POLL: What's your favourite pre-modern England-wank scenario?

[Kurt_Steiner]

3. Edward of Angoulême doesn't die of illness at age five, 1370. As a result, the health of his father—Edward, the Black Prince—doesn't collapse utterly. The Black Prince's health still deteriorates over time. He lives on until 1390 or so, dying c. 60 years old (having ruled as Edward IV from 1377 onward). Edward of Angoulême then succeeds him as Edward V, aged 25 and secure in his position. Presumably, he won't have the same problems as his brother Richard (OTL Richard II). The Plantagenet Empire is bolstered, and the Wars of the Roses get averted.

4. Henry V doesn't fall ill, 1422. He inherits the French throne, lives for several more decades, and stabilises Lancastrian rule. When Henry VI finally succeeds to the throne, his father has already destroyed or side-lined the enemies that defeated him in OTL. Henry VI inherits a Plantagenet Empire that has become a complete Anglo-French Union.

5. Richard III wins at Bosworth Field, 1485. Henry Tudor dies. This ends the Wars of the Roses with a definitive Yorkist victory. Soon thereafter, Richard marries Joanna of Portugal, further solidifying his ties to that country through the marriage of Elizabeth of York to the future King Manuel I of Portugal.

To this, I would add:

1. Harold wins at Hastings and this begins an Anglo-Saxon upheaval.

2. Edward IV lives longer and his elder son Edward V heals the wounds of the War of the Roses.

3. Henry VIII has a male heir from Catherine of Aragon and there's no schism with Rome.

4. Edward VI lives longer and tales England more in the Reformed side while beginning a colonial adventure in the Americas.

 

[Brita]

No 2: Richard the Lionheart doesn't die in 1199 and is succeeded by a grown-up, well-advised Arthur.

 

[Kaushlendra pratap singh]

@Skallagrim I think the Otl world is British wank already there is no need to made new TL

 

[Brita]

Another possible POD: Empress Matilda and her husband are defeated and King Stephen establishes his own dynasty in England.

 

[GlobalHumanism]

@Skallagrim I think the Otl world is British wank already there is no need to made new TL

Right.
Didn't you Brits conquer the world, or something?

Hell, maybe one of these English wank PODs would end up un-wanking OTL

 

[Kaushlendra pratap singh]

Right.
Didn't you Brits conquer the world, or something?

I am an Indian.

 

[GlobalHumanism]

I am an Indian.

Sorry. Meant to address @Skallagrim

 

[Skallagrim]

Sorry. Meant to address @Skallagrim

I'm Dutch, so "you Brits" doesn't cover me, either.

My reasons for starting this thread were that I often see Brit-wanks (i.e. scenarios wanking the British Empire) and also often see "William loses at hastings; Anglo-Saxon England prevails", but scenarios wanking England -- with PODs somewhere in between -- are less commonly discussed. They certainly come up from time to time, but less often than I'd expect them to. Especially since there were quite many "near-miss" moments in English history.

 

[Chrestomanci]

1072
Robert Curthose campaigns with his father William against the Scottish King Malcolm III, resulting in the deaths of both Robert and Malcolm at the battle of Abernethy. (In OTL, Malcolm survives and it ends with a peace treaty).
William, partly due to pressure from Queen Matilda, extends the war into full conquest of Malcolm's kingdom. William engages in the same program of castle building and land confiscations that he used in England.

With Robert dead before his rebellions, there will be reduced Norman in-fighting. His costly Crusade will not be funded with a large (resented) tax in England.
Malcolm's death will prevent his multiple invasions of England, and while there will be Scottish rebellions they will probably be far less costly.

As Scotland doesn't exist (merely a more rebellious part of England), there will be a stronger temptation to control the whole island. Wales will be conquered by one of the next few Kings of England and there will be no Principality of Wales.

 

[StevenIronside]

Another possible POD: Empress Matilda and her husband are defeated and King Stephen establishes his own dynasty in England.

I like this one, obviously this would be centered on his second son William surviving as his older one Geoffery i think it was, was said to have been a pretty dispicable guy. This also has nothing to do with my namesake lol.

