Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States wrote:Still working out the details, but this is a work in progress so others know what is going on under the hood!(Image)
Nation Name: The Britannic and Apostolic Empire
Culture(s): English culture is dominant, though aristocracy from both Scottish lowlander and highlander clans have their say in governance, and more and more Irish Catholics are elevated to positions of power, especially in the army.
Territory: What territory does your country control? I would prefer if people paint their claims on the map, but I will also be accepting simply stating which geographical regions you control.
Capital City: London
Population: 16.300.000
Government Type : Absolute monarchy
Head of State: His Imperial Britannic Majesty, James IV and IX, Emperor of Britain, King of England, France, Scotland, Ireland, Jerusalem, Defender of the Faith
Head of Government: James IV and IX
Government Description:
All of the British State is merely the continuation of the person of the sovereign, which has been James IV and IX for the last 12 years. Every since securing a male catholic heir, James II and VII and his Stuart successors have been expanding the royal prerogative. Under James III and VIII and later Charles III, the Crown has taken a literal reading of the emperor’s superior interest in all British property. Under the rules of these three Stuart emperors, various formal changes were made to the mostly informal (unwritten) English constitution. These laws combined are known as the Acts of Hierarchy, and form a sort of quasi-constitution to the British Empire (even though, as per the Act of 1712, the emperor exists above the law and is not bound by it).
In furtherance of the position of the British emperor as the holder of superior interest in all British property, and therefore the effectual owner of all British property, the entirety of Britain is in a technical sense the personal property of the emperor. Everything is held as a form of feudal loan from His Imperial and Britannic Majesty. In most every-day instances, this does not matter, as common law continues to function regardless of this theoretical fact. However, it does explain where the governing authority of the emperor comes from: not only given by God as the representative of Jesus on Earth, but also as the Roman owner of all property on the Isles.
The State is just another continuation of the personage of His Imperial and Britannic Majesty. Every civil servant is employed personally by the monarch, and as such, there is no division between the monarch and the government. The treasury is both the treasury of the monarch and of the state, and therefore all state functions eventually rely on the imperial treasurer, better known as the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Like all secretaries and civil servants, he is in the personal employ of the emperor and can be dismissed and appointed at will, and he is expected to be an appendage to His Majesty. While most secretaries belong to a political organisation (though the concept of ‘parties’ has largely fallen to the wayside), their membership to those organisations should be seen as ancillary to their personal employment. In theory, of course.
One of the last few vestiges of the old order is the House of Lords. While the House of Commons has been disbanded and replaced by the larger Parlement (more on them later), the House of Lords continues to exist, and they have the right to veto laws made by the monarch and to advise him on matters, as well as acting as the supreme court. However, that independent status is mostly a smokescreen, as the emperor still holds the power to appoint peers at will, so the House knows their opposition would be met with a counterstroke. What is more, since the emperor is not beholden to his own laws, there is nothing the House of Lords could legally undertake to stop the emperor from pushing through his own laws, or to have his secretaries act in a way as if those laws were there by decree. The House of Lords has therefore undertaken to mostly rubberstamp legislation if it is favoured by the monarch, though they still have lively debates if a piece of legislation is the brain child of one of his secretaries.
The Parlement (different from a parliament) is a body akin to the Estates General in France. It is the spiritual successor of the House of Commons; a body of representatives of all people in Britain (or one of its kingdoms), which can be called by the emperor. Legally, this is not required. However, as a practical matter, when dealing with large increases in taxation or other decisions that may cause major upheaval, the emperor realises that approval from the Parlement can seriously aid the effectiveness of laws. The last Parlement was called in 1756, at the onset of the Seven Year’s War.
Majority/State Religion : England and Wales are majority protestant, while Scotland has an about equal division of protestants and Catholics. In Ireland, Catholics have a clear majority. Catholicism is the state religion and the personal religion of the emperor, by law.
