AHC: Can Britain Be Broken?

Would it be possible/plausible to fracture Britain up into separate entities of England, Scotland, and Wales?

Bonus: Ireland remains united/no Ulster migration.

What would have to happen in order for this all to occur?
 
Would it be possible/plausible to fracture Britain up into separate entities of England, Scotland, and Wales?

Bonus: Ireland remains united/no Ulster migration.

What would have to happen in order for this all to occur?

An independent Wales would be tricky. Perhaps a successful revolt by Owain Glyndwr? Or Llewellyn the Last fights off Longshanks, killing him in the process somehow and also butterflying away the attempt to take over Scotland.
 
If you go with an uber Chartist revolution and take the Rebecca riots and make them into a cohesive movement with independence as an aim

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Grey Wolf
 
Wales suffers from the issues of the inheritance laws favouring division and internecine strife, though there are a couple of opportunities in that there were plans by both de Montfort in the 2nd Barons war and later with Glyndwr to divide England and Wales into three (the former case between Llewellyn, Montfort and Clare, the latter between Glyndwr, Mortimer and Percy).
 
An independent Wales would be tricky. Perhaps a successful revolt by Owain Glyndwr? Or Llewellyn the Last fights off Longshanks, killing him in the process somehow and also butterflying away the attempt to take over Scotland.

But the problem is that it doesn't save Wales in the long term. It's still a very small country and England can throw money and men at them until they drown. Wales has to defeat England every time both militarily and politically while England only has to win once. Given England's aggressive history I can't see any situation where they don't eventually succeed in taking Wales through either force or marriage.

The only way to keep Wales independent would be to break England.
 
But the problem is that it doesn't save Wales in the long term. It's still a very small country and England can throw money and men at them until they drown. Wales has to defeat England every time both militarily and politically while England only has to win once. Given England's aggressive history I can't see any situation where they don't eventually succeed in taking Wales through either force or marriage.

The only way to keep Wales independent would be to break England.

Longshanks fought twice before Wales was fully absorbed OTL. But that aside - that assumes England will just throw men and money at Wales until the Welsh drown.

Given all the other interests of English kings: Why? If by some miracle, Llewelyn not only defeats Longshanks but the latter dies, the odds are that his position in Wales is far stronger than OTL - which makes dealing with him by Edward's successor more problematic.
 
Is there any way possible that England, Wales, Scotland, and united Ireland could coexist peacefully, respecting the borders, language, and culture of each nation-state?

Also, what does this do for colonization in the Americas? England colonized America a full 100 years before the Act of Union, but if NONE of the nation-states of the British isles unite with each other, would we see Scottish colonies or Welsh colonies or Irish colonies somewhere?
 
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Also, what does this do for colonization in the Americas? England colonized America a full 100 years before the Act of Union, but if NONE of the nation-states of the British isles unite with each other, would we see Scottish colonies or Welsh colonies or Irish colonies somewhere?

Nous aimerions tous parler le français maintenant. Ahh Poutine.
 
Is there any way possible that England, Wales, Scotland, and united Ireland could coexist peacefully, respecting the borders, language, and culture of each nation-state?

Also, what does this do for colonization in the Americas? England colonized America a full 100 years before the Act of Union, but if NONE of the nation-states of the British isles unite with each other, would we see Scottish colonies or Welsh colonies or Irish colonies somewhere?

In theory yes. In practice not likely. Although you could conceivably have a Wales which consists basically of the north-west corner of Wales, an Alba basically north of the Antonine plus Strathclyde and Cumberland, with England taking the rest. With Ireland being the 4 kingdoms but it would take at least a POD before and getting rid of the Norman Invasion. If this is the case who knows for the Americas. And anyway

Cependant, nous avons tous parlé français depuis l'invasion capétienne du 13ème siècle.
 
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An independent Wales would be tricky. Perhaps a successful revolt by Owain Glyndwr? Or Llewellyn the Last fights off Longshanks, killing him in the process somehow and also butterflying away the attempt to take over Scotland.


As I understand it Wales is crippled by its laws of succession. It ran tradionally on the rules of partibility whereby the lands of the father was split equally amungst his male heirs. Llywelyn the Great had the mastery over Wales he establish destroyed completely after his death by the quarrelling amungst his sons over inherantance. Rhodri the Great, likewise, had the realm he established during his lifetime torn apart after his death by partitioning between his sons who then started fighting each other. The Welsh system meant that no matter how great or successful the father often the achievements of his lifetime will be undone by the deeds of his sons.
 
Longshanks fought twice before Wales was fully absorbed OTL. But that aside - that assumes England will just throw men and money at Wales until the Welsh drown.

Given all the other interests of English kings: Why? If by some miracle, Llewelyn not only defeats Longshanks but the latter dies, the odds are that his position in Wales is far stronger than OTL - which makes dealing with him by Edward's successor more problematic.