 

[Grey Wolf]

The difficult bit here is not just to change history, but to make it a wank; ie the ATL is not just better than what happenef in OTL, but oh, so much better. I rather like no 1 - William Adelin survives and becomes William III - because a) it seems a rather rare POD compared to the others, and b) not only does it butterfly away The Anarchy - a good thing in itself - but also I suspect a continuing Norman dynasty would have a more 'English' tinge. It was Henry II and his dynasty's focus on continental France and French culture that (along with the earlier replacement of native higher clergy by continental churchmen) that really nailed the coffin lid shut on Anglo-Saxon society and ensured that the English language became nothing more than a peasant patois for 150 years or so. I suspect that writing in Middle English would have appeared a good 100 years earlier than OTL; Poetry in alliterative metres (as by the Gawaine poet and Langland) might have been much more central. Yes the nobility would still have been almost entirely Norman in origin, but might have become anglicised faster. William Adelin himself, don't forget, was in direct descent from the old Wessex dynasty through his mother, and was called by an English title (Adelin).

I assume for "Adelin" you are transliterating the Anglo-Saxon spelling of "aetheling" which would, I guess, use the crossed d or thorn for the "th" sound? (and the ae joined symbol or ash for the initial letter)

 

[Brita]

I like this one, obviously this would be centered on his second son William surviving as his older one Geoffery i think it was, was said to have been a pretty dispicable guy. This also has nothing to do with my namesake lol.

Yes, I was thinking of William.

 

[P L Richards]

I don't necessarily think a 'wank' has to lead to territorial aggrandisement, or the creation of an 'empire'. For me deeper is preferable to wider here; that's why I agree with option 1 - more English. Nos 2, 3 & 4 not just may, but IMO definitely will result in a France-wank. France has a much bigger population and is already culturally dominant in Europe. It will be a much more Anglo influenced France, granted, but still France. In any union England is likely to stand in relation to France similar to how Scotland stands in relation to England in OTL UK. It would be the triumph not of England, but of Angleterre. Such scenarios are certainly interesting, but I wouldn't categorise them as England-wanks.

My second choice would be no 6, Prince Arthur survives and becomes King. But I would point out that although the schism with Rome is likely butterflied away and England remains officially Catholic, that doesn't mean there won't be any Protestants in England. It depends how severe the Catholic persecution of them is. If some important noble families become Protestant anyway, that would seem to lay the groundwork for religious wars later in the century along the lines of OTL France. There will certainly be religious civil war in Scotland if this scenario strengthens the hand, and resolve, of the Catholic party there.

 

[Curtain Jerker]

A surviving Richard/no John scenario intrigues me. I'm curious as to how political thought develops without a Magna Carta

 

[P L Richards]

I assume for "Adelin" you are transliterating the Anglo-Saxon spelling of "aetheling" which would, I guess, use the crossed d or thorn for the "th" sound? (and the ae joined symbol or ash for the initial letter)

View attachment 500236

As I'm sure @The Professor would point out, the 'crossed d' is actually edh, not thorn, which is a different letter (which I don't know how to reproduce). Yes, 'adelin' was the closest Norman-French scribes could get to the Old English word. Interesting to speculate that in an ATL based on this scenario, this word might have become/remained the Standard English word for 'prince', perhaps in a form like 'adheling' (pronounced roughly
eyth-ling)

 

[Grey Wolf]

As I'm sure @The Professor would point out, the 'crossed d' is actually edh, not thorn, which is a different letter (which I don't know how to reproduce). Yes, 'adelin' was the closest Norman-French scribes could get to the Old English word. Interesting to speculate that in an ATL based on this scenario, this word might have become/remained the Standard English word for 'prince', perhaps in a form like 'adheling' (pronounced roughly
eyth-ling)

Oh well, serves me right for trying to remember my dissertation from 28 years ago without checking it! That crossed d caused numerous monks lots of problems

 

[Skallagrim]

A surviving Richard/no John scenario intrigues me. I'm curious as to how political thought develops without a Magna Carta

Depends on who you ask. There's one school of thought that considers the Magna Carta to have been of crucial importance. There's another that considers it insignificant: merely one of the many charters of rights/privileges/liberties of the aristocracy that were common throughout Europe (and one whose historical "reputation" simply happened to grow vastly, long after the fact).

