DBWI: No English Conquest?

British Members: What if the English Armada (Drake-Norris Expedition) had never conquered Spain after the failure of the Spanish Armada?

Espanes Membros: Que si l'Engles Armada ha nenca conque'd Espania depostel fracaso d'Espanes Armada?

Miembros Americanos: ¿Y si la «Expedición Drake-Norris» no ha conquistado nunca a España después del fracaso de la «Grande y Felicísima Armada»?
 
Last edited:
British Members: What if the English Armada (Drake-Norris Expedition) had never conquered Spain after the failure of the Spanish Armada?

Espanes Membros: Que si l'Engles Armada ha nenca conque'd Espain depostel fracaso d'Epanes Armada?

Miembros Americanos: ¿Y si la «Expedición Drake-Norris» no ha conquistado nunca a España después del fracaso de la «Grande y Felicísima Armada»?

The Spanish would probably have tried again later on and maybe this time taken over England! How weird would that have been? Total reverse of fortunes.

But the Anglo-Frankish War wouldn't have happen since the French wouldnt have flown into major panic with England suddenly... you know, becoming near god like.
 
How might the western parts of Spain taken by Portugal (if I recall correctly, Huelva and Estremadura), develop under continued Spanish rule?

The Spanish would probably have tried again later on and maybe this time taken over England! How weird would that have been? Total reverse of fortunes.
Yeah, that would be pretty strange. But since the countries were of roughly equal power, not too unfathomable.

But the Anglo-Frankish War wouldn't have happen since the French wouldnt have flown into major panic with England suddenly... you know, becoming near god like.
Well I'd hesitate to call it an Anglo-French war. The Second Anglo-French War in the 1600s was really the first, since the supposed first was just the Huguenot victory against the Catholics supported by England.

And they weren't really god-like. The English Drake-Norris Expedition was a near-miraculous success (holding the line for two years until adequate reinforcements arrived who could take the rest of Spain?), but the Huguenots becoming dominant in France was inevitable after Spanish support went away.
 
Conquered is a bit extreme a word for what they did; attempting to do as their Anglo-Saxon 'ancestors' had done long before, and half-succeeding does not a conquest make.

Whatever the reason, it seems likely that Spain's finances would be less screwed in the long run, without joyous English nobleman running rampant across the land exclaiming at their good fortune. Of course, it also would mean a predominantly Catholic Spain, which would be interesting.
 
Conquered is a bit extreme a word for what they did; attempting to do as their Anglo-Saxon 'ancestors' had done long before, and half-succeeding does not a conquest make.
How was it any less of a conquest than the Norman one? It may not have remained part of England, but it was surely culturally Anglicized and religiously Anglicanized.

And what do you mean Anglo-Saxon? Are you talking about the Varangians' feuds with the Byzantines? Because the Normans in England won, and that's the only conquest that occurred in the area until the 1590s. Well maybe you could call the Hundred Years' War a conquest, but it wasn't lasting.

Whatever the reason, it seems likely that Spain's finances would be less screwed in the long run, without joyous English nobleman running rampant across the land exclaiming at their good fortune. Of course, it also would mean a predominantly Catholic Spain, which would be interesting.
Yeah, of course.
 
How was it any less of a conquest than the Norman one? It may not have remained part of England, but it was surely culturally Anglicized and religiously Anglicanized.


And what do you mean Anglo-Saxon? Are you talking about the Varangians' feuds with the Byzantines? Because the Normans in England won, and that's the only conquest that occurred in the area until the 1590s. Well maybe you could call the Hundred Years' War a conquest, but it wasn't lasting.

I was speaking of the pre-Norman conquest/settlement of England, sorry for any misunderstanding.

Yeah, of course.

Which raises an interesting point. How might the English have acted, say, had the Drake-Norris Expedition failed, yet without any substantive Spanish backlash? Where could they have set their imperial eye?

Without, after all, England effectively dominating the western Mediterranean trade markets for two hundred years, the English would have to look elsewhere to sell their goods, and there would have been none of the Anglo-Sicilian (or Anglo-Neapolitan, if you like to call them by what they were :rolleyes:) or Anglo-Barbary wars, or hell, any of the various undeclared squabbles England had.
 
