Yeah, but Scotland has, like, a fraction of England's population.
and an even smaller fraction of England's wealth and rich merchant class who are willing to sponsor colonialism.
Yeah, but Scotland has, like, a fraction of England's population.
and an even smaller fraction of England's wealth and rich merchant class who are willing to sponsor colonialism.
That's a good idea. Could a more powerful Low Countries lend to keeping France in check? I say Low Countries, because as others have pointed out a Netherlands that controls the Beglian industrial core could become mighty. Or perhaps a far worse French Revolution that ends with France being permanently divided.
They were, just in a different way. While they didn't outright annex a lot of territory, their ventures into Central America and the Pacific were more or less ventures of colonialism.
Is there a way to have England both fretting over its northern border with Scotland, and yet still maintain a small colonial empire for prestige's sake? I'm thinking along the lines of somewhere between Spain's later empire (the puny colonies in Africa) and Italy's.
What is the fate of India in such a scenario as an independent Scotland? I always find India is the hardest to deal with. Would the Portuguese (who, I imagine, would still be leading the colonial race in Asia) gobble it up? Could we see a partition, or an Indian dynasty conquering the Deccan?
The quick way to knock out the British Empire is to keep England catholic. They would not have had to compete with Spain and France overseas to stop invasions at home, so it would have been a trading empire more like the Dutch and Portugese, also they would have obeyed the Pope's ruling on colonistation of America.
This would also mean no Dutch infulence on British finances in the latter Stuart reigns, which would mean Britain couldn't afford to fight wars of colonisation without wrecking their economy (as France did).
As to a replacement European power it would have to be a Protestant one, how about Scotland!