AHC -- "Splendid Isolation", or: can we make a British sakoku happen?

[Skallagrim]

I've been thinking about the somewhat obvious comparison between Britain and Japan. Both insular domains, right off the coast of the great Eurasian continent. Therefore always close to the goings-on of the relevant continental powers and their struggles. Occasionally ambitiously involved in said struggles, and at times even bold enough to claim massive continental holdings. Yet also both inclined to stay apart, and aloof, to remain separate and distinct. Both Britain and Japan have also seen periods of civil wars, which defined the future course of each in major ways.

What I find interesting is that after the tribulations of the Sengoku period, Japan turned to a fairly thorough policy of isolationism. (Not as total or consistent as is sometimes imagined, but still clearly and strongly dedicated towards isolation and the "inward turn".) Britain, very obviously, did not do this. In fact, its periods of civil warring resulted in subsequent periods more obviously dedicated to outward-facing objectives. (Thus, the Wars of the Roses were followed up by the Tudor era, and ultimately the Elizabethan exploration ventures. And the English Civil War, Protectorate, and then the Restoration period resulted in the Glorious Revolution and a Britain more engaged in foreign relations than ever before.)

My question here is: would it be possible for Britain to become as isolationist as Tokugawa-era Japan?

What I'm not looking for, to be clear, is a modern scenario where some British totalitarian regime goes the way of North Korea. Let's say that this has to happen before 1700. (To be as analogous as possible to Japan, I think that pre-1600 would be even better, but there might be some workable PODs involving the English Civil War or the Glorious Revolution.)

My own first though is of the Wars of the Roses, which we may imagine as the British equivalent to the late Sengoku Period. Sure, the Sengoku Period in Japan lasted a century and a half, and the Wars of the Roses lasted only three decades. But then again, the Hundred Years' War was also a cause of considerable disturbance, and it preceded (and to a considerable degree, led to) the Wars of the Roses.

I'm not exactly sure how it would -- or could -- work, but I could imagine a scenario where Richard III beats Henry Tudor at Bosworth Field, but some time later ends up getting assassinated before getting his own succession in order. And then various pretenders to the throne (some claiming to be the murdered Princes in the Tower) come out of the woodwork, several of them backed by foreign powers...

This would then require one contender decisively beating all the rivals, and (presumably due to the foreign attempts to put a puppet on the throne) deciding to close his Kingdom off from the outside world.

Such a scenario runs the risk of veering closer to pure fiction than anything else, of course. It's interesting, but is it really still alternate history?

If anyone can think of a more plausible way to turn Britain into an analogue of Tokugawa Japan, I'm all ears. There are always things such as Cromwell installing some puppet king and essentially becoming a Shogun-like ruler. Or, considering that Japan didn't have anything like the Anglo-Saxons invading, we might even imagine that Britain that remains Celtic has a better chance at becoming isolated from the continent. Again: I'm interested in the ideas others here may have.

 

[WolfBear]

Give Britain several decades after Brexit; that should help do the trick here--hopefully!

 

[Earl]

I think the most likely way to go about it is to have England go through the French Wars of Religion ending with a Puritan victory and lasting theocracy. Works better if Protestantism is extinguished from Mainland Europe, leaving England as the only Protestant Realm on Earth, and thus highly paranoid. English shipping is free Game to everyone else too.

 

[WolfBear]

I think the most likely way to go about it is to have England go through the French Wars of Religion ending with a Puritan victory and lasting theocracy. Works better if Protestantism is extinguished from Mainland Europe, leaving England as the only Protestant Realm on Earth, and thus highly paranoid. English shipping is free Game to everyone else too.

What effects does this have on English North American colonization? And does the English union with Scotland still happen on schedule, let alone at all?

 

[Skallagrim]

I think the most likely way to go about it is to have England go through the French Wars of Religion ending with a Puritan victory and lasting theocracy. Works better if Protestantism is extinguished from Mainland Europe, leaving England as the only Protestant Realm on Earth, and thus highly paranoid. English shipping is free Game to everyone else too.