I was speaking of the pre-Norman conquest/settlement of England, sorry for any misunderstanding.
Oh that makes sense. Yeah they didn't totally wipe out the Spanish in any sense of the phrase. Hell, the decline in the population of Spain after the invasion was more due to emigration than due to the military occupation.

(Though of course the Brythons weren't wiped out either, just assimilated.)

Which raises an interesting point. How might the English have acted, say, had the Drake-Norris Expedition failed, yet without any substantive Spanish backlash? Where could they have set their imperial eye?
América. Well, besides Mexico and the Caribbean islands which they did use in OTL for their resources.

Without, after all, England effectively dominating the western Mediterranean trade markets for two hundred years, the English would have to look elsewhere to sell their goods, and there would have been none of the Anglo-Sicilian (or Anglo-Neapolitan, if you like to call them by what they were :rolleyes:) or Anglo-Barbary wars, or hell, any of the various undeclared squabbles England had.
Maybe they would focus on selling Occidental and Oriental goods to the other nations in the North Sea.
 
British Members: What if the English Armada (Drake-Norris Expedition) had never conquered Spain after the failure of the Spanish Armada?

Espanes Membros: Que si l'Engles Armada ha nenca conque'd Espain depostel fracaso d'Epanes Armada?

Miembros Americanos: ¿Y si la «Expedición Drake-Norris» no ha conquistado nunca a España después del fracaso de la «Grande y Felicísima Armada»?

Coming from a country(Virginia) whose national mythos kinda revolved around the success of the English Armada, it would likely cause many, many changes in our history, I'd think. We might not even exist at all, really, and perhaps, neither would the Confederation of Carolina.

@Zuvarq: England did, but only the city of Tampico, and Tobasco, and both were re-taken by Spain in 1727 anyway; although just 50 years later, Mexico broke off in a revolution of it's own. I do recall that there was a settlement in Mexican Tejas(or Texas, as Anglos call it) by the name of New Kent, founded in 1811 by British merchants, but it never went anywhere, though.

OOC: The Federation of Virginia is OTL's Va., Ky., southern Ohio(there is no major city on the site of OTL Columbus, btw), southwest Penn., and Maryland + Delaware. Carolina is everything south of that, pretty much, and also includes much of northern, and all of southeastern Louisiana. New Kent is OTL's Galveston, TX.
 
Well, for one thing Williamsburg would never have introduced "Drake Day" as a holiday :p

The interesting thing is that, even after the English Conquest of Spain, Carolina was initially settled largely by Spaniards (albeit operating with the consent of London). It wasn't until later that it took on more "Anglo" characteristics due to immigration from Virginia (and, to a somewhat lesser extent, the Home Country and the Caribbean). There was even talk in Mexico post-independence of trying to woo Carolina into joining them due to common Spanish-based roots, although of course it amounted to nothing; the common Spanish heritage thing was mostly hot air anyway, since all they really left behind was several place-names, and a higher incidence of multi-racialism due to Spaniard racial caste policies.

Without the Conquest, it's likely the English (later British) Navy would've never have gotten the reputation and strength it got later on. Indeed, Drake may well have been regarded as little more than a pirate and thief by history.

OOC: I'm trying to shape out Carolina as a sort-of "Super Florida" that operated under joint Spanish-English authority, although it'd really just be London in charge at the end of the day.
 
British Members: What if the English Armada (Drake-Norris Expedition) had never conquered Spain after the failure of the Spanish Armada?

Espanes Membros: Que si l'Engles Armada ha nenca conque'd Espain depostel fracaso d'Epanes Armada?

Miembros Americanos: ¿Y si la «Expedición Drake-Norris» no ha conquistado nunca a España después del fracaso de la «Grande y Felicísima Armada»?

I think that we could be contemplating a united Spain. I don't mean united with the colonies: even if Spain could defeat Drake and remain as the maritime dominant power for a while longer, the distances between the metropolis and the American viceroyalties or the Afroasian factories would be enough to guarantee an eventual indepency (as it happened to North America in late c.XIX IOTL). I am talking about at least keeping the peninsule as a united entity.

