Plausibility/Interest Check: Cornwall becomes independent during the Anarchy

As many English or English enthusiasts know, the county of Cornwall wants autonomy and has wanted autonomy (or independence, depending on which time period you're talking about) for almost a thousand years at this point.

What I'm going to try to do with this potential ATL is answer the question "what if Cornwall ended up achieving independence?" as accurately as I possibly can. As implied from this thread's title, I think the earliest shot for Cornwall to achieve soveriegnity is during the Anarchy, the period of time when two claimants to the English throne fought each other in a bloody civil war. Of course, there are other points in time that Cornwall could win independence from England/Great Britain, but they're all closer to the present day than I would prefer.

So, what do you think of this possible timeline? Do you see this ATL being plausible? What kinds of hurdles do you think this new, sovereign Cornwall would have to go over in order to stay independent? What about the butterflies it would cause? And finally, are you interested in this timeline?
 
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Please don't bump threads so quickly.

Short answer :that's not possible.
Long answer : Insular Cornwall was at this point under the suzerainty of English kings since the IXth (you had earlier dominances, but I only count continuous vassality) and if some Cornish elites (nobiliar or land-owning) might have remained some time, by the time Normans conquered England they were gone and at this point, many Anglo-Saxon institutions were adopted (if adapted).
Interestingly, local nobility after the mid-XIth seems to have been increasingly Breton in origin, which is not this surprising when one thinks about the cultural and economical links between Cornwall and Brittany. But does that means they cared about Cornwall's "independence"? Nothing is less certain : Reginald Fitzroy, Earl of Cornwall was certainly more interested about his half-sister claims, that's for sure.

So let's imagine that Cornwall makes his own little rebellion during the Anarchy. We're talking of what ammounted to a really peripheral land without significant wealth, without much of a strong population...It wouldn't really work out. And assuming Breton-Norman wants to scede because, some centuries ago, the local foul-bearded chief fancied himself as a king. At the very, very, very best, I could see Breton-Norman nobility trying to consider Cornwall as a continuation of Brittany but it would require a much earlier PoD, in the early XIth century to stabilize the heck out of Brittany and makes the Bretons in William's expedition not poor unlanded bastards, but as for Normans, representative of the Breton landed nobility. Such an early PoD of course could prevent William's expedition, to say nothing of the Anarchy.

Your best shot at keeping Cornwall autonomous enough (independent seems really pushing it, safe a catastrophic fall of the English unity, which would never EVER be back no matter the reasons, cross their hearts and hope to die) would be in the difficult times of the late Xth/early XIth centuries where the wars against Scandinavians forced Anglo-Saxons to only have a technical suzerainty over Cornwall, not unlike in Starthclyde. And as Strathclyde, you could see Cornwall being ruled by a Welsh prince but due to Welsh disunity, Cornwall would be considered as a "separate" Welsh principalty. It's of course not a given how Cornwall as part of the Welsh ensemble could hold England anyway, but that's your best shot IMO.
 
Please don't bump threads so quickly.

Yeah, I ended up deleting the post because I had realized that I shouldn't have done that.

that's not possible.

Alright. The wall of text you just finished writing has convinced me of that.

Your best shot at keeping Cornwall autonomous enough (independent seems really pushing it, safe a catastrophic fall of the English unity, which would never EVER be back no matter the reasons, cross their hearts and hope to die) would be in the difficult times of the late Xth/early XIth centuries where the wars against Scandinavians forced Anglo-Saxons to only have a technical suzerainty over Cornwall, not unlike in Starthclyde. And as Strathclyde, you could see Cornwall being ruled by a Welsh prince but due to Welsh disunity, Cornwall would be considered as a "separate" Welsh principalty. It's of course not a given how Cornwall as part of the Welsh ensemble could hold England anyway, but that's your best shot IMO.

That makes sense to me. I do have a decent amount of knowledge of Danelaw-era England, so moving the POD to then wouldn't be that hard.
 
You know, I guess what I wanted to do with this timeline was make the princes of Cornwall (or another small nation that somehow gained independence) conquer vast swathes of territory and (possibly) restore the Roman Empire as it once was under Hadrian's reign. Of course, the entire described scenario is very unrealistic and I'd have to justify a whole lot of stuff in order for it to not be ASB.

So @LSCatilina - do you think this has even a slight chance of working, even if the realm that gained independence wasn't Cornwall?
 
Bro, I'd just go back to the 300s and start setting that up. There are actually three different "Cornubia" tribes in the British Isles during the Roman period, so you could start around Roman Wales or way north to Scotland where the third Cornubia was located.
 
