A Revolutionary Republican Britain

I'm working on a story at the moment set in a Britain where the monarchy and religion have been swept away by the wave of revolutionary fervor instigated by the French Revolution.

This poster is from that world.

With the monarchy abolished and religion suppressed, the symbol of Britain is a silver lion rampant on a black background, a symbol that goes back to the Cromwellian Army.

Britain, is in the grip of its version of The Terror. Lucretious Tremble is Britain's Robspierre, and the Security and Protection Department is our Committee of Public Safety.

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You know I think some more explaining is necessary, Why would Britain fall into the same kind of revolutionary terror when most of the enlightened thinkers will remember that kind of shit was what brought down Cromwells Comonwealth when he died? I mean just turning Britain into a clone of the French Revolution is kind of deterministic and boring without a little bit of explaining.

EDIT: And this is the traditional British Republican flag. (yes it does look exactly like Hungary's flag).
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with England being more diverse than France in terms of religion at that time, I really don't see religion as a whole being swept away: The 'established' Church of England, yes, but not the various 'dissenting' Protestant sects...
 
I am trying to imagine how this happened.

Revolutions are normally started (and I am willing to be shot down in flames for this) by a dispossed middle class stiring up the lower class into armed insurection.

The trouble is that Britain has never had a large standing army, as it relies on the navy as its front line of defence. With the mutanies at Spithead and Nore in 1797 we see how the naval officers dealt with rebellion (even one where many of the officers supported the ideas behind the strike).

The trouble with a revolution in Britain has always been that there are two centres of power, the crown and parliment and it is unlikely that a revolution would have enough support to overthrow both at the same time. Britain was just to stable and middle class to be topped so easily.

I think it would take an outside force to at least seed the revolution, but I can't think of any external organisation that could bring around such.
 
Disagree. You're refering to fascist Italy and nazi Germany.

Revolutions, especially before the 20th century, never were started by a dispossessed middle class.

It is always started by an emerging elite who already has a big economic power but does not have yet enough power (from its own point of view).

The members of parliament and the roundheads during the english civil war were not impoverished middle class.

The leaders of the american revolution were not dispossessed middle class.

The representatives to the french General estates were not impoverished. Some were very very rich. Most of them were more than well-off. But one of the reasons they made the french revolution was that they feared being dispossessed by a possible bankrupt.
That's one of the reasons why they did a political revolution : because they did not want a bankrupcy writing-off the treasury bonds they massively held. And they took care not to lose their assets : they sold what was called "national property" (=church property).

As far as this TL is concerned, I can easily imagine a republican Britain but I can't imagine an anti-religious Britain at the time of the french revolution.
 
I am trying to imagine how this happened.

Revolutions are normally started (and I am willing to be shot down in flames for this) by a dispossed middle class stiring up the lower class into armed insurection.

The trouble is that Britain has never had a large standing army, as it relies on the navy as its front line of defence. With the mutanies at Spithead and Nore in 1797 we see how the naval officers dealt with rebellion (even one where many of the officers supported the ideas behind the strike).

The trouble with a revolution in Britain has always been that there are two centres of power, the crown and parliment and it is unlikely that a revolution would have enough support to overthrow both at the same time. Britain was just to stable and middle class to be topped so easily.

I think it would take an outside force to at least seed the revolution, but I can't think of any external organisation that could bring around such.

I imagine a British revolution could very easily see the Commons, or part of the Commons, joining it against the Crown and the Lords. Think of the situation you got in the American revolution, where some existing colonial assemblies sided with the rebel cause, while those that didn't were swept aside and new assemblies were elected in their place.
 
I imagine a British revolution could very easily see the Commons, or part of the Commons, joining it against the Crown and the Lords. Think of the situation you got in the American revolution, where some existing colonial assemblies sided with the rebel cause, while those that didn't were swept aside and new assemblies were elected in their place.

I could see a minority of the commons joining in, but by the late 18th Century we're looking at a point where the Commons is as much a part of the system (and arguably the dominant part) as the Lords and Crown.

But you'd probably need earlier issues with the Rotten Boroughs coming to the fore.
 
I don't really see a revolutionary republican Britain anytime after Cromwell, especially not after the American and French revolutions. For one, there's no real motive, and Britain was too stable. There were also bad feelings about republics after Cromwell, and Britain was already fairly democratic. Though I've heard that there was a close call in the 1830s.
 
I don't really see a revolutionary republican Britain anytime after Cromwell, especially not after the American and French revolutions. For one, there's no real motive, and Britain was too stable. There were also bad feelings about republics after Cromwell, and Britain was already fairly democratic. Though I've heard that there was a close call in the 1830s.

You're kind of overestimating how "democratic" britain was, it was basically an oligarchy of the rich nobles and merchants where the poor had virtually no say in things (and I do think it is possible to engineer a concurent French and British revolution, the POD would just have to be several decades before hand and have massive build up, kind of like Reds! does it).
 

katchen

Banned
I would have a difficult time seeing Britain going anti-religious also. For one thing, Wesleyan Methodism ( the "chapel" version of Church of England) had more or less swept the English working class at that time--even though under Jabez Bunting, Methodism was quite reactionary. The revolutionaries would need to move very quickly to co-opt rather than discredit Wesleyanism or the Methodist preachers would raise the working class against them. Bunting would need to be sacked and a dissident Methodist preacher put in his place--possibly even as Archbishop of Canterbury.
Setting the Low Church over the High Church and coming up with some sort of "social gospel" movement 100 years before it happened in the US--now that could work.
Read up more on English religion and that period in general. "The Making of the English Working Class" by E.P. Thompson, is a good place to start. Even if (maybe especially since) Thompson's POV is Marxist, Thompson writes with an eye towards possible revolutionary potential at different times in this period.
 
Thanks, guys, for some interesting thoughts.

I take the points that have been made, particularly the unlikelihood of anti-religious sentiment spreading. Clearly I have some work to do in fleshing out this PoD and timeline and your suggestions have been useful :)

I was originally intrigued by the fact that at one point some factions of the French Revolutionaries were inspired with thoughts of liberating the oppressed people's of other countries.

I live near the People's History Museum in Manchester and looking round there the possibilities for a revolution in Britain don't seem too far fetched as it documents several of the movements struggling for 'reform', trade unions and working people's freedom. There's also a lot on the kind of agitation that led to the slightly later Peterloo Massacre.

On religion, the poster doesn't suggest religion has been eliminated. Is it possible though that the Republic might be struggling to suppress it?

I wonder if one possible route to a French style Republic in Britain that hasn't been mentioned is Britain losing a war to the French and having one imposed or it arising in the chaos of defeat?

Thanks again for your help. :)
 
Is this after an American Revolution? Successful or Unsuccessful? A timeline where the revolution was avoided entirely?

I could see in a timeline where the American rebellion is crushed, republican ideologues coming to the conclusion that a united front, in Britain and America is needed, and fermenting and transatlantic revolution.
 
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