a thought, John of Gaunt's first child was Philippa, Queen of Portugal so maybe Henry IV dies with out heirs and leaves England to his nephew Edward of Portugal, anyways thats the closest i could find
The other way is for Charles ll to have at least 1 legitimate son with his wife. This would then complicate future English history as it would remove the Hanoverian succession and the glorious revolution.
John of Gaunt was also heir of Castile, which to me is a good POD for a Plantagenet Spain. John II, King of Castile and Duke of Lancaster sounds good to me.a thought, John of Gaunt's first child was Philippa, Queen of Portugal so maybe Henry IV dies with out heirs and leaves England to his nephew Edward of Portugal, anyways thats the closest i could find
John of Gaunt was also heir of Castile, which to me is a good POD for a Plantagenet Spain. John II, King of Castile and Duke of Lancaster sounds good to me.
I'm all for something like that. That's perfectly feasible. I only comment to point out that England doesn't have the military capacity, or indeed in this era the capacity to send soldiers, merchants or colonists to essentially assimilate or conquer the Portuguese Empire. It could send some, for sure. They might be able to take over a chunk of Brazil's ports, maybe, or some of Indonesia. But until about the middle of the 17th Century they just didn't have the potential to overrun an Empire. And overrunning the Empire would be the only way to persuade Spain to agree to see Portugal's "rightful claim to half the world" (because the Treaty of Tordesillas was essentially the Pope designating "God's greatest two kingdoms" to be rulers of ALL LANDS that weren't European) as exchangable.
Sorry if I seem a bit of a killjoy, or something. I'm just a stickler for doing things right.![]()
I completely understand and tend to agree that the English would have a difficult time. My counter-argument would be that the Dutch during the 80 Years' War managed to pull off exactly such a total hostile take over of the Portugese colonial empire- they took Ceylon, South Africa, the East Indies, and nearly book Brazil- while at the same time battling the Spanish in the Netherlands.
So in a world where the English inherit the Portugese colonial empire in the 16th century (and thus without major chunks acquired by the Dutch) what kind of big ripples would get put out? Do people see South Africa and Brazil as the major English settler colonies in the 17th century onward? What will the inheritance do to English history?
If the English are busy in South America and India, would they still try to colonise North America? Under the scenario proposed England remains Catholic, and so there are no Puritans to migrate elsewhere. Also, with the possessio of the Portuguese route to Asia there is no need of trying to make an alternative Northwest or "across North America" route.
I don't think North America is in the cards at all. Brazil is rich with sugar and other natural resources, and will be a magnet for English settlers, just as it was for Portuguese OTL. Brazil could well extend further down the coast then OTL, to OTL Buenos Aires, where there is also potential for a large settlement colony. South Africa offers an excellent climate and it would be in England's interest to have the area decisively English-owned, which means settlers, in order to secure the route east. I'm inclined to think that the English will engage in the same kind of empire-building they did OTL in India. I think that the Portuguese colonial empire could soak up the English settlers who OTL conquered North America and the rest of the British Empire.
If the English are busy in South America and India, would they still try to colonise North America? Under the scenario proposed England remains Catholic, and so there are no Puritans to migrate elsewhere. Also, with the possession of the Portuguese route to Asia there is no need of trying to make an alternative Northwest or "across North America" route.
The Portuguese trade route to Asia was slow, though. And that was a problem for them. That trade route was relatively well-known even before America was discovered. The thing was, it took 9 months to sail one way. No joking. Over a year in bad weather. And while everyone knew the earth was round as of centuries ago, they got their maths horribly wrong on the size of the earth. They thought China was 6,000 miles due west of Europe iirc - that would take about 2-3 months to sail, considering the weather and the route as well as the distance. By contrast, the route to China around Africa is almost 15,000 miles. There would still be the pressing desire to sail west - the reason the Portuguese didn't was because they handed over claims to that half of the globe to Spain.
And I still think you'd get a bit of an "us and them" idea about the Portuguese territories. I'm not going to say there wouldn't or couldn't be cooperation. There clearly would, and in time the Portuguese areas would probably be assimilated fairly well. But I think that from the English you'd get an idea of "well, this colony and that one are Portuguese, they don't feel like true English territories. Sure, you'd get Englishmen there. You'd have merchants gradually taking over the trade as the ethnically Portuguese populations slowly intermingled with the English or just became less significant. You'd have English notables going to take over the running of areas. You'd probably have people being sent to the Portuguese colonies as colonists. You might get criminals deported. You'd get all sorts. But I think what you'd find is when Englishmen organised their own colonial ventures, they'd want to go to areas they viewed as virgin territory, where they wouldn't have to be "the new guys" and looked down on by people they viewed as the second class citizens. So I think you'd still get English colonisation of North America. It might be quite interesting, actually, if the Portuguese territories retained something of a Portuguese identity mixed with the English. If I were good at TL-writing, and if I knew where I was going with it, I'd almost suggest a TL coming on. But...anyway.
The thing, of course, is that you would still get a distribution of resources, so I doubt the English Empire (to distinguish it from the British Empire of OTL and from the Portuguese territories) would be as strong as RL. Though the French would likely still be very outnumbered in terms of settlers, perhaps we would be looking at neither England nor France being able to fully oust each other in colonial wars? A permanent divide, maybe, between the French north, south and west and the English eastern seaboard.