DBWI: Queen Mary II miscarries

A question: In light of Wilhelmina II's Diamond Jubilee this year, I'd like to ask: what if the House of Orange's 318-year rule in England, Scotland, Ireland, and America, was nipped in the bud. Let's say that, instead of giving birth to William IV and III, she miscarries and id unable to have any other children. I assume that her sister Anne would have inheirited the throne after that, but she miscarried repeatedly as well. So lets say neither the House of Orange or the House of Oldenburg inherit the throne in England, Scotland, and Ireland. Who does, then? Do the male Stuarts get the throne back? Or does parliament decide they want a protestant king, and pass a law saying that only protestants can inherit the throne? Weren't the Hohenzollern's related to William and Mary? Maybe a personal union between the British Kingdoms and Prussia, rather than the Netherlands? Discuss
 
Well, can we ask: No dictatorship in the Confederation of Southern America? No Silent War between Canada(my country) and Tsarist Russia which almost resulted in atomic war on several occasions?
What about France? Would it be unified instead of the multitude of squabbling and poverty ridden shitholes they are today?
Would Mexico not be run by a cartel hell-bent on conquering Gran Ecuador?
What do you think? Personally, I think the world might be a much nicer place. Who knows? Maybe there could've been a European Union or Union of North America by now, instead of a whole bunch of squabbling statelets and a Germany still under martial law after 25 years(not to mention a terribly corrupt Britain basically ruled by the London Mob these days.), not to mention the racist dictatorship in the C.S.A. under W. Long "Bill" Caden(in office since 1976 and still going strong?)
 
Well, can we ask: No dictatorship in the Confederation of Southern America? No Silent War between Canada(my country) and Tsarist Russia which almost resulted in atomic war on several occasions?
What about France? Would it be unified instead of the multitude of squabbling and poverty ridden shitholes they are today?
Would Mexico not be run by a cartel hell-bent on conquering Gran Ecuador?
What do you think? Personally, I think the world might be a much nicer place. Who knows? Maybe there could've been a European Union or Union of North America by now, instead of a whole bunch of squabbling statelets and a Germany still under martial law after 25 years(not to mention a terribly corrupt Britain basically ruled by the London Mob these days.), not to mention the racist dictatorship in the C.S.A. under W. Long "Bill" Caden(in office since 1976 and still going strong?)
OOC: as a point, the whole idea of a DBWI is to discuss a serious point in history from the POV of somebody where the event listed did not happen, not to create some type of dystopian shithole. I'd like this to not turn into another dumb role-playing game (those belong in the Sandbox), and actually address the question in the OP. I would greatly appreciate it if you do not hijack the thread like this. So, please, ignore the above response.
 
Good question. Maybe England would become a republic like the Netherlands instead of trying to sort out the succession?

I doubt the English would ever go for a true Republic over the Constitutional Monarchy that was being set up even in William and Mary's time. I mean, if the monarchy and the House of Orange could live through Leopold the Traitor (reign:1834-1843) and his noxious sons for over 30 years all the way to Frederick The Great (1876-1903), when other European nations went through bloody turmoil during the 'liberal revolution' (generally accepted as starting with the Paris uprising in 1828 and ending in 1864 in the 'Year of Blood'). I'd say the Oranges are pretty well entrenched, which is a good thing for the UK since, as the only nation which retains a 'functioning' nobility in Europe, it rakes in boku tourist and 'entertainment' pounds. I mean consider Mina's Jubilee... by all accounts, the biggest, most expensive party in the history of the world. Parliament allocated 700 million pounds to it... and by the current accounting they have raked in well over 10 billions pounds... a return on investment that has made the Republics of Europe green with envy and grumbling at their ancestors who were too overcome with revolutionary fervor to see the moolah. :p

As for the OP, The English were certainly not above shopping around the continent for a Monarch as the Orange family clearly represented. Parliament was very anti Catholic at the time, and wouldn't have abided a Catholic monarch. So they would have gone shopping in Northern Europe, most likely Germany. I doubt they would have gone for a Hohenzollern though, since the last thing the UK needed was a monarch with strongly divided loyalties (which is a big reason why Parliament passed the 'Renunciation Act' in 1724 before William III's coronation*)

*OOC: Queen Mary II lives a lot longer

Now, as for alternatives to the Oranges, while I'm kind of rusty on my 'Somewhat Obscure German Protestant Nobility' ;) I do know that, of all the Federal German Republics, Hanover has the most ties with England since Sophia of Hanover (1630-1718) was the granddaughter of King James, and her son, George, lived FOREVER and had tons of kids aka a direct line from the Stuarts. If the Oranges hadn't worked out for England I can see Parliament looking at Hanover, which has always been a small place squeezed between the great city state of Hamburg and the trading monstrosity that is/was the Netherlands. I doubt, Sophie, or George (depending on who died when) would turn down such a choice offering as being King of the UK...
 
