The Kingdom of England
15th – 17th centuries CE
Oh quatch England, dost thou not see thy predicament?
William Hargreave, English parliamentarian, 1550.
England is a complex nation. Perched atop Europe, it can intrude into continental affairs at leisure. While several hundred years of history can never be adequately summed up in any number of pages, this text will focus on some key themes and major events as best it can.
England underwent major political changes in the years preceding its rise as an international power in the 15th century. After the Norman conquests England had developed into a cosmopolitan state with a thriving self-sufficient economy, ruled by a francophone elite of mixed Anglo-Norman descent. There was always tension between the feudal aristocracy and the monarchy. Unlike France, which was often a kingdom in name only in a landscape of near-autonomous lords England retained the tradition of a strong central king going back through the Anglo-Saxon period centuries before. England spent much of the 13th century ruled by the Angevin kings, who consolidated economic and legal power under them before successive political infighting in the late 13th - early 14th centuries pushed the idea of the monarch towards that of a warrior-king bound by laws, rather than a lawyer-king who ruled totally over all. This change roughly corresponds to the establishment of the Plantagenets on the throne. The constant back and forth between the nobility and the throne built the institutions of the medieval English state. On one side, the monarch and on the other a parliament, each with separate vested powers who together bound the unified nation of England (and, at times, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland).
The Plantagenets were characterized by war, especially foreign war. Through the 14th, the throne continued to spar with the landed nobility while funding larger and larger international expeditions. This was concentrated in France, where English armies served as just one chisel hammering into the growing cracks of the once mighty French state. The English royal family was of course, continental in origin and the efforts of the French monarchy to control its own fractious territories brought it into direct conflict with English inherited possessions there. Throughout the 14th to 15th centuries, English kings jockeyed with parliament and internal revolts all while pursuing to various levels of seriousness their claims in France – the so-called Hundred Years War. This reached a crest in 1356, where English forces even captured the king himself, and then subsequently laid claim to the country. Later French kings slowly reversed these gains, eventually throwing the English out of the country by the late 14th century except for a few coastal bastions. As much as individual English kings could win impressive victories, they always relied on local allies – like in Burgundy, and the cooperation of the economy at home to hold their sprawling conquests. The success of the monarchy in its continental ventures was deeply tied to the monarch in power, and the circumstances during which he ruled. As English gains were reversed over the course of the 14th century, the over-extended English ‘war state’ crumbled in on itself. Parliament became less and less willing to indulge royal expeditions. However, the kingship survived its missteps. England remained in the 15th century a firm monarchy, albeit one with stern caveats placed on the monarch. Recovery from grueling campaigns abroad dampened the economy, but England remained involved in foreign affairs throughout the 15th century. Unlike other Western European nations who spent decade after decade embroiled in Mediterranean wars, England was able to sit comfortably insulated on the far side of the continent to pursue its own ambitions at leisure. These ambitions focused on curbing the advances of their old rival, France, by allying with rival powers to form various enclosing webs of restriction. Unfortunately, as much as England was herself a formidable military power, English kings showed themselves poor choosers in European diplomacy. After the signing of a 1392 treaty, English monarchs (and parliament, though not unanimously) backed Aragon in the great game for control of the Mediterranean. The Aragonese empire at its height controlled sprawling territories over North Africa, Italy, Iberia, and beyond, but poor governance continually undid its own successes on the ground. English international ambitions in the 15th century were always limited by their own allies. Tensions with the papacy between England and its allied powers also pushed the country farther away from the Catholic fold, priming it for the rise of Protestantism decades later. This period is defined most by the rise of two great power blocs in Europe: France, an increasingly imperial, catholic, state with its allies vs. England. Both blocs often jockeyed increasingly not on French soil but through Iberia. A near-constant state of war in Iberia, and then by extension the western Mediterranean, provided the arena for England to push against France.
More than anything, Protestantism transformed England during the 16th century. It transformed the Anglo-French conflict to a deeper Protestant-Catholic one. It strengthened bonds across Northern Europe and found unlikely foes and allies in Iberia. Over time, political centralization and counter-reformation on the continent created a large bloc of Franco-Spanish interests to oppose England, and a few choice protestant footholds in the west. Even when Catholics graced the throne, conflict rose again and again with the continent for the simple reason that should France and Spain both become strong, England would be entirely cut off from European affairs by a hostile power. This fear of a Catholic bloc in western Europe dominated English thought for centuries, well above any concerns about Islamic hegemony like most other European nations. England was defined as much by its distance from both Istanbul and Seville, as other nations were by their proximity to them. During the 1560s, one later monarch (Elizabeth) even took Ottoman coin to fund her personal rivalry with her half-sister Mary, then on the throne. Even expansion in the New World was driven by an urge to outmaneuver France as much as it was economic curiosity, conquest of Moorish territories there was always a secondary concern.
