King Ernest (1840 to ????)

TruthfulPanda

Gone Fishin'
Another point for William of Wurttemberg: He was call "Nestor among the princes of Europe" for his dealings between Russia and France during the Crimean War. What is not more epic title then 'Britannia's Nestor'?
Hmm - aren't we fifteen years before the Crimean War?
 
I am putting the finishing touches on June 11th and hopefully it should be up on Tuesday at the latest - in which a few more people are placed onto the stage that I would imagine will have a significant role to play going forward.

And the (first in our timeline, but likely not the last) meeting between Lord Melbourne and Thomas Peronnet Thompson.

I would imagine that for the fortnight that Britain would be "without" a monarch whilst Ernest is informed and travels to London, the Duke of Sussex would be the de facto Regent.
 
I'm struggling to get everything down in the instalments so will provide the rough framework that I was going to use going forward...

1840

Edward Oxford shoots Queen Victoria - she dies meaning the crown transfers to her uncle, Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland and the King of Hanover.

However it will take at least a fortnight for Ernest to be informed and travel to London, and for that period the government wields almost absolute power despite the Duke of Sussex being nominal Regent.

Thomas Peronnet Thompson approaches the Prime Minister about disqualifying from the line of succession. Melbourne refuses even though he knows Ernest will be an awful monarch.

Peel - the Leader of the Opposition - also refuses though he's more open to the idea.

Prince Albert and the Dowager Duchess of Kent make plans to move from Buckingham Palace to Claremont House in anticipation of Ernests arrival - neither like him.

Leopold, King of Belgium, arrives to help comfort his sister and nephew at Claremont House.

Ernest finally arrives in London and claims the crown - having left his blind son, Prince George, as Viceroy in Hanover - he doesn't wish to install the Duke of Cambridge as Viceroy again because his brother is more charismatic and he worries Hanover might remove him from the throne and install the Duke of Cambridge.

Instead he recalls the Governor of Canada, Lord Sydenham, and sends Adolphus and his family to fill that position instead.

He deals with the Duke of Sussex by sending him to France to act as Ambassador to the French Court of Louis Phillipe.

Ernest tries to exert authority in Parliament (over amendments to the 1829 Catholic Relief Act and an increase to the crown allowance) and the Commons pushes back, but in order to get his own way, he creates peers who will vote how he wants them to. Melbourne protests but the protests are futile.

Peel and Melbourne argue in Parliament, with the unbalance in the Lords making a continuation of Melbourne's ministry untenable. Melbourne resigns and the Home Secretary, Constantine Phipps, Viscount Normanby becomes PM.

Phipps is rather more cautious about challenging Ernest than Melbourne was, and subsequently the monarch begins to regain powers.

With the appointment of a new Prime Minister, a General Election is called and politicians split into two factions - either Ernestinian or not-Ernestinian (called The Kings Party and The British Party).

Melbourne has left the country and the leading figure in the not-Ernestinians is Thomas Peronnet Thompson. However, Thompson is assassinated whilst at a rally in Manchester and all clues point towards Ernest being responsible in that matter.

Phipps continues to meander as Ernests puppet and crown immunity is implied, Ernest doesn't even really bother denying that he orchestrated the assassination.

Drummond, Melbournes private secretary until his resignation, becomes the leading anti-Ernestinian figure and decides he will approach Ernests sister Princess Sophia about supporting their cause - as he was instructed that she held information that would help smear Ernest.

This revelation would involve her admission of the parentage of Thomas Garth which had heretofore been only rumoured. This would smear the whole royal family if revealed as it would implicate that they knew about it and covered it up.

Meanwhile, Melbourne, out of guilt for the explosive state of British politics has taken up Thompsons cause and has approached William of Wurttemberg at taking on the British crown in return for supporting the coup against Ernest (he bypasses the Brunswicks because they are either unpopular or unsuitable - Charles abdicated, William is unliked, and immediate royal family) - and in France, the Duke of Sussex is revealed to have found the (nation) are supporting a movement to overthrow Ernest and George in Hanover but chooses to remain silent on the matter.

