Excerpt from “Undoing the Magna Carta: A History of Stuart Britain”
by Samuel Durston © Northumbrian Pamphlets, 1998
"In March 1603 the English throne passed to James VI of Scotland who became James I of England. James had by then been King of Scotland for thirty-five years and, having actively sought the english crown for much of that, he had maneuvered skilfully and patiently to achieve the outcome of 1603. However, perhaps because he had worked so hard to win it, James vastly overestimated the value of the Kingdom he had just inherited.
The english crown entered the new century still at war with spain and desperately short of money, lacking the funds to maintain an effective standing army and yet overcommited in terms of men needed. As a result it was dependent on a corrupt and inefficient bureaucracy staffed on a local level by unpaid volunteers. The Kingdom of England, far from the land of milk and honey that James imagined, was a rebellious, fractured and religiously divided land racked by persistent price inflation and economically very nearly on it's knees.[1]
The common joke that James was the King of "Two and a Half Kingdoms", referring to the ongoing irish rebellion which still had control over much of the emerald isle when Elizabeth died, was if anything overstating his fortune.[2]"
Excerpt from the Transcript of the DVD “An English Comedian in Dublin”
by Richard Lee © Comedy Central, 2006
"The irony is, Hugh O'Neill, the Great Earl, your national hero, was himself gay. [Boo from Audience] No he was, sir. And we know this for sure.
Firstly about two years ago they found a cache of love letters hidden ... in a bog, at, at erm loch neigh or somewhere. And the letters were exchanged between Hugh O'Neill and Thomas Stukley and they were full of declarations of love and details of their very vigorous sexual encounters. No they did, so that's one thing. And a year ago they found some graffiti on a, erm, wall. An old Islander wall. [Correction from audience]. Yes, I know it's irish. I'm a comedian, did it not occur to you that I might be making that mistake on purpose? You're sitting there thinking 'he hasn't even done the most basic of research here'? [Laughs] Anyway, the graffiti, which is real, it existed, it said "I am a Gay, signed Hugh O'Neill, "the Great Earl". And the great earl bit was in inverted commas so they knew it was real.
And the thing is, people often ask, why didn't we know about this before now? And the reason, of course, is that all this was written in gaelic, which as we all know is a very highly advanced form of Medievel irish homosexual patwah. I mean the clue's in the name, lic means language or tongue so it's literally the language of gays.
And I was booed out of Cork for saying that but I think it's great. I wish some of the british folk heros like Robin Hood, or William Wallace or Owen Glendower had been gay. But they weren't. Only yours was. It's only Hugh O'Neill, "the Great Earl", the irish one who definitely definitely was.
[Correction from audience]What do you mean he's not yours? Have I landed in the wrong country by mistake? Not ours? You might be protestants here in the pale, mate, but you're not fucking French.[3]"
Excerpt from the Nupedia Website (Translated from French).
"The Anglo-Islamic/Spanish War (1580-1604) was an intermittent conflict between the kingdom of Spain and first England and then later also Morocco and the Ottoman Empire that was never formally declared. The war, also sometimes known as the War of Portuguese Succession, began as a result of the succession crisis in Portugal that started after Sebastian I died of plague in 1577 and continued after the establishment of the Iberian Union in 1582. It overlapped with other ongoing conflicts of the time period such as the Wars of Religion, the Dutch Revolt and the Conquest of Ireland.[4]"
Excerpt from the Blog "Oceanwarfare".
"6th most important Naval Battle of all time: Ponza (1591).
OK, so I know the turks are going to have my head over me picking this one and not Preveza, Djerba or Lepanto[5]. But those battles are exactly why this one is so important. Not only did it further redeem the spanish fleet after the failure of the Armada but it blasted a hole in the notion of turkish naval invincibility that had increasingly taken hold following their earlier victories.
Ponza is important both because it illustrated that the age of sail and shot had finally arrived in the med and because it ensured that the 17th century would be a christian one and not a muslim one."
Excerpt from "The Counter-Factual Discussion board" (Translated from Spanish).
Excerpt from a book review in the "Welsh Express, May 2011".