Interestingly enough, if Edward dies on campaign in Wales the next in line for the throne would be his son Alphonso, Earl of Chester, who was born four year before the Welsh Wars and died about a year after the conquest of Gwynedd. So depending on which time Longshanks is killed Edward of Caernarfon might not be born, in which case England would end up being ruled by Edmund Crouchback - Longshanks brother - who had a reputation as a capable diplomat and warrior but, again, my knowledge of him is not great so I couldn't really guess what he would do if he was King.
 
Is there any way possible that England, Wales, Scotland, and united Ireland could coexist peacefully, respecting the borders, language, and culture of each nation-state?

No, not after England becomes Protestant. Catholic Ireland and Protestant England will never see eye to eye. Before that... well its still unlikely because England will always want a piece of its neighbours.

The main problem is England as a united country has far more man power than any other country in the British Isles, and baring outside influence (the reason why England developed its Navy in the first place) none of them will have enough power to overcome it.

You'd be unlikely to have a Grand Alliance against England of Scotland, Wales and Ireland because none want to have the English on THEIR doorstep. A case of "No, YOU go fight them". Ireland has the least to lose because its physical seperate, plus Wales/Scotland/Ireland have their OWN internal divisions anyway. You'd need a lot of very foresighted people to get together to stop England taking each country a piece at a time.

And to be fair, Scotland has always had a lot of its own power (Stuarts were a Scottish family afterall).

A seperate Ireland, maybe. Scotland... a temporary peace at some points in history (until another power courts Scotland as an ally against England and England feels forced to act). Wales - just no. I do feel sorry for the Welsh but they lack a strategic position or any of their own might to be worthy of courting by any other power, so I think they're forever doomed to follow England's lead one way or another.
 
What do you mean by Ireland "remaining" united? Ireland was never united until English rule. If England is too weak to subdue Wales, and thus never gets to Ireland, the emerald isle remains a number of warring kingdoms.
 
As has been mentioned, I can't really imagine long-term Wales being able to keep England at bay. Perhaps with a significantly more tame England, yes, but considering the conditions of the founding of modern England, that strikes me as unlikely. I can't even begin to imagine what change would be necessary to make them not a naturally aggressive country at this time.

Scotland and Ireland is a potentially different story. Ireland is physically separate, but is also catholic which is a definite strike against it. Not to say it isn't possible for them to remain independent, but not horribly likely, since there would be a rather strong conflict based on religion. That said, if they managed to make it not worth the trouble to conquer them, it could be possible if they somehow became unified. Even in OTL, though, it's hard to say that the Irish were a huge contributor to England in pre-empire days, so not sure how this would even change things.

Scotland, on the other hand, was relatively united and had a fairly strong strategic position. I can see them holding out against English rule for a time, but it would have to be a more political effort than military one. The Scots military doctrine doesn't seem like it would hold up to longbows too well, similarly to the French, so I don't foresee them expelling an actual invasion too easily.

That's on their own, though. I would say Scotland definitely had the strategic position to be an appealing target for foreign aid (unlike Wales) and the unification to not just fail anyways (unlike Ireland).

Overall, I just don't see any small manipulations that would cause this, outside of curtailing Norman invasion of Britain to begin with, and even that isn't certain.

Although I might just be completely wrong, as well, don't get me wrong.
 
It seems that Ireland/Scotland/Wales can be independent, but we need to weaken England more permanently. If England includes all of OTL england we have little change. If we split England someway we have a change. Maybe William the Conqueror is not as successful and only conquers southern England. And the two states exist till the era of nationalism.
 
If the Spanish Armada is successful it would be interesting if England becomes a Pro-Spanish kingdom and Scotland is Pro-French and more tolerant of Protestants. Whales could become a home of nonconformists who apply for the same protection France gives Scotland.
 
If the Spanish Armada is successful it would be interesting if England becomes a Pro-Spanish kingdom and Scotland is Pro-French and more tolerant of Protestants. Whales could become a home of nonconformists who apply for the same protection France gives Scotland.

Even were the Spanish Armada not routed so terribly, that's still a far cry from exerting influence on mainland England proper. Actually invading England wasn't a particularly realistic option at the time, at least not successfully.

FellowNerd said:
If England includes all of OTL england we have little change. If we split England someway we have a change. Maybe William the Conqueror is not as successful and only conquers southern England. And the two states exist till the era of nationalism.

Sustained. This is probably the best option put forth yet, imo. Splitting England between Normans and Saxons would do quite a bit to weaken her, certainly enough to save Scotland and Ireland. The question is, though, wouldn't William's successors just continue the fight after he was gone? He pretty much won island in a single decisive battle.
 
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