Two and a Half Kingdoms: A Stuart TL

Youngmarshall · Jun 20, 2015

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).

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.

Youngmarshall · Jun 20, 2015

Excerpt from “Osmanisches Reich” (Translated from German)
by Martin von Ranke © Liepzig University, 1825

"If a state has been founded on conquest, if it has hitherto known no pause to it's conquests, can anyone doubt that the shock to it will be severe, when the progress is stayed and conquest ceases? Under Soliman, warlike and victorious as lie was, the empire began yet to have boundaries.

If the establishment of the Austrian-Spanish power was in any point of view a fortunate thing for Christendom, it was so inasmuch as it had inherent strength enough to resist the Turks at once in Africa, Italy and Hungary. In this way it has earned the gratitude of all Christian nations, even those who fought against it.[1]"

Excerpt from a speech given in Seville, (Translated from Spanish)
by Pedro Meléndez, 1967.

"Muslims have always terrorized the world, always been the cause and reason for most battles and wars. From the birth of warlord Mohammed, the world had a new evil that would never leave: Islam.

If anyone wonders what our problem with the moors or their lutherian allies is, they should direct those questions to the people of Malta."

Excerpt from "The rise and fall of the Spanish Empire"
by Niall Buchan, Durham University, 1980.

"In the aftermath of Djerba, the Ottomans had the Mediterranean open to them. And the next decade was one largely of retreat for the Christian Powers.

Malta, home of the Knights of St. John, was taken in 1565 and nearly 3/4 of the island's populations were either killed or sold as slaves, an atrocity that still causes outrage today.[2] The fortress of La Goleta followed in 1567 and with it the port of Tunis[3], reducing Spanish territory in North Africa essentially to the two ports of Melilla and Oran.

This is recognised now as the ottoman's at the very peak of their power and badly overextended, but the mood in Christendom, who always seemed to overestimate the prowess of their Turkish foes, was one of outright panic. It is tempting to assume that without the fear of the Ottomans landing in Spain, Philip would have seen less need to integrate the Moriscos[4] and so the brutal massacres of that revolt would have been avoided. It is, of course, impossible to know either way.

The other result was Pius V's great contribution to European Geopolitics, the Holy League. An alliance of all the great Italian powers it failed outright in any attempt to pin back the Turks entirely, the Venetian and Genoan galley fleets were mauled at Lepanto (though the lopsided casualties the Turks suffered meant it was to prove the ultimate in Pyrrhic victories) and forced to give up Cyrus, Chios and Corfu[5]. It was however ultimately a success for the Spanish, who managed to avoid the major battles whilst reconquering Malta[6] and (briefly) Tunis and ensuring the safety of their Italian possessions.

Moreover, it further pushed the Italian city states into the Spanish camp, as they were seen less as rivals and more as the only hope to stop the Turks."

Excerpt from "Ahmad Al-Mansur" (Translated from Arabic)
By Salim Zafrani @ Université de Paris, 1997.

"The truth was Ahmad Al-Mansur both needed war and couldn't afford one. He and his brother were placed onto the throne of Morocco by the Ottoman Turks in order to turn an enemy into a vassal and in order to hold it, he needed to present himself as something other than the Turk's catspaw.He emphasised his sharifian origins and his role as a Mujadid, as if he and his brother had invaded, not for a throne, but in order to rid the country of it's christian enclaves.

The 1587 attacks on Tangier and Melilla, in support of his new English allies, are often viewed as one of Al-Mansur's many quixotic guestures that left the country nearly bankrupt, like the invasion of Songhai, his claim for caliph, or the farcical attempt at an american colony, but in truth it was a pragmatic attempt at uniting his country behind him in a jihad[7].

That it would lead to his patrons and rivals, the Ottomans, being dragged into a war vs the Spanish that would see their fleet almost entirely destroyed at Ponza and kickstart the resulting long war against the Austrians which saw them driven out of Hungary, is something he could not possibly have foreseen. But it is difficult to argue that he would have been too upset."

Excerpt from "Thomas Stukley: A Rogue's Life[8]"
By Roy Murphy, @ Blackstaff Press 1978.

"Stukley arrived in Cadiz in April, 1578. Here he aimed to secure a fleet that would take him and his 4,000 papal troops, to Ireland. King Philip II sent him on instead to a Lisbon still reeling from the death of their King Sebastian a year earlier[9].

Here he met up with both James FitzMaurice FitzGerald[10] and King Henry the Chaste, and after an unsuccessful attempt to hire German mercenaries, finally bought a fleet and set out immediately for Ireland.

Except, being Stukley, he didn't. He instead set out to hunt down English merchant ships in the channel, in order to steal their goods, capturing three vessels and attacking two more. Thus when the Invasion Fleet did finally reach Ireland, the English Navy were waiting for them."

