Challenge: UK without England

I know that this will probably require a POD way back in history before England really became a major player on the world stage, but whatever. My challenge to you is this: Create a unified state that includes Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland (or as a bonus, all of Ireland) while leaving England out in the cold. As a bonus make this state into a world power. England must still exist as a soveriegn state, although how powerful you want to make it is up to you.
 

Thande

Donor
Entirely possible with a sufficiently early POD, probably that Romano-Britain holds together longer.

Two basic options -

Either the Romano-Britons get their act together part way through the English invasions and manage to hold back the English, leaving Lloegr as only part of the old kingdom; they then later take over Hibernia and Caledonia through conquest or, less probably, dynastic marriage.

Or, you wank the Irish and have them take over most of Romano-Britain while the Anglo-Saxons, for whatever reason, don't invade (until later).

Ultimately, though, to get a world power (and to ensure territorial contiguity) you really need this state to have at least a third of OTL England in order to get the population and resources. At the very least, Rheged and the Glevum region.
 
It's the incorporation of Wales into this that's a problem, because Scotland taking Ireland is quite doable if you pick the right spot. Otherwise, the Welsh were constantly at odds with England or sat and bided their time neutral to all. There's little incentive for them to unite with Scotland if they can remain independent themselves, and unlike common perceptions for a reason I've never understood (not suggesting the OP is guilty of this) two countries agreeing to merge was not a regular, or even in many cases plausible idea. Really you need Wales to become a vassal of Scotland, and there's only one time I can think that this was ever a possibility - I believe that the Welsh offered their allegiance to the Scots in the most unstable years of Henry IV's reign, though it was almost a token gesture and the Scots would never have been able to capitalise. You'd need to make the Scots much stronger (you can start by having them keep Northumbria circa 1080) and make the English much weaker, somehow, but still strong enough to partially subdue Wales. Then you'd need to manufacture an event where England suffers a temporary bout of extreme weakness at which point the Welsh feel their odds are better trying to "defect" to Scotland rather than going it alone.

The concept of pan-Gaelic nationalism and unionism is a very modern concept, and while Scotland and Wales associated with each other, they associated with each other for the reason of their mutual antagonism with England. There really won't be any drive for a united Gaelic state, and unless you decide to make a personal union of the thrones (remember that Wales was multiple states for quite a while, so you'd need to bide your time patiently) then the only other option as mentioned is vassalage.

Ironically, while England will probably continue to be "the old enemy", Perfidious Albion, Scotland in this scenario will likely come to be seen as an unwelcome dominator in the union, and I don't see them handling Ireland any better than England did. In fact, due to the very frail Scottish economy, you could make a very strong argument for the idea that Scottish rule of Ireland would be far less capable of responding to problems such as rebellions and potato famines, so you could even see Scotland becoming portrayed as the evil Gaelic empire by its own subjects outside of Scotland. Would make an interesting change from England being the Devil Incarnate...
 
1 Robert Bruce did not kill John Comyn in Dumfries Church and get excommunicated

2 There was no bad harvest in Ireland when Edward Bruce (Robert’s Brother) was trying to become King of Ireland. The result of which was he more successful

3 The Scots captured Edward II at Bannockburn and was held for ransom

Robert Bruce did not catch leprosy and lived much longer.

After a period of time the nobility of northern England having no respect to Edward II and after tiring of paying tribute and protection switched allegiance from the English Norman King to the Scottish Norman King. This would have the effect of moving the border south maybe until it reached Wales.

With Bruce’s brother now king of Ireland and some politically astute matchmaking for Robert Bruce’s children it would be possible for the North and Western Norman British Kingdom to be more powerful than the Southern Norman Kingdom (England) especially if the French exerted some pressure on the continental part of the Plantagenet realm



 

Thande

Donor
After a period of time the nobility of northern England having no respect to Edward II and after tiring of paying tribute and protection switched allegiance from the English Norman King to the Scottish Norman King. This would have the effect of moving the border south maybe until it reached Wales.

With Bruce’s brother now king of Ireland and some politically astute matchmaking for Robert Bruce’s children it would be possible for the North and Western Norman British Kingdom to be more powerful than the Southern Norman Kingdom (England) especially if the French exerted some pressure on the continental part of the Plantagenet realm
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The problem with that scenario is that even just adding Northern England to the Celtic union would result in English outnumbering Celts by at least two to one, meaning the centre of gravity would inevitably shift to northern England and the country would end up being more English than Celtic. It's the same problem as, say, the northern half of Mexico deciding to join the Republic of Texas.

When I say a Celtic union needs at least a third of England, I meant as in the land now called England - they have to get there before the English settle it, or they've lost forever.
 
The indigenous population of Scotland was Anglo Saxon in the Central , Southern and Eastern areas and only Celtic in the North and West so linguistically the majority of the population had more in common with the English than the Gaelic northerners so Celtic and Anglo Saxons were capable of living in one political entity..

However this had little bearings on the politics of the day as all power was in the hands of the nobility ie Normans who would of ended up giving support to whatever Norman King gave them the best deal wither it was a Plantagenet or a Bruce was irrelevant to them. After all the nobility and the kings used French as the language of their courts
 
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