WI United Kingdom of England and Netherlands and not Scotland

Would would have happened if the United Kingdom had been between England and the Netherlands and not between England and Scotland?

Its hard but probably not impossible to get this situation. The main problem is that the United Provinces, what is now the Kingdom of the Netherlands, was at least on paper a republic up unto the nineteenth century.

The likeliest way to do this is that William and Mary have a son. The Glorious Revolution happens much as IOTL. William of Orange persuades people in the United Provinces that they need a closer union with England to handle the French threat, and gets them to agree to a constitutional monarchy with himself or his son as the king. A union with England is negotiated.

The Scots don't go along with this, and in fact declare for the Old Pretender when William dies. Somehow this situation survives the War of the Spanish Succession. The French manage to do well enough to get an independent Scotland into the peace treaty. Setting things up this way obviously leads to lots of butterflies, and I'm not sure what happens to Ireland.
 
From what I recall, Scotland and Ireland have some close ties. If Scotland manages to gain its independence from the United Kingdom then you can almost be sure that Ireland would attempt to follow suit. As far as who would help or if anybody would help, I am not sure.
 
The likeliest way to do this is that William and Mary have a son. The Glorious Revolution happens much as IOTL. William of Orange persuades people in the United Provinces that they need a closer union with England to handle the French threat, and gets them to agree to a constitutional monarchy with himself or his son as the king. A union with England is negotiated..
I don't think this is in anyway possible.There is no way Willem III would be able to convince the Dutch regents to turn him into a king. He wasn't even abe to convince them to make him duke of Gelderland. The state of Gelderlanf was toying with the idea of giving him that title, when the state of Holland told them: "you are not going to do that".

The only way for this to happen would be if Willem III invaded the Netherlands with an English army, something William III would never do. That said, if he had a sonand the "personal union" between the Netherlands and England continued, I could see this potentialy happening. This is a long shot, I admit, and I doubt the English would agree with it. How about this:
Willem III and Mary have a son (and only one son, toavoid confusion). William III and Mary die before their son is of age, so he can't become stadholder. After a couple of years without a stadholder, the Dutch provinces get used to the idea and when William's son is 18, they tell him they don't need a stadholder. William's son doesn't like that idea, gathers an army in England and invades the Netherlands (where he get support from several people of the Orangist faction). He deafeats the Republicans and becomes stadholder and later declares himself king. Although you still need a way to deal with the fact that Groningen and Friesland have a different stadholder than the other provinces. Well, the whole king idea is probably a more of a longterm idea anyway.
 
Why not just have William III and Mary's children continue being Stadholders in the Netherlands, thus retaining influence in the Betgerlands, and slowly centralizing the Provinces into a single monarchy?

This doesn't have to be an instantaneous process.
 
From what I recall, Scotland and Ireland have some close ties. If Scotland manages to gain its independence from the United Kingdom then you can almost be sure that Ireland would attempt to follow suit. As far as who would help or if anybody would help, I am not sure.
Uhmm... I think the premise here is "There is no Act of Union With Scotland" and "Netherlands, not Scotland, has an Act Of Union With England",
meaning Scotland already is officially/technically independent.
 
Why not just have William III and Mary's children continue being Stadholders in the Netherlands, thus retaining influence in the Betgerlands, and slowly centralizing the Provinces into a single monarchy?
That would be extremely hard to do. You need a good succession of very competent stadholders, who are willing to keep an interest in the Netherlands. This is going to be hard. You can't have an incompetent stadholder.The moment you have one of those, you'll see a shift of power towards the republican faction (like what happened with Willem V). Secondly, the Dutch political system is complicated, very complicated. A stadholder after all wasn't powerful (which is why an incompentent stadholder like WIllem V could so easily lose all power). A stadholder is influential. He needs to appointthe right people, who are loyal to him on the right places. He needs to placate the Dutch regents (don't interfere too much, or he willquickly lose support). He needs to handle all provinces differently, since all provinces are ruledseperately (especialy Friesland and Groningen, since he wouldn't be stadholder over these provinces). He needs to understand Dutch politics, which is going to be hard for an Englishman. Also he needs to placate his English subjects. He can't simply live in the Netherlands trying to handle the situation there. The English are not going to accept it. I am not saying it is impossible, but it will be hard. Very hard.
 
Uhmm... I think the premise here is "There is no Act of Union With Scotland" and "Netherlands, not Scotland, has an Act Of Union With England",
meaning Scotland already is officially/technically independent.
Yes, there would be no Act of Union if this were to occur prior to 1707. However, the OP was not sure what would happen to Ireland and I made statement based on an observation.
 
Yes, there would be no Act of Union if this were to occur prior to 1707. However, the OP was not sure what would happen to Ireland and I made statement based on an observation.
I was quibbling that Scotland would not be "managing to gain its independence from the United Kingdoms" since the very premise
is that Scotland did not become one of the United Kingdoms.

But some arguments why Ireland (not, technically speaking, one of the united kingdoms either) would follow Scotland would be nice.
I'm under the impression that a lot of the close ties between Ireland and Scotland at the time would be on account on the (then
possibly not yet defined as) Ulster Scots, which somehow do not strike me as people who would follow Scotland in preferring
a Catholic king or encourage/support the Irish in doing so.
 
If i remember rightly there was something about Elizabeth, during the Dutch rebellion, being named Queen if England supported them against the Spanish, or something to that effect. Couldn't that be a good pod? Mabye have her marrying into the House of Orange or some such to boot, gaining support and protestant succession
 
I don't think this is in anyway possible.There is no way Willem III would be able to convince the Dutch regents to turn him into a king. He wasn't even abe to convince them to make him duke of Gelderland. The state of Gelderlanf was toying with the idea of giving him that title, when the state of Holland told them: "you are not going to do that".