[1] Leopold von Ranke, OTL's version of this man, said something very similar.
[2] Earlier raids on Malta before 1565 had seen huge amounts of civilians killed or taken as slaves, it seemed unlikely that things would be different in an Ottoman victory over the Knights.
[3] This happened 7 years later in OTL, in 1574.
[4] In both OTL and TTL Philip II cracked down on the moors in Spain by banning the Arabic and Berber languages and forced morisco children to be educated by catholic priests and given christian names. The resulting revolt was brutally put down. The suggestion that it would not have happened had Malta held is irony.
[5] A victory at Lepanto rather than a loss sees the ottomans take Corfu from Venice as well as Cyprus. Crete still remains Venetian, the last bit of Greece not under Ottoman control.
[6] The Spanish retaking Malta strikes me as inevitable, it's too important strategically for it be left in Turkish hands.
[7] In OTL Al-Mansur's first act as sultan was to defeat a Portuguese invasion and wipe out 25,000 Portuguese soldiers (ransoming the survivors). In this timeline he doesn't have that so he a) has less money to complete his ambitious reforms and b) is more desperate to prove himself (Al-Mansur is a name he gave himself meaning the victorious and he needs victories to make that title not a joke).
[8] Stukley was an English Catholic who got exiled for various criminal activities and hung around in Spain and Italy fighting Muslims. In both TTL and OTL he fought at Lepanto.
[9] In OTL Sebastian was still alive and hired Stukley for his invasion of Morocco. His earlier death derails those plans and saves Stukley's life meaning he carries on with the original papal plan to invade Ireland.
[10] Irish Catholic Exile. In OTL he headed to Ireland without Stukley or the Papal Backup and ended up shot by his cousin after stealing his horse.

Youngmarshall · Jun 21, 2015

No interest in this at all, then?

Anyway, these first few posts are just background. The real meat is about James and Charles Stuart and their rule over a british isles where England and Ireland are in worse conditions when they take over relative to Scotland.

I just wanted to map out the background, where a slightly stronger ottoman presence in the med leads to the Anglo-Spanish war getting hotter sooner and so a weaker crown due to more fighting and a stronger rebellion in Ireland.

Another post or two should cover that and then I'll get onto the main thrust.

Unknown · Jun 21, 2015

Actually, there is interest.

I'm just wondering where you are going with this...

Youngmarshall · Jun 21, 2015

Just some notes on people I've mentioned who you might not know from otl.

Ahmad Al-Mansur was a sultan of Morocco who, alongside his brother, fled into exile and grew up with the ottomans before coming back and reclaiming the throne for his brother with Ottoman support. The emphasising his holy warrior background as a way of proving himself his own man and not an Ottoman pawn is all otl. Only in otl, his first act as sultan was to defeat a Portuguese invasion and wipe out 25,000 Portuguese soldiers (ransoming the survivors). In this timeline he doesn't have that so he a) has less money to complete his ambitious reforms and b) is more desperate to prove himself (Al-Mansur is a name he gave himself meaning the victorious and he needs victories to make that title not a joke). Hence, as well as doing what he does in otl (i.e. attacking the Songhai Empire and claiming to be caliph in order to justify attacking fellow Muslims), he also tries some of his more outrageous otl plans such as an american colony (which he simply doesn't have the resources to pull off but ittl he makes an attempt).

The reason why the English put up with him, both otl and ittl, is he created a huge slave driven sugar plantation in the sous valley and sold that and animal hides to the English in return for weapons (which scandalised the pope in otl and will do so doubly in ttl due to the Maltese massacre). This was particularly useful because the Portuguese in Brazil weren't trading sugar with the English due to the Iberian union. In otl no full alliance was ever formed but ittl due to worse Anglo-Spanish relations it is. And ittl, the Portuguese in the Iberian union are still calling for war with the Moroccans having not been burned from losing a 25,000 man army there the last time they tried.

Also because, ittl, Sebastian I died of plague (he was raised by holy men and noted for trying to fund the treating of plague victims) rather when invading Morocco, 24,999 extra members of the Portuguese nobility and armed forces remain alive which makes Philip claiming the throne of Portugal a much bloodier affair. Which leads to more English intervention in Portugal and that leads to an earlier agreement in France between Philip and the catholic league and so an earlier agreement with the dutch rebels and the English. Which is partly why the Anglo-Spanish war of this timeline kicks off 5 years earlier.

Another reason is that Thomas Stukley, an English catholic who in otl died in Morocco with the Portuguese, gets to instead, reluctantly, carry out the actual mission the pope asked of him and raise the catholic banner in Ireland in 1578, rather than have it be raised by FitzGerald a year later like it was in OTl, and Stukley has more visible Spanish backing.

Which is what the next update should be about.

Youngmarshall · Jun 22, 2015

Excerpt from "A complete History of Ireland"
By Roy Murphy, @ Blackstaff Press 1981.

"A temptation that historians too often fall for is to explain events in the past using modern thought patterns. A particularly prevalent mistake of this type is the view of foreign invaders in Ireland.

It is easy, as so many do, to cast the likes of Brian Boru and Ulick Fionn Burke as patriots fighting for their native land and trying to throw the invaders back into the sea. Easy but also wrong. Ireland, as much as China, has a way of taking it's invaders and making it part of them. Some of the clans Boru faced in his struggle to unite Ireland were Irish Gaelic and others were Norse, but they were treated in identical ways by him in terms of both making alliances and making war. Clontarf was not Irish against vikings but a battle in an Irish civil war, in which some combatants, on both sides, happened to be born outside Ireland.

The Anglo-Norman Lords were largely viewed much the same way. They were just another clan and the fact that they, in theory, took orders from London mattered little in practice. The native Irish fought them, yes, but Ireland was a place of constant clan warfare, they were also happy to make marriage alliances with the English against their common enemies. The battle of Knockdoe fought in 1504, like Clontarf, can be best described as a battle in an Irish civil war in which some combatants happened to be born in England[1].

