AHC: Welsh Empire

The victory conditions, fully explained?

1. Full Welsh hegemony over the British Isles by 1552.
2. Successful Welsh colonies in the Americas by 1621.
3. The boundaries of the OTL British Empire of 1823 must belong to Wales by that same date, including any holdings in India.
4. Some form of Welsh must be one of the official languages in all of its colonies whenever the empire does break up.
5. Obviously, no ASB's.

Can it be done?

EDIT: Fixed a date due to the Scotland issue.

Impossible.

-Wales as a territory appeared when Britton population was already screwed by Germanic ones.
Even if by Wales, we included Wales proper, West Wales (Cornwall) and Strathclyde, they would be in numerical, territorial, ressources inferiority.

They didn't managed OTL, to take on the divided Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and they were as much (if not more) suffering from norse and dane raids, while being the favourite targets of gaelic raids.

-For the colonies, it's somewhat doable if you have a Dairen-equivalent tentative.

-OTL borders of British Empire? Without talking of realistic possibities of Wales there, the whole concept of convergent borders erase plausibility with a POD earlier than 1552 if not more.

England was destined to have dominance

You could have a Scotish power maybe but Without massive support from outside I don't think so

Wales has also been devasated by the English army in Shrewsbury
You could have a large independent Wales but that would be a vassal
Scotland could colonise a little before ending up like Sweden

Wales has no chance of being powerful unless a POD in pre history wipes out the English celts and scottish celts but even then you have the
Problems if Romans and germans

Sorry I could t be of more help

Danth said:

England was destined to have dominance

Click to expand...

Err...No. It's not because Wales couldn't became the same superpower than Britain in XIX that make England "destined" to anything.

There's so many ways that Anglo-Saxon kingdoms could have been remained divided, that Danes could have created a lasting kingdom between Scotland and South England, etc.

LSCatilina said:

Err...No. It's not because Wales couldn't became the same superpower than Britain in XIX that make England "destined" to anything.

There's so many ways that Anglo-Saxon kingdoms could have been remained divided, that Danes could have created a lasting kingdom between Scotland and South England, etc.

Click to expand...

I think if England becomes divided and the Cornish and the Cumbric speakers survive, it is very much possible, Strathclyde, Cornwall and Cumberland could unite with Wales later on.

kasumigenx said:

I think if England becomes divided and the Cornish and the Cumbric speakers survive, it is very much possible, Strathclyde, Cornwall and Cumberland could unite with Wales later on.

Click to expand...

It's possible, though not that obvious. Not territorial continuity doesn't help there, as well the raid from every neighbour they had : even with a divided England, Mercia was a dangerous threat by itself.

The only likely way to keep Brittons united is to limit the Anglo-Saxon conquests : by making that, though, you'll butterfly away the whole idea of Wales.

The historic Welsh laws of partibility prevented them from ever building on any success they achieved. This law meant that each male child is recognized to a legal right to a portion of his father's lands when his father died. This meant that no matter how much land a Welsh Prince conquered, no matter how much he consolidated his power in his lifetime his work would be undone by the laws of succession recognized by Welsh customs.

Llywelyn the Great attempted to do away with partibility in favor of primogeniture in his life time but despite recieving support from the Pope for his efforts his grandson Llywelyn ap Gruffydd had to deal with the same problem and was constantly at odds with his brother Dafydd who thought he was entitled to more lands than he got and schemed to get more.

Theoretically, during the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms era Wales had just as much chance of becoming the big kingdom as any of the tiny Saxon kingdoms did. Maybe unite the Welsh under a strong king around 700 A.D. and have them unify a good portion of western England under them? Over the next couple centuries they gain cultural hegemony in the region, and eventually edge out the divided Danish and Saxon kingdoms of eastern England to create one, at least primarily, Welsh Kingdom encompassing modern England and Wales. The problem would be that, at least ethnically, though not necessarily culturally, there would still be allot of similarities to OTL England, and there would be a good chance that a Welsh dynasty would eventually move their center of government to a more advantageous area in England, but at least you could have an England equivalent with Welsh naming traditions and culture.

Avitus said:

Theoretically, during the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms era Wales had just as much chance of becoming the big kingdom as any of the tiny Saxon kingdoms did.

Click to expand...

No it didn't.

Wales had a territory comparable to a small anglo-saxon kingdom, but

1)Was divided as hell
2)Was raided constantly
3)Was out the main trade ways.

Maybe unite the Welsh under a strong king around 700 A.D. and have them unify a good portion of western England under them?

Click to expand...

Uniting is unlikely, given the context, but it's possible to have a regional hegemony of a welsh principality in the north or the south of the country.
Having a united kingdom, on the other hand, in 700 seems really implausible.

In VIII, you'll need then to crush Mercia for political supremacy in western England. Even an united Wales wouldn't have the men and ressources for.

Here's a little map that could help to evaluate the situation.

LSCatilina said:

Err...No. It's not because Wales couldn't became the same superpower than Britain in XIX that make England "destined" to anything.

There's so many ways that Anglo-Saxon kingdoms could have been remained divided, that Danes could have created a lasting kingdom between Scotland and South England, etc.

Click to expand...

But out of the natives
I did say that only forgien influence could help them

Just make Henry VII and then Henry VIII remember they were Welsh and make Welsh the court language. Then give all the important jobs in the kingdom to only those of Welsh decent.

Sior said:

Just make Henry VII and then Henry VIII remember they were Welsh and make Welsh the court language. Then give all the important jobs in the kingdom to only those of Welsh decent.

Click to expand...

Then the English upper classes lead a rebellion, probably successfully, and it's probably back to a cadet branch of York (maybe a De la Pole?) on the throne.



Maybe if the Glendower/Mortimer/Percy division of England had gone ahead as planned, with a decisive victory over Henry V, you could have inheritance through a dynastic marriage unite Glendower's share with one of the others two or three generations later on and that kingdom then absorb the third part (as either conquered lands or a vassal): England would probably still be more important to those kings than Wales was, on the basis of population and wealth, but you could at least have more rights quaranteed for Wales (and greater use of the Welsh language) than IOTL.

Well unless you put the POD far back enough that the Welsh aren't specifically Welsh (just one part of a larger British culture) they just don't have the numbers. Even if they win military they'd just be assimilated culturally.

KhanorYuan said:

3. The boundaries of the OTL British Empire of 1823 must belong to Wales by that same date, including any holdings in India.

Click to expand...

This makes it impossible and ASB if you want the same OTL borders.