English/British Personal Union with Continental State?

I'm not talking about Hannover.

Is it possible at any point for England/Britain (depending on when it all happens) to be dynastically and therefore politically united with any continental European realm and still be English/British-dominated? When I say united, I mean a la Castile and Aragon, Spain and Sicily, that kind of thing, so that England essentially controls continental territory?

For the sake of interest, let's try for Portugal?
 
Do you want the continental state to be English culturaly? Because that will be extremely hard. Or do you just want a personal union between England and an independent country in Europe, which is dominated by England. Because that's relatively easy. I would say that any personal union with a European country except with France, Austria, Spain, Russia and Prussia/Germany would be almost completely dominated by England. But the European country will probably retain a large amount of its own culture, simply because the sea means it will be relatively hard to spread English culture. That said there will be a relatively large amount of English influences. Although it depends on when it happens, if a personal union between the Netherlands and England happens in the 17th century, the Netherlands will have more English cultural influence than if a personal union happens in the late 20th century (somehow).
 
The country in question can retain its own culture; politically, economically, though, it would be ruled from London.
In that case you need to toy a bit with mariages and conveniant deaths and births to gain the personal union you want. To be fair there are another couple of things, like catholisism vs protestantism, countries that didn't exist at the right time (an Anglo-Belgian personal union is for example borderline impossible), etc. Basicly, personal unions happen often accidental. Just make sure the right kind of accidents happen and you get your personal union. For example you want and Anglo-Danish personal union? Look at the time around queen Anne and kill of some relatives of Prince George and have any of their children survive.
 
Not pre-1900, but the current King of Norway (probably not continental but whatever) is 30th in line (last time I checked) to inherit the British Monarchy. Kill off 31 certain people and you have a modern monarchist mess. Where will he rule from, a boat in the North Sea? Maybe the Shetlands? Those Norwegian Scots will be in an interesting situation.
 
Kill off all male children of George II and make them have no offspring, thus handing the Crown to Anne, Princess Royal.

You now have a Queen married to the first hereditary Stadholder of the Netherlands. Their heir will inherit both.
 
An Anglo-Scottish-Norwegian or Anglo-Scottish-Danish-Norwegian personal union isn't all that hard. First option is to have Margaret the Maid of Norway survive to come into her inheritance as Queen of Scotland and go through with the arranged marriage to the future Edward II of England. With her father dying without any other children it provides a potential claim on the throne of Norway that could possibly lead to this timeline's Edward III being King of England, of Scotland, and of Norway, Lord of Ireland, and various territories in France. The second later option is for the future Christian IV of Denmark to die without any heirs so that the arrangements Frederick II put in place for his daughters to inherit the throne if that happened come into force. All you need then is for his daughter Elizabeth of Denmark to likewise die without issue and the throne of Denmark-Norway passes to Anne of Denmark who was married to James VI of Scotland who would later become James I of England, here also becoming co-monarch of Denmark-Norway.

Anglo-Dutch union is also a possibility, I've seen several ideas floating around the board but it's rather late now so I'll see if I can find them later on. IIRC John of Gaunt had some sort of claim on the Spanish throne, much like the English claim on the French throne however the main challenge would be somehow successfully pressing it.
 
Well, since Hannover iOTL wasn't ruled from London, particularly (the British king appointed e.g. a brother as viceroy), why would this other state be?

Because that's not the personal union I was looking for. I was thinking more along the lines of the frequently hypothesised union between Spain and France, where the main country (Britain/England) ends up inheriting the secondary country.
 
... where the main country ... ends up inheriting the secondary country.
The problem is that past a certain point in history with the growth of national sentiment and development of parliaments/somewhat democratic institutions states didn't take over another or have multiple territories come together in a patchwork to form a greater whole like the Habsburgs did with the Austrian Empire any more. Especially for England a personal union is I think the best you can get, the English parliament turned down a proposal by James VI and I in the first decade or so of his reign to join Scotland and England together with a single national parliament and that was with a country they shared the island with. Later on Britain would be leery of any involvement on the continent beyond a personal union for fear of getting dragged into conflicts, just look at how they viewed the Kingdom of Hanover in our timeline.
 
The problem is that past a certain point in history with the growth of national sentiment and development of parliaments/somewhat democratic institutions states didn't take over another or have multiple territories come together in a patchwork to form a greater whole like the Habsburgs did with the Austrian Empire any more. Especially for England a personal union is I think the best you can get, the English parliament turned down a proposal by James VI and I in the first decade or so of his reign to join Scotland and England together with a single national parliament and that was with a country they shared the island with. Later on Britain would be leery of any involvement on the continent beyond a personal union for fear of getting dragged into conflicts, just look at how they viewed the Kingdom of Hanover in our timeline.

I already know how things were in OTL; I'm thinking about how things could be in an ATL. It doesn't matter what the POD is (parliament didn't always have power), or even if England/Britain is protestant. As long as it's recognisably England, the possibilities are limitless.
 
How about OTL. Throughout the Georgian era from the ascension of George I to the British throne to the ascension of Victoria in 1837 Britain was in a Personal Union with Hannover. In practise Hannover had minimal British interference in it's internal affairs and culturally it was no more British influenced than anywhere else in Protestant north Germany, i.e. somewhat but not a lot. The actual government of Hannover was carried out by a combination of the Privy Council of Hannover and occasional Regents who were generally members of the Royal Family, e.g. Prince Frederick.
 
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