Glorious Revolution

[Dogmeat]

>thinking someone whose Church is known for ICONS EVERYWHERE, is a Roundhead

I'm very sure heads, in this case, aren't round, but empty. :^)

Burned like a heretic.

[The Parkus Empire]

>thinking someone whose Church is known for ICONS EVERYWHERE, is a Roundhead

I'm very sure heads, in this case, aren't round, but empty. :^)

Better an empty head than a Roundhead, tbh

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

I'm very sure heads, in this case, aren't round, but empty. :^)

Better an empty head than a Roundhead, tbh

Roundheads at least have something filling them and can be molded. Give that a thought. :^)

[The Parkus Empire]

I'm very sure heads, in this case, aren't round, but empty. :^)

Burned like a heretic.

>tfw done in by a bunch of flaming faggots
Woe is me

[The Parkus Empire]

Better an empty head than a Roundhead, tbh

Roundheads at least have something filling them and can be molded. Give that a thought. :^)

File not found

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

Roundheads at least have something filling them and can be molded. Give that a thought. :^)

File not found

You may need to run an updated virus scan, dear.

[The South Falls]

I'd most likely think that with more British settlers, there would be a faster revolution, but more overcrowding and a lack of services.

Overcrowding America would take a long time. Every soldier who served in the revolution was given 100 acres.

If all the Brit protestants and their slaves left, maybe not.

[The Parkus Empire]

Overcrowding America would take a long time. Every soldier who served in the revolution was given 100 acres.

If all the Brit protestants and their slaves left, maybe not.

I don't see that happening unless some Indian version of Donald Trump united the tribes

[The South Falls]

If all the Brit protestants and their slaves left, maybe not.

I don't see that happening unless some Indian version of Donald Trump united the tribes

Yea, we never had that. Partially why we have America. [This may or may not say something about now]

[Salus Maior]

I don't see that happening unless some Indian version of Donald Trump united the tribes

Yea, we never had that. Partially why we have America. [This may or may not say something about now]

There were some people who tried to united the tribes into a real country to face the Americans, none worked unfortunately.

[The Parkus Empire]

Yea, we never had that. Partially why we have America. [This may or may not say something about now]

There were some people who tried to united the tribes into a real country to face the Americans, none worked unfortunately.

We could offer too many incentives to the weasels

[Kramanica]

Lol trying to postpone the French Revolution would have gone the same way as the Bourbon Restoration.

[Oil exporting People]

"Hey, guys, what if one thing went differently and then all my political fantasies somehow panned out because of that?"

My political fantasy would be reformation kings and nobles going Orthodox, but that's before James II

This was actually plausible, to some extent; the Anglicans were in commune with the Orthodox for sometime and there was extensive dialogue between the Protestants and Orthodox during the time of the Reformation.

[The Parkus Empire]

My political fantasy would be reformation kings and nobles going Orthodox, but that's before James II

This was actually plausible, to some extent; the Anglicans were in commune with the Orthodox for sometime and there was extensive dialogue between the Protestants and Orthodox during the time of the Reformation.

We would be united with the Church of England by now if they didn't fuck it up by introducing female ordination.

[Angleter]

This would depend to a large extent on when, and how, the Jacobites would have succeeded. They could've (in theory) won any of the following ways:

