I have posited this question before, but why didn't French or Anglo-Norman French become the dominant spoken language in England after the Norman Conquest and subsequent Plantagenet kings. With ties to the Continent, why didn't England and Scotland gradually become predominantly French-speaking? I understand that the Black Death and the Hundred Year's War had a lot to do with Middle English becoming more popular as a spoken language among the aristocracy. Nonetheless, why didn't these people just speak a variant of Anglo-Norman French with a strong English substrate with differing dialects across the island? What would the POD have to be to see the Anglic languages marginalized as spoken languages in England and Scotland? Was spoken English inevitable?