Challenge: Black Monarch of the United Kingdom

Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is as follows:

With a PoD after the Treaty of Paris, have a black man of African descent placed on the throne of the United Kingdom.

The requirements are:

The United Kingdom, at minimum, must include the majority of the territory of England.
The monarch must be of at least 50% black African descent.
The monarch must rule in the British Isles.
The monarch must retain effective control of the territory of the United Kingdom, or at least its home nations, for a period no less than one year.

Bonus points if the monarch has a legitimate claim to the throne and if the monarch is born in Africa.
 

ninebucks

Banned
Edward VIII falls in love with a Black Londoner, (obviously his fascist sympathies would have to be butterflied away), instead of Wallis Simpson. This relationship is viewed with as much controversy as the OTL relationship with the American divorcée.

Following his accession to the throne, like his OTL counterpart, he refuses to sacrifice his relationship for political reasons, and he abdicates after only a few weeks. A year later, their first child, Victor, is born.

His brother George succeeds him as king, and takes the UK through WWII.

George VI dies in 1950, and his eldest surviving daughter, Margaret succeeds him, proving to be an adequate, but unremarkable monarch. Margaret's offspring grow up in the spotlight and turn out to be quite a scandalsome bunch. Meanwhile, Victor Windsor is considered increasingly popular, especially in the press.

The 70s and 80s roll on and many of the same social and racial problems of OTL occur. But Victor Windsor and his young family prove to be a vital bridge between the establishment and the disenfranchised lower classes.

In 1988, Margaret I dies, and is succeeded by her son George, widely considered to be a bitter and misanthropic drunk.

In 1994, after years of political isolation, a radical Labour government comes into power. After a few years, it becomes clear that George VII fails at his duty to remain apolitical, as leakages to the press show him to be increasingly at odds with the policies and personalities of the Labour government.

In 1996, Victor Windsor dies, and the British public grieves publically. In a deadly blow to his credibility, George VII appears to be unmoved by the death of his relative.

In 1997, George VII is assassinated while on a state visit to Australia. The issue of succession comes to the fore, as none of the king's siblings or offspring are viewed to be acceptable in the political climate. Meanwhile, several major historians now argue that Edward VIII's adbication so many decades ago was in fact constitutionally illegitimate - this view holds sway with many on the centre left, and so, an act of parliament is passed, appointing Victor Windsor Jr as Britain's new king.

King Victor I, at the time of his coronation is divorced, (from a White British woman), and has one daughter from that marriage.

In the year 2000, Victor I announces his engagement to a prominent social campaigner from the Confederation of the West Indies, a Black woman.

In 2028, Victor I dies and is succeeded by Queen Anne, the product of his first marriage (who is one eighth Black). Queen Anne herself dies in 2035, and is succeeded by her half sister, Maria, (who is five eighths Black).
 
Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is as follows:

With a PoD after the Treaty of Paris, have a black man of African descent placed on the throne of the United Kingdom.

Hm, ok. PoD any time between 1887 and 1912; Imperial Federation gets enacted as part of a general compromise over Irish Home Rule. The Empire is rather more tightly integrated than OTL, with an Imperial Parliament etc, the Rajah of Bugamee in the House of Lords and so on. Come the 1920s, it's generally reocngised that the Prince of Wales needs a good wife. What better way to illustrate the global brotherhood of the Empire then to go with a nice princess from one of the Ugandan Kingdoms? And fine women they are too, etc...


Am actually vaguely surprised this wasn't attempted OTL; mind you, it would probably be more likely with somebody from one of the Indian Princely Statres. You can probably have even more fun if we can get a Queen in the same period; all sorts of handsome Indian Rajahs, the Aga Khan etc to choose from then...
 
Without the bonus points.

Napoleon and Dumas do not have a failing out and in fact become best friends in Egypt. Napoleon sucessfully invade England ( use of Fulton inventions... ? ) and crushes the english on their home soil. Napoleon separates Uk in several vassal kingdoms. He proclaims his good friend Dumas as King of the one which holds the majority of England ( but not Wales, Scotland or Northumbria ), which retain the name of United Kingdom ( of ..? ).
 
Charles is a bit too early, he was still very much raised in the old style. Its not so much the blackness as the commonness that automatically comes with it.
There would be no problem with William or Harry marrying a black person though.
 
Charles is a bit too early, he was still very much raised in the old style. Its not so much the blackness as the commonness that automatically comes with it.
There would be no problem with William or Harry marrying a black person though.

Hence Ed's idea of an African princess. We can respect royalty - we stood up for the French king when there was that unfortunate revolution business, after all, and we'd been aiming to kill the lot of them for the last four hundred years, so the Victorians would probably not have too much trouble with it. Particularly if she can endear herself to the public somehow - an assassination attempt or a miscarriage ought to do the trick.
 
A bit off-topic, but...a better thread title, to make it more alliterative, would be "Black Basileus of Britain". :D
 
What year was the Treaty of Paris? Is that the one that ended the Revolutionary War?

Some of my reading suggests that in earlier eras, it was religion, not race, that was the big issue. The Catholic kings of Portugal honored the Catholic kings of the Congo as they would Catholic European monarchs and vice-versa.

It might be easier to get a black king much earlier (which would probably be a black king of England and not the true UK, though).
 
Hence Ed's idea of an African princess. We can respect royalty - we stood up for the French king when there was that unfortunate revolution business, after all, and we'd been aiming to kill the lot of them for the last four hundred years, so the Victorians would probably not have too much trouble with it. Particularly if she can endear herself to the public somehow - an assassination attempt or a miscarriage ought to do the trick.

African princesses still wouldn't be proper.
The queen may treat them like equals these days but traditionally they're very much inferior.
Though with the Asian monarchs such stuff is very much just racism (and against other religions of course but even if they were christian I'd think a way would be found) with the Africans there is a little bit of a point in it. The whole way monarchy is done there is very, different.
The only Africans in with the remotest shot of joining the European nobility club I'd think would be Ethiopia.
 
African princesses still wouldn't be proper.
The queen may treat them like equals these days but traditionally they're very much inferior.

You'd be surprised... Now obviously a nice Indian, or Malay prince or princess would be better regarded as a prospective royal partner, but Bugandan, or Nigerian, or for that matter South African royalty were still accorded respect; they might be sniffed at slightly, but through snobbery, not racism. British high society was surprisngly colourblind when it came to the colonial ruling classes, particularly in the 1920s onwards- mainly because they'd been to school and university with them;

"Here Sir John, have you met the Ngobi of Kigulu?"

"What, Beefy Nkomo? we were at Charterhouse and Trinity together! Cracking fly-half, he was; did you ever meet his wife? Poor chap, don't think he ever quite recovered.."

Of course all this is different from actually marrying one, but given the right feeling of Imperial unity and the right candidate (ie very dashing if male, and beautiful if female- no formidable battleaxes like the Queen of Tonga, thank you very much) it'd probably be quite a smart move; after all, as long as they're not Catholic there isn't a real constitutional bar on it happening. I bet that bar the odd joke a la "Phil the Greek", within about five or six years the British public would have taken them to heart.
 
I think the only way to get European Royalty to look at themselves as equals, not superiors, not African royalty would be the presence of like an uber-Ethiopian Empire. Oi, I just got an idea for a timeline.... my world war one tl is getting dull.... I realized I'm writing it like a book and not a short timeline....

But, anyways, the presense of a large, industrialized empire in Africa capable of meeting the Europeans in full-scale modern warfare, especially on the ocean, would probably tweak the English towards looking at them as equals.
 
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