Balkanize England

But "all the eligible members of the state" being as small as they were in early 19th century Britain raises the question on if that's really rule by the dēmos in any meaningful sense.

I don't think it's "No True Scotsman" to point that out.

Nineteenth-century Britain (pre 1832, or even pre 1867) certainly wasn't a universal democracy by modern standards, or even close to it. Nevertheless, there was a genuine democratic tradition going back centuries, and Britain of the time had some (though certainly not all) of the features that would later be associated with liberal democracy. And while the electorate certainly should have been expanded earlier, it was still an active democratic electorate.

Or to put it another way, if Britain of the time wasn't a democracy, I'm not sure what else to call it. The monarchy didn't have enough power to call it mainly a monarchy, and while there was plenty of privilege around, I think that the electorate was too large to call it an oligarchy.

Hence it still sounds like No True Scotsman to me to claim that nineteenth century Britain doesn't count as a democracy at all. I'd certainly concede that it may not count as a liberal democracy (though with some liberal elements).
 
Arguing liberal peace theory is fun, but can't we all just get back to devising ways to balkanize England?

No. Derailments take precedence. :D

But that aside, I wonder whether a stronger Scotland could play a role. Not in causing it - Scotland is in no position to - but if things don't come into unity by the AD 1000s, having Scotland push even further into the Kingdom of Northumbria's former lands than it did OTL might not be impossible.

Nineteenth-century Britain (pre 1832, or even pre 1867) certainly wasn't a universal democracy by modern standards, or even close to it. Nevertheless, there was a genuine democratic tradition going back centuries, and Britain of the time had some (though certainly not all) of the features that would later be associated with liberal democracy. And while the electorate certainly should have been expanded earlier, it was still an active democratic electorate.

Or to put it another way, if Britain of the time wasn't a democracy, I'm not sure what else to call it. The monarchy didn't have enough power to call it mainly a monarchy, and while there was plenty of privilege around, I think that the electorate was too large to call it an oligarchy.

Hence it still sounds like No True Scotsman to me to claim that nineteenth century Britain doesn't count as a democracy at all. I'd certainly concede that it may not count as a liberal democracy (though with some liberal elements).

A constitutional monarchy dominated by the aristocracy. I don't know how much this had changed by 1812, but I recall reading that something like 3% of the population were "electors" in the 1760s. That's more comparable to Poland-Lithuania's noble's republic than a government where "the people" are rle.
 
Arguing liberal peace theory is fun, but can't we all just get back to devising ways to balkanize England?

Fair call. Prior to discussing that in detail, though, could the OP please clarify whether a Balkanised Britain or a Balkanised England is desired. I think it's the latter, but want to be sure, since it makes a big difference to the scenario.
 
Fair call. Prior to discussing that in detail, though, could the OP please clarify whether a Balkanised Britain or a Balkanised England is desired. I think it's the latter, but want to be sure, since it makes a big difference to the scenario.

I really do not understand why people would assume I meant Great Britain. I put England, not the entire isle.

EDIT: Oh god, I just realized that you're Jared. I love your work! Thanks for posting in what I expected to be a failed thread.
 
As per OTL until end of Alfred's rule. Aethelstan et al cannot reconquer the 5 burghs. So Wessex stays at West Mercia,Old Wessex, Sussex and Kent.

East Anglia remains an independent Danish kingdom as does Yorkshire. The 5 burghs change allegiences between York and East Anglia over the years. Bernicia (Northumbria north of Tees) remains a small Angle kingdom fighting with Strathclyde, Kenneth McAlpin's Kingdom and possibly a reestablished Brito-Norse Rheged.

Problem is that somebody is going to unite at least the 5 burghs, East Anglia and Wessex at some point (possibly with York) either the analogue of Canute or some Norman adventurer(not necessarily William or his analogue) who carves a kingdom like the Normans did in Sicily.
 
I just add my derailing and than fly away:

I found the democracies dont wage war on each other argument pretty hollow, even if it would be true (which in my opinion it is not) that didnt prohibit the British Empire to force 25% of the world under their boot or the USA to invade numerous nations or couping them when it seems good for them. So hardly an argument for world peace, what government system an Empire has is of little concern for the subjects.
 
Keep the nation of England from either forming or just break it apart. Earliest possible start is 800 A.D.

I understand its a small canvas, but this shouldn't have to be ASB.


As I understand it, balkanisation is creating separate entities with not only a sense of self-identification but the reject of neighbours as sharing a common ground (or up to some point).

The problem is that Anglo-Saxon "Heptarchy" (whatever ruled by locals or Norses) kept a great sense of common identity, which is underlined by regular fights for overlordship and/or reunification.
Of course there wasn't a "nation" of England back then, but still enough similarities and what's more important, acknowledged common ground for getting rid of the issue with "no unification of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms".

