Colonial Scenarios of "Spain" if Portugal, Castile and Aragon were Unified

England of course. It is an enlarged version of the Pale of Calais. ITTL chances are a weakening France never manages to recover it and the exclave gets somewhat expanded during the Partition (even if I expect a strong HRE does not let the English control the mouth of the Somme in addition to Normandy and the mouth of the Seine. Better not to have the English too strong close to the Low Countries, since the area is far too important for the Imperials). Most likely, ITTL the partition of France occurs sometime after the French Wars of Religion are done wrecking the Kingdom, but just as likely the peace deal at the end of the Italian Wars is much less favorable to France than OTL, depending on when the pro-Habsburg PoD stays displaying its full effects. Even if it does start being felt relatively late, and the English do lose Calais for a while, they are surely dusting off their claim on it at the partition table.

Of course not. The English keeping the Calais exclave and slightly enlarging it is already a serious concession the HRE is making. England surely won't get an inch more of sensitive land close to the Dutch-Flemish ports that are a vital strategic interest of the Imperials (trade-based and proto-industrial cash cow, economic outlet for the Rhine-Maas basin, and main access to the Atlantic), for the same reasons the Spanish are not letting the English have Aquitaine. Remember, England here is its Tudor-Stuart self, a distant third runner-up to the two Habsburg giants that are acting in concert, and an opportunist latecomer to the partition deal. The Spanish and the Imperials do not have too much use or interest for northwestern France since they get plenty of access to the Atlantic elsewhere, and letting England participate to the Partition is convenient for them in various ways, but surely the English are not getting the full deal of their Angevin claims or their ambitions on the Flanders fulfilled.

IMHO, this scenario depends on who is the dominant power(s) within the Iberian Union. In most cases, this will result in a larger presence in North Africa/Western Mediterranean and the Americas (no competition between Portugal and Spain in the South America). If the Lower Countries are not controlled by said Union, this prevents several issues that undermined it OTL.
If the dominant force is Portugal (from an earlier POD), this might result in slightly more investment in the Eastern Indies (and a close to OTL investment in the before mentioned areas.

It seems quite a feasible alternative PoD for this scenario to the Habsburg one. Of course, in such a case, we may never see a Habsburg dynasty in Greater Spain. Nonetheless, I fully expect an Aviz-Habsburg, Spanish-Imperial partnership to arise and entrench just the same, as previously discussed in the thread, since the strategic reasons to compel such an alliance against France and the Ottomans would exist just the same. We may even see more or less the same kind of dynastic intermarriage between the two Houses.



As I said, the English getting too strong a presence on the French coast close to the strategically sensitive area for the HRE of the Dutch-Flemish coast is going to put the Imperials on edge, esp. given the long-standing English ambitions on the Flanders. This is going to be a big concession of the HRE to England if they go along with allowing this kind of land connection, although we can easily see the territorial continuity point of it. At the very least, I expect the HRE to get a few serious compensations from England elsewhere, such as in the colonial field. A good start might be England mostly relinquishing colonization of northern North America to the HRE without much of a fight. I assume it is going to happen anyway in the end, but it may take less armed clashes if England relinquishes colonization of the St. Lawrence basin-New England-Mid Atlantic area to the HRE in Exchange for getting more of the French coast. Yes to the establishment of this Francophone Protestant neo-Angevin polity in real union with England/Britain. No good idea ATM for its name, since I am creatively challenged with ATL names.



Interesting map. I assume the HRE is going to be the one to colonize the Northern USA-Canada area. As it concerns the Gran Colombia and Southern Cone areas, an easy solution is to put them under the purview of North Italy and South Italy, once they are reorganized in the same Crown dignity as Castille, Portugal, and Aragon within the Spanish Empire.

True, although to be precise the PLC would be a fourth leg of the alliance, since Hungary-Croatia-Wallachia(-Serbia) is obviously going to be the third one, of comparable importance to the PLC one. Admittably neo-Byzantine (Serbia-)Bulgaria-Greece and Denmark-Norway are going to be lower in the pecking order. I don't expect a successful Greater Spain that avoids its decline and remains prosperous to have any serious difficulties holding on to Italy for the foreseeable future. All it takes is for Spain to fulfill the reasonable aspirations of the Italians by ensuring their complete national unification, and giving them an equal place at the table and a fair share in imperial profits, and these seem easy to accomplish in these circumstances. The Spanish and the Italians have strong cultural affinities and compatible strategic interests that make multi-national coexistence in the same imperial polity easy to stabilize. If anything, given the Crown split of Iberia between Castile, Aragon, and Portugal, the Spanish Empire might have interest to keep the Middle Ages division of Italy between the Kingdoms of (North) Italy and South Italy/Naples/Scily, in order to ensure balance between the two halves of the empire. Of course, down the line, once North Africa gets fully Christianized and culturally assimilated, and the American settler colonies are properly developed, the issue is going to arise of their political equality with the Iberian-Italian core, but this is an issue for the long-term future, a century or two down the line.


