What if No Queen Victoria?

this may of been done before, however what would the World look like if Victoria had never become Queen? (weather never born or died before William VI)
 

J.D.Ward

Donor
What happens to German Unification if there is still a personal union between Great Britain and Hanover in 1866 ?

Is Great Britain drawn into Bismarck's wars ? In OTL, Hanover was allied with Austria in the Austro-Prussian war.

Does Hanover:

i) become a province of Prussia as in OTL ?

ii) Join the United Kingdom of Great Britain, Ireland and Hanover ?

iii) Remain an independent state, in personal union with the United Kingdom ?
 
"Augustus" is a horrible name for a reigning monarch - King Ernest I seems rather more likely to me, actually. Evil King Ernie timelines have been done, but they tend to become hyperbole - Ernest had the combination of intelligence, discipline and amazing character flaws that cry out to make him a villain to some people, and enough records about him were lost or never written down in the first place to give an author all too much license.

The continuing personal union between the UK and Hanover throws a monkeywrench in German unification something fierce.

A few predictions about Ernestine Britain, which someone or other will no doubt disagree with: Evil Ernie was staunchly opposed to both Catholic and Jewish Emancipation. He's too late to stop Catholic, but there's no way Jews are getting the vote with him on the throne. Scotland Yard's primary duty in 1837 was reading people's mail to identify dissidents; investigating crime was kind of a sideline for them. They were refocused early in Victoria's reign OTL; another thing Evil Ernie is not interested in. He was the leader of the Orange Lodges, and while he may have been unable to block the law, "voting while Catholic" is an excellent way to get your kneecaps broken during his reign. Running for office while Catholic may be extremely hazardous to one's health. It's going to get more frightening when he kicks off and leaves a large, well-organized reactionary paramilitary group floating about Britain, without centralised Royal leadership; British Klan, anyone? Oddly enough, he favored lowering the property requirements to vote, and was a proponent of change in that one area, although his stated motives were not altruistic; he believed that the poorer, less educated segments of society would be inclined to go along with whatever the King said, and saw extending the franchise as a way to take power away from Parliament and return it to the Crown. He could be considered a class traitor by some, since he was also on record as thinking that the landed nobility were increasingly irrelevant and that true power now belonged to bankers and industrialists, but that alone doesn't make him an egalitarian or friend of the working person. Still, Ernest probably winds up working with the Whigs more than the Tories.

Response to the Irish famine in 1845 will be even worse than OTL; Victoria was at least interested in helping. Ernest doesn't have much use for Catholic subjects. Nastiness echoes down through the ages.
 
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Susano

Banned
Hm. Well, the defining point is of course wether Hannover will take a side in the German War (Austrian-Prussian War) as IOTL. If it does not because its absolutist ruler is really much more focused on Britain - well, since Hannover has in fact Britains backing Bismarck cant absorb it into his North German Confederation as he did with other neutral states.

Of course there is the possibility of the King siding with Austria as IOTL, and the British parliament going "What? No sorry, the UK will not support your adventures." - in which case everything goes according to OTL.
 
In my opinion you get a sort of Luxemburg-like situation with hanover. A country that is more or less accidentally left out of the unification proces. because of Britain hanover doesn't get onvolved in any of the unification wars (because the king is too busy ruling Britain to fight wars in and around Germany), while Prussia, who doesn't want to risk angering Britain, ignores hanover in its schemes, as there is enough germany left to annex. Interestingly that might mean that Oldenburg might be left outside the German confederation too, as it is surrounded by Hanover. Sadly this is probably too late for a low Saxon speaking country. They might join Germany at a later stage, assuming they don't manage to form their own non-German identity, like Luxemburg did. Of course they could have other reasons for not wanting to join Germany, they might be a democratic country, while Germany isn't, or they might be far richer than Germany (through trade with Britain) and they don't want to pay for the German problems alsewhere, etc. I must admit that I would like the idea of a string of neutral countries around the northsea coast. From Belgium and Luxemburg in the south, via the Netherlands, Hannover and Holstein up to Denmark and Norway. It could be an interesting counterweight against France or Germany.
 
I wonder how the Empire would've developed under King Ernest/Augustus I, and would he have become the 'Emperor of India' also?

Also how would Anglo-Hanover relations go? It seems IOTL that Ernest Augustus was a loved King in Hanover and did a lot of good for the nation, so how would the relations have developed, better or worse? Also as you say, would Hanover be neutral in the Austrian-Prussian War? What affect would this neutrality have on the other German states?
 
"Augustus" is a horrible name for a reigning monarch - King Ernest I seems rather more likely to me, actually. Evil King Ernie timelines have been done, but they tend to become hyperbole - Ernest had the combination of intelligence, discipline and amazing character flaws that cry out to make him a villain to some people, and enough records about him were lost or never written down in the first place to give an author all too much license.

The continuing personal union between the UK and Hanover throws a monkeywrench in German unification something fierce.