The real tipping point, where the English went from just another clan to an occupier, in Irish minds, was not until the papal banner was raised in 1578."

Excerpt from "A reply to Roy Murphy"
Published in 'the Cork Mirror', May 1982.

"As much as it may be understandable for Mr. Murphy, given his status as an expert on Thomas Stukley (and his biography of him is well worth reading) to inflate Stukley's importance, I must refute the insulting and inaccurate suggestion that it took an English Catholic and his Papal backers to convince the Irish of the obvious truth that the nature of the English presence in Ireland had changed.

One would assume that it would be self evident that the Irish stopped seeing the English as just another clan when the English stopped acting as such. The tipping point where the old status quo of a functionally independent Anglo-Irish clan was no longer accepted by London was the Silken Thomas rebellion. Henry's man in Ireland breaking his vows of loyalty, however much of a bluff it was, was the true game changer. As was obvious to the Irish the moment that the English Troops sent to capture him didn't go straight back home. In Ulster the English faced the Geraldine League, in Munster the first Desmond rebellion and in Connacht, the Mac-en-Earlas Wars[2].

All over Ireland in fact they were running into the kind of organised resistance to English rule that Murphy would have you believe was started by the Pope."

Excerpt from "Elizabeth and Religion"
By Sarah Lister @ Carolinian Press, 2001.

"The 1981 edict that to convert English subjects to Catholicism with the intent to withdraw them from their allegiance to Elizabeth was an offense carrying the death penalty was not one that Elizabeth drew up lightly.

It was instead a response to a decade of growing conflict, her excommunication in 1570 and the following Spanish plot to overthrow her were the obvious triggers[3] but events in Ireland also played their part.

Thomas Stukley, a man who had memorably charmed Elizabeth into providing him with a fleet to colonise Florida for her only to use it instead to commit acts of piracy[4], was an odd choice for a Papal embassy. Indeed many accounts of his life argue that it was only his papal bodyguard that meant he actually carried out his mission at all. He is supposed to have said at one point that the only things a man could gain in Ireland were hunger and lice.

That the papal fleet delayed itself in crossing the channel to waylay English merchant ships coming back from the Levant, was undoubtedly down to Stukley. And the result was that most of the fleet was captured before it reached it's destination.

Stukley himself, along with Fitzmaurice and some 300 papal troops did manage to escape their pursuers and landed at Smerwick Harbour in November. Here they were to proclaim holy war against the English. If previous Irish rebellions had always had relatively limited aims, this one certainly did not and the role of the european catholic powers in it's planning was not overlooked in London."

Excerpt from a film review in 'the Cork Mirror', July 1995

"Anyone expecting a serious historical examination of two of Ireland's most notorious and controversial outlaws should think again.

There is no evidence at all that Grace O'Malley[5] ever even met Thomas Stukley, but in this charming if overblown Spanish Romance, they are recast as star crossed soul mates. Stukley (Jose Carlos Trejo), escaping from the aftermath of the failed rebellion in Desmond, meets O'Malley (Sophia Enrique, far too young and fresh faced to be the 40 year old twice married pirate queen she is playing) and falls quickly in love."

Excerpt from "A complete History of Ireland"
By Roy Murphy, @ Blackstaff Press 1981.

"Elizabeth recognised that despite the quick resolution to the second Desmond rebellion, the Tudor position in Ireland was a weak one. There was a great deal of anger among the local Irish and it had only been the unexpected loyalty of Gerald, the Earl of Desmond, that had rescued the situation[6].

Worried about the amount of money needed to put down Irish rebellions, Elizabeth and her new Lord Deputy, Sir John Perrot, began instead a program of conciliation and peace[7]. There were too many people, on both sides, who wanted war for that job to be an easy one so Perrot should be applauded for the fact that wide spread rebellion did not break out in Ireland until after his arrest and death.

But if the Tudors read the 15 years of peace in Ireland as meaning that their opposition had been cowed, they were sorely mistaken. The quick end to the Desmond rebellions and the early death of Fitzmaurice had left the Irish Gaelic establishment largely intact and waiting for a chance to declare rebellion. More importantly still, the idea of catholic foreign intervention, which had been dearly desired by Irish rebels for all of the 16th century, finally seemed to be on the table."

Excerpt from "Thomas Stukley: A Rogue's Life"
By Roy Murphy, @ Blackstaff Press 1978

"Stukley's career as an outlaw and bandit during the 'Perrot's peace era' is perhaps the part of his life most furiously speculated about if only because it's the time of his life which we know the least about."

[1] Roy's opinions on Clontarf and Knockdoe are largely my own.
[2] This is all OTL.
[3] So is this.
[4] And this.
[5] Grace O'Malley was a famous 16th century irish pirate and general rogue. It seemed inevitable that in a world where the irish rebels of the time period are pop culture icons she'd be poorly cast as a romantic lead.
[6] In, OTL, Gerald joined the rebels after his cousin's death and so the Second Desmond rebellion became a much bigger, much more expensive affair, which devastated Munster. In TTL that doesn't happen.
[7] English policy in Ireland at the time was split between those who wanted to kill the irish and replace them with english farmers and those who wanted to make the irish farm instead. Perrott, both otl and ttl, was in the latter camp.

