Hey Slayer, I got a question about the world politics that I'm not sure has been answered before: What is the current state of the British Isles politically? Especially on the whole EU/Britannia issue? I would assume that all the monarchist sentiment there has been tried to be squashed and rooted out over the years, but on the other hand, Britannia must have sunk considerable amounts of intel work and support to everything that might shake the EU's hold on the isles of their original homeland particularly.
Also somewhat relating to this, is there any difference in the amount of mentalists/psychics in the population there to the rest of the EU? Both before the royalty and nobility had to flee (known to public historical records) and in the current world situation.
United States of the British Isles...
Okay, so Code Geass history is already weird, we've established that.
Historically, the Britannian Nobility/Royalty, even and
especially pre-Napoleon were what I'd term '
Authoritarian Liberals,' at least to
some degree. Which I kind of have to digress in this digression to explain.
le sigh
IRL canon for England has the Tudor Dynasty ending with the death of Elizabeth the first. Now, this is rather
significant because her successor, James the first of England and sixth of Scotland begat Charles the first. Charles' tendencies towards absolutist rule were problematic to the pro-parliamentarian faction of English nobility, landowners, and wealthy merchants who liked having some kind of say in government. This series of events led to the English Civil War which is...
kind of important to the history of British Isles. I touched on this when the subject of the Coldstream Guards who have their origins in the war, so...
do they exist?! CG history is... problematic because Elizabeth had a
child.
Yet
apparently Britannian forces retreat to Edinburgh after the fall of London to Napoleon and subsequently have to flee to the Americas. Known as the 'Humiliation of Edinburgh.' Which is significant because a retreat to the city strongly implies it is under some form of control by the English/Britannian crown. Which means the personal union between between England and Scotland apparently still happened?
So, as the Bard would say,
therein lies the rub. Since I have to virtually whole-cloth this thing and haven't really made a determination on what the hell happened during this time period...
Mary, Queen of Scots
avoids an abdication after the death of her husband, dodging the forced Protestant marriage ceremony to Lord Bothwell. Even with this, though, her infant son James dies due to a childhood illness. Salvation of her line of succession, though, is found in the twin girls whom she births in 1567 (miscarried OTL). Shaken by her attempted kidnapping, Mary moves towards reconciliation with her sister Elizabeth, who is now with child herself. Once Elizabeth's son, Henry IX, is born, a betrothal is crafted to create a personal union between Scotland and England under the Tudor dynasty. Henry IX marries one of the twins, Anne, while the other, Mary II, resists plans for another arranged marriage while secretly conducting an affair with her sister's husband.
Ultimately, once their mothers have died, Henry IX marries Mary II
in addition to Anne. Henry puts down several revolts which rise up in the name of propriety and morality once it is made public that he has violated the custom of monogamy.
The English Civil War is not fought between Parliamentarians and Royalists, but instead between the eldest sons of the two wives of Henry IX.
More
specifically, The English Civil War is not a conflict between absolutism and shared governmental power, but two different brands of absolutist rule when the royal half-brothers crush the proto-parliamentarian faction between themselves. One dies, and the other inherits.
All of this sets the scene for a hundred and fifty years of the 'Tudor Golden Age' where parliament is kept weak, the people are
granted rights by the high nobility and royalty, and laws and courts adjudicated by the upper echelons of a society that pushes forward ever-more social change, modernization, and reform. Ireland is brought into the fold, not by Oliver Cromwell's bloody conquest, but by a slow melding of Irish nobility with English. The guilds are pushed to adapt and apprenticeships are restructured. Education takes children out of the fields and puts them into schools. Hygiene practices, formalized medical treatments (even if primitive by modern standards), abolition of cruel and unusual punishments, and even more 'radical' laws are passed throughout the whole of the British Isles.
Every generation, yet more changes are forced on a people who grow more and more tired of the constant upheavals in their way of life. Even as
most of the changes improve their quality of life, a notable few are burned into memory for their failure, such as the sanitation reform which employs a toxic metal to join the iron pipes carrying drinking water.
Less and less are these impositions into the commoner's daily lives received kindly.
Gradually, the wealthy merchants, landed gentry, and the political backroom dealers of the the empire begin to plot and plan. A rebellion fails, and another one, and then Napoleon arrives in an orgy of violence and liberation.
...now that the stage is set, the populous of Great Britain seldom remembers the good the nobles did, merely that their actions were done without consent or approval. The desire to see their realm prosper and their
own wealth increase, admittedly selfish in nature, is remembered as simple tyranny. The violence of oppression, a very real and semi-frequent occurrence to put down rebellions, is emphasized to the point of rank villainy and despotism. Noble and Royal excesses through their lavish lifestyles is more than what it really was, instead a monument to their own egos at the expense of thousands of bound serfs. Likewise, poor commoners are tortured slaves.
The pre-Napoleon imperial regime was
not perfect by any means, but the schools of Great Britain paint the era as a much darker time.
The schools of
Great Britain, at least.
Ireland remembers the armies of Napoleon coming unwanted and uninvited to purge the island of royalist sentiment and the last vestiges of Imperial rule on the islands. Napoleon is this timeline's Cromwell. Ireland, although officially part of the USBI is and always has been something of a hotbed of resistance. The majority of royalist ships carried those fleeing Edinburgh, including ships on loan from Irish nobles. When Napoleon came for
them, they had little recourse to flee and, instead, went to ground. Even the ships which managed to break the French Navy's blockade many months late, couldn't carry many. The lessons they teach their children that the Imperial age was a golden one, in contrast to those on Great Britain, remembering it as far more perfect than it was.
Ireland is the slowly-bleeding sore of Europa United, discontented and festering in unrest. Some things never change, as it turns out.
The mentalists? In Great Britain, the populace still remembers their favored status in the courts of the empire and reinforce fond memories of protection from 'witch hunts' and oppression. In ireland, the feeling is even more fervent, funded by secure donations through untraceable accounts. A Britannian invasion of Ireland would likely be welcomed with open arms by most of the working class and was dearly hoped for during the Great War, but coldly and cruelly, the Empire prefers the current state of affairs. Supporting Irish rebels is a great way to absorb Europa's attention.