Last edited:
The Hanoverians, eh...? I admit I don't know a whole lot about them, but weren't they pretty authoritarian as Kings of Hanover? The last of them came to a bad end in the Year of Blood, IIRC. So if they got the British crown, we might have become a republic anyway...just later and with more aristocrats decapitated.;)
 
The Hanoverians, eh...? I admit I don't know a whole lot about them, but weren't they pretty authoritarian as Kings of Hanover?
Sure, but that was because they didn't have any Parliament worth talking about until the Year of Blood. With Britain having one already in place - in fact, extending the invitation to bring them in - I don't think they'd be able to act like that. I think you'd have a couple very unpopular kings until some new prince, growing up in Britain, gains new ideas. Might have a couple rebellions, though, and the Jacobins might gain a little more popularity...
 
Hmm. How is a Hannoverian dynasty going to affect British policies on the Continent? I suspect conflict with France is pretty much inevitable; after all, it is France. :p A lot of the world was still up for grabs at that point; whoever replaces the Oranges will have Africa and India to worry about, not to mention the Americas--though demographics are probably on their side in the case of the later.
 
Hmm. How is a Hannoverian dynasty going to affect British policies on the Continent? I suspect conflict with France is pretty much inevitable; after all, it is France. :p A lot of the world was still up for grabs at that point; whoever replaces the Oranges will have Africa and India to worry about, not to mention the Americas--though demographics are probably on their side in the case of the later.

True, conflict between the two most expansionist powers of the time is probably inevitable, but with a Hanover/Stuart dynasty rather than an Orange one I think the reasoning and tone of the conflict would be far different. As much as the UK distanced its monarchs from the Netherlands, the fact that there was an Orange on the throne in Westminster created a strong tie between the two powers. The UK was in the hunt for an Empire, for certain, but while it had clashed with the Dutch three times before W&M came to power it is telling that relations turned into outright alliances and joint ventures. On the other hand, of course, this also gave the UK a continuing concern on the European mainland and raised France's ire to no end with everything resulting in the century long coalition wars that inevitably pit France and her ever shifting alliances against the UK/Netherlands and their ever shifting alliances and across every continent except Antarctica.

Hanover is 1/10th the importance of the Netherlands and I doubt a Hanoverian line would risk what the Oranges did to keep it safe or be tied to a single nation as they were (which was both a good and a bad thing for them, bad in the First and Third Coalition Wars, good in the Second, Fourth and Fifth).
 
Proud Orangist myself. I'd shudder to think what would have happened had James III become King. Even today, the Stuarts all over the trashy tabloids after they become 'popular' again in the eighties, with their jet set lifestyle and extravagant fêtes at the Palazzo Muti, which the Pope gave the Stuarts as a grace and favor home and which has been honored by his heirs. You can't been up a Euroscope magazine without some dumb story about the Stuart pretenders. It's always something ridiculous, but something you know is true.... like Charles, the son and heir of the present pretender turning up to his wedding to Princess Joséphine of Bourbon-Toscane drunk.

Wilhelmina II isn't perfect, but at least she's sensible. I'll take her over a drunkard for monarch any day.
 
for a start....the house of orange died out of the english throne when the house of hanover took over...so its kinda mute point...
 
Could the Stuarts come back if they stopped being catholic?

I doubt it. The King's Will Be Done doesn't exaggerate their autocratic tendencies by that much. Parliament would write "No Stuart under any circumstances" into law in those terms before letting them back.

OOC: We can refer to alt-history timelines (that would exist in this timeline), right? I'm assuming at least someone would have written "the Stuarts are absolute monarchs and last to this day" style alt-history.
 
Top