Youngmarshall · Jun 22, 2015

Excerpt from "Nina's History Blog"

"So in terms of 16th century politics, the Ottomans were basically the ginger kid at the party. Nobody wanted to be their friend.

Which would be very sad if it wasn't a direct result of 200 years of them beating the ever living shit out of everyone they ever had a border with. Being a superpower is like dating Jose Trejo, it feels really good but everyone else hates you for it. I mean the Europeans all hated them obviously, but to the east they had the Persians who also hated them, to the west there was the Moroccans who hated them so much they even teamed up with the Spanish to fight them, which they're still embarrassed about, and to the north they had the Crimeans... who didn't hate them! But who were being rapidly rolled back by the Russians, who did.

By the 1580s, the French, their first european allies, were busy tearing themselves apart over what language to pray in, the Poles were quietly mumbling about maybe 'eternal' peace was putting it a bit strong, the Spanish were driving out anyone who could even pronounce Qur'an and the Pope was spending his days throwing darts at a picture of Suleiman's hat. The massacre at Malta and the ongoing piracy of the corsairs meant that prices for seaside resorts were at an all time low and hysteria over turks under the med was at an all time high.

So any European power to ally with them then had to be a completely despicable bunch of backstabbers. Yes you guessed it, it's time to reintroduce the English.

England and Spain were not technically at war following Mary's death but they did all sorts of not very friendly stuff to each other, like robbing Spanish ships, plotting assassinations and arming catholic rebels in Ireland. The trigger point was when Henry the Chaste, King of Portugal, died without siring an heir. Henry, who was an archbishop, was unable to marry because the pope, in a move not at all planned in Spain, refused to release him from his vows. Which, by one of those amazing coincidences that happened so often to the Habsburgs, left Philip with the best claim to the Portuguese throne.

Philip was resisted by Antonio of Crato, who the English supported on the very sophisticated basis that at least he wasn't fucking Spanish[1]. So for two years the English and Spanish turned Portugal red with blood until Antonio fled to London, Philip was crowned in Lisbon and Elizabeth borrowed 'Learning Dutch for beginners' from the local library. Philip responded by wandering into France and having a serious talk with the Catholic League about which countries nearby happened to be heretic and which weren't[2].

So that was going on. In the mean time England was reestablishing trade with the Muslims, setting up the Turkey Company and Barbary Company to deal with the Ottomans and Moroccans.

Morocco, still trying to make up for that whole teaming up with Spain thing, were loving this. They started making metal to sell to the English, they started tanning animal hides to sell to the English and they started collecting black slaves, to grow sugar, which they sold to the English. The latter went so well that they start invading more black countries just to get more slaves, even if they were Muslim. And in return the English gave them guns, lots and lots of guns. Which pissed off the pope even more but his predecessor had already excommunicated Elizabeth so what more could he even do about it?

Anyway in 1587, after Drake singed the King of Spain's beard, Morocco signed an alliance with England and went after Tangier and Ceuta[3]. The Portuguese merchants who were only not at war with Morocco at this point because they hadn't got around to it yet, cried to their Spanish king about it. And Philip, who at this point was at war with more people than even the Ottomans, decided that the only thing he liked more than not paying debts and going bankrupt was beating up Muslims.

Meanwhile back in Turkey, the ottomans were getting stagnant and soft due to everlasting peace. Yes, it had been almost 7 days since they had last declared war on someone and people were getting worried.

They had spent most of the 1580s fighting the Persians on land and trying to drive the Portuguese (now with added Spanish overlords) out of eastern Africa and Asia at sea. The first bit of that went well, the second bit not so much as it turned out that most of the people in Africa didn't like them any more then anyone else did. And in the mean time, that sort of thing is expensive, taxes were slowly rising, and that meant tax revolts and that meant coins were devalued and that meant those on fixed salaries were fucked. Such as their elite slave army, who revolted. And in something that was definitely not a horrible precedent to set, the sultan caved, several administrators got their heads chopped off and the slave soldiers got a taste of power[4].

All of which were problems that could of course be best fixed by another war. See it turned out that the Ottomans weren't ginger at all, they were just strawberry blonde, or sorry that Islam and Anglicanism actually had a lot in common with each other due to not being catholic. Elizabeth, who was busy trying to drive any blacks and moors in London out of her country[5] and who had written, in the aftermath of Malta, about all of Europe being ravaged by Turkish barbarians, was of course fulsome in her praise for her new allies.

Officially the Ottoman fleet had been attacked while trying to safeguard the Levant Company's[6] ships from Spanish pirates, which was an act of war, unofficially Murad was clearly reacting to the loss of the Spanish armada which should have left him with clear control of the Mediterranean.

And it would have done, if Philip hadn't thought that debts were something that only applied to other people. His rebuilding of his fleet after that disaster to the extent that it could drive off the English counter attack the following year was remarkable. What he did two years after that at Ponza would sent shock-waves through the world.

The problem the Ottomans had was that everybody hated them. The Italians didn't care about the English but when Spain was fighting the Turks instead, well everybody knew someone who the Turks had took as a slave or killed. Everybody volunteered ships and men.

Not that the Turks were scared, of course, they were invincible after all. They'd won at Preveza, at Djerba, at Lepanto. Surely slave driven galleys with composite bows was a winning combination that could never be beat?

