Scottish Britain

Christ. Not even the Pentarchy was that bad :eek:

Maybe a much, much worse War of the Roses that leaves England in even worse shape? Perhaps with the North dominated by a weakened Lancaster, Tudors running Wales, and a South on a wobbly Yorkist footing?

I was thinking of a worse Anarchy/12 c. The south coast/south east gets absorbed into some Norman/North French/Lotharingian political sphere which remains politically focused on the continent. Everything else becomes an English version of the pre-Napoleonic HRE, Scotland retains and absorbs Northumbria. That leaves Scotland as the dominant power by default. The difficult part is perpetuating that though.
 
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Wolfpaw

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That leaves Scotland as the dominant power by default. The difficult part is perpetuating that though.
Perhaps giving large swathes of English lands to clans? Thing is, they may not be willing to leave Alba, meaning they will have to depend on local elites that may not be entirely sincere in their loyalties to Scotland.
 
I was thinking more of the difficulty of continually aborting the emergence of some hegemonic power down south. As long as the expansion south goes as far as Northumbria there's not going to be a great problem of holding that territory; the Scots did it fairly easily IOTL. I think if you chip away at the southern frontier, pushing it further south a wee bit every now and then you wouldn't have the problem of a top-heavy southern population/economic balance. Northumbria could probably be culturally acclimatised over time, and possibly areas further south could be as well.
 
What exactly would stop Scotland from including OTL's Northern England? Could there be a pre-1066 POD that leaves all land north of the Humber part of Scotland, and not England?
 
Well pre-1000 Scotland was used to refer to the land north of the Firth on the east coast. Lothian and what is now southern Scotland were part of the Saxon world but were assimilated into "Scotland". The problem is if you give the House of Dunkeld Northumbria as well they now have a Kingdom that is 2/3rd Saxon rather than 50/50 as in OTL.
 
Perhaps giving large swathes of English lands to clans? Thing is, they may not be willing to leave Alba, meaning they will have to depend on local elites that may not be entirely sincere in their loyalties to Scotland.
Not at all. That is where most invaders screw up. Do not depend on the "local elites" exterminate them and give the peasantry a better deal. Why would the clans leave anyway?
Yes, it's like Britain conquering France in the 100 years war.
Please, Britain didn't exist at the time and Scotland was fighting on the French side....
 
Please, Britain didn't exist at the time and Scotland was fighting on the French side....
???
Let's try again. It's like the English conquering the French in the 100 Year's War (true, I should have said English); or The Mongols or Manchu conquering the Chinese; or ...

You have a small, impoverished, but militarily strong country A that invades and rules a much larger, richer one B. The end result is a foreign dynasty on B's throne, not an expanded A.
 
This discussion reminded of a quote from Henry VII that I came across in the Wiki article on Margaret Tudor (consort to James IV, who was incidentally the last Scottish monarch to speak Gaelic):

Henry VII said:
"What then? Should anything of the kind happen (and God avert the omen), I foresee that our realm would suffer no harm, since England would not be absorbed by Scotland, but rather Scotland by England, being the noblest head of the entire island, since there is always less glory and honor in being joined to that which is far the greater, just as Normandy once came under the rule and power of our ancestors the English."

So yes, the Union of the Crowns and consequently the United Kingdom are the result of a cunning plan by an economically talented Welshman to bring Scotland under the English yoke.

Of course, you could have a Kingdom called Scotland being the dominant power in Britain, but it would all seem very English (in terms of culture, language and centre of gravity) to an OTL Scotsman.
 
You have a small, impoverished, but militarily strong country A that invades and rules a much larger, richer one B. The end result is a foreign dynasty on B's throne, not an expanded A.

Exactly. You could give Scotland a Philip of Macedon followed by an Alexander who could come sweeping south with fire and sword a conquer England. He could exterminate the local elites apart from a small number he co-opts and hand out the rest to loyal locals and Scottish carpetbaggers, he could make Scots the language of the law and high society.
William the Conqueror did every one of those and all the Norman conquest left was a style of architecture, some surnames and a few new words added to the English language.
Within a generation the centre of power had shifted across the channel as seen by the defeat of Robert Curthose and Norman French had died out by 1200 (French French as brought in by the Angevins and retained thanks to the large Plantagenet holdings in France replaced it).
 
At what point would it be most likely for Scotland to become the dominant force in Britain. I would like too know potential PODs some time after the formation of Norman England. I dont know much about Middle Ages Britain so any help would be great.

Well, you could make a case that if Alexander III hadn't gotten fou and gone boating in a storm in 1286, the Kingdom of Scotland would have remained a rising, prosperous entity and could have dominated in later years.
 
Well, you could make a case that if Alexander III hadn't gotten fou and gone boating in a storm in 1286, the Kingdom of Scotland would have remained a rising, prosperous entity and could have dominated in later years.

Except that Scotland is already the weaker of the two kingdoms by a considerable margin.

Could it cut a better figure than OTL? Sure. But it won't be the dominant one.
 
Except that Scotland is already the weaker of the two kingdoms by a considerable margin.

Could it cut a better figure than OTL? Sure. But it won't be the dominant one.

I don't insist on the scenario, but it is plausible. England was the larger neighbor, true, but it was also rife with dissention among the barons. That situation caused Edward I some trouble and made life a misery for his successor, Edward II. Had Sotland been organized and at peace during those years, instead of torn by factions and succession battles, who can say what might have been?
 
I don't insist on the scenario, but it is plausible. England was the larger neighbor, true, but it was also rife with dissention among the barons. That situation caused Edward I some trouble and made life a misery for his successor, Edward II. Had Sotland been organized and at peace during those years, instead of torn by factions and succession battles, who can say what might have been?

A slightly stronger Scotland than OTL, which is still overshadowed by its larger, richer southern neighbor.

Edward II had trouble because he was a weak king, not because England was particularly rife with dissention - and Scotland isn't exactly known for being a place where the nobles are in lockstep with the crown.
 
How similar were English and Scots culture ? Up until what point did Scottish Kings speak Gaelic or whatever?

The Scottish lowlands never spoke Gaelic for the most part, because they weren't originally a part of "Scotland" so much as a part of Northumbria the Scottish kings chipped off. (Here's a linguistic map of Scotland circa 1400) Even then, that little part of Northumbria was able to demographically and economically dominate the rest of Scotland, such that Gaelic had ceased to be the state language long before James the I and IV. A bit instructive for this thread.

If you want more Celtic culture in England, you have to go back even before Scotland exists, and wank the Irish migration into England during the late Roman era such that it pre-empts, and overwhelms, the Saxon migration, with most of Britain coming to be ruled by Irish-speaking polities and, eventually, some form of Gaelic becoming dominant. I'm not sure what POD would do this-not my era-and at any rate, you haven't created a Scottish Britain but the ATL nation of Gaelic England.
 
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