ASB ATL Tudor/Renaissance Britannia

hey, all. i want to get back to writing up a historical summary for Britannia (OTL Britain; yes, its inspired by Code Geass) from my ASB ATL but i cannot for the life of me focus on it; i even had trouble focusing on just this even shorter summary! i thought maybe bringing it up for discussion would help get the creative juices going again, as well as help me figure out what other minor divergences to make. the whole timeline is ASB, but im trying to make it as plausible as possible besides.

anyway, here's a summary of what ive written up so far in terms of british history:

  1. the British Isles are still invaded by the Romans and Germanics as IOTL; the Brythonic Celts are still pushed into *Wales, *Scotland, etc while *England is home to Anglo-Saxons as IOTL. the only divergence here is an aesthetic one where they keep (or later revive) the Roman name "Britannia" rather than using "Britain"
  2. a *Welsh king tries to unite the Brythonic Celts against the Germanics, but the Germanic invasions succeed following his death
  3. Britannia is Christianized around 600 AD
  4. pre-unification medieval Britannia is characterized by civil war and fluctuating power between kingdoms
  5. Britannia becomes a target for Vikings around 793; Alfred the Great of Wessex is the strongest source of resistance against them
  6. Viking raids drive the *Scots to unite as the Kingdom of Alba
  7. Edward the Elder succeeds Alfred the Great and keeps fighting the Vikings; predecessor language of modern *English develops around this time
  8. Æthelstan unites Britannia in 927
  9. Edward the Confessor dies childless in 1066 and four people claim the throne: William of Normandy had been promised the throne by Edward; Harald Hardrada and Sweyn II form their claims through Canute the Great; and Harold Godwinson is named king by Edward during a brief moment of consciousness before death
  10. 1066: Hardrada lands in the north but is defeated at Stamford Bridge by Godwinson and his army, and William lands in the south a month later. Godwinson's brothers Gyrth and Leofwine defeat the Normans at Hastings, and then Godwinson beats them again at Sussex on Christmas Day; William survives but the Normans fall under French authority
  11. Godwinson fights off another (half-hearted) invasion by Sweyn II; this marks the absolute end of Danish influence in Britannia
  12. 1067-1071/2: Godwinson forms alliances with the remaining autonomous/independent parts of Britannia and further unifies the kingdom (ie, *Scotland, etc join up and its not as controversial as IOTL since they werent forced at swordpoint)
  13. Godwinson dies in 1085; his son Edmund succeeds him and becomes Edmund III while his other son Godwin gets lordship over *Ireland, but both of them die in 1093 and their younger brother Magnus becomes king
  14. Magnus I works to unify Britannia with *Ireland and *Scotland until he dies in 1118; Æthelwulf I (fictional) becomes king
  15. in the 12th century, Britannia starts moving into Britanny, leading to Æthelwulf marrying the Duchess of Aquitaine to legitimize control; Britannia has control of the western coast of France by this point and power is secured by building castles both there and in Britannia
  16. Æthelwulf dies in 1163 and is succeeded by (fictional) Henrik II, but (fictional) John the Lionblood revolts against him with the help of his brothers Richard and Gregers
  17. John the Lionblood becomes preoccupied with the Crusades, joining France against the Saracens; Richard Lackland rules in his stead and becomes king in 1199 and dissolves the Britannian/French alliance.*
  18. 1215: Richard Lackland is met by a rebellion from the nobles and forced the immediate progenitor of parliament at Runnymede with the Magna Carta (i havent worked it out as much, but the magna carta may be either to a shorter extent or be altered/reversed over time)
  19. Richard Lackland's bastard son Philip becomes king in 1216 and fights his father's old battles until parliament is forced once again; preoccupation in Britannia leads to them lose continental possessions
  20. Eadberht Longshanks reigns from 1266 to 1307 and strengthens the powers of the ruling house and summons the first officially sanctioned parliament and fully unifies *Great Britain
  21. 1315-1317: Great Famine kills at least 10% of Britannian population
  22. 1327: Eadberht II killed in Glocestershire, Edward of *Cornwall comes to power
  23. Black Death ravages continental Europe but Britannia avoids it until relatively late and is thus less-affected than IOTL; it also causes a war with France from 1337 to end earlier than it would without (eg, Hundred Years War doesnt last 100 years)
*if you havent guessed, i decided to make anglo-saxon analogies to anglo-norman Richard the Lionheart and Prince John




i know im asking for quite alot here, but any help would be much appreciated. im basically trying to figure out what from this point will lead up into a tudor era (its ASB, but i decided that the tudor house wouldnt be as affected since theyre welsh and not anglo-saxon or anglo-norman so OTL Elizabeth II still comes to power) and the renaissance period, which would probably either be about as strong in *britain as it is in italy or last longer
 
Wee notes:

1) Firstly, has much too much of what we call convergence. Even assuming the same people are born - and there is no terribly good reason beyond narrative simplicity, and the match must break up in a few generations anyway when political and social changes really kick in and people's parents never meet - they will have completely different lives and careers because of the rippling changes caused by the first one. You say the failure in England causes Normandy to lose much of its power and autonomy: that then means, surely, that the King of France is correspondingly stronger and that alters the feudal politics and so on?