As per OTL, Portugal broke away right then in 1589 as Drake landed in the Peninsule through Lisbon. The Treaty of London forced Phillip II to acknowledge Catherine I as Queen of Portugal and the candidate chosen by the Courts of Aragon, Ferdinand III Habsburg, as King of Aragon. The rebellions in Galicia and Andalusia not even 10 years later further fragmented Castille.
A united Spain would become a major player in the European politics, specially the longer they kept the colonies. On the other hand, we probably wouldn't see such an important Aragonese dominance on the Mediterranean, specially after the union with the archduchy of Austria and the conquest of Venice, which wouldn't surely happen ITTL.
 
Well, for one thing Williamsburg would never have introduced "Drake Day" as a holiday :p

The interesting thing is that, even after the English Conquest of Spain, Carolina was initially settled largely by Spaniards (albeit operating with the consent of London). It wasn't until later that it took on more "Anglo" characteristics due to immigration from Virginia (and, to a somewhat lesser extent, the Home Country and the Caribbean). There was even talk in Mexico post-independence of trying to woo Carolina into joining them due to common Spanish-based roots, although of course it amounted to nothing; the common Spanish heritage thing was mostly hot air anyway, since all they really left behind was several place-names, and a higher incidence of multi-racialism due to Spaniard racial caste policies.

Without the Conquest, it's likely the English (later British) Navy would've never have gotten the reputation and strength it got later on. Indeed, Drake may well have been regarded as little more than a pirate and thief by history.

OOC: I'm trying to shape out Carolina as a sort-of "Super Florida" that operated under joint Spanish-English authority, although it'd really just be London in charge at the end of the day.

OOC: Sure, why not? The cultural blend might prove interesting, to say the least. :)

IC: At least the one good thing that managed to come out of the Spanish system's influence on Carolinian society was that blacks had an easier time assimilating once slavery ended down there in the late 1860s.....here in Virginia, slavery began to end earlier(the late 1840s, around the same time as in Tejas), but assimilation was much harder for the first fifty years or so; race riots were a problem, particularly in the heady days of the 1880s(nobody in Victoria City will ever forget the day that the Midtown Massacre happened in November, 1884; there's a reason many of African descent still fear the names of Hugh Thomas Griffin and William C. Featherston to this day.). Though, thankfully, at least things began to improve around the turn of the century and we've had no problems since the 1950s, particularly thanks to black soldiers participating in the World War.

OOC: Victoria City is on the site of OTL's Lynchburg and has a size comparable to Toledo, OH in the 1970s or Bakersfield, CA today; or, more precisely, roughly 380k inhabitants, at least 4x larger than Lynchburg.
My idea for the World War could be best described as like a mix of WWI and WWII in many ways(just without any equivalent to the Nazis), with bits of other conflicts thrown in, and lasted from November 1928 to September 1935.

I think that we could be contemplating a united Spain. I don't mean united with the colonies: even if Spain could defeat Drake and remain as the maritime dominant power for a while longer, the distances between the metropolis and the American viceroyalties or the Afroasian factories would be enough to guarantee an eventual indepency (as it happened to North America in late c.XIX IOTL). I am talking about at least keeping the peninsule as a united entity.

As per OTL, Portugal broke away right then in 1589 as Drake landed in the Peninsule through Lisbon. The Treaty of London forced Phillip II to acknowledge Catherine I as Queen of Portugal and the candidate chosen by the Courts of Aragon, Ferdinand III Habsburg, as King of Aragon. The rebellions in Galicia and Andalusia not even 10 years later further fragmented Castille.
A united Spain would become a major player in the European politics, specially the longer they kept the colonies. On the other hand, we probably wouldn't see such an important Aragonese dominance on the Mediterranean, specially after the union with the archduchy of Austria and the conquest of Venice, which wouldn't surely happen ITTL.