Finally, the lasting existance of different states in a region that before the XVI didn't have a really important population (critically compared to continental Europe) is dubious : having separate entities is doable (and did happen, of course, in Britain) but not for more than some centuries at the very best.

There are a possibility that *could* look like balkanisation without being such in the strict meaning of the word : The separation of England along an West-East line.

It was planned as a compromise between Eadmund and Knud in 1016. Basically, Knud would have kept Northumbria and Mercia as his part, the rest being Eadmund's.
It is, perhaps, what was planned between William the Conqueror and Harald as well, making the division an alternative.

Of course, the issue there is that Norses/Danes couldn't easily keep their part (for many reasons, the least not being the refusal of local saxons elite, and the managment nightmare of any North Sea empire in medieval times).

You could see eventually a Saxon takeover in this "Northern England", and a reunification by the south is a likely outcome.

I honestly don't think it's the most likely possibility, less to make it happen than make it last, but if it's possible then you'll have at least a political ground for the division of England for some time.
 
The problem with the Edmund Ironside and Canute division of England is what actually happened OTL. Edmund died within a year and Canute just took over the whole lot. It would probably happened the other way if Canute had died.

To have become stable Edmund would have had to have lived at least as long as Canute and BOTH sides not to have gone for the other half. Even then assuming Edward(not the Confessor, the one who lived in Hungary) succeeds Edmund and one of Harthacanute or Harald succeeded Canute there would have been other attempts at reunifying England.

The best you can reasonably hope for is a Northern England which feels more distinct than the OTL North ,perhaps as distinct as the OTL Scots feel.
PS The other way is have the Scots get their independence in September and the North to then feel really put upon by Cameron,Johnson and the South East Supremacists that form our Government (I'm NOT joking the potential is actually there, it would just need a LOT to happen for it to surface)
 
I agree : my case was merely to point out that there was a precedent tentative to split out England IOTL, possibly twice, along this line.
As I precised in the previous post, I don't see it really as a balkanisation per se.
 
I really do not understand why people would assume I meant Great Britain. I put England, not the entire isle.

Because there's always a fair number of people who use England as a synonym of Britain. So it can cause confusion even when people have used the word correctly.

For the thread topic, as others have stated, the difficulty of creating a balkanized England is that once an English crown is formed, English unity will become an idea that's hard to kill. So it will be hard to keep the crowns divided forever; there will always be contenders trying to reunite them. It would take a long sequence of defeats before the idea of separate crowns could really take hold.

Keeping a united English crown from forming in the first place is easier (though also hard). But would that really count as balkanization?
 
Historically, England was divided into about seven kingdoms from 500 to 850 CE. The Heptarchy ended when England suffered outside attacks from the Vikings. The English united behind a common cause and the superficial divisions gradually fell away. It would be difficult to keep England divided indefinitely for this reason. Eventually, someone is going to intrude upon the isles. The British cannot remain is splendid isolation forever.

You would need to make the nobility dependent upon their fiefdoms and afraid of consolidating into one crown.
Because an outside force always results in the banding together of peoples who share the same language under different monarchs. It's why Germany and Italy formed as cohesive united states back in the middle ages, and the various Spanish and Iberian territories immediately put aside all differences and never fought wars against each other while Al-Andalus still existed, right?:rolleyes:

I'm always rather annoyed at the deterministic belief that England had to become united and will always become united, which usually carries to mandatory union of the rest of the Isles as well. It's a load of BS in many scenarios.

Granted, it is likely that someone will try to unite the English if the OTL creation of a singular kingdom fails to happen, and you can argue about the probabilities of success, but in a lack of history of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms being united, there is no reason to guarantee union would happen. There was enough linguistic and cultural diversity throughout England in the middle ages and influence from other groups like the Norse that it would be entirely possible that one or more of the traditional English kingdoms develops a different national identity than the others.

I will grant that once England has been formed, it would be difficult to keep it completely separate. But, even then, there's still room for breakaway regions for a variety of ideological or political reasons. Germany, Switzerland, and Austria were all once considered two states of the same nation of peoples, and were even united in name or in actuality, for a large part of history, yet nowadays are considered separate nations and separate states. It's possible, though not the most likely of solutions, for part of England to go the same way.
 
First, there is an huge difference between linguistical features (that no one really cared about, critically before the VIII, when the germanic languages just began to differanciate from each other) and sense of belonging to a same continuuous entity : that could been underlined by the overlordhsip of various kingdoms over the smaller ones.
When Offa takes almost all England under his domination, he didn't titled himself "Great King of Mercia" but ruler of, IRRC, "southern England".

The same can be said for celtic high-kingship in Ireland or Celtic Britain.

It's a form of political union, and the expression of a sense of a common territory beyond kingships.

Before Germany and Italy got really divided up by feudalisation, you had such a sense of continuuous entity (as soon they could, Germans renamed their kingdom from east francia to "teutonic land").
Merovingian kingdoms are a sign of that as well : while divided, the fact that they represented parts of a same entity lead to continual tentatives of unifying the whole.