Bro, I'd just go back to the 300s and start setting that up. There are actually three different "Cornubia" tribes in the British Isles during the Roman period, so you could start around Roman Wales or way north to Scotland where the third Cornubia was located.

Okay then. I would prefer to do it at least during the 8th or 9th centuries, but if that doesn't work I'll go with your suggestion.
 
Okay then. I would prefer to do it at least during the 8th or 9th centuries, but if that doesn't work I'll go with your suggestion.
Set up the butterflies ahead of time so you can work into the Viking Age as you please, IMO. I'm obsessed with the British Isles and I usually start at 55 BC myself.
 
@Addemup

First rule of AH : if you want to do a timeline that you know you'll enjoy making a sharing, implausibility or ASB isn't an issue. There some people that may think ASB means "bad quality", "poorly done", or too convenient, but frankly that's a stress on a conception of allohistorical plausibility which is dubious at best. The distinction between a very implausible timeline and an ASB timeline is sometimes foggy enough to be nothing else than assumed implausibility or being in denial about it, and I enjoy more a well-written timeline that accepts its historical implausibilities (up to a point,altough supernatural TL can be fun) than something pretending to be totally plausible because reasons and it's not ASB how dare you say, etc.
Really, go for it.

Now, if we're talking about allohistorical plausibility...We have to look at late imperial and post-imperial Dumnonia which covered both Cornwall (which was probablynot just part of it, but an autonomous constituent) and Devon. Clearly Cornwall was the backwater part of the kingdom/principalty, with few Roman military or civil presence (to the point that, while provincial, the region may have been more or less autonomous as a significant chunk of western Britain. Cornwall seems to have more tied up, culturally and economically, at Brittany than to the rest of Britain, something that definitely increased with the fall of Dumnonia which not only cut Cornwall from the last insular regions with a significant post-imperial Roman remains, but launched a new wave of migration to the continent, making an already poorly inhabited Cornwall even more so.
I don't want to be negative, but that doesn't really looks well, even for a regional revival.

As for the second part of your question, if I understand you well enough, about the possibiiities for Britto-Romans to take back the lead in Britain up to the point being the cores for a new mediterranean-based empire?
I'll extensively use Britain After Rome there : if you don't have it, I certainly advise it to you.*

There's a wall of text incoming, so if you want the short answer : while Britto-Roman dominance in post-imperial Britain is perfectly doable, a Britto-Roman empire isn't really so.

Eventually it all comes down to the nature of roman rule in Britain. We know that romanisation was, rather than a systemic acculturation, a more or less deepened creolisation of provincial society based on political integration and an extensive trade and use of material culture (what we could call a "Roman-way-of-life"). Some people were latinized in the process (such as in Gaul), some were romanized along their own organised network and cultural structures (basically all the eastern Romania) and for some it was relatively more limited.
It was the case of Roman Britain that, up to the early IVth century, was essentially a military province for what mattered Rome with a significant urban/latifundar romanisation happening mosrly in the South (and not everywhere in the South) while most of the roman structures in the province depending from military presence for exchanges, subsides, etc. Would have the empire fallen in the Third Century crisis, post-Roman Britain would have significantly less structures inherited from the Empire, being closer to Illyricum on this regard.

Still, things changed a bit after the IVth century because Brittonic society really began to romanize itself due to the need to compensate for the end of heavily militarized provincialism : more and more local products were exchanged, cities were less monumental but practically tought and well-maintained. Basically, a crisis managment that, so far, did work out without making Roman Britain sort of Roman Gaul expy, but his own things with pre-conquest structures (which never really disappeared, especially in peripheral regions) being integrated and integrating imperial feature.
It didn't last this long : Britain was targeted by neighbouring peoples such as Scotti or Pictii. These weren't newcomers but confederations of Gaelic and Brythonic peoples that appeared one century before, both to defend themselves, and to manage long-range raids. Let's say they weren't happy with the lesser ammount of their subsides so far regularily payed by the Empire and as Rome withdrawed troops from the island to make up for the lack of manpower on the continent, well, they raided the heck out of the province.
Note that it's possible that you already had Saxons in southern Britain, as foedi or laeti in the Litus Saxonnorum (Saxon Shore). Robin Fleming disagrees, but I'm not really convinced by the arguments : it was common enough in the IIIrd/IVth century Gaul, so I could really see a Saxon coast guards against Saxon piracy, a bit like Normands in 911. Anyway.

