English-speaking polity on the Continent?

English-speaking polity in Europe?
Frisia, as in:
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Could Hanover eventually become more Anglicised?
Maybe if it is even more connected with Britain and English becomes some sort of lingua franca. Maybe English professionals, officiers and traders are send there during the Personal Union era to restructure Hanover's infrastructure, military and organisatin. Maybe a significant portion of Englishmen in the towns and British educated Hanoveran citizens.
 
Speaking as a geologist, a continent doesn't stop at a damp bit. The British Isles are not a separate tectonic plate.

Speaking as a student of language, words mean what people use them to mean. The "Continent" means the parts of Europe that aren't the British Isles.
 
Maybe a continued close cultural, diplomatic, economic and military bound between continental Saxons and Anglaise Saxons remains so strong, that they see themselve as one. Maybe they are rather converted to Christianity by English Saxons rather than by Charlemagne's Franks. Maybe they aid the English against Danish rule. Also Normannic conquest fails , so no French overlordship over Saxon England. English princes intermarry with Saxon nobles on eegular basis and their houses are highly connected by marriage bounds. ATL "English" is spoken by Saxons wherever they settle and have a distiguished identety from later Germans.

Not implausible in my opinion. English the language is actually descended from Anglish, the language of the Angles and they of course melded with the Saxons to become the Anglo-Saxons who etc etc.
 
Gibraltar is an island off the coast.

Nope, it's on the mainland, and commands that giant monolith of a mountain known to the Romans and all that guards the Mediterranean's outlet to the Atlantic.

I feel bad for forgetting the Ionian Islands as a potential Anglo place in Europe. Cyprus too might work.
 
Crimea?
The medieval 'New England': a forgotten Anglo-Saxon colony on the north-eastern Black Sea coast
Although the name 'New England' is now firmly associated with the east coast of America, this is not the first place to be called that. In the medieval period there was another Nova Anglia, 'New England', and it lay far to the east of England, rather than to the west, in the area of the Crimean peninsula. The following post examines some of the evidence relating to this colony, which was said to have been established by Anglo-Saxon exiles after the Norman conquest of 1066 and seems to have survived at least as late as the thirteenth century.
***
The Edwardsaga states that whilst some of the exiled Anglo-Saxons accepted the offer of joining the Varangian Guard, some members of the group asked instead for a place to settle and rule themselves...

Needless to say, the description of New England as lying 'across the sea in the east and north-east from Micklegarth' suggests that the lands that Alexius gave to the English exiles lay somewhere in the region of the Crimean peninsula. This is supported by the sailing time specified too, as the fourth-century AD 'Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax' estimates six days' and nights' sail as the length of the sea-journey from Constantinople to the western tip of the Crimean peninsula. Such agreement in these incidental details is, of course, interesting. So the question becomes, is there any other supporting evidence for the establishment of a 'New England' in the region of the Crimea by the Anglo-Saxon exiles who travelled to the Byzantine Empire in the late eleventh century?

Perhaps surprisingly, the answer to this question is a 'yes', as Jonathan Shepard has demonstrated in another important article.(6) First, there is evidence that the Byzantine Empire did indeed see a restoration of its authority in the Crimean peninsula and Sea of Azov area at the turn of the eleventh century, possibly after a brief period of Turkish influence there. Such certainly seems to be implied in the letters of Theophylact of Ohrid (d. c. 1107) to Gregory Taronites, and a contemporary eulogy of Manuel Straboromanus to Alexius I Comnenus alludes to his restoration of Byzantine influence in the north-east of the Black Sea by the Cimmerian Bosporus (the modern Kerch Strait on the east of the Crimean peninsula, leading to the Sea of Azov).(7)
 
What exactly does "culturally English" mean????
What defines it?
I´m somewhat at a loss here, although I lived in England for a year.
Denmark and Norway traditionally maintain very close relations to Britain. There`s little chance of their switching to English language-wise, but if that isn`t your main focus, then I suggest you look into this possibility?
 