The truth is probably in the middle somewhere. The Magna Carta wasn't unique by a long shot, and was initially hardly as special as we now imagine it to be in common historiography, but the fact that it grew in cultural significance over time did influence English political thought -- and thus history -- in major ways. The larger conflict between the interests of the crown and the interests of the aristocracy is fairly universal, but the way this played out in England (the evolution of parliamentarianism, the Civil War, the deposition and execution of a monarch, the Protectorate, the Restoration, and later on the Glorious Revolution) was significantly influenced by the tradition that had both produced the Magna Carta and had later come to be shaped by it.

Which isn't to say that the Magna Carta was somehow the only factor (or even the biggest one) in shaping the relevant events I mentioned above, but rather that without it, ATL events pertaining to the same fundamental power-struggle would have played out differently. Without the Magna Carta, England might eventually hew closer to a moderate quasi-absolutism, with the Crown successively making certain concessions in a gradual process, but without anything like the Civil War ever coming about. After all, many countries resolved the issue of the power dynamic between the Crown and the aristocracy in a gradual, ad hoc process without the matter of royal power ever becoming the cause for a civil war. (But all this is purely speculative, of course.)

As I'm sure @The Professor would point out, the 'crossed d' is actually edh, not thorn, which is a different letter (which I don't know how to reproduce). Yes, 'adelin' was the closest Norman-French scribes could get to the Old English word. Interesting to speculate that in an ATL based on this scenario, this word might have become/remained the Standard English word for 'prince', perhaps in a form like 'adheling' (pronounced roughly
eyth-ling)

In both Dutch and German, the word adel still means "nobility/aristocracy", while edel is an adjective meaning "noble". I could easily see it being used in this way in English in the ATL: Ad(h)eling meaning, basically, "lord; nobleman".

 

[P L Richards]

In both Dutch and German, the word adel still means "nobility/aristocracy", while edel is an adjective meaning "noble". I could easily see it being used in this way in English in the ATL: Ad(h)eling meaning, basically, "lord; nobleman".

Agreed, but I think in English the word becomes more narrowly defined or specialised. I believe that in late Old English the word 'aedheling' usually meant not just any nobleman, but 'a noble within the range to be appointed/elected king'. With the development of royal power and primogeniture it will come to mean precisely 'Royal Prince'.

 

[The Professor]

As I'm sure @The Professor would point out, the 'crossed d' is actually edh, not thorn, which is a different letter (which I don't know how to reproduce). Yes, 'adelin' was the closest Norman-French scribes could get to the Old English word. Interesting to speculate that in an ATL based on this scenario, this word might have become/remained the Standard English word for 'prince', perhaps in a form like 'adheling' (pronounced roughly
eyth-ling)

I would have done yes .
I think the crossed d (edh) was initially the Northumbrian version of thorn and only as the (alveo)dental fricative began to distinguish voiced and unvoiced versions did both start to be used before the Norman invasion upended everything.

In both Dutch and German, the word adel still means "nobility/aristocracy", while edel is an adjective meaning "noble". I could easily see it being used in this way in English in the ATL: Ad(h)eling meaning, basically, "lord; nobleman".

Technically Etheling (using the more Northern version to avoid ash!) meant a noble heir, it literally was scion (ing) of a noble (ethele). Hence its use for sons of the king.
With a weaker French influence I agree it could be maintained. Athling or Ethling for Prince (Infante), Athel or Ethel for (a) noble.

 

[Jan Olbracht]

Henry VI kills himself during attack of madness in 1454 (jumps out of window, eats broken glass or something like this). His infant son succeedes the throne as Edward IV so instead of mad king on the throne there is child king and long regency of Richard of York. Downfall of House of Lancaster and War of Roses is avoided. Perhaps Edward IV Lancaster marries heiress of Burgundy one day and Burgundian inheritance is added to Lancastrian realm.