It's a fair scenario, but I do feel it veers a bit close to the "North Korea" kind of set-up. The really interesting thing about Japan's sakoku policy is that it didn't manifest in a sort of ultra-rabid regime. It's more that they just really felt that reducing foreign influences as much as possible was a desirable goal in general and in itself.



Thinking of parallelism a little more: I previously noted that to be more like Japan in a greater historical sense, Britain might have to avoid the Anglo-Saxon migration of OTL. Alternatively, and less "intrusively", perhaps it would suffice to "merely" prevent William the Conqueror (and any ATL analogue)?

It's true that Japan didn't really have a true analogue of the Anglo-Saxons, but either way, my thinking here rests on the rough estimation (which fits, as far as chronology goes, at least) of pre-Roman Britain being vaguely "analogous" to Japan in the Jomon period. This casts the arrival of Roman influence as being akin to the emergence of the Yayoi period in Japan. (It is now generally understood that the Yayoi people were formed around a nexus of migrating groups from the Korean peninsula.)

We might take that further, and liken the influx of ethnic Han migrants during the Kofun period as being at last a bit similar to the Anglo-Saxons? Sure, it's more credible to liken the Kofun period to Sub-Roman Britain, and the Kofun-era migrants didn't shape Japan to the extent that the Anglo-Saxons altered the fate of Britain... but there are at least some similarities. Likewise, the consolidation of the central monarchy during the subsequent Asuka period can be seen as similar to Alfred's consolidation of royal power in England, ending the divisions of the Heptarchy. Indeed, even the introduction of Buddhism in this era can be seen as very much like the introduction of Christianity into Anglo-Saxon England.

As such, I wonder if simply avoiding William the Conqueror might realistically be used as a starting point for a scenario that ultimately leads to a British sakoku. (The key factor being that the English claim to France is avoided, thus presumably giving Britain fewer reasons to become closely involved in the politics of the continent.)

 

[Chiron]

The Sengoku Period in Japan was the result of a complete collapse of the Ashikaga Shogunate with no clear successors and a bunch of lords all equally competent at war in a country with poor road infrastructure relative to Britain and all the factions had ample access to resources.

Basically the Diadochi Collapse of the Alexandrian Empire but on a smaller scale.

Herein lies the problem, Britain avoided such a collapse because they had a clear succession law to follow, and a good infrastructure that enabled relatively centralized armies to fight decisive battles.

To get to a destructive Sengoku like period in Britain, there has to be multiple lords all equally competent at war, and central rule from the crown must utterly collapse with no agreement amongst the Nobles as to who should succeed. Followed by Foreign Powers throwing gasoline on the fire.

But if such were to happen in England, I dare say we would see a Scottish King march south and start disciplining all the nobles and imposing a reign of kilts and bagpipes.

Leave it up to you whether that's a good or bad thing.

 

[Skallagrim]

The Sengoku Period in Japan was the result of a complete collapse of the Ashikaga Shogunate with no clear successors and a bunch of lords all equally competent at war in a country with poor road infrastructure relative to Britain and all the factions had ample access to resources.

Basically the Diadochi Collapse of the Alexandrian Empire but on a smaller scale.

Herein lies the problem, Britain avoided such a collapse because they had a clear succession law to follow, and a good infrastructure that enabled relatively centralized armies to fight decisive battles.

To get to a destructive Sengoku like period in Britain, there has to be multiple lords all equally competent at war, and central rule from the crown must utterly collapse with no agreement amongst the Nobles as to who should succeed. Followed by Foreign Powers throwing gasoline on the fire.

This is why I mentioned scenarios involving the Wars of the Roses. The closing phase of this in particular could see things turn out pretty chaotically. If Richard III beats -- and kills -- Henry Tudor, but then gets killed off himself before producing an heir, you have the stage set for a succession crisis. There are potential claimants, but this would be an easy situation to exploit for the ambitious, so expect your Lambert Simnels and Perkin Warbecks to proliferate.

But if such were to happen in England, I dare say we would see a Scottish King march south and start disciplining all the nobles and imposing a reign of kilts and bagpipes.

Considering the comparative situations of England and Scotland, I find this particularly doubtful. It's not as ludicrously implausible as, say, the Ainu exploiting the chaos of the Sengoku period to conquer all of Honshu... but it's still pretty unlikely.