Spoiler alert: it wasn't.[7]

And when you've just got your arse kicked that badly, it's funny how all your old enemies start to come out of the woodwork. Russia started growling at Crimea, the Austrians crossed the Croatian border and began the long slow push through Hungary[8], the Poles started messing around in Moldavia and even the Persians began planning for a bit of revenge.

And the French, who still had English and Spanish troops fighting across the north of their country, decided to nope the fuck out of that particular alliance.

Like I said, being a superpower looks fun but it's best avoided."

[1] Everything up to here is largely the same as OTL.
[2] The 25,000 Portuguese soldiers who in OTL died in Morocco make claiming the Portuguese throne slightly trickier so that war is bloodier and the english get involved more directly. Philips' Alliance with the Catholics in France and Elizabeth's with the Dutch both happen slightly earlier than OTL as a result.
[3] In OTL, Elizabeth talked a lot about formal alliances with Morocco and the Ottomans against Spain but stopped short of actually signing anything. In TTL she does.
[4] This is all mostly the same as OTl. The war with Spain is not.
[5] That Elizabeth was expelling her black Muslims at the same time Spain was expelling theirs is a popular urban myth in both OTL and TTL. It's based on an incident where a german merchant was given permission by the crown to sell black Londoners to Spain as slaves, as long as he got permission from their bosses first. The lord mayor objected based on their usefulness to the city and the whole thing came to nothing. Over 300 Africans remained in England at her death.
[6] The Turkey Company, mentioned earlier, was renamed the Levant Company by this time so future historians wouldn't think they sold poultry.
[7] I've never bought the idea that if the Ottomans had only won at Malta or Lepanto they would be unstoppable. They had clear weaknesses in tech that were bound to eventually show.
[8] The long war in OTL was started by the Turks, in TTL it's started by the Austrians.

Youngmarshall · Jun 22, 2015

[1] In OTL, there is a popular internet meme called Polandball where various balls representing countries act out their history in hopefully amusing ways. In TTl, it's called Hollandball and features the dutch rather than Poland as the mascot but is otherwise much the same.

Youngmarshall · Jun 22, 2015

So I don't wish to be needy but the continued lack of replies is making me a little nervous. Just because every writer wants an audience and I would like to know if I'm making missteps.

Is it just that there's nothing to say yet? Is there no interest because the writing style or the time period chosen leaves you cold? Is it hard to follow because I haven't explained the differences properly? Do you think that the time line is implausable or else covering material already well trodden?

Ditzy Vixen (RossN) · Jun 22, 2015

No, it is very interesting (and fun - I love the cartoon).

The snippets are very cool and the movie review and Cork Mirror letter are very neat at providing flavour.

Be patient, you've only been at this a couple of days but people are reading (see your views count.)

pompejus · Jun 22, 2015

Youngmarshall said:
So I don't wish to be needy but the continued lack of replies is making me a little nervous. Just because every writer wants an audience and I would like to know if I'm making missteps.

Is it just that there's nothing to say yet? Is there no interest because the writing style or the time period chosen leaves you cold? Is it hard to follow because I haven't explained the differences properly? Do you think that the time line is implausable or else covering material already well trodden?

Just think of the joke about the German baby who was adopted by English parents.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48aUMXifAn8

Until now everything had been satisfactory.

iddt3 · Jun 22, 2015

This is awesome, subscribed.

Youngmarshall · Jun 24, 2015

Title of an English Pamphlet by George Wilkins, 1606.

"The Four Miseries of Barbary: Plague, Famine, Civille Warre and the Black Moors"[1]

Excerpt from "Morocco : From Empire to Failed State" by G.R. Pennell
@Bristol Pamphlets, 1987.

" Much has been written elsewhere about the brutal sieges that made up most of the fighting in the North African front of the Anglo-Islamic/Spanish war. The heroism and brutality displayed in places like Tangier and Oran defined a generation of Spanish soldiers. When peace, or at least a less intensive form of fighting, finally broke out after Philip II's death, Ahmad had the victory his self chosen title demanded: Mazagan and Anfa were firmly back in the hands of Morocco as was Melilla, which had been taken and retaken 3 times in some of the fiercest fighting.

But Oran and Tunis had been reconquered from the Turks after the Spanish victory at Ponza, the ports of Sale and Agadir but had been all but destroyed by bombardment and fire and Tangier and Ceuta[2] remained unconquerable, the clearest proof of the Moroccan state's limitations. Moreover, the price paid for Ahmad's victories was for his country to fall into chaos.

The use of black slaves to work the new sugar plantations had met some protest from the Muslim qadi or judges, but it had largely been accepted as the price for the great gardens, roads and palaces that al-Mansur was building (and which tragically remained unfinished at his death). As a result when the sugar trade began to get less profitable due to new world competition and the slaves started instead being recruited into the army, it was accepted without complaint. The alternative, given the hellish attrition the Arabs were suffering in their war with Spain, was to conscript the Berbers, which would lead to revolt.

Militarily, the move was a success, but what had previously been a mostly native Arab army with European and Turkish officers, was increasingly becoming a black army, with the new conquests in the Songhai increasingly supplying not gold but men to Marrakech. What wasn't clear, but would become so when al-Mansur died of the plague and his three sons each claimed his throne, was that this meant there was a large armed force in morocco which had no tribal loyalties and existed completely outside of the existing power structure[3].

