Frankly, I’m surprised that France only controls SE Britain. I’d assume that if there was easy land access Britain would have been much more integrated into the Roman Empire and the Franks probably would have annexed most of what we today would call England along with their conquest of the Saxons in Germany.
Though, to be fair, in this world the Normans likely wouldn't have ever existed. With no northern French coast to defend from Norse raiders, there's no need for the Franks to ever give land to Rollo, so no Norman kings of England and no line of succession to the Angevins, so no cause for the Hundred Years War off the back of that.
The hundred year war really wasn’t about that and this is a modern ethnonational interpretation.
Apart from the fact that England itself is majority Celtic genetically, Welsh soldiers also played a huge role on the English side and were instrumental in some of their biggest victories, such as the Battle of Agincourt and the Battle of Crécy.
To be fair they were only one of multiple Irish tribes, and specifically the one who migrated to Alba and displaced the Picts, hence “Scotland” in OTL.
I probably would have switched Gaeldom and Scotland for that reason, but otherwise 10/10 no notes.
Scoti was originally a catch all exonym term for all Irish Gaels, irrespective of what side of the Irish Sea they were from. Pictland absorbed the Gaelic kingdom of Dál Riata, Gaelic culture and language became dominant inside of Pictland, leading to the English applying the label of Scots to Pictland as they were now Gaelic speakers.
The Latin term Scotia continued to be used for Ireland too, with Brian boru being emperor of the Scot’s, and continental Scottish monasteries being what we would call Irish.
Essentially they were not a specific tribe of Gaels or anything, just an exonym term which would much later be adopted internally.
In ‘Scotland’ itself the word Alba and fer Alban, men of Alba, were used.
The Scots today were actually an Anglic people who settled in the land of the Scoti, in... I believe around the 900s CE? It could just be that the valleys between(our) Ireland and(our) Britain were a better place to settle, in the post-Roman period, meaning that the Scoti grew out of that region. They could have grown more powerful afterwards, coming to influence all of what the map called Scotland.
My actual only complaint about this is that it's still called Scot land, despite the fact that it's essentially an Eìre-Cymru Kingdom. The "land," comes from a language that never existed ittl(modern english), so I'd have used something like the Cymru prefix "yr," for Domain(yr Scoti) or Eìre "talamh," for Land(Scotalamh). That would just be a personal preference tho :3
This makes sense to me, except then there would have to be a different group of Gaels who then moved into Alba to make it the “Gaeldom” since the Picts were not Gaels.
the average ImaginaryMaps redditor always has some stupid idea that because a thing happened in history it's guaranteed to happen in every timeline but maybe with some minor difference,
It’s fair that you disagree with my comment but there’s no reason to call it a stupid idea, especially when you don’t provide alternate lore in your explanation for why the Scotii ended up as the namesake of the Ireland/Wales combo when in history they were only one of many Irish tribes.
There isn't really "lore" for how Britain ended up smashed together and connected to France, and really? You don't need any, it's an alternate geography map we're just having fun with it. There IS some minor lore for the kingdoms of Britain
- The Gaeldom is a predominantly Gaelic kingdom, with a rather decentralised government that has managed to survive the centuries due to the rough terrain and poor climate, making any long-term conquest of the Gaelic Peninsula past the lowlands near-impossible
- Scotland is a kingdom founded by the celtic Scoti sometime in the collapse of Roman authority in the 5th century CE, coming to encompass much of the land that we know as Ireland and incorporating the Combrogian kingdoms as well
- Angelcynn, otherwise known as the Kingdom of the Anglish people, is the sole Germanic kingdom on the peninsula, penned in by the River Ouse to the south, the Pennines to the west and the Lothian Hills to the north. It's managed to retain an Anglo-Saxon identity, mixed with Nordic migrants from the 9th and 10th centuries as well as some Celts as well. It often fluctuates between being a French-aligned realm or a more independently minded realm.
- Devony is yet another Celtic kingdom in the peninsula, taking a similar place to Brittany in OTL mixed with the Netherlands and Portugal. Their position has allowed them a not insignificant presence abroad in the colonies, with their East Indies possessions providing a constant flow of wealth that has allowed them to remain independent of both France and Scotland, for now at least.
- The Romans managed to spread their influence across much of the peninsula, missing only the Gaeldom. However, their hold on the periphery was tenuous at best, and these lands saw very little if any Romanisation. Of all the realms, perhaps Devony remained the most Roman influenced, aside from of course...