IC: And who in our timeline, could recognize 18th Century Italy without Spanish Venice? :D
 
IC: And who in our timeline, could recognize 18th Century Italy without Spanish Venice? :D
Indeed. I think great part of the Italian identity originates from the time when both Venice, Naples and Sicily were under Aragonese control. Without that element, i don't know if Italy would exist as a nation at all....
Maybe Genoa, that managed to take over the Piedmont, Milan, and the Cote d'Azur, before being overrun by Louis XVII, thanks to their excellent Corsican forces. If Italy had been broken up by then, they might have gone south instead of west. Italian states would be much weaker than Louis XVII's France, that's for sure.
 
OOC: Sure, why not? The cultural blend might prove interesting, to say the least. :)

OOC: I picture Carolina as sort of like the New Orleans culture writ-large (and without the French influence, Spanish takes its place). Of course, it and Virginia both encompass what would in OTL be considered "Southron" characteristics, just in different ways. I figure Virginia is more "baseline" due to influences from Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland, but still not "Northern" like NY or Michigan either. The race relations issue you mention would be proof of that (and in many ways, it'd probably make Virginia more recognizable to an OTL Alabamian or Georgian than much of Carolina would :eek:). However, there's also the Neo-Classicist attitude prevalent as well, which would be in line with an earlier emancipation. And let us not forget the more successful Drake influencing the country as a national hero :D

IC: At least the one good thing that managed to come out of the Spanish system's influence on Carolinian society was that blacks had an easier time assimilating once slavery ended down there in the late 1860s.....here in Virginia, slavery began to end earlier(the late 1840s, around the same time as in Tejas), but assimilation was much harder for the first fifty years or so; race riots were a problem, particularly in the heady days of the 1880s(nobody in Victoria City will ever forget the day that the Midtown Massacre happened in November, 1884; there's a reason many of African descent still fear the names of Hugh Thomas Griffin and William C. Featherston to this day.). Though, thankfully, at least things began to improve around the turn of the century and we've had no problems since the 1950s, particularly thanks to black soldiers participating in the World War.


IC: Well, a lot of the difference in race relations between the sister republics had to do with how they viewed their respective black populations. Virginia may have considered itself the more "Enlightened" of the two, and genuinely wished deep down to end forced bondage, but at the end of the day most Virginians back then either considered blacks as subhuman entirely, or at best were apathetic (and the latter was less common than you'd think). Carolinians, on the other hand, may have been far more invested in slavery and agrarianism, but they also saw their slaves from Africa as human beings; granted, they considered them a "subject race" that couldn't be left to its own designs in good conscience, but they still saw them as people and not chattel. And of course, the idea of a race riot wouldn't have gone down well in either country, it's just a matter of that difference in treatment producing more radical results.

Of course, that's all irrelevant now since both countries have full equal rights and racism is on the down-swing; sharing a foxhole with a man you can trust with your life does wonders to end stupidity like that.


OOC: Victoria City is on the site of OTL's Lynchburg and has a size comparable to Toledo, OH in the 1970s or Bakersfield, CA today; or, more precisely, roughly 380k inhabitants, at least 4x larger than Lynchburg.
My idea for the World War could be best described as like a mix of WWI and WWII in many ways(just without any equivalent to the Nazis), with bits of other conflicts thrown in, and lasted from November 1928 to September 1935.

OOC: Fair enough. I figured other important cities in VA may be Williamsburg (the pre-Bacon capital, which may still be the capital unless it gets moved up to OTL D.C.s location, which is more centralized in relation to Maryland, the Delmarva and the Alleghany chunks in OTL Ohio and PA), Baltimore, Lexington (different name?), Pittsburg (ATL Pittsburgh), Petersburg (OTL Richmond) and Hampton. The World War would be interesting, albeit a good deal bloodier likely than WWI. Also, Featherston?

IC: Getting back to the topic at hand, one consequence of the English conquest, from a linguistic and cultural perspective, is the survival of "Castillian" identity in New Granada and parts of Cuba, and the retention of un-Anglicized Spanish traditions such as bullfighting and old-school guitar playing. Plus they speak a relatively "pure" Spanish set of dialects in the Americas, whilst Spain obviously speaks a sorta creole thanks to the heavy English influence the conquest left behind.
 
Last edited:
This is probably a long shot, but I think the Ten Years' War could've had a different outcome if the Spanish gave their backing.
 
Top