AHC: The 'Biscay Islands'

iori

iori

After looking at Frances geography this idea popped into my head.

As we all know the Channel Islands, which lie less than 30 miles (48 Km) from the French coast, are Crown Dependencies of the United Kingdom, even though it is at its closest 57 miles (91.7 Km) away.

So this got me thinking, what kind of situation would lead to the Islands on the southern side of Brittany, namely Belle Île, Île d'Houat and Hoëdic (though others can count as well) being part of a different country with France existing as a United polity in a situation like the OTL Channel Islands.


Oh, and also, for originality, let's exclude the British, since they actually had the chance to take the islands IOTL as is.


EDIT:
And to better allow people to get what I mean, here's a map of said islands; the Islands I mentioned are circled in red while other islands that could fit the scenario as well are circled in blue.

Biscay Islands.jpg
 
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Codae

I hadn't thought before about how similar the situation of the Channel Islands was with that of Kinmen and Matsu: territory subject to the continental power, but then held by an on-the-whole defeated claimant regime as it otherwise withdraws to a larger island farther away and develops into a separate nation.
 

Stateless

The simplest way would be to mimic how England ended up with the Channel Islands. So through inheritance etc. the Kings of Navarre (for example) end up being Dukes of Brittany; then France takes the continental holdings of the Duchy of Brittany, but not the islands. The only problem is that I don't think Île d'Yeu, which you have on your map, was ever part of Brittany, so a little handwaving is needed maybe.
 
Thande

Thande

Donor
To be constitutionally clear, the Channel Islands have never been "English" or "British". How it works is that the Dukes of Normandy acquired the Kingdom of England as a possession in the Norman Conquest and therefore from that point on the Duke of Normandy was also the King of England. Then in a series of wars the Dukes/Kings attempted to also obtain the throne of France, but failed, and the mainland Duchy of Normandy was conquered by the Paris-based French court and directly annexed into the crownlands of France. Because the French did not have the capacity to conquer the Channel Islands (a small offshore part of the Duchy of Normandy) this continued as a remnant of the former regime in exile, a bit like Taiwan and China. Of course, as the Duke of Normandy was also the King of England, he was able to use English power to ensure the French were never able to complete their conquest and wipe the last remnant of the Duchy off the face of the earth. But they were never 'English' or 'British' and the present government of the United Kingdom has no authority there. The Queen still rules them as a feudal overlord in her capacity as Duke of Normandy (yes, Duke, no feminine form of the title exists).
 

Stateless

Thande said:
The Queen still rules them as a feudal overlord in her capacity as Duke of Normandy (yes, Duke, no feminine form of the title exists).
Click to expand...

Though the title Duke of Normandy has no legal basis - it's just used popularly. In Guernsey and Jersey, the queen is legally just the queen.
 

mikegold

stateless_englishman said:
Though the title Duke of Normandy has no legal basis - it's just used popularly. In Guernsey and Jersey, the queen is legally just the queen.
Click to expand...

It doesn't? The kings of France enfeoffed Rollo and his descendants with the Duchy of Normandy. We can draw a pretty straight line from the Normans to the House of Windsor.
 

Stateless

mikegold said:
It doesn't? The kings of France enfeoffed Rollo and his descendants with the Duchy of Normandy. We can draw a pretty straight line from the Normans to the House of Windsor.
Click to expand...

Sure, but the kings of England gave up their claim to the title 'Duke of Normandy' in 1259 in the Treaty of Paris. In fact, the treaty says that the islands are retained by the king of England in the role of Duke of Aquitaine, not Normandy, so if anything the Queen should be referred to as the Duke of Aquitaine.
 
Sian

Sian

Could another Viking settle down using those islands as his winter base, while still considering him self a vassal his homeland king? ... most likely this king would be the Danish since they went south hugging the coast (more or less) all the way to sicily, while the norweigians for the most part went north around Scotland towards Iceland or Ireland, and the swedish went down the Russian rivers, to Constantinoble
 

Falastur

stateless_englishman said:
Sure, but the kings of England gave up their claim to the title 'Duke of Normandy' in 1259 in the Treaty of Paris. In fact, the treaty says that the islands are retained by the king of England in the role of Duke of Aquitaine, not Normandy, so if anything the Queen should be referred to as the Duke of Aquitaine.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but a lot of things get said in treaties and then don't actually become de jure. The thing about that treaty is that as soon as the ink was dry on the paper, both sides began to ignore the terms of the said treaty as so it became something of a meaningless scroll. I mean, one thing the ToP 1259 also said was that the Kings of England in perpetuity were to be the vassals of the King of France for their land in France. No way were the English actually planning on admitting their submissive status to France and so that went out of the window immediately.

As case in point that the ToP was ignored - the Queen uses the title Duke of Normandy, not Duke of Aquitaine.
 
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