DBWI: Unified Britain?

[theSmartPenguin23]

It may seem a bit far fetched, knowing the tumultuous history of the island, but is there any chance that Great Britain could be an independent unified state, and if so, how could they change history?

Right now it is hard to imagine Britain as anything different than it currently is. The three kingdoms of Mercia, Wessex and Anglia, forever spiteful to the "Danish invaders" in the form of Jorvik occupying their northern lands, even in the 21st century. The Welsh with their republic and of course those Gaelic dogs, Alba. All of it across the sea from the Irish (although we will leave them out for this one). These lot have fought themselves and each other so much it is hard to say when you would need a POD to have a unified island. Could it be done peacefully?

(OOC - inspired by this Reddit post, where the Vikings never left and established a permanent kingdom in north England, and also where the English never unified |

https://www.reddit.com/r/imaginarymaps/comments/mnc8uk

)

 

[Venetian Doge]

Perhaps if William the Conqueror hadn't died from an illness, he might be able to get a decent grasp on at least southern Britain? I know he had a lot of potential to be the next "warrior-king" back in the medieval era.

 

[RedKing]

A united Britain is borderline ASB IMO. The Welsh and Irish are to anti-Anglo-Saxon to agree to be ruled by one of them and vice versa. Scotland has pretty much always been a de-facto vassal of Norway too. It’s too big of a stretch to work without a POD in the Roman Era.

 

[AltoRegnant]

Frankly, wwhy bother? Wessex, the most populated part of the island, has always favored dealing on the channel and conquered the low countries, which also pulls it away from the rest. Scotland only gained independence from Norway after the collapse of the Empire in the 1740s, same as Irland. Mercia and Anglia both fell into massive poverty and inability to expand with the age of exploration, becoming backwaters as countries with coastlines in better position took over. Jorvik is your best bet, but you need them to not fall into union with Denmark.

 

[Victoria]

Maybe Alfred of Wessex and his descendants are more successful and manage to conquer Mercia, Anglia and Jorvik. Once the rule of the house of Wessex is consolidated and all the Anglo-Saxons are in the same kingdom, one of Alfred's successors (maybe an ATL version of Edward the Fierce) can focus on conquering the rest of the Island.

 

[Harry_Z_Trumen]

Perhaps if William the Conqueror hadn't died from an illness, he might be able to get a decent grasp on at least southern Britain? I know he had a lot of potential to be the next "warrior-king" back in the medieval era.

Who is William the Conqueror? Is he any relation to William the Bastard of Normandy? I know he attempted an invasion of southern Britain... or am I confusing him with another William?

 

[Migrant_Coconut]

This one's a tough one - England and Denland are pretty much immovable past the turn of the millennium. Maybe if the Danelaw collapses earlier?

 

[Epsilon Tauri]

I think this could happen if the Vikings are more powerful. Jorvik and the Norwegian territories might unite against the south, and together they stand a chance to conquer them, especially early on. If Jorvik-Alba could take over Mercia, Wessex, Wales, and Anglia, that's the scenario fulfilled.

 

[AltoRegnant]

I think this could happen if the Vikings are more powerful. Jorvik and the Norwegian territories might unite against the south, and together they stand a chance to conquer them, especially early on. If Jorvik-Alba could take over Mercia, Wessex, Wales, and Anglia, that's the scenario fulfilled.

considering from 950 onward Scotland is a province of Norway until 1743 I think this fails the "independent" part.
if King Karl of Jorvik hadn't died without an heir, his incursions into Mercia could succeed though, you're right

 

[PNWKing]

Norway's largest automaker Magna wouldn't have those large assembly plants in Dunedin and Glasgow.

 

[Plmd]

What if Wessew is able to secure everything south of the Thames River before the Viking invasion, that makes them significantly stronger which could mean they're able to beat back the Great Viking Army, this would in turn force Guthrum 'the Splendid' to secure the rest of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, instead of conquering Wessex and Anglia and calling it a day. Later, a descendent of Guthrum could conquer Wessex, maybe using internal divisions.

 

[Kevin C. Smith]

You have two chances of this happening:
1) Everybody leaves the island alone long enough for someone-anyone-to come to dominate the island. Then that domination has to solidify into control long enough to build a defensible, unitary nation. Or,
2) Someone invades with a large enough force to sweep everyone before them and set up the necessary state/national apparatus on their own. This would have to be imposed until such time as it is accepted at the normal.

But, stuck between two land powers on the island (the Welsh and the Gaels) and two powers that can come across the sea ( the Danes and the Franks), I am afraid that the only realistic scenario is that they are forever doomed to fighting amongst themselves, while occupying an international free fire zone for whoever wants to attack across their lands in order to reach one of the other powers.

Edit: Theoretically, they could "pull a Poland" and establish a strong, defensible, stable state while surrounded by powerful (and often hostile) neighbors. But...really, what were the odds that they would repeat the ability of the Poles to, firstly, establish a strong enough navy to hold off overseas invasion (like the Poles vs the Swedes); co-opt their enemies on one side (like the Poles did, making the Heir to the Throne into the Prince of Prussia); and finally stumbling into a Personal Union that could later become an Act of Union (like Poland and Russia). Something like that was impossible enough in the first place. It will not happen twice.

And, don't worry about the Irish. If a Unified Britain ever were to come about, they would deal with the "Irish Ulcer" in short order-once and for all.