Economic Description: Even though the politics have changed drastically, Britain remains the home of free market economics. The only difference being that the emperor takes a more active interest when issuing imperial monopolies to companies, and expects more income to flow back into his personal treasury. In doing so, however, the interests of the State and companies like the East India Company have come to align more and more.
Britain, however, is still a nation of shopkeepers. Most economic power is held by majority protestant shareholders and board members of large companies and banks. The interests of the crown here are served by the Bank of England, the Bank of Scotland and the Bank of Ireland, with largely Catholic board members. There is a constant struggle here, however, between the political loyalties of the bank and the economic interests of the country. The investment portfolio of the banks reflect the power and influence of the emperor, in this sense. Strong emperors can keep the banks in line, while weaker emperors have problems containing the banking world, therefore losing power in the economical sphere to the rivals of the central banks.
Imperial power, then, is also exuded through the British colonies overseas, and the import of goods over which the crown holds ultimate control. The import of goods is a money-making venture for the crown, and through it, it controls the internal British markets in combination with banking policy. However, this means that the interests of the people living in the colonies are entirely secondary to the politics back home. Various taxes levied, as well as import laws (including the 1698 Slave Trade act, which bans the import of enslaved people on foreign ships), has not made friends of the economic elite in North America, for instance, who grow more and more frustrated about being pawns in the domestic economic policy of a country they have never been to, without the emperor extending the same courtesy to their domestic markets.
Development: Pre-industrialised. By this time, no country is industrialised, as the industrial revolution is still a ways off. Britain, however, is on the cusp of industrialising.
Army Description: The British Army, once the little-loved little brother to the Royal Navy, has grown in reputation and strength over the century. The Stuarts never much cared for the navy, and thus invested more in the army, also as a means of maintaining control over the country. The British army is divided into a number of regiments, all with varying levels of control from the central government in London. Some regiments, known as imperial legions, are mostly paid for by the War Ministry in London. These are the most loyal regiments, often commanded by Catholic minor nobility. Chiefest among them being the Irish Imperial Guard, a regiment of Irish grenadiers which act both as the royal guard and as an elite infantry unit.
The other side of the coin consists of the personal regiments. Although the war ministry nominally appoints their commanders, their funding is for a large part regulated via the personal funds of a wealthy patron or a few wealthy patrons. This means that they are not dependent for the ministry for their upkeep, and this diminishes the influence of the ministry in the appointment of officers. However, the imperial army is dependent on them, since it cannot raise the funds to equip the necessary forces to defend the country on its own. Though the regiments are strategically placed as to minimise the chance of mutiny or rebellion, with these personal regiments often residing in the far-flung colonies or, counter-intuitively, in Ireland, where any move against the emperor would create the most vicious response.
Army Weakness: The army is heavily divided between loyalist Catholics and grumbling protestants, the latter of whom are seen as a real threat to royal authority. The army also depends on the Royal Navy for transport and supplies overseas, and since the Royal Navy is a hotbed for anti-royalist sentiment, this is a liability.
Naval Description: The Royal Navy is the largest navy in the world, and has an honoured and storied history as the first line of defence for the British isles; with the task both to defend the homeland and to secure its connection to its far-flung colonies. The Navy is managed on a day-to-day basis by the Naval Board, though its strategy and the promotions of its officers are managed by the admiralty and, by extension, the naval secretary. The Royal Navy remains the most prestigious branch of the British armed forces, and has kept the ‘Royal’ in its title, despite it now being an imperial institution.