"With the violence in Scandinavia and Baluchistan still making headlines it is perhaps a good time for a new book about the pirates of the 16th and 17th centuries and their role in the many Spanish Wars of the time period. And if that statement seems to make no sense, give this book a try. Douglas argues convincingly that they were perhaps the first 'state sponsored religious terrorists'."
Excerpt from the website "Muslims in America".
"Less than 0.5% of the worlds muslim population lives in the new world. And yet this could of all been very different. In 1595 an English-Moroccan Expedition to the americas established an islamic settlement near the base the Essequibo River. Had the Moroccans not been forced to abandon their colony in the wake of plagues and spanish pressure, who knows what might have happened?[6]"
Excerpt from “Encyclopædia Britannica” © Encyclopædia Britannica, 1951
Dragut- (1514-1572) Barbary Pirate and Ottoman Admiral, operating largely in the Mediterranean Sea and most famous for his role in the Capture of Malta (1565) [7].
[1] Almost all of this could be said of James and England in our time line (OTL).
[2] In OTL the last of the great Irish Rebels surrendered in the same week Elizabeth died, meaning that James was the very first british monarch to have complete control over Ireland. Here it's different.
[3] This is a version of an OTL stand up routine about William Wallace, which says something about the cultural focus of TTL's British Isles.
[4] This timeline (TTL)'s version of the anglo-spanish war of 1585-1604.
[5] The Mediterranean christian powers spent most of the 16th century forming brief alliances against the ottomans. In OTL, Preveza and Djerba were Ottoman victories against these alliances and Lepanto an ottoman loss. In TTL all 3 are ottoman victories.
[6] In OTL, Morocco proposed to England a joint expedition to the new world so both countries could build colonies there. In OTL it never happened. In TTL it does but doesn't come to anything.
[7] In OTL, Dragut died in 1565 and the Ottoman Siege of Malta was abandoned. In TTL he survives and they win.
by Samuel Durston © Northumbrian Pamphlets, 1998
"In March 1603 the English throne passed to James VI of Scotland who became James I of England. James had by then been King of Scotland for thirty-five years and, having actively sought the english crown for much of that, he had maneuvered skilfully and patiently to achieve the outcome of 1603. However, perhaps because he had worked so hard to win it, James vastly overestimated the value of the Kingdom he had just inherited.
The english crown entered the new century still at war with spain and desperately short of money, lacking the funds to maintain an effective standing army and yet overcommited in terms of men needed. As a result it was dependent on a corrupt and inefficient bureaucracy staffed on a local level by unpaid volunteers. The Kingdom of England, far from the land of milk and honey that James imagined, was a rebellious, fractured and religiously divided land racked by persistent price inflation and economically very nearly on it's knees.[1]
The common joke that James was the King of "Two and a Half Kingdoms", referring to the ongoing irish rebellion which still had control over much of the emerald isle when Elizabeth died, was if anything overstating his fortune.[2]"
Excerpt from the Transcript of the DVD “An English Comedian in Dublin”
by Richard Lee © Comedy Central, 2006
"The irony is, Hugh O'Neill, the Great Earl, your national hero, was himself gay. [Boo from Audience] No he was, sir. And we know this for sure.
Firstly about two years ago they found a cache of love letters hidden ... in a bog, at, at erm loch neigh or somewhere. And the letters were exchanged between Hugh O'Neill and Thomas Stukley and they were full of declarations of love and details of their very vigorous sexual encounters. No they did, so that's one thing. And a year ago they found some graffiti on a, erm, wall. An old Islander wall. [Correction from audience]. Yes, I know it's irish. I'm a comedian, did it not occur to you that I might be making that mistake on purpose? You're sitting there thinking 'he hasn't even done the most basic of research here'? [Laughs] Anyway, the graffiti, which is real, it existed, it said "I am a Gay, signed Hugh O'Neill, "the Great Earl". And the great earl bit was in inverted commas so they knew it was real.
And the thing is, people often ask, why didn't we know about this before now? And the reason, of course, is that all this was written in gaelic, which as we all know is a very highly advanced form of Medievel irish homosexual patwah. I mean the clue's in the name, lic means language or tongue so it's literally the language of gays.
And I was booed out of Cork for saying that but I think it's great. I wish some of the british folk heros like Robin Hood, or William Wallace or Owen Glendower had been gay. But they weren't. Only yours was. It's only Hugh O'Neill, "the Great Earl", the irish one who definitely definitely was.
