Well, finally got one of those "to do" maps on my non-commission list done.
This is a scenario by "Raymond Speer" over on the soc.history.what-if group on google groups back in the day. It is based on the Jacobites making a successful return to the British throne with French help (earlier attempt? More competent Old Pretender? Less godawful Young Pretender), and the Hanoverian Georges taking refuge in America. Time passes. Bourbon hopes of unifying their various kingdoms succeed without British support for the opposition. The Stuarts fail to reCatholicize England, but the elite becomes rather more Catholic. (Still over 50% non-Catholic or just secular in 2003).
An ambitious Catholic king of England manages to get himself elected King of Poland as well, and by crook manages to make the position hereditary. There is Trouble with Russia, and much of Poland is absorbed into the Czar's domain. Revenge is plotted.
Spanish America grows restless with European meddling and attempts to more effectively exploit their possessions. Revolts break out, supported by the Kingdom of America-and-Britain-in-Exile. The Franco-Spanish effort to create new kingdoms in the Americas succeeded in Mexico (partly due to resentment and fear caused by the Kingdom of America's theft of Louisiana), but failed in South America, although with rather greater resources than early 19th century Spain OTL the struggle lasted longer (the towel was finally thrown in when it looked like _Spain_ was about to break loose itself).
The United Kingdom of Great Britain, Ireland and Poland industrialized and picked up colonies, and increasingly moved out of the French orbit. It grew stronger, finally triumphing over a corrupt and backward Russia in another Polish war which saw the Czarist regime collapse in revolution and Poland's old borders at least partially restored. At this point relations with France grew frosty: the United Kingdom had moved into the "threat" category. Looking for support against the continent-dominating enemy, the British looked across the sea at an old enemy which, however, had no love at all for the Franco-Spanish Empire...
The Franco-Spanish and "English" blocks (it has become standard to talk about a sundered but still united by blood English nation, no matter how many continental immigrants have settled in North America) are currently engage in an ongoing cold war. The main "wild cards" outside this duality are currently neutral Austria and the Russian Republic, which has old grudges against both sides. France-Spain is a bureaucratic and rather technocratic absolutism, with the King-Emperor increasingly a figurehead for army, secret police and the Permanent Bureaucracy.The United Kingdom and the Kingdom of North America in the year 2003 (when this scenario appeared
) are respectively about as democratic as OTL German Empire and the UK in 1900, although the United Kingdom lacks the various insecurities suffered by Wilhelmite Germany. Russia is more democratic than either, but also anti-semitic (fortunately the Jews are allowed to flee abroad), xenophobic, and tub-thumpingly religious. (There was quite a religious revival after the fall of the Czar and the Orthodox Church essentially being privatized).
Technology is a bit backwards in this conservative world, in different fields ranging from OTL 1930s to 1950s: nobody has atomic weapons yet, but several nations have secret research projects into this "corpuscular energy" thing. Art and culture tend towards the baroque and florid: the costumes are gorgeous - the "conservative" Russians tend to go for men's suits in irridescent green and florescent purple (why so serious, comrade?) - and the architecture tends towards the, shall we say, fussy.