Anglo-Saxon England does not escape this. Its kings tried to unify what they percieved as a common ground.

Of course, when identity is defined by religion from one part, dynastic features from the other hand, and that your land is going all mosaic, it gets harder to enforce that.

A second point would be that England was underpopulated : maybe one million inhabitants, when continental regions had easily the triple, more than often quadruple, and more. It gets hard to divide 1 M into several little kingdoms without someone (one of the said kingdoms or a neighbour) simply taking over.

Finally, the point about Spain : as long Al-Andalus was a serious threat, you did have truces or agreements between northern christian principalties.
There were exemple of the contrary of course, and more than often succession crisis were such (in fact, some sides actively asked for cordoban help at one point).

Still the capacity of kingdoms issued from Asturias to reform into one entity disproove your point : at some times you had up to 4 principalties in the same time but as other exemples quoted, still concieved as a whole, and eventually unifying.

The infighting between entities other than sucession crisis (aka struggle, for getting the whole thing), really began when Muslim Spain was less of a threat and actually had a totally defensive position : Las Navas de Tolosa was an union of Christian kingdoms and feudal entities but the victory, breaking the last real threat against them eventually lead to their division.

In the same way, you could have the exemple of Mercia that didn't seem to have refused an united front with Wessex in the X against Norses. Granted, it was in their interests probably more than the sense of sharing a common ground : but nobody said absence of division had to be only a matter of being kind.
 
Or to put it another way, if Britain of the time wasn't a democracy, I'm not sure what else to call it.

Emphatically, an oligarchy. The political system was dominated by the aristocracy and the landed and the franchise was fairly miniscule, even after 1832, and voting wasn't remotely free and fair either. Electoral features does not a democracy make; by that standard almost every state since at least the early 20th century has been a democracy.
 

Devvy

Donor
Aethalstan fails to conquer and annex Northumbria, which remains Norse of some flavour. Northumbria and Wessex dominate most of English/Welsh affairs, with a smaller Scotland/Alba north of the Antonine Wall.

Intermarrying leads to a crisis of succession in Wessex in the 12th century, with claimants from both Normandy (by now somehow including Brittany) and Northumbria claiming the throne.

A Norman army invades Wessex first from the south, catching the Wessex forces off guard who were expecting an invasion from the north first, and annihilating them. The subsequent Northumbrian invasion is later repulsed by Norman forces at some cost to both.

The Normans struggle to pacify Wessex, and lose influence over northern areas of Mercia (and northern parts of Wales), who are annexed by Northumbria.

The Kingdom of the Bretons, formed of north-western France, southern England and Wales continues to play Northumbria and *France off against each other, politically using the former status of the Brittany to loosen the ties of French royalty over Normandy, which manages to last the times. Capital at Southampton (not at Normandy to escape any notion of it being under French control).

Kingdom of Northumbria, formed of most of the former Danelaw as well as North Wales and northern Mercia, as well as a vassalised Duchy of Alba north of the Forth.

No doubt that'll be pulled apart by people who know more then I! :)
 
IIRC even at as late a date as the Norman invasion the Northumbrians were noticeably different from the rest of the English, more Danish mixed in. If that could be exacerbated then we could have a king in the North. Then you would have a king of Wessex in the South. The two would likely fight, but, might also deign to defend each other from foreign invasion, if only to save their own skins. To keep Wessex of balance though, we may need to strengthen the Welsh and/or keep them entangled on the continent (close ties with Brittany/Normandy/Flanders?). The other issue is wether the Northumbrians could hold back the Scots, they may need some sort of long-term ally (Norway? Denmark?) or Scotland might need to be weakened. So we would end up with a Nordic influenced Northumbria, and a continent influenced Wessex. Maybe some Welsh expansion, but I think that we might need a pre-Æthelstan POD for that.

Alternately, depending on precisely what you are looking for, a HRE-like entity might form, i.e. a "High King" nominally ruling the entire heptarchy, with the eventual further fragmentation into smaller fiefdoms and perhaps some free cities in the south. However, unlike the HRE I think that at some point this state would become increasingly unitary and finally evolve into the kingdom of England or some kind of Federal state.

Also, I suppose that Mortimer-Glyndwr-Percy business isn't really going anywhere?
 
Emphatically, an oligarchy. The political system was dominated by the aristocracy and the landed and the franchise was fairly miniscule, even after 1832, and voting wasn't remotely free and fair either. Electoral features does not a democracy make; by that standard almost every state since at least the early 20th century has been a democracy.

This, pretty much. You can have the appearance of electoral participation but not necessarily be a genuine democracy.

In any case, maybe the U.K. ends up losing a World War, maybe two, to whoever they're fighting at the time. If things get bad enough, you may indeed see quite a bit of an independence movement in both Wales and Scotland.
 
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