 

[AltoRegnant]

But, stuck between two land powers on the island (the Welsh and the Gaels) and two powers that can come across the sea ( the Danes and the Franks), I am afraid that the only realistic scenario is that they are forever doomed to fighting amongst themselves, while occupying an international free fire zone for whoever wants to attack across their lands in order to reach one of the other powers.

In fairness, Wessex, especially since they inherited Flanders and conquered the rest of the lowlands later on, were able to hold naval parity with the French in the Channel; the 1530 invasion (the last to take London) required the Danes and France both to distract them.

Personally, I think that you need to find a reason for Wessex to do so, but that they'd be easily capable if Jorvik and Norway were distracted

 

[Mooze17]

Why are so many people referring to Alba as “Scotland”? You guys do realize that’s a term invented by the Norwegians who occupied them and they hate being called that, right? Regardless, any kind of British unification is pretty ASB, Britain has always been made up of divided states and its various ethnic groups have rarely gotten along, even in the 21st century. Regardless the motives of this thread are pretty clear considering how full of Anti Celtic racism it is, Albans are certainly not “dogs”, and referring to the Irish as an “ulcer” that would be “dealt with once and for all” in short order in a unified Britain (again, how blatant can you get in your nationalist fantasies?) is something I shouldn’t have to explain in terms of badness.

Frankly, wwhy bother? Wessex, the most populated part of the island, has always favored dealing on the channel and conquered the low countries, which also pulls it away from the rest. Scotland only gained independence from Norway after the collapse of the Empire in the 1740s, same as Irland. Mercia and Anglia both fell into massive poverty and inability to expand with the age of exploration, becoming backwaters as countries with coastlines in better position took over. Jorvik is your best bet, but you need them to not fall into union with Denmark.

Also, although the thing with Eire is technically correct, the way it’s presented here is very misleading. Eire only fell into a personal union with Norway around 2 decades before the war, and it was the attempts to integrate it that caused the war of independence in the first place. Presenting it as them “only” gaining independence then in a way like this which implies they were always a insignificant Norwegian dominated backwater is very misleading, and ignores the large Irish colonial empire in the New World.

 

[GrandMaster]

It would probably collapse under its own weight, but, if done correctly, the entire unification process would last anywhere from 500 to 1,000 years. The individual kingdoms would start out as individual kingdoms, but over time, all power would be centralized under one monarch.

 

[Chercha]

Who would have expected Spain to last? Divided into various kingdoms for over a millenium, seemingly doomed to eternal division between christian, muslim and jew, between cosmopolitan bourgeois Andalusia and conservative pastoral Castile, between Mediterranean Aragon and Atlantic Galicia, only to become a federal republic encompassing all of Iberia two centuries ago. Anyone would have called you mad if you had predicted all of Iberia would fall under one flag until it actually happened. Why could the same not apply to Britain? Frankly if anyone can hold old Britannia Prima and the Thames valley long enough, they ought to be able to overwhelm much of Britain economically and demographically. The only reason Wessex didn't is because it's an Anglosaxon tail wagging a Netherlandic dog and the latter did not want to deal with Anglian and Mercian merchants becoming serious competition within a Wessex state. And that's of course not to mention Britannicist unificational movements in mimicry of aforementioned Spain, Bavaria or Saxony.

 

[AltoRegnant]

Why are so many people referring to Alba as “Scotland”?

I'm from New Galicia, so I didn't know it was an issue. Sorry.

Presenting it as them “only” gaining independence then in a way like this which implies they were always a insignificant Norwegian dominated backwater is very misleading, and ignores the large Irish colonial empire in the New World.

most of the Irish Colonial Empire was a money sink except for the Caribbean colonies. The profitable ones had the larger Norwegian settlement and thusly fought for Oslo. Hell. Dublin barely ran the continental colonies until the O'Meath Restoration War and the new monarchy thoroughly pissed off said colonies to the point of their own independence wars.

 

[Mooze17]

most of the Irish Colonial Empire was a money sink except for the Caribbean colonies. The profitable ones had the larger Norwegian settlement and thusly fought for Oslo. Hell. Dublin barely ran the continental colonies until the O'Meath Restoration War and the new monarchy thoroughly pissed off said colonies to the point of their own independence wars.

Oh yeah, that’s common historical fact, not disputing you there. The North American colonies, apart from the Caribbean, WERE a pretty massive money sink thanks to the strong local interests that arose from the patchwork nature of early Irish colonization, as a massive mess of interconnected clans, colonial interests, and landed plantation owners is kind of hard to tax effectively, especially when they are used to high levels of autonomy from the mainland. That’s why they where able to break away and form the Confederation of Hy-Brasil/Cónaidhm Hy-Brasil so easily in the first place. I was only disputing the implied characterization of Ireland as being always dominated by Norway before that when that wasn’t really the case, since that’s a surprisingly common historical misconception.

Speaking of which, I think if you want a United Britain your pretty much required to break Scandinavian power in Great Britain before it can establish true footholds. Perhaps smaller numbers of Scandinavian settlers come to Jorvik for some reason and the smaller number of colonists get assimilated by the locals like the Norse Gaels did in Ireland and Alba before the latter resurgence of Norwegian power in Alba?

 

[TimTurner]

What would happen to France if Britain had unified?

 

[AltoRegnant]

What would happen to France if Britain had unified?

A wesexian Britain would be a pain in France's ass, since even wessex and the netherland were a naval peer, let alone something like the whole of Britain (especially if they took the dutch over).

A Jorvikian Britain would be their best friend, since it would help them compete with Denmark and Norway (if the latter was still able to be a major power)