Muhammed al-Shaykh al-Mamun[4], al-Mansurs eldest son and governor in Fez, had a particularly terrible reputation among his fellow Arabs for being a vicious wine sodden thug who loved to abuse young boys. Unable to count on loyalty from anyone else in Morocco it was him who turned to the blacks first and it was his 'black guard' that ultimately won him control of the capital and it's surroundings. The result was disastrous.

By 1627, and al-Mamum's death, most of Morocco could hardly be considered a functioning state. Famine, plague and constant warring had destroyed the Moroccan economy and the brutality of al-Mamun's rule led to most of his tribesmen near the borders rejecting any central authority and looking for outside allies. Melilla even gave itself back to the Spanish in return for christian protection.[5] What was left of 'loyal' Morocco was increasingly dominated politically and militarily by the Black Guard who might have been cowed by al-Mamun but were certainly the power behind the throne after his death.

Just as in Egypt, centuries earlier, the slaves had become the master and less than 40 years after the death of it's empire at Morocco's hand, a Songhai was, once again, the most powerful man in West Africa.[6]"

[1]: This is a real 1606 pamphlet about Morocco. Only in OTL, there were only 3 Miseries.
[2] The Portuguese owned 4 Morrocan ports and the Spanish 1 at the beginning of this war. At the end of it the Iberians are left with 2 and both are much more Spanish in character than Portuguese.
[3] The recruitment of Blacks into the Moroccan army didn't happen in OTL until much later. The reluctance to conscript Berbers was a constant in Morocco, though.
[4] Al-Mamun had much the same reputation in OTL but was much less successful in OTL's Morrocan civil war.
[5] Morocco in OTL did much the same thing, with various tribal chiefs going independent or making deals to return territory to the christians.
[6] Whether the Songhai Emperor had ever actually been the most powerful man in West Africa, prior to that empire's conquest by Morocco, is subject to debate.

Youngmarshall · Jun 24, 2015

English proverb of unknown origin.

"War is a miserable and expensive business that enriches only ravens and the dutch."

Excerpt from the 'Dutch Wars of Independence'.
By Marjolien Smit, @Oxford University, 1983.

"It is often noted that the only real winner of any of the wars of religion that racked Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries were the Dutch.

Whereas every other country emerged from the decades of fighting broke and battered, the dutch economy boomed even when the fighting was in their very streets. By the end of the 17th century, not only had they won their independence but they had overseen a veritable golden age for their country.

The reasons are manyfold. It is often forgotten that the County of Holland was the first territorial state that provided protection for capital owners and safeguarded the value of funds, which meant trade could grow even while at war (this in return meant that it's soldiers were well paid and so reliable and disciplined in a way the mutinous Spanish were not). Nor is it often mentioned that the Dutch, who had rebelled over Spanish taxes, were to become the most taxed people in Europe during the heat of the war. But, as a lot of people will tell you, at least part of the reason was that more people wanted the Dutch Revolt to succeed than wanted it to fail.

Whenever the army was running short of money, the Dutch managed to find people willing to lend them it and whenever the Dutch seemed to be on the ropes, they managed to find someone willing to attack the Spanish and release that pressure[1].

Most famously, in 1582, with Parma's Army of Flanders pushing on from Breda, the English, having been driven out of Portugal were eager to open up a new front against the Spanish. There is little doubt that the soldiers that Robert Dudley bought into the united provinces made a difference, not the least in preventing the fall of Brussels and Antwerp[2], but the idea that it was the English who ultimately crowned William the Silent as the Count of Holland[3] is vastly unfair on the Dutch rebels."

[1] This is all the same as OTL.
[2] In OTL Dudley didn't arrive in the low countries until after Brussels and Antwerp fell and is generally considered to have been rather useless. In TTL he arrives earlier, and has a different relationship with the dutch.
[3] In OTL, William the Silent was killed by a Spaniard and the rebels formed the Dutch Republic. In TTL he lives and takes a crown, meaning a very different Netherlands.

Youngmarshall · Jun 24, 2015

Excerpt from "When France Ruled the World."
By Marc Riel @ Quebec Press, 1953

"When the young Duke of Anjou and Alencon died of malaria in 1581[1], it was a grievous blow to a great many causes. William the Silent's plan to secure French aid had been reliant on the French heir he had declared protector[2], with Francis dead it was almost inevitable that the English would be invited in instead. Likewise the hoped for French/English alliance against Spain had been reliant on Francis marrying Elizabeth and so came to nothing[3].

Perhaps more seriously though it led to Henry of Navarre, a huguenot, becoming the new Heir to the crown of France. And that rather ruined the plans of the Catholic League. Which pushed them right into the hands of Spain and Philip II."

Excerpt from "Gabrielle d'Estrees: the uncrowned Queen."
By Charles Le Tallec, @ Université de Paris, 1997

"The English campaigns in Northern France had been disastrous. Elizabeth's generals rarely obeyed her commands once out in the field and she, in return, refused to back them with reinforcements. By 1592 the hope for an English-Protestant military victory over the Spanish-Catholic forces was fading.

