WI: Earlier Attempt at Creating a Viceroyalty over the English Colonies in the Americas?

Pretty much as the tin says, while in OTL the English attempted something sorta similar with the failed Dominion of New England, the date proved too late for its implementation. What if the English kings had sought to consolidate and centralize their colonies in North America earlier? Maybe a “Dominion/Viceroyalty of Virginia” that encompasses the colonies on the North American mainland?

How do you see such a thing being established and what timeframe do you think would be optimal for such a setup? What would the end result be for English development and control of the colonies?
 
I think it may go without saying that the easiest way to get this to happen is to have some sort of major threat happen that will make the colonists want to be part of England. In OTL the Dominion of New England was a thing due to Native American attacks that for once actually got England involved with the rather independent-minded Puritans. So you'd probably need some sort of big event earlier. Not necessarily Native Americans, but also Spanish or French (like the feuding down in Georgia between the English and Spanish). Once that is set up, you'd really have to think how it's run. Personally the probably best advantage would be a relatively hands-off dominion like a Dominion of Virginia or something encompassing all of the colonies that more or less gives them a lot of the free reign they had in our world. A lot of the success of the Thirteen Colonies is due to the hands off nature of English governance that allowed them to thrive economically due to things like very low taxes, rapid population growth, and early industry. Not saying those are impossible otherwise, but a light touch is probably better here for the time period than not.

End result is pretty tricky to say. If things go well and it's similar to OTL the population will be growing rapidly enough to threaten England's dominance (as in 1840 the United States surpassed England in population and never looked back). Probably the best for long-term control and development then would be the ability to kind of share a realm with the dominion rather than seek to quite as directly control it and thus create a sort of system between England and the Dominion that allows them to rely on one another without constraining the dominion too much to the point of independence.
 
For New England, specifically? They'd never accept such control coming from the Crown. They loved England, yes, but not how the Stuarts ran it.

But getting the New England Confederation officially recognized in some form by the Commonwealth/Protectorate, on condition of adding Rhode Island and recognizing the independence of New Hampshire (if under Puritan governing norms) and Lyconia/Maine (again, under Puritan domination) as separate units within it could be done, perhaps (I'm expanding the colonies within it so it's both territorially encompassing all New England and forced to learn to work together as a singular unit, as is the entire point of a Dominion). The Commonwealth Parliament granted patents to Maine under guise of Puritan Lyconia and to Rhode Island, after all, so finding some way to turn that into a full-fledged recognition of New England under SOME central authority - albeit this authority's heads would be entirely New Englander, although the Puritans on both sides of the Atlantic would be fine with that - would be the way to go. Probably need something favorable conceded to the Confederation in order to force them to accept Rhode Island, (independent) New Hampshire, and Lyconia/Maine, to make it work though. Probably trade concessions, though that's easy enough as some form of no tarrifs/imposed duties on trade goods. It might surprisingly tilt slightly more liberal than the expected total Puritan domination to placate the many different sub-groups now in this Confederation (the various royalist sympathizer-settlers in New Hampshire and Lyconia, the religiously-tolerant population of New Plymouth if not its government, Rhode Island in general, Connecticut's slight religious moderation and tolerance) - I would say like Connecticut at the time this NEC allows all Protestant landowners to be active in government even if Congregationalism is the state-sanctioned-and-supported church all must support.

So this expanded United Colonies of New England would be:

1. Massachusetts
2. Connecticut
3. New Plymouth (maybe finally given an official Parlimentarian patent to settle its legal ambiguity once and for all)
4. New Hampshire (once again independent)
5. Rhode Island
6. Lyconia/Maine (Lyconia expanded to encompass all of Maine, including Royalist 'Maine')
7. New Haven (including Long Island - perhaps the same recognition deal as New Plymouth, perhaps absorbed into Connecticut anyway since they had zero legality of recognition even compared to New Plymouth-cum-New England Council)

From there it gradually becomes more and more a full-fledged, if locally-governed, Dominion in all but name and acting as one whole unit in foreign matters re: New France, New Netherland, and the Amerindians. With the Restoration you will likely see a royal governor installed - the NEC even as one cannot afford to piss off the new royal ascendancy - but is still de-facto is forced to play nice to the local General Court for income and political harmony.
 
Not New England specifically. It could be New England and Virginia. Or just the entirety of North America is part of the Viceroyalty/Dominion of Virginia. I understand this would have had to have been done more closely to the beginning of the colony foundings though
 
Oh that's entirely different eheh.

Plymouth needs to be settled on Manhattan Island so it's legally and indisputably still within 'Virginia' (no matter how de-facto independent it would be), and then have the various colonization companies pool their resources together - perhaps come the Plymouth/London Virginia Companies' demises, instead revive them together into a singular Company still with all authority over English America/Virginia. You can have various settled colonies and provinces under the aegis of this overall Company and its nominally singular area/super-colony/dominion/etc. So when the royalists take over in time for more direct control, it can appoint a single Governor-General to all these various provinces.
 
Perhaps such an unified dominion could be attempted early on by Charles I's government if he and the cavaliers end up winning the English Civil War.
 
/my own thread so I can resurrect it

Anyway I was doing some thinking about a potential POD that might lead to an earlier formation of a Viceroyalty of New England that includes all of English North America...

What if Humphrey Gilbert had successfully established a settlement in North America in the 1570s 40 years before Virginia was established? Elizabeth had granted him the letters patent to do so but due to fog his ships were forced back to England.

So with this POD let’s say that Gilbert leads the founding of a successful settlement either in OTL Philadelphia or Manhattan in the 1570s. Spain was still very much a threat at this time considering the Spanish Armada... so we see early on that the fledgling colony will be relying on England, ultimately leading to the formation of a Dominion/Viceroyalty of New England that encompasses or at least claims the Eastern seaboard of North America over time?
 
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