• 1690 - James II/VII wins the Williamite War in Ireland and then mounts a successful invasion of Great Britain with French support. This would've required at least some Englishmen and Scots to get over their terror of being conquered by an army dominated by Irish Catholics.
• 1715 - The Hanoverian/Whig government fails to thwart the main components of the Fifteen before they even get off the ground, and the Old Pretender successfully takes the throne with French support. Certainly at this point the Tories were still a serious political force, and the Hanoverians weren't all that entrenched in power. That said, James "III" had such an uninspiring personality that he had a tendency to tank the morale of any army that had the misfortune of meeting the person they were fighting for.
• 1719 - This went more or less the same way as the Fifteen, but was even less well-organised, and had Spanish, not French, support. Including mostly for the what-if of someone other than France sponsoring the Jacobite comeback. (I shan't include the 'Swedish plot' of 1717, when the Jacobites gave Sweden a huge sum of money on the promise of an invasion that, er, never happened.)
• 1721/22 - If the Jacobites had even the slightest semblance of competence and organisation, they'd have exploited the collapse of the South Sea Bubble, in which George I himself and virtually the entire Hanoverian elite were implicated, and challenged for the throne, probably without even needing foreign help. However, they screwed up royally and the leaders of the closest thing they had to a coherent plot, the 'Atterbury Plot', were arrested.
• 1745 - The Forty-Five actually succeeds, again with French support, and brings the Young Pretender to power, governing in the name of his father. This one has the added benefit of having a more inspiring figurehead than the charisma vacuum that was James "III".

It's probably worth saying that, whatever happened, the chances of Britain actually being re-Catholicised under Jacobite rule would've been close to zero. James II/VII's attempts to introduce religious liberty for Catholics (and to put them disproportionately in high-up offices) went a long way towards sparking the Glorious Revolution in the first place. James was a stupid and terrible king, but he probably wasn't stupid or terrible enough to try and actively re-Catholicise the country after taking back power.

Also, the Jacobites took most of their support in England from hardcore High Church Anglicans who were legitimist Tories, and in Scotland from Anglicans upset at how William and Mary made Presbyterianism the state religion up there. This entrenched further after 1714 when the Whigs became the sole party of government, and granted some liberty to Protestant Dissenters in England. While the Jacobite 'royal' family were themselves Catholics, their support base came almost entirely from Tories who wanted to restore the supremacy of High Church Anglicanism.

Quite what effect this would've had on colonial missionary programmes, in India or otherwise, is up for debate. It would be curious, however, for a Jacobite state to start furiously attempting to convert Indians to Catholicism.

The line of succession would not have been amended to ensure that all future monarchs were Catholic, partly because the Jacobites' Anglican base would've hated that, and partly because the whole point of Jacobitism was that messing with the line of succession was just not on.

As for the state of the three kingdoms, Ireland would most likely have been restored to the status it enjoyed under Charles II - still an English satellite, and still mostly ruled by Protestants, but nowhere near the rigid Protestant Ascendancy entrenched under the Williamites and Hanoverians. Perhaps Irish Catholics might have ended up in a slightly better position than that if the Jacobites had won in 1690. And as for whether the pattern of events that led to the Union with Ireland would've happened - who knows?

On the island of Great Britain, provided the Jacobites won after 1707, the Union would've almost certainly been dissolved. In 1715, the Earl of Mar actually raised his banner with the coat of arms of Scotland on one side and "NO UNION" on the other. No idea whether the Union would've happened if the Jacobites were restored earlier - the idea was repeatedly mooted under the Stuarts, and wouldn't have become associated with Williamite/Hanoverian rule. The Anglican Church would've been restored in Scotland.

In terms of European policy, certainly the Jacobites would've allied with their sponsor in whichever European war had prompted them to support the Jacobites in the first place. But no alliance lasts forever, and it's worth noting that Hanoverian Britain was allied to France between 1716 and 1731 (and relations didn't seriously deteriorate until 1742), and in so doing successfully suppressed Jacobitism for 20 years. The idea that a Jacobite Britain/England, 50-100 years after the French (if it was them) sponsored their return to power, would've been more inspired to intervene to save the House of Bourbon is for the birds.

Tories, indeed, traditionally followed a Blue Water Policy that sought to stay out of European conflicts and focus on developing Britain/England's position around the world. But then, during the Walpole era, this was the exact policy pursued by the Hanoverian Whigs, and when popular opposition to Walpole's foreign policy grew in the 1730s, Tories and Jacobites were more than happy to jump on that bandwagon. So while, in general, a Jacobite state might have pursued more of a Blue Water Policy, this is far from certain.

