We have a PoD in 1649 of the entire direct British royal family being killed by a more radical parliament and butterfly Cromwell thus maintaining parliamentary rule in Britain. My question is if the royal family fled to Virginia which was known to be royalist and they declared themselves a free kingdom - lets for the sake of this scenario assume that the Commonwealth does not take action against them and instead leaves them. My question is how would this kingdom develop ? Would it be viable and able to expand ?
Kingdom of Virginia ?
- Thread starter Woolly Mammoth
- Start date
As the colonies were only a place to make a profit and to deport undesirables, the last place in exiled royal would want to go is the American colonies. Regardless if the colonists are pro-royalist.
The point here being that it is the last place they have to go.
Well considering there were around 50,000 people settlers on the entire Eastern Seaboard in 1650 and probably only 20,000 in Virginia it's incredibly unlikely. At this point North America is a sparsely populated backwater that would be far less attractive than simply going to a continental Royal Court, probably France. That's what Charles II did after the death of his father and James II did after the Glorious Revolution. Any surviving Royals would have a far better life in Paris or Vienna than in Jamestown and would pick being a retainer at the Court of Louis XIV over being King of a frontier swamp every time.
Fair enough - the point being that Virginia is fundamentally incapable of surviving independantly - or at the very least not an attractive location for an exiled court.
Supposing that the royalty did not move to Virginia and remained in a European court but the colony still declared for them how would it develop ?
Well I doubt they are capable of surviving on their own and Virginia needed a constant influx of new settlers to make up for the horrific mortality rate so I doubt they would but I suppose you could get a situation similar to "Free France" in WW2. You had Free French Governors running the various Colonies and reporting to and loyal to the government-in-exile in London. Though of course in this case it would be the Government-in-exile in Paris. I suppose eventually Louis XIV might get bored of his Royal house guest and with all prospect of reclaiming England gone you might see them end up in Virginia but it would only be after every other possible option has been exhausted.
Although it may not be totally sufficient, under a more radical Parliament, one that killed almost the entire royal family, you might see a lot more refugees from England - and more anti-Parliamentarian uprisings, violently put down, leading to yet more refugees. And then if they go as vigorously after subduing Ireland as Cromwell, you could see an early Irish exodus (although probably not to the same proportionate scale as OTL's famine emigrants).
The thing is, if the Stuarts did flee to America, then they would have practically forfeited their sovereign status in England and Scotland. People would have perceived this action as them giving up. They fled to France because it was the home of their mother Henrietta Marie, and they thought they could use the help of their French relations. They had every intention of claiming back the thrones of England and Scotland, and they needed the aid of their relatives in France. If they fled to the colonies, which were pretty underdeveloped and underpopulated during the mid-1600's, then they might as well as cut off their own feet. Plus, the Stuarts had just enough supporters in Scotland, although the Covenanters would only allow Prince Charles into Scotland if he agreed to make the Presbyterian Church the state church of the British Isles. He initially agreed to this, but at the cost of alienating many of his Anglican supporters.
However royalist the Dominion of Virginia was, it was not suited in anyway to serve a monarchy in exile, or as a sufficient manpower base to help revive restore it in Britain.
Uh, that's kind of what did happen. Virginia is known to this day as "the Old Dominion" because throughout the Commonwealth era it declared for the Stuarts rather than accepting the rule of Cromwell - Charles II gave it the name "My Old Dominion" in recognition of the fact that it acknowledged him before any other English territory. The thing was that, as others have said above, Virginia was too underpopulated and insignificant and so frankly, Cromwell didn't give two figs. Both he and the Virginians knew that Virginia was unable to break away from England and it was too small and powerless to cause him or the other colonies any trouble so he let them acknowledge Charles and didn't bother to send any type of military force to enforce his control. The Governor of Virginia just governed the colony in exactly the same way he would've under either Cromwell or Charles II, and Cromwell just accepted it in the same way that, say, a parent patronisingly pats their child on the head and humours them if they insist on maintaining that something patently absurd is true.
It's a pretty interesting scenario, TBH, and it does remind me of Lord Grattan's TCoH in a way. However, though, I'm not sure if a 1649 PoD would be sufficient.
I don't think Thoresby's idea would work, though, simply because the royal families weren't this one giant family tree as some people tend to think. Not to menetion that the Stuarts were Protestants and most of Europe was still Catholic at that point, even much of Germany where the sect was originally born......so, undoubtedly there would be problems.
That isn't quite so farfetched when you think about it. If the Commonwealth manages to not only gain control of Britain permanently, there might be a lot more people willing to emigrate outwards than there were IOTL, and with that in mind, some very interesting long-term developments could occur....now, whether this kingdom ends up being more like the Draka or TL-191's C.S.A., or more like Sobel's C.N.A. or TCoH's *America is really anyone's guess, IMHO, but regardless, I'd probably be interested if anyone were to attempt a TL based on that premise.
I don't think Thoresby's idea would work, though, simply because the royal families weren't this one giant family tree as some people tend to think. Not to menetion that the Stuarts were Protestants and most of Europe was still Catholic at that point, even much of Germany where the sect was originally born......so, undoubtedly there would be problems.
That isn't quite so farfetched when you think about it. If the Commonwealth manages to not only gain control of Britain permanently, there might be a lot more people willing to emigrate outwards than there were IOTL, and with that in mind, some very interesting long-term developments could occur....now, whether this kingdom ends up being more like the Draka or TL-191's C.S.A., or more like Sobel's C.N.A. or TCoH's *America is really anyone's guess, IMHO, but regardless, I'd probably be interested if anyone were to attempt a TL based on that premise.