To Gabrielle, who had accompanied her beloved on his campaigns, the solution was obvious. Too many Frenchmen would not accept a Protestant King, if Henry was to survive this, if Spain was to be beaten back, he would need to convert to Catholicism and thus unite both sides against the foreign invaders.

It would be Gabrielle's plan that would do what no military had been able to and end the civil war.[4]"

[1] In OTL, he lived another 3 years.
[2] In OTL, Anjou would end up attacking his own dutch allies in frustration and being defeated. William has dodged a bullet that he dies early instead.
[3] It never came to anything in OTL, either.
[4] All this is much the same as OTL.

Youngmarshall · Jun 25, 2015

Excerpt from a childrens poem.

"She was vain as a peacock, brutal and mean,
But England was England when Bess was our Queen."

Excerpt from "A Realm to a State: How Elizabeth created the English."
By Gregory Hillton, @Sidehouse publishing, 1943

"Whether you view Elizabeth as a strong or a weak ruler depends on whether you most value the fact she left England with a new sense of united identity or that she left it exhausted, bankrupt and desperate for change.

In both cases, the arguments inevitably come back to 1588 and the one event that most defines her rule in the public memory: The Armada."

Excerpt from 'Epic Rap Battles of History: Philip II vs Sulieman the Magnificent'.

"Turf you out of Cordoba, give it back to Granada,
When the faithful praise me, I'll just say 'de nada',
Cos this punk's as weak as his sunken Armada!"

Excerpt from "The rise and fall of the Spanish Empire"
by Niall Buchan, @ Durham University, 1980.

"The armada was a doomed effort from the start, and it is a sign of the desperation of Parma's position in Flanders that he consented to attempt a knock out blow on the English even knowing that with his army removed to England, the remaining Spanish controlled cities in the low countries were open to both a French attack and further setbacks to the rebels.

An invasion entirely from Spain might have worked, or even one from the low countries, but with so few Atlantic ports under Parma's control the attempt to co-ordinate the two strands was doomed to failure.

As became increasingly clear, the true obstacle was not Drake's Royal Navy, who, despite outnumbering the Spanish did little more than snap at their heels until the armada's arrival in the channel, but Justin of Nassau, who had complete control of the water outside Holland. It is a sign of the weakness of Elizabeth's finances that she kept reducing her fleet, even in the face of imminent invasion, so she did not have to pay them full wages but it is also a sign of her confidence in her position.

The weakness of the Spanish plan became clear, when they finally met up with Parma's plague stricken army and found that he had been unable to pay for the building of boats. Without any reasonable way of embarking the soldiers, the plan was in tatters even if the English and Dutch had not been able to defeat them at sea.[1]"

Excerpt from "The Island of Lundy".
By G.H. Langham, self published. 1996.

"It may come as some surprise to modern readers that the Spanish threat to these islands was not over in 1588. There were several more naval battles off the south coast as two more armadas were sent against England to little effect and a series of raids on Cornwall[2].

Lundy itself was seen as particularly valuable due to its position in the Bristol Channel. As many pirates over the years had discovered, the Island was a good place for those pursuing trade fleets to hide, and was also a useful stop off on the way to Ireland, where Spain had alliances with the rebels. In 1591, it was reported that three Dunkirkers had seized Lundy and had threatened to burn Ilfracombe. Although this was denied by the captain of HMS Phoenix, the government inquiry that followed took reports from a John Cullen that 'the spanish continued at Lundy a fortnight. I saw the ship lying in the road off Lundy'. In April the following year it was reported that 'four Spanish ships took about 26 sail of ships in Severn and took also the Isle of Lundy and rifled it." The response from Elizabeth was stinging, she wrote to Barnard Grenville in 1596 to say "Whereas if you neglect that place her majestie shall have cause to take the Island wholly into her own hands and to make her own proffitt of it for the defence of the same.[3]"

In 1604, the Spanish presence in Lundy and the Scillys was such that James I had King Philip III sign away any claims to them in the Treaty of London."

Excerpt from "A Realm to a State: How Elizabeth created the English."
By Gregory Hillton, @Sidehouse publishing, 1943

" If the Armada had supposedly heralded that England had gained the upper hand in her war with Spain, she was to be disappointed. The English Armada that followed the following year was an horrific failure, her Muslim allies were pushed slowly back across the Mediterranean after the battle of Ponza and English armies in France, Holland and Ireland fared poorly against their more experienced Spanish counterparts.

More over the Spanish were beginning to learn how to protect their shipping, so privateers were much less effective. Drake, the hero of the 1580s, was to fail miserably in 1595 when his expedition to the new world, saddled with Moroccan allies that had unrealistic plans to colonise South America, led to his death after losing several battles.

And such failure in the battlefield was matched by a failing economy: crop failure and the rebellion in Ireland led to prices rising, taxes rising and standards of living falling. With so many of Elizabeth's old advisers dying, her personal authority took a hit and she responded with renewed propaganda and repression, particularly of the Catholics. In order to avoid dealing with parliament she came to rely on the granting of monopolies as an alternative form of funding her increasingly expensive wars and this in turn led to price fixing and corruption. Courtiers got rich while soldiers went unpaid.