Naval Weakness: “It is a good thing that ships cannot go on land, or they would have been knocking at Saint James’ by now”
The Royal Navy is a problem. It is the most vital defence Britain has against invasion by a foreign power, and it is the only force keeping Britain attached to its far-flung colonies, especially from incursion by the French and Spanish, or raids by pirates. It is also an arm both chronically underappreciated by the Stuarts, as well as a hotbed for anti-royalist sentiment. The Royal Navy has two types of officers: gentleman officers, hailing from the long-lived, noble and often wealthy families; and tarpaulins, who had climbed the ranks from regular sailors and had gotten their spot through experience and merit. Historically, the tarpaulins were republicans, while the gentlemen officers were royalists. Today, this is none too different, with the exception that the tarpaulins are not so much pro-Republican anymore, as they are anti-Stuart. Mainly hailing from protestant houses, these tarpaulins have nothing but ill will towards the emperors and their gentlemen colleagues, many of whom are Catholic. Mutiny is a constant threat, which is why the Stuarts have redeployed the concept of ‘Generals-at-sea’ instead of admirals, rather than risking tarpaulins gaining command of whole fleets. This has had a tremendously negative effect on the operational effectiveness of the Royal Navy, which, while still the largest navy in the world, lacks some of the professionalism that makes it a viable weapon (though this weakness has not yet been shown in combat).
National Goals: The expansion of territorial holdings overseas in order to secure the economic interest in Britain, to hamper French, Spanish and Portuguese expansion in those areas, to prevent the establishment of German colonies overseas and to secure British economic hegemony over the continent.
National Issues:
The Prince: emperor James IV and IX is a devout Catholic, ruling over a predominantly protestant nation with anti-Catholic sentiment. This extends to a general dislike of government throughout England, Wales, and parts of Scotland. The emperor’s autocratic mode of government is seen as an extension of this fact, and with the merchant class becoming increasingly wealthy, they are looking for more institutionalised ways besides bribery to achieve their long-term goals. The spirit of enlightenment has reached the shores of Britain.
The Wayward Son: The Thirteen Colonies have always been distant from London and left to their own devices, mostly out of practical necessity. The puritan colonists, however, most of them descendants of those who fled Britain during the period of personal rule and the anti-puritan purges that followed both the civil war and the aborted invasion by William of Orange, view the Catholic monarch and the Britannic empire with suspicion, and ever since the stalemate and failure of the Seven Years’ War, the tax increases levied for the protection of the economic interests of the monarch have driven a wedge between the colonists and Britain; a situation that is unlikely to remain peaceful for long.
History : On the 2nd of November 1688, the winds in the Straight of Dover once again shifted. Earlier, winds had made it impossible for Dutch forces massing at Hellevoetsluis to make the crossing towards England, but a shift in October granted them the possibility. Despite adverse weather event, the ships managed to find themselves in Torbay in early November. Then, the winds changed again. Before most of the assembled troops could be unloaded, the ships of admiral Dartmouth were upon the fleet. Despite outnumbering the English fleet 2:1, most of the Dutch ships were heavy transport ships, with the English fleet being made of large, dedicated warships, with more firepower than their Dutch counterparts. With the wind on his side, Dartmouth ripped through the Dutch fleet, sinking and scattering much of it. Prince William managed to escape the slaughter with about half of his army, but his coup attempt had been forever foiled. Captured documents and subsequent torture of conspirators revealed the names of those involved with the coup attempt, and what followed was a second slaughter. James II and VII had those connected to the conspiracy hunted down and executed in increasingly brutal ways. Henry Sydney was hung, drawn and quartered. The duke of Devonshire was burned alive. Charles Talbot, the duke of Shrewsbury, had his chest cut open and molten lead poured into his cavity. They were signs of the days to come.
The absolute brutality with which James II retaliated against the conspirators quickly evaporated most other conspiracy attempts. If even William of Orange with 40.000 troops could not displace the king, then all the would-be assassins in England could not do it. The fear of brutal execution and seizing of titles and lands were enough to ensure, at least for a while, that no second attempt at uprising was made. The shock of the Abortive Revolution was used to swap out officers, and place loyal Catholic brigades in strategic locations, as well as inside the city of London. Parliament was not disbanded, but those parliamentarians who had engaged in conspiratorial actions (or those who were accused of it) were dragged out of their homes in daylight. Some were publicly executed on the orders of specially-arranged royal tribunals, something that was definitely illegal but against which parliament was unable to act.