[Correction from audience]What do you mean he's not yours? Have I landed in the wrong country by mistake? Not ours? You might be protestants here in the pale, mate, but you're not fucking French.[3]"
Excerpt from the Nupedia Website (Translated from French).
"The Anglo-Islamic/Spanish War (1580-1604) was an intermittent conflict between the kingdom of Spain and first England and then later also Morocco and the Ottoman Empire that was never formally declared. The war, also sometimes known as the War of Portuguese Succession, began as a result of the succession crisis in Portugal that started after Sebastian I died of plague in 1577 and continued after the establishment of the Iberian Union in 1582. It overlapped with other ongoing conflicts of the time period such as the Wars of Religion, the Dutch Revolt and the Conquest of Ireland.[4]"
Excerpt from the Blog "Oceanwarfare".
"6th most important Naval Battle of all time: Ponza (1591).
OK, so I know the turks are going to have my head over me picking this one and not Preveza, Djerba or Lepanto[5]. But those battles are exactly why this one is so important. Not only did it further redeem the spanish fleet after the failure of the Armada but it blasted a hole in the notion of turkish naval invincibility that had increasingly taken hold following their earlier victories.
Ponza is important both because it illustrated that the age of sail and shot had finally arrived in the med and because it ensured that the 17th century would be a christian one and not a muslim one."
Excerpt from "The Counter-Factual Discussion board" (Translated from Spanish).
El Cider said:What if the Isle of Lundy (off Devon) had been retained by the Spanish in 1604?
Hijo de Dragut said:It would have been taken back the next time they went to war.
Blanco said:Yeah, see the fates of Heligoland or the Channel Islands as comparisons. European powers tended to get irritated at rocks just off their coasts being held by rival powers. The prospect of a situation like that lasting past, at the most, 1700 is extremely unlikely, imo.
Azul Chico said:I also think it's very debatable if Spain ever even actually held Lundy. Yes, they raided it and yes Dunkirkers and smugglers used it as a base to get help to the irish rebels. But english sources simply don't indicate any kind of actual occupation. It's mention in the treaty of london is more a recognition of the status quo than an actual concession from the spanish.
Excerpt from a book review in the "Welsh Express, May 2011".
"With the violence in Scandinavia and Baluchistan still making headlines it is perhaps a good time for a new book about the pirates of the 16th and 17th centuries and their role in the many Spanish Wars of the time period. And if that statement seems to make no sense, give this book a try. Douglas argues convincingly that they were perhaps the first 'state sponsored religious terrorists'."
Excerpt from the website "Muslims in America".
"Less than 0.5% of the worlds muslim population lives in the new world. And yet this could of all been very different. In 1595 an English-Moroccan Expedition to the americas established an islamic settlement near the base the Essequibo River. Had the Moroccans not been forced to abandon their colony in the wake of plagues and spanish pressure, who knows what might have happened?[6]"
Excerpt from “Encyclopædia Britannica” © Encyclopædia Britannica, 1951
Dragut- (1514-1572) Barbary Pirate and Ottoman Admiral, operating largely in the Mediterranean Sea and most famous for his role in the Capture of Malta (1565) [7].
[1] Almost all of this could be said of James and England in our time line (OTL).
[2] In OTL the last of the great Irish Rebels surrendered in the same week Elizabeth died, meaning that James was the very first british monarch to have complete control over Ireland. Here it's different.
[3] This is a version of an OTL stand up routine about William Wallace, which says something about the cultural focus of TTL's British Isles.
[4] This timeline (TTL)'s version of the anglo-spanish war of 1585-1604.
[5] The Mediterranean christian powers spent most of the 16th century forming brief alliances against the ottomans. In OTL, Preveza and Djerba were Ottoman victories against these alliances and Lepanto an ottoman loss. In TTL all 3 are ottoman victories.
[6] In OTL, Morocco proposed to England a joint expedition to the new world so both countries could build colonies there. In OTL it never happened. In TTL it does but doesn't come to anything.
[7] In OTL, Dragut died in 1565 and the Ottoman Siege of Malta was abandoned. In TTL he survives and they win.
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