Hi all, looking for some help to craft an AH timeline. It's primary purpose is as the backdrop for a story I'm writing, but who knows it could become a project all its own if one or two folk wanted to work on it with me. Below I'm going to lay out the ideas inception, and the scenarios I've thought of, and either rejected outright or that I have concerns about. I'd be grateful for comments on any and all of it, particularly by someone who has a decent knowledge of the period.
I guess this subject has been utterly done to death, but I really want to set my story in a world where a substantial portion of our USA is ruled by an English speaking constitutional monarchy. A world where the idea of a republic has been utterly discredited, and is seen as a notion for tinpot little upstart states that are going nowhere. Here the British, German, Russian, and possibly French, Ottaman and Austrian empires exist in a perpetual state of very cool cold war. Pointing nuclear weapons that they daren't launch at one another, and medeling with little proxy wars. Mainly they leave one another to do what they like in their own spheres of influence established after the great world war, with no more than perfunctory noises of objection to anything particularly unpleasant, i.e the odd draconian suppression of descent, or the massacre of some people who... really don't matter very much in the big scheme of things. (that's their point of view of course)
The major POD that brings this world about, is the failure, in one way or another, of the American revolution, or rather the failure of those founding fathers like Paine, Jefferson and others, to realize their dream of a republic based on the principles of the declaration of indipendence. But how to bring this about? My first thought, obviously, was to have George Washington become King instead of president. He was offered the job... right? well, no one really seems sure just what the men of the Newburgh conspiracy actually wanted to achieve, other than getting their pay. And in any case, General Washington put his heel very firmly down upon it. Could Washington have become King if he'd wanted to? I think absolutely. He was called the closest thing to a King that America ever had. Therefore I think that there is no way he would have done it, because he didn't do it. To do it, he would have had to be a different person, which he wasn't, or his circumstances at the time been so radically different that the POD would have had to be over a hundred years earlier, perhaps more. That at least is my assessment of the matter.
Next I thought of the British winning the war, say by winning Saratoga, POD is the death of Benedict Arnold at Valcour bay. So Gaites surrenders to Burgoyne, the French never openly enter the war on the American side, and the continental army is slowly ground down over the following year or so. I had Washington killed at Princeton, and British general Howe die of an illness, meaning that Clinton conducts a more aggressive campaign. I've forever been reading that Clinton wanted to do this or that which would have made things worse for Washington, but he was overruled by Howe. After the war, the British actually cave to most of the original demands, the Americans get a parliament, and all the British colonies, including Florida and the Canadian ones are united into one nation, the United Provinces of America.
This nation is given a viceroy, one of King George III's sons, Prince Augustus Frederick. He's very young, but I thought it would be something similar to the move Edward II made, when he made his baby son Prince of Wales. "A Prince who speaks no English at all." Augustus marries into an American family, becomes popular with the Americans, and is granted the title of King. In theory he is still a vassal to the King of England, but he and his decendants do have the power sometimes to defy their overlord.
But I see problems with this idea. Biggest of all, the three deaths. While Arnold's death at Valcour could have lost Saratoga for the Americans, even with Washington dead at Princeton, men like Grene were already in the picture, might they not have taken over and done just as well? Is a defeat at Saratoga a guarantee of ultimate defeat for the Patriots? And Arnold dying at Valcour in no way means that Washington dies at Princeton, nor that Howe dies of illness. Yes any and all of these things could plausibly have happened, but they're not connected to one another. I'm picking three events arbitrarily, and changing them with no consideration for cause and effect, to engeneer a British victory, which in any case would not be fool-proof. I suppose thinking about it, if you admit the idea of alternate history at all, then any number of events, in any combination is possible, but it somehow doesn't seem very neat to me to do it that way. I think a timeline should ultimately descend from one single point of deviation, if it's to be at all believable.
Then, the viceroy who becomes a King. Just how believable is this in the context of the time? If we were talking about a medieval King of England, I would say it was entirely possible. And Napoleon had no problem plonking members of his family on thrones. But George III? The British government? And what of the Americans, would they really tacidly accept such an arrangement? Might it not be the worst of both worlds? The Loyalists might say; "King George or nobody." And the Patriots would say; "Republic or death." What do you good people think? I'm not sure. It is a nice solution if it's plausable, it's very neat, things just fall into place. The big loyalist families get knighthoods or noble titles or whatever, and you have an American aristocracy. The whole thing would be very much modeled on the British government, and provided the majority accepted the arrangement there needn't be too much complication or strife.
I have a third idea, which I've molded into a very short, very crude timeline for you to give me your thoughts on. I am hoping that I might be able to hammer out some happy compromise between these three ideas. Rebels win or lose, I don't really care. I just want America, or at least a good chunk of it, including New York and Pennsylvania, to have a monarchy. I think with that change, anything is possible. With the influence that the revolution had on its own, and then the power that America will later take from Europe, the butterfly effect of having no USA over the next 2 centuries would be incalculable, and so unfathomable, that the ATL creator is, within really quite wide limits, able to change whatsoever they will, given enough time.