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Napoleon's Britain

Meadow

I am a knight and I'm building a train
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Maybe it's my inner Paradox gamer, but I just had the idle thought that while there's plenty of theories and bits and pieces about Hitler's Britain, how he might've governed it/broken it up etc, I've not seen many about Napoleon.

For the sake of argument, say Trafalgar goes the other way and then Boney rolls a natural 20 on crossing the Channel not long after. Would he put a relative on the throne? Simply leave things broadly the same but neuter the UK and make her a vassal ally? Break up the UK into constituent Kingdoms?

I imagine there are some interesting things/maps etc that I'm just not aware of here. Any recommendations? Rule of cool very welcome.
 
Maybe it's my inner Paradox gamer, but I just had the idle thought that while there's plenty of theories and bits and pieces about Hitler's Britain, how he might've governed it/broken it up etc, I've not seen many about Napoleon.

For the sake of argument, say Trafalgar goes the other way and then Boney rolls a natural 20 on crossing the Channel not long after. Would he put a relative on the throne? Simply leave things broadly the same but neuter the UK and make her a vassal ally? Break up the UK into constituent Kingdoms?

I imagine there are some interesting things/maps etc that I'm just not aware of here. Any recommendations? Rule of cool very welcome.
According to Nicolas Best: “King George would be overthrown and a republic proclaimed, with liberty, equality and fraternity for all. The nobility would be abolished and their lands and fine houses would be confiscated. The House of Lords would be abolished as well. The House of Commons would be allowed to remain, but only after major reform. There would be democracy for all and a redistribution of property in favour of the ordinary working man. A proclamation was to be issued, announcing that the French came as friends, to restore popular government and liberate common people from a corrupt aristocracy”

Hard to say what more,but apparently Boney did say “With God’s help I will put an end to the future and very existence of England” so maybe a break up of the UK will happen.
 
According to Nicolas Best: “King George would be overthrown and a republic proclaimed, with liberty, equality and fraternity for all. The nobility would be abolished and their lands and fine houses would be confiscated. The House of Lords would be abolished as well. The House of Commons would be allowed to remain, but only after major reform. There would be democracy for all and a redistribution of property in favour of the ordinary working man. A proclamation was to be issued, announcing that the French came as friends, to restore popular government and liberate common people from a corrupt aristocracy”

Hard to say what more,but apparently Boney did say “With God’s help I will put an end to the future and very existence of England” so maybe a break up of the UK will happen.
In regards to the last sentence,I should mention that Boney didn’t really know/understand that the United Kingdom had been created and thought that England meant all of Albion as an island so in his mind “destroying England“ probably meant “Ireland,
Scotland and Wales become independent and maybe Cornwall if I feel like it but that last one ain’t definitive,I’ll ask Talleyrand about it later”.

In terms of governance,only Ireland becomes a Kingdom,Wales,Scotland and England become republics.
 
Who was going to take the monarchy there?
Honestly,hard to say. Maybe we’d see a Republic there as well,given that the United Irishmen were all republicans,especially Robert Emmet,though it’s also likely that one of Boney’s siblings takes charge since he wasn’t really impressed with the United Irishmen and thought they were all bloody idiots.

Again,it depends on how he feels in the moment.

Who knows,maybe Bernard MacSheehy could be crowned as King like Bernadotte and Murat.
 
Honestly,hard to say. Maybe we’d see a Republic there as well,given that the United Irishmen were all republicans,especially Robert Emmet,though it’s also likely that one of Boney’s siblings takes charge since he wasn’t really impressed with the United Irishmen and thought they were all bloody idiots.

"So the good news is, we're free of foreign rulers. And the bad news is--"
 
An really interesting question is who gets to run the English Republic after Fox (if he doesn’t die during the invasion via being lynched by an angry crowd because everyone knew he wanted Boney to win) inevitably die in 1806,since he drank non stop and died due to massive liver failure and having 35 gallstones seven pints of transparent fluid in his body.