Note: One idea that I was considering but was unsure on how to implement would have been a 'League of Extraordinary Victorians' - including Ada Lovelace, Charles Dickens, Isambard Kingdom Brunel that would have sided with the Anti-Ernestinians.
 
Last edited:
Finished at the gym now [am in training for a race on Saturday] - and have a few points to add ...

1) The coup against King Ernest would take place in 1841, would have succeeded and William of Wurttemberg would have been crowned King William V. Melbourne would have been invited to resume his post as Prime Minister - but he refuses the role on a permanent basis, but holds together a provisional government until a General Election, and Drummond is made Prime Minister. The powers of the monarchy to appoint peers is removed - and hereditary peers can only sit in the Lords for the first generation ("Power to the people ...").

2) France would have backed/financed the coup and provided troops in exchange for installing the Duke of Nemours as King of Hanover and an adjustment to the Act of Settlement allowing marriage to a Catholic without the person loosing place in the line of succession - though those in the line of succession itself could not be Catholic.

3) The Duke of Cambridge refuses to take part in any coup against his brother and declares Canada independant with the backing of the United States. There is a brief skirmish but Britain and William V cannot put up a significant fight and the Duke of Cambridge is declared as King Frederick of Canada, and his son made Crown Prince.

4) William betrothes his son, Charles, who has been made Prince of Wales, to Princess Clementine of France in 1842 despite a six year age gap (she is older) - and they have five children. Charles becomes King Alexander in 1864.

5) The Duke of Nemours has a long reign in Hanover, eventually being succeeded by his son Gaston (even if in name only given Hanover is absorbed into the German Empire)
 
I've little to offer on the ins and outs of who should be King, and I don't want to disrupt a timeline in progress, but there are some pretty terrible notions of Victorian Britain being kicked about here.

Firstly, can we please put to bed the idea that "never, under any circumstances" would there be a republic or a republican movement in Britain? Republicanism was a vibrant part of radical discourse in Britain in the Victorian period, particularly involving characters like Charles Dilke and Charles Bradlaugh, who were vocal and influential. It is also worth noting that in none of the countries that became a republic in the c19th and early c20th was there a large body of people who considered themselves "republicans" before political crisis took hold. In France in 1848, for example, there was a republican movement but this was a minority that garnered public support during and after the fact. Its unimaginative alt-history to look at what existed, where a stable political system made republicanism a fringe issue, and read from that the idea that Britain was somehow genetically opposed to republicanism.

Secondly, people seem to be forgetting how politically volatile the UK is during this period. The 1830s and 1840s are the high point of Chartism. You have the Swing and Rebecca Riots in the countryside. Cities like Manchester, Liverpool, and London are swelling with migrants from the countryside and abroad and seething about their lack of political rights and representation. It was a tinderbox that Victoria's early reign was somewhat lucky to survive, so don't underestimate the idea that like in many revolutions you might plan for a smooth "Glorious Revolution" style takeover but that this would rapidly get out of hand.

Thirdly, I've not seen a lot of talk about Parliament in this thread so far. Please remember that this is a point where the Commons is growing in strength and impact and is going to work (in centuries old tradition) to limit the powers of any monarch on the throne. This was a general feeling that was shared among many Parliamentarians at the time - there was a deep distrust and anxiety about a powerful monarchy that was equated with the sort of tyranny the Victorians believed held sway in Europe. It is hard to imagine any Parliament easily ceding power to the monarch, not least because they control the budget without which no Monarch could effectively govern.

Just a few contextual thoughts.
 
What about offering the throne to Ernest’s son Prince George with him marrying his cousin Princess Augusta of Cambridge, OTL Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz

From what I've read, George of Cumberland and Hanover was just as reactionary and antagonistic towards Parliament as his father so would be just as undesirable - plus if the situation regarding Princess Sophia comes out and implicates the whole of the immediate royal family in knowing about it and hushing it up, the government might chose to bypass it entirely.

He'd have failed to secure Hanover during the French invasion, which would have split his father's forces as they tried to defend the Hanoverian crown. But George was 20, inexperienced, difficult at the best of times and blind which had called his suitability as heir to Hanover into question previously.