The monopolies also worked as a way of ensuring loyalty to the throne. When the Earl of Essex was punished for his failures in Ireland by his monopoly on sweet wine not being renewed it all but ruined him financially, something that was no doubt intended as a lesson. That the resulting rebellion got as much support as it did is a sign of how fractured and discontent England had become.[4]"

[1] Almost all of this is true in OTL. Here the weather is slightly kinder to the Spanish and so the innate stupidity of their plan is remembered a bit more than the god hates Catholics bit.
[2] Same as in OTL.
[3] Pretty much all these quotes are real ones but were about French and Berber pirates rather than Spanish ones. In TTL the Spanish are a bit more active in the Irish Sea.
[4] 90% of this was true in OTL as well. But the war has been going a little longer, things are a little worse and so Essex manages to rally a few thousand people behind him rather than a few hundred.

Ditzy Vixen (RossN) · Jun 25, 2015

Very interesting. Especially good to see an insight into Morocco for once.

The changes probably don't warrant it yet but will we see maps?

(Also lol at Epic Rap Battles of History

)

Youngmarshall · Jun 25, 2015

RossN said:
Very interesting. Especially good to see an insight into Morocco for once.

The changes probably don't warrant it yet but will we see maps?

(Also lol at Epic Rap Battles of History )

Thanks, man.

I'm not great at maps but happy to offer them for insight.

Youngmarshall · Jun 25, 2015

Excerpt from an English History Exam, 2011.

"Q: List the problems faced by James VI of Scotland in 1603 when he ascended to the English and Irish Thrones and explain which you think was the most serious? (10 marks possible)

A: The main problems he faced were Witches, Catholics, Criminals, Pirates, the Spanish, Debts, Lack of Respect, the Irish and a lack of Colonies.

The Irish were the most serious as they were Catholics and Spanish, too[1].

2 marks."

[1] This is a stupidly short answer for a question that obviously demands much more thought and I can only assume the student just couldn't be bothered.

Youngmarshall · Jun 26, 2015

Excerpt from "A History of Turco-Calvinism" (Translated from Spanish)
By Amancio Meléndez, @ Lammergeier Publishing, 1966

"Philip III's desire for peace was generally matched by that of his enemies. Between 1598 and 1606 he had signed treaties with England, Morocco, the Ottomans and the Dutch rebels and three of the four were undoubtedly in Spain's favour.

However, while peace was mostly celebrated by the average civilian, the naval captains and privateers who had been on the front line of the war effort were much less happy about their profitable sideline in hunting Spanish trading ships being suddenly made illegal. A great number of English and Dutch naval captains behaved much the same without their letters of marque as they had before and they were to turn to their old allies in Morocco and the Ottomans for backup.

In the Muslim states, the situation was if anything even more drastic, pretty much the entire Moroccan navy had gone renegade. Rabat had become an essentially independent city, which the corsairs controlled, and from which they could raid throughout the Atlantic for treasure and slaves to sell to the squabbling Moroccan sultanates or to the Turkish ports in North Africa[1].

It was Rabat, and to a lesser extent, the mostly autonomous Ottoman cities at Algiers and Tripoli, that the Dutch and English 'renegades' worked for and traded with and so the treaties Philip had signed with Marrakech and the Sublime Porte meant nothing.

The Spanish were undoubtedly the greatest victims of this new wave of piracy but having unleashed this whirlwind, the protestant English felt the blow-back from it too. Their solution, to the increase in raids on their home islands, was to liberally offer pardons to bring the notoriously wealthy pirates back home. In this way the likes of Jack Ward and Henry Mainwaring[2] were turned from wolves into sheepdogs.

But, perhaps the most notorious outcome of this pragmatism, was the acceptance of Moroccan pirates into the royal navy, not just as galley slaves or crewman but, in the infamous case of Samuel Pallache[3], as a captain."

Excerpt from "Border Reivers"
by Samuel Durston © Northumbrian Pamphlets, 1998

"The borders had become a lawless and dangerous society because it was convenient for both the English and Scottish governments for it to be so.

With war breaking out on a generational basis, the desire to have armed men on the border and readily at hand had meant that land was offered cheaply for men to move there and raids across the border were encouraged to provoke strife. The result was that farming was neglected as anything grown would undoubtedly be despoiled and so robbery and plunder became the way of life. A thriving criminal society based on clan lines existed on both sides of the border and any honest farmers were extremely poor due to the levying of protection money to the gangs.

When the English and Scottish governments were hostile to each other this situation was useful to both sides but once they were united under a single King, it could no longer be tolerated. James ordered the pacification of the Borderlands, his aim to 'purgit the Borders of all the chifest malefactors, robbers and brigands'. In what became known as 'Jeddart Justice', they were no trials, the reivers were offered a single choice: Hanging or forced conscription and deportation of their families to Ireland[4].

Those who took the latter choice (and it is a persistent rumour that despite the King's orders a lot of the more infamous ruffians were not offered it) would be bought to ulster as united gangs with their 'headman' being given the rank of captain[5]."

[1] This mostly happened in OTL except they were based in Sale rather than Rabat. Here Sale has been all but destroyed.
[2] In OTl Ward was refused a pardon and so converted to Islam.
[3] Pallache was a Jewish Moroccan pirate who in OTL was a diplomat to the Dutch and spy for the Spanish. In TTL his career is rather different.
[4] Most of this is OTL. But, with the Irish revolt defeated, there was much less effort to force emigration and conscription in OTL.
[5] Not many reivers fought in Ireland in OTL but those who did were bought over as unified gangs like this.