The only way for this to happen would be if Willem III invaded the Netherlands with an English army, something William III would never do. That said, if he had a sonand the "personal union" between the Netherlands and England continued, I could see this potentialy happening. This is a long shot, I admit, and I doubt the English would agree with it. How about this:
Willem III and Mary have a son (and only one son, toavoid confusion). William III and Mary die before their son is of age, so he can't become stadholder. After a couple of years without a stadholder, the Dutch provinces get used to the idea and when William's son is 18, they tell him they don't need a stadholder. William's son doesn't like that idea, gathers an army in England and invades the Netherlands (where he get support from several people of the Orangist faction). He deafeats the Republicans and becomes stadholder and later declares himself king. Although you still need a way to deal with the fact that Groningen and Friesland have a different stadholder than the other provinces. Well, the whole king idea is probably a more of a longterm idea anyway.

Well instead of declaring himself king, he could make the Estates of the Provinces under his control grant him their respective titles, so count of Holland & Zeeland, duke of Gelre & count of Zutphen and lord of Utrecht & Overijssel, though maybe the lordships could be elevated to principalities (both were created out of the former prince-bishopric of Utrecht). This could at least be an intermediate step towards kingship in the Netherlands.

I do totally agree, that it will very hard to pull off. As for Estates toying with the idea of granting the title of their hereditary lord, the Estates of Holland were thinking about making stadtholder prince William the Silent count of Holland, before he was assassinated. Though by the time Gelre wanted to do something similar for his descendant, the regents of Holland had developed totally different ideas.
 
And how about the glorious revolution (which actually was an invasion) going full invasion mode and willem & UP taking over?
not the united kingdoms but the United Provinces of the Netherlands and England
 
As for Estates toying with the idea of granting the title of their hereditary lord, the Estates of Holland were thinking about making Stadtholder Prince William the Silent Count of Holland, before he was assassinated.
Well this is an interesting little piece of history. How seriously were they considering it at the time of his murder, would it only have taken his living another year or two to see it happen or was it very much in the future? It would have been rather amusing if it had gone ahead considering how relations between the Regents in Holland and the House of Orange-Nassau developed later on. :) Might make an interesting addition to my William II lives an extra ten years timeline I'm considering.
 
And how about the glorious revolution (which actually was an invasion) going full invasion mode and willem & UP taking over?
not the united kingdoms but the United Provinces of the Netherlands and England

That (at least IMHO) would not be in the personal (and dynastic) interests of Willem III.
 
but his financial position could force him, conflicts are expensive.
and if he needs to go full invasion mode, he can't do without cooperation of the provinces/estates
 
Go back further to the reign of Queen Mary. If she and Philip have a son, then giving the English Habsburgs the Lowlands would be a logical outcome. And with a friendly England the Habsburgs' position in the Netherlands becomes much more secure.
 
Go back further to the reign of Queen Mary. If she and Philip have a son, then giving the English Habsburgs the Lowlands would be a logical outcome. And with a friendly England the Habsburgs' position in the Netherlands becomes much more secure.
Another way would be for an earlier split of the Lowlands under a third Habsburg who goes Protestant (probably in the Anglican style than full Lutheran) and marries the equivalent of Elizabeth.
 
Would would have happened if the United Kingdom had been between England and the Netherlands and not between England and Scotland?

Its hard but probably not impossible to get this situation. The main problem is that the United Provinces, what is now the Kingdom of the Netherlands, was at least on paper a republic up unto the nineteenth century.

No, the main problem is that no one - absolutely no one - in England or the Netherlands wanted a formal political union of the two countries. The "personal union" under William III happened because the Dutch were desperate for an ally against Louis XIV, and English Whigs were desperate for a replacement for James II.

At this time, England and Scotland were also in a "personal union". It continued after William's death because the Scots crown, like the English crown, was hereditary - Anne was the automatic heir.

The stadholderships (there was one for each province) were not hereditary. We'll suppose William and Mary have a son around 1680, and that this butterflies William's death in 1702. Instead he lives till 1718. *William IV* would be 38. The question is whether W IV would try to succeed his father in the stadtholderships. That will be affected by many knock-ons. such as how the Spanish Succession plays out. In OTL, the First Partition Treaty awarded Spain to a scion of Bavaria, rather than to a Bourbon or Hapsburg prince, but he died of smallpox. We'll assume that there is an equivalent Bavarian scion, who doesn't die, averting the WotSS.

Other knock-ons include an additional 15 years of effective rule by the English monarch, rather than Anne's passivity; and then further effective royal rule by William IV, in place of the passivity of George I. On the other side, William III's death was followed by the Second Stadtholderless period, which lasted till 1747.

Obviously the crown would be much stronger than OTL.
 
Even when Joseph Ferdinand of Wittelsbach would survive, then I can still see France/Bourbon, Austria/Habsburg and Savoy wanting something in compensation, so an ATL WotSS might still happen.

Formally the Stadtholdership wasn't hereditary until 1747, when OTL prince Willem IV of Orange-Nassau (-Dietz) became hereditary general stadtholder, though (basically) even before that point members of the Ottonian branch of the house of Nassau (with Orange-Nassau as the most important branch) were the only candidates considered for the position of Stadtholder.
 
If Elizabeth had accepted the crown of the Netherlands, what would happen when she dies heirless? The Dutch Estates-General won't give a damn about Henry VIII's will and the like. Would they make a point of choosing a monarch that would end the personal union with England?
 
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