primarily (or at least secondarily) aside from one which I found very difficult to understand (a thread titled Scottish Empire, or something similar).

My main questions are: How could Scotland have ever become a player in the imperial game, how could it have lasted to the 20th Century and if there is a thread based on this idea can I have a link so that I may satisfy my cravings?
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
There WAS a Scottish Empire. It's heyday was from around 1815 to the Second World War. Oh sure, it might have been called the "British" Empire, but we all know who was really running things, don't we?
 

Tyr

The trouble is Scotland takes up most of the worst half of the island.
IOTL Scotland changed massivly when it conquered southern Scotland to become eventually the English speaking Lowland dominated country of today (rather than the Celtic highlander Ye Olde Scotland). If we're to make Scotland more powerful we'd need to have it take regions of England which would only add to making it unScottish. Its likely that the capital would even move further south once the Highlanders start getting uppity as in OTL.

The best Scotland could hope for as a independant nation as we know it would be perhaps to have good worldwide trade going ala the Dutch (only crapper)- but that doesn't lead to much in the way of a empire.


And yeah, what is said above. The Scots were a huge part of the British Empire. The British Empire's central principles were a healthy mixture of English democracy and Adam Smith's capitalism.
 

robertp6165

Emperor-of-New-Zealand said:
Is it at all possible that Scotland could avoid becoming the disaster is became in the early 18th Century and be a major colonial power?

I'm a Scottish patriot (my username refers to my current residence, not my ethnicity), and I struggle to find threads focussed on Scotland primarily (or at least secondarily) aside from one which I found very difficult to understand (a thread titled Scottish Empire, or something similar).

My main questions are: How could Scotland have ever become a player in the imperial game, how could it have lasted to the 20th Century and if there is a thread based on this idea can I have a link so that I may satisfy my cravings?
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In order for there to be a "Scottish" empire, as opposed to a "British" empire, which is, I assume, the point of your question, there has to be an independent Scotland. Maintaining Scottish independence is not impossible, but it is difficult. Some possibilities...

--If we somehow prevent the marriage of Margaret Tudor into the Scottish royal house, we can butterfly away the claim of the House of Stuart on the British throne.

--Assuming Margaret Tudor still marries into the House of Stuart, another window is the English Civil War. If Charles II had been able to establish himself as ruler of Scotland and had formally abandoned his claim on the throne of England to appease Cromwell (not likely, but not impossible), Scotland might just have managed to retrieve it's independence.

This independent Scotland, if it plays its card right, might renew the Auld Alliance with France, and, with French support, maintain its independence through the 17th and 18th centuries. Scotland can then establish colonies in the New World, some of which might survive the various colonial wars.
 

Cornwall

Troyer IV said:
What of the Welsh?
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Tis true.....the Welsh never seem to get a look in, even after defending Rorkes' Drift from those marauding Zulus.

But it's a phrase I picked up in a book a while ago.....seemed vaguely appropriate for this discussion.
 

MNP

Cornwall said:
Tis true.....the Welsh never seem to get a look in, even after defending Rorkes' Drift from those marauding Zulus.

But it's a phrase I picked up in a book a while ago.....seemed vaguely appropriate for this discussion.
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Hmm I once heard a much fiercer saying attributed to the Welsh but I have no idea if it was made up or real. Never heard anything like it before:
May God send the English to Hell, may he send their Scottish Allies to Hell, may he send their Irish servants to hell... and the Norse with them!
 

SenatorChickpea

They manage to turn a profit on the Darien venture somehow, and remain an autonomous partner of England rather than another part of the larger Union.


No, I have no details further than that, but all I can remember is that the Scots technically did have a New World empire. Hopefully someone more knowledgeable can show up and explain why the disastrous Darien project could never have worked or what have you.
 

Neala

Abe Lincoln said:
Normans never come to British isles and Scotland becomes the major power, following in the British Empire's footsteps.
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The problem is land and resources. England just has more and so can out weigh Scotland. In fact a country that just contained South-East England and East Anglia could outweigh the rest of the island prior to the Industrial Revolution as it's got the best farmland in East Anglia and the best links to the continent and hence trade in South-East England. If you add in tin, coal and iron found in other areas of England (including for the sake or argument Cornwall) then England just has all the advantages. It can support a higher population and has better resources.

Of course if you want an independent Scotland that is a major colonial power then perhaps the best POD would be the early medieval period when the Britons were being displaced by the Scots, Angles, Saxons et al. If you redirect Scottish settlement to what is now South East England then they get all the benefits I described above and you have a Gaelic Scotland dominating the island of Britain and oppressing the poor Britons (what's the gaelic for welsh?) and if the Angles et al get redirected to OTL Scotland they also get to oppress the analogue-English

Edit: I also meant to add though that I can't really see how such a change in the areas colonised could happen, the Scots, Angles, Saxons et al generally colonised the areas of Britain closest to them
 

charl

This thread is going to descend into a discussion of the Scottish carrier navy and its 42 flagships. :rolleyes:


I have a hard time seeing Scotland becoming a large power. Maybe if they somehow conquered Ireland early in its history and used the resources gained from it to resist the English they could last? I don't know how they'd do that without ASBs though.
 

Mr Stereo1

charl said:
This thread is going to descend into a discussion of the Scottish carrier navy and its 42 flagships. :rolleyes:


I have a hard time seeing Scotland becoming a large power. Maybe if they somehow conquered Ireland early in its history and used the resources gained from it to resist the English they could last? I don't know how they'd do that without ASBs though.
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It doesn't have to be large, just worthy of being called an empire.
 
Thande

Thande

Donor
Tyr said:
They were English.
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Well, constitutionally; but try telling that to General Picton ;)

Ahscardinal did a reasonably plausible scenario about a biggish Scottish Empire with a fifteenth-century POD. If you go much later than that, you're going to end up with a Scottish Empire along the lines of the Belgian or German ones from OTL, hardly worth noticing. Tony Jones has such a Scotland in his Gurkani Alam timeline.
 
Julius Vogel

Julius Vogel

How about a stronger focus on organised colonisation within the wider British Empire? It isn't exactly a Scottish Empire, but maybe you could end up with a series of communities/provinces/cities with a very close relationship with Scotland, Scottish culture and business.

I myself am from such a Scottish settlement, in NZ, name of Otago. Our first settlers were Free Churchers, in part led by Robbie Burn's nephew, Thomas

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunedin,_New_Zealand#European_settlement
 

Cornwall

Julius Vogel said:
How about a stronger focus on organised colonisation within the wider British Empire? It isn't exactly a Scottish Empire, but maybe you could end up with a series of communities/provinces/cities with a very close relationship with Scotland, Scottish culture and business.

I myself am from such a Scottish settlement, in NZ, name of Otago. Our first settlers were Free Churchers, in part led by Robbie Burn's nephew, Thomas

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunedin,_New_Zealand#European_settlement
Click to expand...

That's interesting.....I'm sure there must be many such communities around the world with a somewhat direct connection with the motherland. I know there used to be a sizeable Welsh community in Buenos Aires.
 
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