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We had an interesting thread earlier today on how the English language would be affected if the Spanish Armada won. This post by Falastur caught my interest.
Much as I don't like Turtledove or any of his stories, I think he has it right here. What Philip wanted was to enthrone his daughter Isabella, I believe - likely he would do this by claiming (inaccurately for at least two reasons) that during his time as Prince Consort of England when Mary was on the throne that he had been granted the full style of King and that on Mary's death her claim passed to him, before abdicating England in favour of his daughter. There would almost certainly have to be an occupation force to keep London placid, but the thing is that it wouldn't be a permanent occupation. After a few decades the law, the Inquisition and the Jesuits would've enforced Catholicism back and people would eventually accept it. At that point, the Spanish would withdraw their troops. Actually, they'd most likely have constantly reduced them to practically nothing as they were able to secure locations with Catholic English troops first but my point is, after a while the Spanish would be gone.

End result - you have a Hapsburg on the throne for a while and are allied to Hapsburg interests, but a couple of generations on the dynasty is something else, probably English again (via a marriage to a Catholic duke to settle the population, for example) and the two countries go their separate ways. England stays English, it just has more Spanish blood in the royal ancestry.

Here was my reply (which was kind of off-topic for the thread)

Well, England's Catholic now, which is going to have some huge effects on English culture and identity, not to mention its place in the European alliance system.

Having a Habsburg on the throne will...constrain things for a few decades, but honestly, I think England and Spain are natural enemies at this point-England is an island nation that wants to trade overseas more and have colonies, and this would pretty much necessitate intruding on the Spanish/Portuguese sphere of influence. By the mid-17th century, therefore, I think England will have found someone anti-Spanish to align with, probably the French. They'll support the French most of their post-1650 wars against Spain, in exchange for some nice Caribbean sugar islands and a chance to muscle into all those rich Indian ocean trade routes. However, if things go like OTL, by ~1690 France will be powerful enough that England will start seeing them as the main threat on the continent, and will probably try to ally with anyone who opposes them (Austria, maybe, or Spain if they haven't come under a Bourbon).

Thinking about it, I wonder if we might see an even more intense Anglo-Dutch rivalry in the early 17th century-a lot of English Protestants unwilling to live under Catholic rule will probably flee to the Netherlands, and poaching on the VOC's trade in Indonesia is one of the few ways England will be able to expand overseas without angering Spain.

Scotland will probably be another popular destination for Protestant Emigres-it's culturally similar to England and speaks the same language, so I can imagine a community of prominent English exiles forming their in the decade after the Spanish takeover. Unlike the Netherlands, there's no sea between it and England, which might make it popular with the more...militant kind of exile-say, English Puritans who want to infiltrate back into the motherland to convert people from Catholicism, or who dream of one day retaking England by force and purging it of heathen Popery. (I can see this group encouraging the Stuarts to claim the English throne once Elizabeth dies...perhaps they become TTL's equivalent of Jacobites).

England is probably also going to want to get into the American coloinzation game at some point-I wonder if they can convince Spain to let them have some of the uncolonized parts of the North American coast. Or perhaps England can take a French or Dutch colony.

So to back to my earlier post-England is probably going to be subservient to Spain up until ~1650 or so. Its main enemies will be the French, the Dutch, and Scotland (the latter heavily supported by France). After ~1650, England's desire to expand over the ocean wins out, and it allies with France, joining in Louis XIV's wars against Spain in hopes of getting Spanish colonies (especially Caribbean sugar islands) and more generally creating/expanding a trade empire. By ~1700 though, if Louis XIV's wars have gone as OTL, England will likely be very wary of growing French power and seek to ally with someone anti-French-Austria maybe, or Spain if it isn't Bourbon. (Speaking of which though, how might a Catholic English royal family with at least some connection to Spain affect the war of Spanish sucession?)

Further thoughts-the Hannoverians are butterflied, of course. If England winds up under another foreign royal house, it will probably be one of the Catholic ones (Wittelsbach England, maybe? The "Bavarian dynasty" has a cool ring to it.)
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