In anticipation of the upcoming referendum on Scottish independence I decided to start an AAR with the intention to see how well Scotland might have fared during the Victorian period had they been allowed to go at it on their own. It is played on unmodded V2: HoD, normal settings. Naturally no cheats or gamey edits will be used.
Prologue
It was early September 1834, when someone in the Scottish Highlands had the brilliant idea of asking: ‘Do we really need those pesky Englishmen down in London telling us what to do? What if we were to have a country of our own again?’ This idea soon caught wind and after spreading like wildfire around the country, the popular call for Scottish independence rose to such heights as to warrant a referendum on the subject, which was dutifully arranged the following year and consented by Westminster despite biting their teeth at the subject, for they believed that majority of the Scots would surely defeat such a base and silly motion at the polls. Their moods soon changed, however, when it became clear that a Scottish independence was imminent after the results went public. 51% of those eligible to vote in the election had voiced their clear opinion on the matter – Scotland was to be a country of its own, as a separate entity from the rest of Britain. Despite their disgruntlement over the results, London decided to abide by their word and let the Scots go, for they feared that swarming the country with troops at this point might seem two-faced having given their prior consent to the referendum. They instead decided to bide their time and wait for a better opportunity to retake the land that was rightfully theirs by force.
The independence inspired several Irish leaders, who likewise began pondering the possibility of an independent Ireland. These men gathered for a meeting over the matter in Cork on the 20th of November, 1835 and began working on a timeline for a referendum on independence, or at the least for an autonomy. Said men abruptly disappeared from their homes in the middle of the night the next day, and their bodies were found floating in the River Lee some days later. Official investigation over the matter concluded that their cause of death was ‘drowning as a result of a voracious night of drunken revelry typical to the Irish commoners,’ and the matter – and along it the subject of independence – was laid to rest and not spoken of again.
On the morning of 1st of January 1836, the Union Jack was finally lowered all over Scotland and replaced by the Saltire, which now flies proudly over the land. The Scots decided that it would be easiest to keep their former institutions largely as they were for now, and decided to stick with constitutional monarchy as their form of government. After searching for a suitable candidate to take over the throne, son of the French king Louis-Philippe I, Prince Louis d’Orléans, was shipped over to Edinburgh and crowned the King of Scotland on the 15th of February 1836, as the Scottish hoped to revive the Auld Alliance – though in vain, for the French believed it was too early to get more deeply involved with the newly formed country. Thus was the great kingdom of Scotland unleashed upon the world once more, and the planet was to feel the tremor of their might.
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