Deleted member 97083

Crimea?
The medieval 'New England': a forgotten Anglo-Saxon colony on the north-eastern Black Sea coast
Although the name 'New England' is now firmly associated with the east coast of America, this is not the first place to be called that. In the medieval period there was another Nova Anglia, 'New England', and it lay far to the east of England, rather than to the west, in the area of the Crimean peninsula. The following post examines some of the evidence relating to this colony, which was said to have been established by Anglo-Saxon exiles after the Norman conquest of 1066 and seems to have survived at least as late as the thirteenth century.
***
The Edwardsaga states that whilst some of the exiled Anglo-Saxons accepted the offer of joining the Varangian Guard, some members of the group asked instead for a place to settle and rule themselves...

Needless to say, the description of New England as lying 'across the sea in the east and north-east from Micklegarth' suggests that the lands that Alexius gave to the English exiles lay somewhere in the region of the Crimean peninsula. This is supported by the sailing time specified too, as the fourth-century AD 'Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax' estimates six days' and nights' sail as the length of the sea-journey from Constantinople to the western tip of the Crimean peninsula. Such agreement in these incidental details is, of course, interesting. So the question becomes, is there any other supporting evidence for the establishment of a 'New England' in the region of the Crimea by the Anglo-Saxon exiles who travelled to the Byzantine Empire in the late eleventh century?

Perhaps surprisingly, the answer to this question is a 'yes', as Jonathan Shepard has demonstrated in another important article.(6) First, there is evidence that the Byzantine Empire did indeed see a restoration of its authority in the Crimean peninsula and Sea of Azov area at the turn of the eleventh century, possibly after a brief period of Turkish influence there. Such certainly seems to be implied in the letters of Theophylact of Ohrid (d. c. 1107) to Gregory Taronites, and a contemporary eulogy of Manuel Straboromanus to Alexius I Comnenus alludes to his restoration of Byzantine influence in the north-east of the Black Sea by the Cimmerian Bosporus (the modern Kerch Strait on the east of the Crimean peninsula, leading to the Sea of Azov).(7)
The first Brexit.
 
Hmm.

I think Frisia/Flanders/Aquitaine are probably your best bets - but a lot of that will come down to demographics, and a significant change in English thinking at the various times.

Lets say the 100 Years war leads to a Partition - Britain gets Normandy, Paris, Western and Northern France, with Burgundy getting SE and Eastern France. Whilst Aquitaine and the Greater Pale are ruled by the English King of England and France, because is close to the Burgundian border, and surrounded by less pacified French Lords (slightly assisted in their unpacified nature by HRE actors). To secure the regions, English settlers are encouraged. All as free men, with authority over enclosures manned by French serfs, with a Royal Sheriff in place of a Duke. English settlers dominate in towns and cities and generally do very well, in new quarters of these towns and cities that their wealth is lavished on.

French troops are basically used as front-line levies, whilst the English are generally well armoured, as either Longbowmen, or 2nd Rank men-at-arms. (Sort of like the old Roman system of Hastati, Principes and Triarri). Meanwhile, English peasants are encouraged to sign up, since there is land going if you join the army (in France), or at least better pay (The land coming from confiscation from French lords and criminals), and French crop yields in the used to subsidise towns in England, and English quarters in France.

Eventually the English and Burgundians come to blows, and whilst there are some French defectors, overall the English have a stronger force than the Bugundians. This does bring Burgundy under control, but as a vassal, with the only land directly under English control is in Frisia. The process here (and in Aquitaine/Gascony) is gentler than in the rest of Continental Britain. English settlers come in, but generally as equals rather than higher-class, leading to a more hybrid culture, that speaks English.

Eventually (due perhaps to a religious war, or a split between the church on the Continent and in England - Protestant England but Catholic English France?) the Empire breaks apart - normalising relations between the local communities and English settlers, but trade with England and each other is still important, so they keep it as a lingua franca. These ties hold together even later during the colonial period, where they emigrate to English colonies - but you have Anglo-Gascon, Anglo-Frisian, and Calais Pale communities that all speak English, with the wealthier communities having similar cultural influences as English in England (mainly due to trade and common exposure).

Its a bit slap-dash, but there you go :) Not 1, not 2, but 3 smaller English-Speaking Continental polities. :)
 
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