I am prone to assume ITTL England follows the same colonial fate of France in North America, and even if it somehow manages to get a few colonies established, it is doomed to lose them to the superior power of Spain and the HRE. Of course, if it gets sufficiently distracted by British Isles issues to prevent it form setting up these colonies in the first place, that is much better for the interests of the Aviz-Habsburg bloc (i.e. no Québec-style assimilation issues of conquered English settlers). And yes, I can easily see Spain and the HRE using Ireland and/or Scotland as a tool to keep England too harried and distracted to engagé in other theaters effectively. It is a trick France used successfully for centuries with the Auld Alliance, after all.

Hmm, I suppose a peripheral 'scrap' that Denmark-Norway (or England or Scotland for that matter) may be able to keep in North America would be Newfoundland, Labrador, and perhaps PEI or on a stretch Nova Scotia as well. I don't see any real chance for the rest.

Bringing Sweden too in the Aviz-Habsburg bloc, short of conquest or dynastic union, seems somewhat hard since we are assuming all its serious rivals for Baltic trade and influence (HRE, PLC, Denmark-Norway) but Russia are already in it. It seems more likely (but not necessarily a given) they would try and align with the Anglo-Russian bloc. On the other hand, as I said upthread, there is the very real alternative possibility of the Kalmar Union forming if the Nordic monarchies decide to purposefully seek it the same way the Iberian Union formed, before D-N gets aligned in the Aviz-Habsburg bloc.

As it concerns the Crown division of the Italian Peninsula within the Spanish Empire, yes, it makes more sense to keep the Kingdoms of (North) Italy and South Italy separate, esp. as long as Castile, Aragon, and Portugal remain distinct too. No need to use something as ugly and anachronistic as a 'Padania' qualifier. Historically the Middle Ages title of Kingdom of Italy, which encompassed everything north of Rome/Naples (depending on how you looked at the Papal States) that the HRE held. Here we are assuming the HRE cedes it to Spain as part of their alliance dealings, more or less at the time when Spain is basically done bringing everything in Italy but the Papal State remnant (it may vary from as big as Latium to as little as Vatican City) under its direct rule, and the HRE claims the title of the Kingdom of France, after the partition. Spain already owned the Kingdom and title of Two Sicilies.



Hmm, I am not honestly sure if the Scottish monarchs were in a position (since they were not that strong domestically) to stop the Reformation from spontaneously taking root in Scotland out of the anti-English foreign policy concerns you hint of. I would need to check the historical facts to decide. Well, we can surely rely on England having a very paranoid stance in these circumstances, although their French possessions may help a bit. England may certainly stay neutral, but in all likelihood it is going to ally with Russia, given its historical self-realizing paranoia complex about European hegemons getting hostile, which is only going to be magnified if it comes to control bits of Scandinavia or worse the British Isles. I am very skeptical its Tudor/Stuart pre-Imperial version, even with northwestern France, can do anything serious to help the Ottomans directly, since ITTL it is effectively shut off from the Med. Of course, short of breaking the partition deal and going to war with the HRE-Spanish alliance in France, which may easily happen, probably more than once.



Yeah about the rest, but the HRE is going to include a damn big population (Greater Germany including Bohemia, the Low Countries, two-fifth of France, effectively Hungary as well) to begin with, even before we take other ATL possible inclusions. So I don't see any serious demographic trouble for the Imperials to fill up habitable Canada + Northern USA with their own settlers. I don't know your full plans for this TL, but once the HRE got the rest of northern North America, I don't see any good reason why the HRE should not be able to colonize the Pacific Northwest as well. Greater Spain is already going to have its plate full with Latin America, even with the contribution of Italy, and not any interested to contest the West Coast to their allies. England won't be in a position to touch the area. Please don't say you are planning for Russia to colonize the region; Alaska was already a big stretch for them, they were much more likely to lose it than to hold and expand on it. On the other hand, if you are planning on something like a non-isolationist China/Japan-Korea colonizing the West Coast, that seems entirely reasonable. As I said upthread, colonizing Brazil and the Southern Cone seems a stretch for Portugal. I support the SC and Greater Colombia becoming the purview of North/South Italy.