Largest possible United Kingdom

I think the problem with Angevin/French pods is that the North (outside Flanders) is worth less economically in a feudal system than the South. So Angevin kings holding Aquitaine will defend that more than Normandy.
The solution is not have Aquitaine in the first place so any expansion on the continent is along the coast and easier to integrate.
 
The islands all the way to Iceland are easy with a post 1800 pod. Iceland has a tiny population and could be taken off of Denmark with just a chance to Napoleonic wars.

Continental holdings are much harder to keep
 
Looking at a strictly post-1707 POD:

Denmark actually offered to give Iceland to Britain during the 18th century in return for a small island in the Caribbean, so all that's needed there is for the British Government to accept and that extends the UK to Iceland. Britain could then purchase the Faroe Islands (and perhaps Greenland) later to ease its access to Iceland.

Furthermore, if Princess Charlotte of Wales marries Prince William of Orange (as was planned) and manages to survive to ascend to the throne, then it is possible that a personal union would come about between Britain and the Netherlands. Assuming this continues through Charlotte and William's descendants, then it is possible that this could be translated into a political union after a while. This would give the UK a foothold in the Low Countries.
 
I think the problem with Angevin/French pods is that the North (outside Flanders) is worth less economically in a feudal system than the South. So Angevin kings holding Aquitaine will defend that more than Normandy.
The solution is not have Aquitaine in the first place so any expansion on the continent is along the coast and easier to integrate.
My thought was that the rest of France is consumed by other powers, making this more viable.
 
Looking at a strictly post-1707 POD:

Denmark actually offered to give Iceland to Britain during the 18th century in return for a small island in the Caribbean, so all that's needed there is for the British Government to accept and that extends the UK to Iceland. Britain could then purchase the Faroe Islands (and perhaps Greenland) later to ease its access to Iceland.

Furthermore, if Princess Charlotte of Wales marries Prince William of Orange (as was planned) and manages to survive to ascend to the throne, then it is possible that a personal union would come about between Britain and the Netherlands. Assuming this continues through Charlotte and William's descendants, then it is possible that this could be translated into a political union after a while. This would give the UK a foothold in the Low Countries.

In a world where Prussia gets knocked down and Austria is ascendant, the Protestant states of North Germany could look to Britain for protection. Royal marriages and other agreements could eventually lead to them thinking they may as well get parliamentary representation.
 
Looking at a strictly post-1707 POD:

Denmark actually offered to give Iceland to Britain during the 18th century in return for a small island in the Caribbean, so all that's needed there is for the British Government to accept and that extends the UK to Iceland. Britain could then purchase the Faroe Islands (and perhaps Greenland) later to ease its access to Iceland.

Furthermore, if Princess Charlotte of Wales marries Prince William of Orange (as was planned) and manages to survive to ascend to the throne, then it is possible that a personal union would come about between Britain and the Netherlands. Assuming this continues through Charlotte and William's descendants, then it is possible that this could be translated into a political union after a while. This would give the UK a foothold in the Low Countries.
That's an interesting idea.
 

Vuu

Banned
With an early enough PoD you can do anything really

Like, an Angevin Empire on steroids that basically spans the entirety of Europe if the cards are played really really right, but that would be a British polity just as much as Japan is an Oceanian country
 
Which formed Great Britain as a Union of England and Scotland. The United Kingdom however was formed in 1801 as a Union of Great Britain and Ireland.

1707 is the model the modern UK was founded on. Ireland just extended that model and gave it a snazzy new name,

__

My POD would be a disaster in the American Revolutionary War. Washington and Greene get surrounded and killed in New York. Gates gets put in charge after a minor victory at Saratoga and then ignores advice from von Steuben. Eventually the more radical members of the Continental Congress flee to Louisiana and then Paris. The colonies get limited parliamentary representation to start by after a Napoleonic Wars analogue a full act of union is pushed through. The model is then repeated for Canada, the Caribbean, Hannover and any other colonies that may have picked up. Bombay, Natal, etc. Though protectorates like the Princely States might not be up for grabs.
 
How about the United Kingdom of Great Britain, Ireland, Netherlands, Low Saxony (Hanover-Westphalia), and Norway (whose crown includes Iceland)?

England, Wallonia, and the Ruhr in one polity? What an industrial behemoth.


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If we want to stick to post UKGBI, then exclude the Netherlands and North Rhineland but stick with a "United Kingdom of Great Britain, Ireland, Norway, and Low Saxony".
 
Furthermore, if Princess Charlotte of Wales marries Prince William of Orange (as was planned) and manages to survive to ascend to the throne, then it is possible that a personal union would come about between Britain and the Netherlands. Assuming this continues through Charlotte and William's descendants, then it is possible that this could be translated into a political union after a while. This would give the UK a foothold in the Low Countries.
Actualy no it wouldn't. The Netherlands actualy forbid any personal unions except the one with Luxemburg in its constitution. Specificaly to avoid Personal Unions like this one (and with Germany) to avoid the Netherlands to be dominated by a stronger partner in a personal Union. If you want a union between The netherlands and England(/UK) there are basicly three options. Queen Elisabeth I was offered the Dutch throne during the Dutch revolt, Cromwell offered a union between the Netherlands and the commonwealth, last the well known "personal union" at the time of William III.

You could of course think of different ideas caused by butterflies after an early POD. For example a different 19th cntury could cause of alternate EU consisting out of the UK (including Ireland), the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg, Denmark, Iceland and Norway which turns slowly into 1 country dominated by the UK. There is no obvious POD for this to happen (at least I don't see it), but I could see it happen in the case of a cold war between France and Germany that causes the neutral nations to band together (or whatever).
 
Big question: when does the United Kingdom become so large that it is a substantively different country than that of our own timeline?

It is not unimaginable for the Plantagenets to lay the groundwork for the British Isles and most of France to become a united kingdom at some point... but it would not be the United Kingdom. It would have been Greater France.

How about the United Kingdom of Great Britain, Ireland, Netherlands, Low Saxony (Hanover-Westphalia), and Norway (whose crown includes Iceland)?

England, Wallonia, and the Ruhr in one polity? What an industrial behemoth.


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If we want to stick to post UKGBI, then exclude the Netherlands and North Rhineland but stick with a "United Kingdom of Great Britain, Ireland, Norway, and Low Saxony".

Again I ask: when does the United Kingdom become so large that it is a substantively different country than that of our own timeline? Just eyeballing things, the empire in your map has to have a population in its continental lands at least as large as that of the entire British Isles, and certainly larger than that of England by itself. This country would be much more culturally "Germanic" than the United Kingdom of our world.
 
England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, the Isle of Mann, a shit-ton of other tiny islands, Brittany, Normandy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, and maybe some parts of Northern Germany and/or Northern France?
 
Actualy no it wouldn't. The Netherlands actualy forbid any personal unions except the one with Luxemburg in its constitution. Specificaly to avoid Personal Unions like this one (and with Germany) to avoid the Netherlands to be dominated by a stronger partner in a personal Union.
Interesting - truth be told, I wasn't aware of that.
 
The idea of turning the British Empire into a big federation gets off the ground and proves successful. Probably most of the African and Indian parts of the Empire would prefer independence instead, but at least Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and maybe some of the smaller places (Gibraltar, Malta, Hong Kong, Singapore, the Falklands, etc.) would probably join. Depending on whether you define the resultant entity as being the same as the UK, that would get you a pretty large United Kingdom.

Or, even better: no American Revolution, so the Thirteen Colonies remain part of the British Empire. The British Empire federalises as in the above scenario, only now it's got the eastern US seaboard + whatever inland territories were colonised as well.
 
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