AH Challenge: English Revolution 1790

Ok, Let's suppose the circumstances were ripe for a popular uprising along the lines of OTL's 1789 French Revolution (and Terror) on streets of Britain's cities, leading to a Republic (and no chance of future return of old English monarchy) and then empire along the lines of Napoleon's France. Is there a young military figure who could be Britain's Napoleon, fighting for dominance on the continent. There was the old saying around the time of OTL's revolution that America had let the cat out of the bag, and that after Paris, it was inevitable that London would follow. In addition to this, let's say there is still war with France, primarily over Western Europe and N America (think Louisiana, Quebec). Using a POD no earlier that 1700 how can this TL pan out?
 
I'll expand on my last post. First there are the overt differences between Napoleon and Brock, in that:


* Both were born in 1769
* Both were born away from their country's mainland - Brock in Guernsay and Napoleon, of course, in Corsica. Although the circumstances of the Channel Islands and Corsica aren't the same, I imagine both felt outsiders to some extent.

Other things,

* Brock was liked by his men.
* He was from a middle class background, so would probably survive any anti-aristocratic cull in the army.
 
Maybe the British get trounced in the French and Indian (Seven Years'?) war. So Britain is close to bankruptcy after financing a losing war and losing most of her American and Indian colonies. France on the other hand, now has more money from the Indian colonies, and even more rebellious Thirteen Colonies.

The American Revolution still happens, although this time with the British supporting the rebels. This bankrupts them even more, so by the 1790s the crown is penniless and the people are starving. Someone comes along (possibly that Isaac Brock guy as mattw said) and starts the English Revolution. The monarchy is overthrown and goes into exile in [Ireland?]. The revolutionaries invade Scotland, then look south to spread the Republican Revolution onto the continent......
 
Would a successful France, and thus a possibly popular Louis XVI, butterfly away the French Revolution. If that happens, then there would be a total flipflop of the OTL Napoleonic Wars.

Also, would the English Revolution include a reign of terror and secular predominance?
 
In OTL William Pitt launched a so-called "reign of terror" against revolutionary sympathisers, so its easy to see how a revolutionary government could have done the same thing in reverse. (This didn't involve mass executions, of course, - more censorship and the like.)

Potential leaders of the first, less violent stage of the revolution are William Blake, William Wordsworth and Thomas Paine. Joseph Johnson - a radical publisher - probably gets in on the act too. Most of them get killed off in an English reign of terror, not sure who would be behind that though.
 
Top