2) The Welsh did continue to say 'Brittania' - when they spoke Latin. Their dual-language civilisation was not so very unlike that of other post-Romans except that their spoken vernacular wasn't Latin-derived. They found it quite normal to call Latin 'our language'.

And of course the word is derived from old 'Welsh' anyway.

3) Probably a surviving Anglo-Saxon, fitted into a northern Norse-crossed world and troubled by northern threats, would try to do something about Scotland beyond what William did (overawe us and then forget about us). And Scotland was nearly annexed in the 1300s, it wasn't undoable.

(This would have some very interesting consequences, of course. Without a Norman civilisation in England, Scotland could stay a lot more Gaelic.)

But I don't think you can have the cake and eat it. If England is doing that, it can;t get entangled in French power-struggles to the same extent. From first to last it was the greater French prizes that helped save Scotland.

4) The Germanic peoples didn't share their names but were very prone to developing distinct ones among each group and even family. So a Saxon England will have lots of Wulfstan's and Leofwine's, but no Johns or Richards. And Magnus does seem awfie Norse.
 
Wee notes:

1) Firstly, has much too much of what we call convergence. Even assuming the same people are born - and there is no terribly good reason beyond narrative simplicity, and the match must break up in a few generations anyway when political and social changes really kick in and people's parents never meet - they will have completely different lives and careers because of the rippling changes caused by the first one. You say the failure in England causes Normandy to lose much of its power and autonomy: that then means, surely, that the King of France is correspondingly stronger and that alters the feudal politics and so on?

2) The Welsh did continue to say 'Brittania' - when they spoke Latin. Their dual-language civilisation was not so very unlike that of other post-Romans except that their spoken vernacular wasn't Latin-derived. They found it quite normal to call Latin 'our language'.

And of course the word is derived from old 'Welsh' anyway.

3) Probably a surviving Anglo-Saxon, fitted into a northern Norse-crossed world and troubled by northern threats, would try to do something about Scotland beyond what William did (overawe us and then forget about us). And Scotland was nearly annexed in the 1300s, it wasn't undoable.

(This would have some very interesting consequences, of course. Without a Norman civilisation in England, Scotland could stay a lot more Gaelic.)

But I don't think you can have the cake and eat it. If England is doing that, it can;t get entangled in French power-struggles to the same extent. From first to last it was the greater French prizes that helped save Scotland.

4) The Germanic peoples didn't share their names but were very prone to developing distinct ones among each group and even family. So a Saxon England will have lots of Wulfstan's and Leofwine's, but no Johns or Richards. And Magnus does seem awfie Norse.
indeed, for all of that. like i said, the entire project is ASB and im working more for the final result than anything else (this is planned as the backdrop for an rpg, actually). but this is exactly why i posted this here, for constructive criticism (even though id like to focus on thing from 1350 onward rather than dwell on what ive already written :rolleyes:). in any case, though, let's address your points, shall we?

  • yes, i realize that there's lots of convergence :p i am sort-of experienced with AH and am a writer by hobby. but yes, its narrative simplicity ;) indeed, though, im kinda taking a turtledove-esque route and giving equivalents (like Anthony Dresser to Anton Drexler in American Empire)
  • you raise a good point with France and Normandy. any specific ideas on how i can write this up? keep in mind, though, that i didnt go into much detail on the normans for this summary since its focusing on the *British
  • no comments on the bit about welsh language and britannia as a word, though maybe i'll go an rewrite it that britannia as a name for the country is taken up later as a tribute to the old roman province after the tudors come to power (this may be a bad example, but kind of like how french sudan was renamed mali after the medieval mali empire following its acquisition of independence). after all, this is all still a work in progress.
  • i actually had a thread about the english winning at hastings a while ago to discuss this and the consensus was that, because godwinson and company were native english and not the invading normans, that they wouldnt need to forcibly subjugate the rest of england. there could and probably would be some other conflicts, but the point is more that scotland and so on wouldnt be brought in as violently as IOTL, which would also butterfly away the scottish wars of independence. you raise another good point with their involvement with french power struggles
  • the part about the germanic names is in relation to guys like Aethelwulf and Eadhbert, right? i did actually look into anglo-saxon names to use. ill look into equivalents for john and richard, though; i had kinda just wanted to reverse the robin hood legend, honestly :D in another sense, you can think of it like TTL's "Anglish" (more similar to danish or german since it doesnt have any norman-introduced french influences) is being rendered as OTL English and so a different anglo-saxon name is being rendered as an OTL english name. Magnus isnt a fictional character, though, he's a historical son of Harold Godwinson and Edith Swannesha, so no comment given and no justification needed, methinks
 
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