Dear all;
After a rather well received synopsis of "For the Sake of a Shower" in my student newspaper (spoilers, so I'm not going to post) I've been asked to do another one for our weekly alternate history column (yes, the LSE is really that cool!) Alas, while the editor liked my typical "montage of books and newspaper articles" she did ask me to submit future ones as a more conventional mini-essay. So, what do you think of this one? It can't be more than 500 words so please bear that in mind when you comment.
Thanks chaps, I would really like some feedback from you all.
After a rather well received synopsis of "For the Sake of a Shower" in my student newspaper (spoilers, so I'm not going to post) I've been asked to do another one for our weekly alternate history column (yes, the LSE is really that cool!) Alas, while the editor liked my typical "montage of books and newspaper articles" she did ask me to submit future ones as a more conventional mini-essay. So, what do you think of this one? It can't be more than 500 words so please bear that in mind when you comment.
Thanks chaps, I would really like some feedback from you all.
What if...?
The Gunpowder Plot had Succeeded?
The destruction of the Houses of Parliament by the Catholic conspirators led by Robert Catesby would have resulted in far more deaths than that of King James, Queen Anne, Prince Henry and the MPs and Peers unlucky enough to have been caught in the blast, indeed, it is very likely that such a wave of anti-Catholicism would have been created as to render the atrocities seen in our own timeline as being relatively benign.
Charles Stuart would have become King at the tender age of four, like his father, he would no doubt have been brought up a strict Protestant and, taught by his tutors to despise the hated papists who had killed his martyred mother and father, would most certainly not have become the Anglo-Catholic that he developed into during his childhood. Thus, the English Civil War would not have occurred in any remotely recognisable form. Instead, with the sympathy that would be given to a young, orphaned monarch, his regents and later on, the King himself, would feel more than justified in ensuring the eradication of Catholicism from Great Britain. The evangelical Presbyterian that Charles would have become would be assured of far more popular support from the Scots and therefore, with the Catholic powers of Europe limited in their response due to common sympathy, the purging of “papist elements” from the mainland would be very likely, as would brutal repression in Ireland, perhaps led by troops under a slightly different Yeoman from Huntingdon.
Therefore, rather than the gradual development of parliamentary democracy, the Stuart dynasty would have developed into an absolute monarchy akin to that seen in Sweden and dynastic ties would have been created accordingly. Married into the Protestant powers of central Europe, Great Britain would have been far more involved in the great wars of religion far more than she was in our own Thirty Years’ War. The effects that this would have on the British constitution is difficult to say, but it is possible that, without reform and with power vested in a single figure rather than parliament, revolution may have resulted in the toppling of the hypothetical King Henry X in 1780.
A true “British Revolution” rather than the coup d’etat headed by William III, would be a natural result of an absolute monarchy unable to reform itself. Indeed, regardless of this, without representative democracy of some description leading to the enlightened attitudes that produced the like of Adam Smith and John Locke, the development of Britain as a global power would be limited. With an absolute monarchy, there would be no British Empire, no spinning jenny, no seed drill. Britain would remain the nation she had remained under the Tudors, a great naval power perhaps, but unable to become a superpower. Instead, the 17th and 18th Centuries would belong to France and Spain, perhaps united under something akin to the real life Catholic League, after all, with no great Protestant power, who would be able stop them?
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