It thus happened that Britto-Roman society was significantly weakened, and eventually Constantine III took with him the last regular troops, and Rome had no choice but to say "Well, you're on your own now.".
This being said, you certainly still had militias in Britain, probably with some comitatenses and more-than-token cavalry. But eventually, the only direct authority was gone, and you had a mosaic of municipal authorities, generals and capitains turned warlords, peasant communities and big landowners.
This alone was pretty much destructing but Britto-Roman society still had contact with the Roman state, notably by its presence in Vth century Gaul : Riotomagus (probably more of a title than a name, I'll come back to this) had an important strategical and military role in Northern Gaul up to the Battle of Déols.(470),
But the collapse of the Roman state in the west was another taken shot : let's remember that this fall was felt with particularly destructing effects up to Scandinavia where appeared all the signs of geopolitical anarchy and renewed warfare. Britain basically lived trough two fall of Rome.

At this point, this much is clear archeologically, the Britto-Roman society as I described is in ruins, not just trough raiding but by sheer exhaustion and relative inability of the elites to exchange with the continent. Still viable ruins, granted, but ruins nevertheless.
When Germans came "in masse" (relatively wise), they didn't as much ignored or fought Roman structures that they didn't found much of these.to being with : most first groups of migrants (coming, in all probability, from Saxony and Anglia, but including Franks, Jutii, Norses, Frisii, etc.), or at best found them while they were collapsing. While some probably came as foedi, against Picts and Gaels, possibly against Armorican Saxons as well; most were coming as familial communities as Slavs did in the VIth century eastern Europe; not caring at the latest of collapsing imperial structures.
It doesn't mean that Britto-Romans were doomed politically and culturally from the Vth century onwards, but their division and the deep societal crisis (a definite rise of rural communities, led by landowners and/or warlords, with a quick decline of old municipes) requires as much an original and regionally tought change as it happened historically in the IVth century. Meaning an imperial ensemble or structure in the Vth century is probably out of the reach of Britto-Romans.
What we could search for is to stabilize the high-kingship features that reappeared in post-imperial Britain (if they ever entierly disappeared, which is frankly a fair question) : we can name some important rulers such as Riotomagus (which means, more or less, great king), Ambrosius Aurelianus (who was maybe, probably IMO, the same as Riotomagus) in the south and Coel Hen in the North.

From these mix of military command and political leadership (probably rather regional in nature than provincial, if Vortigern's rule over Cantium is any indication), we'd have to strengthen them to last against various and conflicting interest and identities (not unlike what existed in pre-Roman Gaul). Such a maintained high-kinghip as existed in virtually all the known medieval (and ancient, altough harder to determinate) Celtic societies, could hold its ground in face of Germanic settlements that basically made their identities and political ensemble on the spot and became centers of acculturation of the weakened local population due to a better participation of their (relatively egalitarians) elites to the wider world and trade. From there, a fair process of acculturation of newcomers could follow.
It's not as far-fetched as one could think, and it might have been what presided to the appearance (or at least emergence) of the kingdom of Wessex historically : first kings of Wessex had clearly Brittonic names, their political/palatial centers quite far from known main Germanic communities at the exception, for me, of the aforementioned Saxon Shore and its foedi. It's perfectly imaginable (and imagined by several scholars) that, the House of Wessex came from Britto-Romans warlords, princes, kings or even high-kings wannabees that based their rise to regional supremacy on Saxon troops already present or incoming thanks to promise of sweet, sweet revenues; and with the known process of cultural mixity and acculturation to what eventually became a Germanic Saxon identity (which again, is a product of the changes of the VIth century, and not something that caused them).

While I'd rather see, as I said above, at best two high-kingship ensembles roughly divided by a Norwich/Bristol line (possibly more, and the line in question being very technical), probably a Gaelic presence as well and more or less integrated newly founded tribal kingdoms as for Germans.
From there, I don't see why Britto-Romans couldn't assume (if I don't think it would be completed easily and quickly) the dialectical process of chiefdom/complex chiefdom/state formation that, among other exemples, defined what Anglo-Saxons kingdoms went trough and possibly earlier, eventually ending as one or two coherent polities. But I don't see it happening in the VIth or VIIth century myself.

So while a Britto-Roman Empire, let alone one that goes back to the Med, seems far-fetched to say the least; you can change significantly the history of post-imperial Britain in favour of Britto-Romans.

For people interested, besides the aformentioned book, I really strongly advise the wargame Pendragon whom author really managed to simulate the issues and possibilities of sub-Roman Britain, politically-wise.
 
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