Greater England

For Scotland, try starting way back, with a decisive Northumbrian win at Nectansmere in 685.
 
Henry BII used the future Welsh flag as his battle standard. He considered himself Welsh and he was fighting against mostly-English forces.

He was fighting against the quasi-legitimate king of England, of course he's going to be facing mostly English forces.

And I'm not sure him considering himself Welsh means given that his claim to England (in any sense not based on myth) is as English as his opponent.
 
He was fighting against the quasi-legitimate king of England, of course he's going to be facing mostly English forces.

And I'm not sure him considering himself Welsh means given that his claim to England (in any sense not based on myth) is as English as his opponent.

Henry VII was using Breton and Welsh forces against English forces. He was fighting under the future Welsh flag, He was Welsh. He had a claim to the English throne. What is the problem with Wales conquering England?
 
Henry VII was using Breton and Welsh forces against English forces. He was fighting under the future Welsh flag, He was Welsh. He had a claim to the English throne. What is the problem with Wales conquering England?

The difference between a half-Welsh/half English lord seizing the throne of England with the help of some number of Welshmen and a Welsh prince of an independent Wales taking over England.

The latter would be "Wales conquering England". The former? Is no more Welsh conquest of England than Falkirk was a victory for Wales.

I'm not saying Welshmen were irrelevant to British history, but Wales, as a state, was pretty minor. And Henry Tudor is not an exception.
 
Really more the kind of stuff that didn't happen by virtue of the Treaty, which preserved the whole apparatus of Scottish law, education, and religion headquarters at Edinburgh.

Huh.


You're on my list of people to brain-pick when my just-started timeline hits England and Scotland now, if you don't mind. My ignorance is showing too clearly to rely on the scraps I do have any idea on.

DrTron said:
I agree with that, but the Welsh did many things that was unlikely for some people in a small land.

No argument there. No intent to slight those accomplishments was intended in the description of Wales as minor.
 
Ireland's harder, mind. Preventing the "Old English" (who were Anglo-Norman, though there were a few Irish Saxons) from becoming more Irish than the Irish probably requires no Black Death.

Where'd the Irish Saxons come from? There are some Irish historical documents pre-1066 talking about how the kings should join together to fight Saxons, but I wasn't aware if they'd ever managed to get any territory in Ireland.
 
Where'd the Irish Saxons come from? There are some Irish historical documents pre-1066 talking about how the kings should join together to fight Saxons, but I wasn't aware if they'd ever managed to get any territory in Ireland.

I meant settlers in Ireland who were "Anglo-English" long before the plantations, but they arrived as settlers under the Hiberno-Normans - with the ubiquitous Flemings mixed in, too. Sorry: my phrasing was rather cryptic, I know
 
Huh.

You're on my list of people to brain-pick when my just-started timeline hits England and Scotland now, if you don't mind. My ignorance is showing too clearly to rely on the scraps I do have any idea on.

No trouble. :) I like to think I'm pretty grounded in my native country's history, though I certainly wouldn't describe you as ignorant.

To expand on what I said, the Union kept intact the separate Scottish system of law and courts (which survives to this day: we have 15-person criminal juries and 3 verdicts, although even a lot of Scots don't actually know this), the education system (ferociously Presbyterian, but rather more effective than its English counterpart; it, too, survives today), and most importantly at that time, the I-can't-believe-it's-not-established kirk.

We weren't to be autonomous as everything was now to be legislated on by Westminster - although the Scottish MPs were in the 18th century something of a parliament under the same roof, and Scotland was in the pre-railway era run by some powerful landowner (even a landowner and clan chief earlier on) who controlled patronage and used it to deliver lots of corrupt seats to the governments - but the expectation from our side was that nothing was going to be drastically changed.

That of course didn't last long: the Tories got in and raised hackles by trying to induce us to tolerate prelatery and pay a tax on malt, among other things, which led to a brief scare about both violent and parliamentary assaults on Union; then the Whigs got back in and imposed English-level taxation, which led to the Scotland of endemic smuggling and tax-riots in which so much adventury literature has been set. But as we've seen, kirk, schools and universities, and courts continued to be Scottish systems based in Scotland.
 
No trouble. :) I like to think I'm pretty grounded in my native country's history, though I certainly wouldn't describe you as ignorant.

Very flattering of you, but this is definitely an area I'm feeling "the more you know, the more you realize you don't know" for me.

To expand on what I said, the Union kept intact the separate Scottish system of law and courts (which survives to this day: we have 15-person criminal juries and 3 verdicts, although even a lot of Scots don't actually know this), the education system (ferociously Presbyterian, but rather more effective than its English counterpart; it, too, survives today), and most importantly at that time, the I-can't-believe-it's-not-established kirk.

Scotland the theocratic?

We weren't to be autonomous as everything was now to be legislated on by Westminster - although the Scottish MPs were in the 18th century something of a parliament under the same roof, and Scotland was in the pre-railway era run by some powerful landowner (even a landowner and clan chief earlier on) who controlled patronage and used it to deliver lots of corrupt seats to the governments - but the expectation from our side was that nothing was going to be drastically changed.

That of course didn't last long: the Tories got in and raised hackles by trying to induce us to tolerate prelatery and pay a tax on malt, among other things, which led to a brief scare about both violent and parliamentary assaults on Union; then the Whigs got back in and imposed English-level taxation, which led to the Scotland of endemic smuggling and riots in which so much adventury literature has been set.
Interesting, but not necessarily good, times.
 
Scotland the theocratic?

Definitely yes, a reputation that we retained into the 20th century, although we did calm down a bit. But in the 17th century, it was not merely Scotland the theocratic but Scotland the hilly clan-ridden land of beardy misogynists with fiery religious convictions engaged in lengthy internicine insurgencies. Hum. :p
 
This Greater England could be possible if The Anglo-Saxons had conqured Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The reason Ireland and Scotland are so different is because they were never conqured by the Romans and the Anglo-Saxons. This is why the Scottish and Irish are more Celtic than English. Had they've been conquered by the Anglo-Saxons, they would have been incorpartaion in Germanic culture and more alike their English brothers. The fact that the Irish and Scottish had a very different past and cultures made it extremley difficult for these nations to be ruled by England. Which is why they resisted English domination. The United Kingdom is a bad example of a Greater England because England does not entirely rule Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. Each are practically independent united under one government, leader and Protestantism.;)
 
Definitely yes, a reputation that we retained into the 20th century, although we did calm down a bit. But in the 17th century, it was not merely Scotland the theocratic but Scotland the hilly clan-ridden land of beardy misogynists with fiery religious convictions engaged in lengthy internicine insurgencies. Hum. :p

Something else to remember was the price for the Scots supporting Parliament in the 1st English Civil War was the adoption by England of a uniform religious confession based around Scots Presbyterianism.

We / they (mixed Scotish / English identity kicking in there :) ) reneged on the argreement of course and conquered the Scots when they threw their lot in with Charles I in Civil War Mk2.

But it wasn't entirely impossible for Scotland and England's religious institutions to be much more closely aligned. A surviving Edward IV would probably lead to a very similar religious set up in England as the Kirk in Scotland (and a very different Civil War if it happens at all - the Bishop's War wouldn't kick it all off after all?)
 
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