Further afield, there probably would've been a conflict in America (and India, &c.) between Britain/England and France at some point in the 18th century, but whether that would've happened at the same time as the Seven Years' War, and whether it would've had the same result, is up for debate. It's entirely possible that France could've held Quebec and Louisiana, and maintained significant holdings in India. Certainly the Americans had very little time for James II/VII (see the Boston Revolt of 1689), and I don't think the American Revolution would've been averted under the Jacobites (it may, however, have occurred under different circumstances, and possibly had a different outcome).

Probably the most significant effect would've been on the internal government of the British Isles. I've gone over religious policy, foreign/colonial policy, and the Union/Ireland. One other issue would be financial policy - the Whigs and Williamites/Hanoverians sparked the development of the City of London and the creation of the national debt, and Tories and Jacobites traditionally opposed that, so a Jacobite restoration may have stymied Britain's growth as a financial power (which may in turn have impacted on the development of the Industrial Revolution).

And finally, and probably above all, the matter of the English/British constitution. James II/VII was a tyrant who, like most of his fellow Stuarts, had next to no respect for Parliament or for any limits on his power as monarch. The Glorious Revolution entrenched the principle of Parliamentary supremacy over the monarch, and under the Williamites and Hanoverians the use of executive power switched from the monarch themselves, to ministers accountable to Parliament. The monarch was left dependent on Parliament for their income and even for their place as monarch.

A Jacobite restoration would've retrenched the idea of the King, who derives their power not from the will of Parliament but from pure legitimism, personally leading the government, with Parliament taking a much smaller role than it enjoyed under the Williamites and Hanoverians. Constitutional monarchy along British lines either wouldn't have developed, or would've looked totally different. And that's before we get into the issue of the constitutional structures of Scotland without the Union.

As the wall of text above demonstrates, this is a massive counterfactual and I've probably only covered the tip of the iceberg in terms of potential implications. There's so many permutations in so many areas that it's nigh-on impossible to come up with credible answers in a lot of cases. But what I can say is that wholesale re-Catholicisation would not have happened, Ireland would not have become an equal partner in the union of the crowns, the line of succession would not have been changed to exclude Protestants, England/Britain would probably not have been any more inclined to stop the French Revolution (if it happened in this timeline), and the Jacobites wouldn't have tried to aggressively convert India to Catholicism.

[Isilanka]

Lol trying to postpone the French Revolution would have gone the same way as the Bourbon Restoration.

Well, the French Revolution was not bound to happen. What's certain however is that the Bourbon absolute monarchy was dying, and needed to change one way or another. Even without the French Revolution there would have been massive political changes in France in the early 19th century.

[Angleter]

A few points that have arisen in the thread and aren't mentioned in my text wall:

I think you're right about Ireland, India and America. Scotland would likely become the new Ireland in this case, as Scotland is a place that was heavily Presbyterian, who are a tad more extremist than Anglicans. Heavily pushing conversion in India would likely make British rule much shorter too (or, at best, make it have a very different flavour), considering that it was always being done by proxies and relatively small numbers of troops.

Scotland is definitely interesting in this scenario. After 1707, the Jacobites were standard-bearers for the twin principles of re-establishing Anglicanism in Scotland, and separating Presbyterian-majority Scotland from Anglican-majority England. Which is great for attracting support, but not necessarily the most congruent pair of policies in practice. Of course, it's entirely possible that the Jacobites could've realised that and gone back on one or both of these policies, but even that's not the best course of action for an insecure monarch.

The Glorious Revolution and the following developments did put an end to what had been intractable 17th century conflicts over religion and the constitution. Scotland's religion, and its relationship with England, were never really resolved until 1689 and 1707. Jacobitism probably would've subjected Britain to yet more of this wrangling.

If memory serves, the entirety of Europe was caught off-guard by the revolution. A Catholic king of England would likely have been caught off guard and been unable to stop it just like everyone else.

Definitely. It especially takes a while for attitudes to switch from "one of my main rivals has got themselves into a deep pile of shit, isn't this great" to "oh shit, this could up-end the entire order on which I rely".