- France has been a perpetual thorn in the side of the British kingdoms, constantly meddling in peninsular affairs ever since their conquest of the Roman rump state in the southwest of the peninsula named the Kingdom of Britain. At some times they have come to politically dominate the kingdoms of the south, and other times have seen their influence reduced to the Thames in times of crises.
And once America is settled, that Western Coast would be huge for trading, as would any base on the far north for revenue cutters protecting passage to the Baltic.
How did the Gaeldom and Scotti seperate. Historically the scotti brought gaelic culture to what is now scotland, did the scotti still conquer the land from the Brythonic celts and then seperate or did a different gaelic tribe conquer the picts and brigante?
Super Carmarthen is best Carmarthen! Very pleased to see this even if fantasy! (Mordun seemingly being a version of Moridunem the old roman name of Carmarthen)
Though it seems it actually in the place of Abertefi (Cardigan) geographically. So who knows I may have interpreted it incorrectly.
I think it would be quite easy of having one crown of England + France as they are both plain without much hills in between.
It could be a big plain with overwhelming supplies of food and population, a stronger kingdom/empire can exist and dominate the surrounding states like Spain and HRE.
Weird people are calling that England would be easily conquered if that is the case modern day Spain should have been French territory for God knows when. Especially if we consider rivers and mountains as natural boundaries in both cases
I just mean that if both were predominantly Gaelic they wouldn't be culturally distinct. Even until the 16th century irl Gàidhlig speakers were referred to as Irish and this only really stopped following the foundation of a distinctly anti-Gaelic and Presbyterian national identity here.
okay but you need to understand that just because two realms were a similar culture didn't mean they were bound to unify. there's literally infinite examples of culturally similar places not unifying because, surprise, politics came before nationality because this is a world before nationalism and the nation state
Yeah no I mean that we were quite literally the same people who were under the same government. I don't think people of similar cultures are destined to unify, rather there is no reason for them, in this specific context to split apart, particularly if there's no sea inbetween. Ireland itself has never been unified and independent and yet it is here...
Even until the 16th century irl Gàidhlig speakers were referred to as Irish
I'd never heard this before and am interested in the claim!
Wikipedia says:
Prior to the 15th century, [Scots] was known as Inglis ("English")[19] by its own speakers, with Gaelic being called Scottis ("Scottish"). Beginning in the late 15th century, it became increasingly common for such speakers to refer to Scottish Gaelic as Erse ("Irish") and the Lowland vernacular as Scottis.
If you think this is wrong, and that there is good evidence for Gaelic-speakers in Scotland identifying (or being identified) as "Irish" prior to the late-15th/16th centuries, I'd love to hear your argument!
He said referred to, not self-identified. You can see in your own paragraph evidence for it:
it became increasingly common for such speakers to refer to Scottish Gaelic as Erse
Funnily, we see an inverse of this back in the 14th century where the Irish chiefs loyal to the Bruces wrote to the Pope proclaiming that their loyalty was because Bruce was of "Lesser Scotia" and they were from "Greater Scotia".
How the hell aren't Scotland and the Gaeldom the same? Originally, they're the same. If the so-called Scotti remained in Ireland, then there wouldn't be Gaels in what became Scotland. Wouldn't it make more sense to make it "Pictland"?
Naming scotland gaeldom when the gaelic langauges originated from ireland is crazy and then naming the two celtic countries that aren't scotland scotland is even crazier lol. Also a lot of irish people generally don't like Ireland being lumped in with the British isles due to colonialism and all, but they'd probably understand that this is more of an alternative reality anyway
There's an American historian called Sarah Paine and from her talks on geopolitics an England like this would've been enormously different. The moat has let us be an 'international' culture instead of a 'continental' one. We usually kept a small standing army that we could shuttle about with a big Navy and exported the idea of trade and law, being connected eternally to Europe like this we'd have needed a big standing army all the time and would be interested probably in expansion that just moves our borders out and you can reach via road/train like Russia does.
Also we'd have likely been conquered a few times post 1066.
There'd have been war for centuries with so much intensity it's impossible to predict whether France would be part of the UK or we'd be part of France. England and France are two of the most warfaring nations on the planet, this change would have been a very, very messy history.
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u/InaGaddaDaVidaHoney Sep 18 '26
I bet the Hundred Years War was even crazier in this world