The reign of Queen Elizabeth I is a watershed moment in English history. She finished the work of previous rulers in crushing English Catholicism. Between her, and the fanatical purges of Queen Mary years earlier, by the 1580s – 90s British Catholicism was whipped out of existence, surviving only in Ireland and Wales. Anti-French sentiments combined with a protestant zeal also led to another enduring feature of England in the years to come that of a ‘mercenary state’. English mercenaries would become a fixture in continental wars. Either by direct order, or simply by turning a blind eye, successive monarchs would fill their treasuries by licensing privateer captains (the gentlemen pirates, as they dubbed themselves) both on land at on sea to attack enemy property or serve in foreign armies. Combined with a formidable navy, England became the main naval power of the North Atlantic that could protect its interests even against vastly larger enemy states. While the monarchy always supported this ‘dishonorable policy’ parliament was at times decidedly against it. Because the monarch could supply privateer ‘letters of marque’ as they saw fit, parliament rightfully viewed it as the throne circumventing the legislature to fund their own private expeditions. This back and forth continued even while English soldiers rampaged across half the globe. This privateering also brought the world to England. High culture flourished in England, buoyed by a resurgent economy and political stability. By the mid-1600s England, now unified with Scotland, continued to enjoy prosperity through the reign of the two Charles – Charles I and the II, who despite quarrels with parliament avoided the political instability that plagued other colonial empires at the time.
The greatest threat to English prosperity at this time was internal revolt from a familiar direction – Wales, and Scotland. The Welsh Rising of 1621 and the subsequent damage to the crown, which personally bore the brunt of the fighting, paved the way for parliament to assert itself over the king in an unprecedented way. Like during the latter years of the Hundred Years War, the monarchy over-extended itself in military expeditions, could not sustain its gains, and suffered at home for it. This time, interventions in Scandinavia, expensive campaigns in Ireland, and then the suppression of the Welsh pushed the crown to unprecedented concessions to Parliament, so that by the late 1600s the concept of an absolute monarchy in England was functionally dead. It would, however, take many more decades before further events would solidify it in law. England was fortunate in that in its heartland, it was a more united, prosperous, nation than its rivals. Threatened only from the periphery (the Celtic fringes, which remained ethnically and religiously distinct) it cultivated a sense of national harmony that proved far more resilient than the controversies of any single king. England was a nation free to indulge in the wars of other states, on other frontiers, and enjoy peace at home.
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Explanation [OTL]
This is a very, very brief breakdown of how England has fared over the course of this timeline. You will of course notice that by and large things follow OTL closely until you get to the mid 16th - 17th centuries. Two major changes happen to diverge the timeline here. First, the Hapsburgs are not a significant power. This leaves France, and eventually France + Spain as the leading power in continental Europe. Like the Hapsburgs, France (Valois) becomes a Catholic superpower, but unlike the Hapsburgs this state is a more territorially cohesive power more focused on direct military conquest than diplomatic expansion. It is also, obviously, centered in France rather than on a Hapsburg Spain / HRE.
Second, England is more Protestant in this timeline. Unlike OTL which saw a constant back and forth between Catholic and Protestant influences going up through the OTL English Civil War, here England became firmly Protestant by the mid 1500s. Catholicism survives, as it does OTL, on the fringes of the British Isles. England is ATL a more cohesive nation. Catholicism is more firmly a political them , and combined with more powerful ATL Islamic states, English identity is quickly defined in opposition to those two. Charles I and II are both of similar personality to OTL, but they have less ground to stand on to oppose Parliament. In this timeline, Englands expansion as a mercenary power under royal authority, also means that at times when its byzantine international network of influences falters the crown falters with it. Parliament forces itself over the crown more and more like OTL, but with far less violence, because there is far less worth being violent about, and because the crown has less will to resist also. England is going into the 18th century peaceful, prosperous, and powerful. It is surrounded by allies while its enemies are faltering. Rule Britannia.
These are the broad strokes of course. I plan on another post detailing the Welsh Rising, the Swedish Intervention (Currently theres but a sentence in my timeline referencing it) and some of the home politics involved.