what if the british empire didn’t exist

The british empire was one of the most influencential empires to ever exist. At its biggest they controlled one fourth of earth’s land and had a land in every continent except antarctica. But what if they didn’t exist? for this book instead of assuming the british isles disappeared one day we’ll assume that england collapsed in the beginning of 17th century. at the start of the 17th century england didn’t have any heirs to the throne so they asked James the VI of scotland to take the throne. this did not mean the unification of england and scotland. they were still seprate countries with seprate laws and parliaments. in this version King James tries to annex england into scotland which leads to a civil war that distracts from trying to gain territories

in the new world. scotland wins the civil war but the resulting state is weaker due to civil war and doesn’t have colonies.

The final question to answer regarding is what would happen to british India, “The jewel in the british crown” If the british empire was in control of India India would probably be split, mostly between the dutch and the french with a couple portuguese ports here and there.

if the british empire didn’t exist the franch empire would have a lot of new territories in the new world, for example the franch lost all of their north american in the seven years war

to the british and spanish. But without the british empire they would probably have the british colonys in north america.

as a result the modern day USA and Canada would probably have a lot more french influence. australia and new zealand would probably fall under french rule as well due to french claims to austraila that in our timeline weren’t legitimate due to prior english claims. The fate of the british territories in africa would be more complicated because unlike the north american territories africa was divided up not through war but through a conference. If the British empire wasn’t a part of the Berlin conference then I would assume egypt would go to the ottaman empire and the english territories in southern africa would be split up between Germany and Portugal.

The final question to answer regarding is what would happen to british India, “The jewel in the british crown” If the british empire was in control of India India would probably be split, mostly between the dutch and the french with a couple portuguese ports here and there.

If the british empire didn’t exist, then the culture of the world would also change. I believe that in such a scenario french culture would have a lot more influence due to their new colonial possessions, the french language would replace english as the lingua franca of the world. if the english monarchy is still around they would not be very well known internationally like the dutch and swedish monarchys in our world. Apart from that it’s hard to tell how the world would change. The british empire was a very importent part of world history and removing them would have a lot of small consequences that would impact our day to day life.