[Seriously,it‘s amazing that Charlie James Fox didn’t die earlier,he was Falstaff and Boris times ten and his body was basically comprised of body fat,alcohol and STDs]
 
I just want to read the alternate literature this would produce.

Pride and Prejudice, but Lydia’s scandalous match is a French officer.

Blake having strange visions of a ‘new heptarchy’ after England is divided.

Byron reinventing himself as Citizen Gordon and trying to bluster his way into becoming a republican prince.
 
I just want to read the alternate literature this would produce.

Pride and Prejudice, but Lydia’s scandalous match is a French officer.

Blake having strange visions of a ‘new heptarchy’ after England is divided.

Byron reinventing himself as Citizen Gordon and trying to bluster his way into becoming a republican prince.
Divided in quotes,it’s more “Scotland and maybe Wales being independent”.
 
This is what I've always guessed, though it's more based on historical pattern recognition than any real plans I'm aware of:

Southern England (roughly everything south of a line drawn between Bristol and the Wash) becomes - maybe not immediately, but eventually, see Holland - annexed to the French Empire as départements.

Northern England & the Midlands becomes some sort of republican puppet state (I want to call it the Transpennine Republic, haha) for about five minutes before he changes his mind and gives it to one of his relations or marshals as a kingdom instead. Wales would quite possibly just be lumped in with this, as I'm not sure Bonaparte would even realise it could be spun off as its own thing.

Scotland would be split off as another kingdom under a random king. Or, maybe Northern England, the Midlands & Wales are a kingdom in personal union with France (like the OTL Kingdom of Italy) while Scotland was always under a separate king.

Ireland would be treated similarly to the Grand Duchy of Warsaw in OTL.
 
Maybe it's my inner Paradox gamer, but I just had the idle thought that while there's plenty of theories and bits and pieces about Hitler's Britain, how he might've governed it/broken it up etc, I've not seen many about Napoleon.

For the sake of argument, say Trafalgar goes the other way and then Boney rolls a natural 20 on crossing the Channel not long after. Would he put a relative on the throne? Simply leave things broadly the same but neuter the UK and make her a vassal ally? Break up the UK into constituent Kingdoms?

I imagine there are some interesting things/maps etc that I'm just not aware of here. Any recommendations? Rule of cool very welcome.

I don't want to divert from the scenario, but a better point of a divergence would be no Trafalgar rather than a French victory, which is implausible.
 
Divided in quotes,it’s more “Scotland and maybe Wales being independent”.

I know, but for the purposes of the Romantics I'd be much more interested in seeing what Britain would look like with the full weird satellite republic thing going. I know that's more appropriate to a 1790s conquest than an imperial one, but watching Blake and Coleridge et al coming to terms with the strange existence of the Republics of Brythonia, Northrumbia, Mercia, Cornwall and so on is interesting to me.
 
Sharpe, the bitter working-class hero of the doomed, aristocrat-rotted British army.

Depending on whether the regime lasts or not, you could have Midshipman Hornblower eventually leading a mutiny against the aristos of the exiled Royal Navy and sailing back to Portsmouth- or he spends several books working his way up the ranks of the Russian navy before helping to restore he Hanoverians in the 1820s.
 
I know, but for the purposes of the Romantics I'd be much more interested in seeing what Britain would look like with the full weird satellite republic thing going. I know that's more appropriate to a 1790s conquest than an imperial one, but watching Blake and Coleridge et al coming to terms with the strange existence of the Republics of Brythonia, Northrumbia, Mercia, Cornwall and so on is interesting to me.

"No more green mountains,no more Jerusalem. They all belong now to those who betrayed the people and crowned themselves as Kings,always claiming that they did for our own good. No freedom fighters,only Bonaparts. No believers left,only warlords. The eagles have slain the dove and divided the prey.

Oh,poor Albion! What cruel fate! To be forced to choose either hanging or beheading! Where are the children of '89 ? What have you done with them?

Damn you! Damn you,Robespierre! Damn you,Barras! And damn your Corsican child as well! May your descendants roam the Earth forever like Cain,
cursed never to enter Heaven or Hell!

And damn me for believing in you."
 
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