american britain
Perhaps the greatest challenge ever concieved in the history of this site.
Can you do it?
POD can be any time after 1776, though I stuck this here because 1900 or later seems the most likely time for this to happen.
PoD: 1826 - William, Duke of Clarence, dies of pneumonia. 1830: George IV dies. He is succeeded by his 10 year old niece, Victoria, daughter of his late brother Edward. The Regent is his eldest surviving brother, Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland.
1831: The Great Reform Bill comes up in Parliament. Cumberland refuses to prorogue Parliament (forcing new elections) after the Commons rejects the Bill. When warned that if Reform is blocked, discontent could boil over into violence, he orders expanded preparations for suppression by the army. The Reform crisis intensifiies. There are several major Reform riots.
1833: Elections cannot be delayed any longer. The new Parliament has a massive pro-Reform Whig majority in the Commons. But by this time Cumberland has decided that Reform is a dangerous crypto-republican movement. The Bill passes the Commons, but is blocked in the Lords. (OTL William agreed to create enough new peers to pass the Bill, then warned the Tory peers of this so that they abstained and let the Bill pass first.) ATL, Cumberland encourages the Lords in their opposition, and refuses to create any new peers named by the Whig PM.
1835: Violent Reform demonstrations break out in every major city in Britain. The Whig PM moves to remove Cumberland as Regent and replace him with the Duke of Sussex, who has agreed to create peers as needed. Sussex is regarded as a weakling, who is need of money and has been promised a lavish allowance.
Cumberland persuades the Duke of Wellington to support him in a "self-coup" - suspending Parliament and arresting the PM for bribery. Now the manure impacts the turbine. The Reform mob goes for open insurrection. Cumberland and Wellington restore order by brute force, including German mercenary dragoons brought over from Hanover. Hundreds of prominent Reform leaders are arrested and held without trial.
In desperation, a gang of Reformists break into Buckingham Palace, hoping to "liberate" young Queen Victoria from Cumberland's control and end the Regency. They are on their way out with the Queen when a squad of the Germans intervenes. In the ensuing melee, the Germans kill all the Reformists, and the Queen is also killed - by the Germans, say the Reformists; by the Reformists, says the government. The result is civil war, with Cumberland ultimately triumphant. With Commons purged of Reformists, a series of repressive laws passes. Britain becomes a reactionary royal dictatorship. Thousands of Liberals and Radicals are deported to Australia or Canada.
1837: The deportees from Britain combine with local malcontents to launch rebellions in Canada. The rebellions are put down with severity, and hundreds of rebel leaders and sympathizers flee to the U.S.
1846-1854: Famine ravages Ireland. Several million Irish emigrate or are transported overseas - many to Australia or Canada.
1861: Civil war breaks out in America. Faced with the loss of cotton supplies, Britain tries to force the US to accept secession, but flinches at actual intervention. (Shipowners are just too fearful of Yankee privateering.) The U.S. goes on to defeat the rebels, despite British meddling. But a deep grudge is established.
1878: New rebellions in Canada, supported covertly from the US, overthrow British control in the Prairies, Ontario, and Quebec. The independent provinces enter the US as states.
Fast forward a generation: Britain is the flagship of reaction; the US of democracy. When revoution breaks out in Australia, the rebels join the US. Eventually Ireland and Britain...