A few predictions about Ernestine Britain, which someone or other will no doubt disagree with: Evil Ernie was staunchly opposed to both Catholic and Jewish Emancipation. He's too late to stop Catholic, but there's no way Jews are getting the vote with him on the throne. Scotland Yard's primary duty in 1837 was reading people's mail to identify dissidents; investigating crime was kind of a sideline for them. They were refocused early in Victoria's reign OTL; another thing Evil Ernie is not interested in. He was the leader of the Orange Lodges, and while he may have been unable to block the law, "voting while Catholic" is an excellent way to get your kneecaps broken during his reign. Running for office while Catholic may be extremely hazardous to one's health. It's going to get more frightening when he kicks off and leaves a large, well-organized reactionary paramilitary group floating about Britain, without centralised Royal leadership; British Klan, anyone? Oddly enough, he favored lowering the property requirements to vote, and was a proponent of change in that one area, although his stated motives were not altruistic; he believed that the poorer, less educated segments of society would be inclined to go along with whatever the King said, and saw extending the franchise as a way to take power away from Parliament and return it to the Crown. He could be considered a class traitor by some, since he was also on record as thinking that the landed nobility were increasingly irrelevant and that true power now belonged to bankers and industrialists, but that alone doesn't make him an egalitarian or friend of the working person. Still, Ernest probably winds up working with the Whigs more than the Tories.

Response to the Irish famine in 1845 will be even worse than OTL; Victoria was at least interested in helping. Ernest doesn't have much use for Catholic subjects. Nastiness echoes down through the ages.

My immediate response to this assertion (which is quite probably accurate) is to say that Parliament would react by increasingly taking power away from the King. I'd venture that by 1837 it was essentially too late for a King to save his power against a hostile government determined to take away the King's political influence.
 

Cook

Banned
No one’s mentioned it yet so I will.

A large number Queen Victoria’s descendants carried or were sufferers of Haemophilia. It became known as the “Royal Disease” because it was so prevalent in the European Royal households that her descendants married into.

http://www.sciencecases.org/hemo/hemo.asp

Probably the most famous was Tsar Nicholas II’s only son Alexei.

Without Queen Victoria and her very productive uterus the European Royal families would have been more genetically diverse and consequently healthier.
 
If Evil Ernie is barred from the succession - which is possible if brother William realizes he's stuck with Ernest as his most probable successor - then next in line would be Augustus Frederic Hanover, Duke of Cambridge (George d'Este Hanover is that one's son). King Fred would make a pretty good monarch, I suspect, avoiding dark days for Britain; I suspect he'd give Hanover a Parliament of its own on the British model (he's promised it OTL, and I choose to take him at his word). Said Parliament might then vote to join a German Empire of some description, producing a crisis - but a crisis that might be resolvable diplomatically.
 

Susano

Banned
; I suspect he'd give Hanover a Parliament of its own on the British model (he's promised it OTL, and I choose to take him at his word).
I dont think that works - if Ernest doesnt become King of the UK, the union will break, because he WILL become King of Hannover. Trying to change the succession laws there is an invitation to the German Confederation to apply Federal Execution on Hannover.
 

Susano

Banned
Excellent point, Susano...hm. Is there any way to modify the succession in Hanover, do you know?

Well, the problem is not so much changing the succession laws than to ward off outside intervention. Thing is, the German Confederation of course is a creation of the Vienna Congress, and as such assumes personal rights of the monarchs to their titles and privileges. Hence, a changed succession law barring Ernest would be a violation of Ernest rights, and really there had been Federal Executions for way less (like too liberal state constitutions). Of coruse, Hannover is not just any German state, so that might make the Confederation think twice - OTOH, if Austria and/or Prussia are in the mood to harass the UK, that would be the time.
 
How do you propose to change the ENGLISH law of succession? You can't hand-wave that around, and if anyone tried you have a very real danger of civil war, especially as Ernest has very strong links to the Orange Order lodges

As Hannoverian monarch he would also be able to call upon German forces to fight to secure his throne, and any brother of his who does not support him is guilty of high treason

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
How do you propose to change the ENGLISH law of succession?
This. On what basis could he be skipped? There would have to be a suitable reason why he'd be barred from succession (e.g. James the Old Pretender being barred for being Catholic), not just "we don't like you".
 
How do you propose to change the ENGLISH law of succession? You can't hand-wave that around, and if anyone tried you have a very real danger of civil war, especially as Ernest has very strong links to the Orange Order lodges.

You wouldn't get a Civil War over an altered election, not in 1837 or thereabouts. Parliament was too strong by this point and so was the Royal Navy and the army. An attempt to use Hanoverians would simply end up in them not being able to land and thus being of no use whatsoever. In the event of a contender for the throne announcing his intentions to use force to settle his claim, Parliament would just enforce their will on the debate with the British armed forces, and due to their power and the security of the British military position on the British Isles, there would be no challenge. Even if, for a reason that's not immediately obvious, the Catholics in Ireland rose up against the succession, then Parliament could still send enough troops to settle the issue swiftly and the result would be beyond question.

Frankly, after the rules of George III and IV and William IV Parliament's control over such issues was just too strong for rival candidates to force the UK to descend into war over the throne.
 
The Importance of Being Ernest is written earlier (by someone else obviously) and as a biting political satire on the pretentions of the King and royalty in general perhaps?

In 1837 it would matter, but not too much, if the monarch was either mad or bad or both. He may get on well with Peel but the relationship with Russell would be interesting to say the least. I wonder what sort of speech the Prime Minister would make on King Ernie's death?

Still even the Conservatives would not wear an absolute monarch role by Ernest. Parliament would assert its ascendency and that would be the end of any day dreams from Ernest about ruling the country as more than a constitutional monarch.
 
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