Everything in the experience of James II and VII, as well as his father and the death of his grandfather, had taught him to mistrust duplicitous representative bodies, and this mistrust would both inform his governing policy as well as the (Catholic) upbringing of his son and heir. At the same time, James held little hatred for protestants, and knew that there was no way to turn Britain majority catholic. The 1690 Act of Toleration ensured the position of the Church of England. This act poisoned the Anglican Church even more in the eyes of the Puritans, who saw it as a half-Popish institution anyway, but it did much to assuage the fears of some protestants. At least enough that, when in 1691 part of the English army mutinied and marched on London, it did not lead to the cascade effect they had hoped for. John Churchill openly disavowed the attempt, and with that the rebellion had no hope of succeeding. James II personally led his army into battle and handily crushed the revolt at the battle of Olney. This allowed James II the justification to further purge the army of dissenters, while importantly maintaining the religious toleration even in victory, thus calming the moderates in Parliament and cementing the loyal support of the Tories, who would remain in power until the dissolution of the House of Commons.
James II and VII died of a brain haemorrhage in 1701, leaving the throne to his thirteen year old son. His mother, Mary of Modena, acted as his queen-regent until he came of age. Mary has probably done more for the establishment of the empire than any other single person in British history. Her personal relation with the Pope and king Louis XIV of France, her devout Catholic faith and belief in absolutist monarchy, as well as her keen political mind, ensured that everything was ready in 1706, as king James III and VIII came of age. In 1705, the Imperial Acts were passed, creating a title above the royal crowns of England, Scotland and Ireland in the form of the ‘Britannic Empire’. This twist of phrase ensured that the Holy Roman Emperor would not object, as he would if James had crowned himself ‘emperor of Britain’. His Britannic Majesty was crowned on Christmas Day 1707 in the Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Mary had sold this to Parliament as a purely pragmatic action, to allow the British monarch to exude the prestige that should belong to his throne. However, her own plans were far grander.
She did not give people time to get accustomed to the new flag, the new style and the new emblems. While she was no longer queen-regent, she held a lot of sway behind the scenes and was more powerful than James himself, running a shadow government behind his back. The 1712 Legislative Acts, which sought to clean up the legislative process, contained in its preamble the words ‘whereas the king and emperor are appointed by God as the Vicar of Christ’. This wording was hardly noticed by Parliament, but as the representative of God on Earth, logically, the emperor could not be bound by Earthly laws, as Earthly laws could not override the will of God.
Parliament objected, but there was little they could do. Following instructions left by Charles I himself, Mary prevented Britain from being dragged into any continental wars that would require a spending bill by Parliament. As such, she allowed Parliament no leverage over the emperor, allowing him to slowly start merging the personal and the political. The distinction between the state treasury and the imperial treasury were dissolved in early 1714, and further unions were being planned. However, quite unexpectedly, Mary of Modena died in 1718 due to complications following from breast cancer, leaving James III and VIII to take up the reigns.
James III and VIII was less careful than his mother. Rather hot-headed and prone to impulsivity, he was also indecisive and could change opinions on a dime. It did not help that he had largely been raised on a steady diet of Stuart propaganda. While his mother had intended for him to learn the truth eventually, Mary died after a short sickbed and never got the chance to entirely break that spell over her son. As such James III and VIII despised the fleet (while his father had maintained good relations, being a sailor himself) and loved the army. This lead him to join forces with the Swedish in the Great Northern War against Russia, though he did not commit many actual troops and mainly just harassed the fleet of Denmark-Norway. Because James did not condone attacking merchant shipping however, in an attempt to placate Whig business interest, the fleet could not pay for itself by raiding, and James had to ask Parliament for funds. This increased the debt of the State, which James tried to alleviate using the services of a certain James Blunt.
Seven years and one South Sea Company mishap later and Britain’s economy was teetering on the brink of collapse.
#AER
The Great Northern War didn't happen and Scandinavia united in 1545 plus King Gustav the 1st of Scandinavia views the British government with suspicion due to the emperor thinking he is above the law.