I've little to offer on the ins and outs of who should be King, and I don't want to disrupt a timeline in progress, but there are some pretty terrible notions of Victorian Britain being kicked about here.

Firstly, can we please put to bed the idea that "never, under any circumstances" would there be a republic or a republican movement in Britain? Republicanism was a vibrant part of radical discourse in Britain in the Victorian period, particularly involving characters like Charles Dilke and Charles Bradlaugh, who were vocal and influential. It is also worth noting that in none of the countries that became a republic in the c19th and early c20th was there a large body of people who considered themselves "republicans" before political crisis took hold. In France in 1848, for example, there was a republican movement but this was a minority that garnered public support during and after the fact. Its unimaginative alt-history to look at what existed, where a stable political system made republicanism a fringe issue, and read from that the idea that Britain was somehow genetically opposed to republicanism.

Secondly, people seem to be forgetting how politically volatile the UK is during this period. The 1830s and 1840s are the high point of Chartism. You have the Swing and Rebecca Riots in the countryside. Cities like Manchester, Liverpool, and London are swelling with migrants from the countryside and abroad and seething about their lack of political rights and representation. It was a tinderbox that Victoria's early reign was somewhat lucky to survive, so don't underestimate the idea that like in many revolutions you might plan for a smooth "Glorious Revolution" style takeover but that this would rapidly get out of hand.

Thirdly, I've not seen a lot of talk about Parliament in this thread so far. Please remember that this is a point where the Commons is growing in strength and impact and is going to work (in centuries old tradition) to limit the powers of any monarch on the throne. This was a general feeling that was shared among many Parliamentarians at the time - there was a deep distrust and anxiety about a powerful monarchy that was equated with the sort of tyranny the Victorians believed held sway in Europe. It is hard to imagine any Parliament easily ceding power to the monarch, not least because they control the budget without which no Monarch could effectively govern.

Just a few contextual thoughts.

Appreciated thoughts- and as you see, the end result of the Ernestinian Anarchy was going to end up being a more powerful Commons, a smaller and less powerful Lords and a constitutional monarch who would have been stripped of his ability to create peers (Ernest stacking the Lords to get his own way would have come from William IV refusing to do so a decade earlier). So it looks like we're on the same train of thoughts - that a revolution could happen, and it's what would have happened here to an extent, especially following Thomas Peronnet Thompsons assassination which galvanized the public and pushed people like Melbourne and Drummond and the League of Extraordinary Victorians (Dickens, Lovelace, Brunel) to take actions they wouldn't have ordinarily taken.
 
Appreciated thoughts- and as you see, the end result of the Ernestinian Anarchy was going to end up being a more powerful Commons, a smaller and less powerful Lords and a constitutional monarch who would have been stripped of his ability to create peers (Ernest stacking the Lords to get his own way would have come from William IV refusing to do so a decade earlier). So it looks like we're on the same train of thoughts - that a revolution could happen, and it's what would have happened here to an extent, especially following Thomas Peronnet Thompsons assassination which galvanized the public and pushed people like Melbourne and Drummond and the League of Extraordinary Victorians (Dickens, Lovelace, Brunel) to take actions they wouldn't have ordinarily taken.

As I said, I don't like critiquing timelines, but we're not quite on the same train of thought exactly. I'm not sure, in your scheme of events, why anyone would support Ernest particularly, why this King's Party vs British Party dominates a time when there were hundreds of really important issues pulling MPs one way or the other (like, where does Ernest stand on the Corn Laws? This was literally a live political wire at the time). I can't see Drummond, who was little more than an effective civil servant, really becoming a revolutionary leader (but this is alt-history, so why not), and I think the League of Extraordinary Victorians is fun but a bit sci-fi really (I mean, what did these people really have in common? Dickens wasn't really a household name until the 1840s and 1850s, Lovelace may well already be dying by the late 1840s from the uterine cancer that killed her, and Brunel was always far more interested in his engineering projects than anything else - plus none of them had exactly easy-to-read political views).

But as I say, write the timeline as you see fit.
 
Top