It would have stalled the inevitable for at most one generation. It's less about religion and more about financial interests. The catholics kept pushing absolute monarchism so naturally moneyed persons and lords tended to protestantism except in nations where catholicism benefited them more (Feudal societies rather than mercantile and industrializing ones). Oh sure you've got a scattering of true believers, but the bulk? Interests.

A British monarch can't justify a standing army to defend the realm, and that naturally puts them at odds with the moneyed persons in the realm when they wish to raise taxes, and that leads to parliament and eventual conflict between parliament and king over sovereignty.

This conflates 'naturally moneyed persons and lords' into a single block. In England, speaking very generally, the nobility tended towards Toryism and High Church Anglicanism (some towards Catholicism), and were deeply sceptical of what they called the 'taint of trade'. The landed gentry tended somewhat towards Whiggery and towards a more broad church view of Anglicanism, and were similarly sceptical of commerce, debt, &c. And the merchants, traders, industrialists, and so on tended towards Whiggery (again) and had a disproportionate number of Protestant Dissenters in their ranks (and obviously didn't share the gentry and nobility's concerns about trade). Obviously there were plenty of Whig lords and Tory gentry.

Late 17th and 18th century Parliament was dominated by the gentry, who had been edging out the nobility since the Civil War. Dissenters were locked out of political power and most of the traditional professions, which is what led them towards commerce. In turn, neither the nobility nor the gentry had much interest in giving them much political power until 1832 (qv the under-representation of the industrial cities in the unreformed Parliament), although the Whigs were more keen to keep them on side and harness the economic benefits of their activity.

In a wider context, Protestantism preceded absolutism, and it wasn't necessarily opposed to absolutism. While England's main rivals, France and Spain, were both Catholic and absolutist, and while the Dutch Republic was Protestant and not absolutist, there were plenty of Protestant absolutists on the Continent - most notably Prussia and Sweden. In fact, this led to Jacobites throwing the 'absolutism' argument back at the Williamites when they were trying to put the Elector of Hanover on the throne.

The stuff about protestantism causing better economics isn't luck, it's because people with an active interest in economics formed the elite of the protestant reformation and they decided which protestantisms got adopted, whereas feudalists and people interested in feudalism and stasis were catholics.

This doesn't strike me as true. Protestantism had quite a wide appeal, and it gained Scandinavia, most of Northern Germany, and indeed England by converting monarchs, not merchants. The Dutch Republic was quite mercantile and Protestant, true, but it was already mercantile beforehand. It got the jump on the Spanish Netherlands in large part because Antwerp was blockaded and sacked during the Dutch Revolt, leaving the door open for Amsterdam (which, in fairness, also benefitted from immigration from Protestant refugees, and a more welcoming attitude towards Jews).

Otherwise, Protestants (and in England, Dissenters) tended to be associated with commerce where they were blocked from entering traditional professions (much like the Jews). This applies for Huguenots in France, for instance.

And, of course, there were plenty of commerce-oriented Catholic societies - Flanders (albeit less so after the Dutch Revolt), Lombardy, Venice, Genoa, &c.

Also, 'feudalism' is a contentious enough word to use without bringing it into the late 17th century.

Any catholic monarch of the UK was going to have to come to terms that their delusions of the right of kings and absolutism were completely infeasible even if their subjects hadn't rebelled over it. It is simply not how a realm functions.

James II/VII almost certainly didn't seriously intend to rule as an absolute monarch. He was probably an absolutist in sentiment, and certainly overstepped his mark, but neither his nor his descendants would've planned to go full Charles I / Louis XIV on their country.

That said, absolutism did endure until the French Revolution, and then for much of the 19th century, in other countries. It certainly wasn't how any of the British countries functioned, but it lasted quite a while elsewhere.

It was enough for Louis XIV to offer to restore James II.

Louis wanted to take the British Isles off William of Orange, whom he was fighting a humongous war with at the time. And then hopefully get James to fight on his side. Same thing for pretty much every instance of France (or Spain) supporting the Jacobites - they just wanted to flip the British Isles onto their side in whichever Europe-wide conflagration was going on at that time.