There's also the fact that the periods I'd consider as involving likely PODs in this context are also times of internal issues in Scotland and Ireland. If we go with an "end of the Wars of the Roses" POD... the Scottish murdered their own King during that period. (And Ireland was in a phase of bitter strife between ambitious lords.)

Meanwhile, the English Civil War, also a decent POD, exists against the backdrop of the so-called "Wars of the Three Kingdoms", which sort of gives away that the other British realms aren't really in a good shape to act decisively at that time, either.

A point could be made about a hypothetical Scotland exploiting an Anglo-Saxon "sengoku" period that eventually occurs in a "no William the Conqueror" TL, but by then, we're so far into a fully made-up world that it's impossible to say how likely any prarticular outcome might be.

Anyway, in short: I don't think the notion of Scotland conquering England in this kind of event is very likely, because all OTL situations that might reasonably be 'tweaked' to bring England closer to multi-polar in-fighting were also situations wherein Scotland and Ireland were in turmoil.

 

[Chiron]

There's also the fact that the periods I'd consider as involving likely PODs in this context are also times of internal issues in Scotland and Ireland. If we go with an "end of the Wars of the Roses" POD... the Scottish murdered their own King during that period. (And Ireland was in a phase of bitter strife between ambitious lords.)

Weirder shit has happened in the past than what I propose.

In my home state of Michigan there was ample copper and iron plus coal in accessible seams and in copper's case just lying on the ground. Wisconsin has zinc nearby to those deposits.

The indigenous people of pre-Columbian Michigan knew of their existence, even mined it, but somehow it never went anywhere and they stopped all work at around the same time as the Bronze Age Collapse in the Mediterranean.

Historians and Archaeologists for the most part don't want to touch this mystery and the few who do get chewed up even when they are right which has a chilling effect on people wanting to get to the bottom of this.

Then there is the Vallum of Hadrian's Wall which any Engineer can tell you is a preparatory trench for a massive roadway project that was abandoned for whatever reason. Historians ridicule them for it. So far only one person has the courage to challenge the Orthodoxy.

 

[S'task]

I think something to consider that makes this inherently harder to set up is the geography in question. While there are major parallels between the British Isles and the Japanese Archipelago, one of the significant differences is proximity to the continent. At its very closest, across the Korean Strait, Japan is 120 miles apart from Korea, which itself is geographically isolated from the mainland of Asia due to its mountainous northern reaches. From major centers of power like China, Japan is over a thousand miles distant. Thus Japan only has one neighbor that has easyish access to them while the rest of the continent has to make significant effort.

Meanwhile England is, at most, 150 miles from France, and as little as 21 Miles along the English Channel. France and the Low Countries are all well connected into the great European trade networks and would have little to no trouble maintaining contact or forcing actions against England. That ease of access makes going full isolationist much harder.

 

[Skallagrim]

I think something to consider that makes this inherently harder to set up is the geography in question. While there are major parallels between the British Isles and the Japanese Archipelago, one of the significant differences is proximity to the continent. At its very closest, across the Korean Strait, Japan is 120 miles apart from Korea, which itself is geographically isolated from the mainland of Asia due to its mountainous northern reaches. From major centers of power like China, Japan is over a thousand miles distant. Thus Japan only has one neighbor that has easyish access to them while the rest of the continent has to make significant effort.

Meanwhile England is, at most, 150 miles from France, and as little as 21 Miles along the English Channel. France and the Low Countries are all well connected into the great European trade networks and would have little to no trouble maintaining contact or forcing actions against England. That ease of access makes going full isolationist much harder.

It's a good point, and it certainly changes the probabilities involved. Britain is likely to see more invasions, and indeed, it historically did. Although before any serious centralised state formation, the islands of Britain and Japan both saw similar patterns of migration from the continent, which suggests that the greater distance isn't that overwhelming a factor in all of this. It seems that once state formation got underway, the greater distance combined with "actually having to make an effort" discouraged most would-be invaders. By contrast, Britain continued to see invasion attempts.

But not all that many. And practically all of them failed. For all that it's just those 21 miles, the Channel is still a pretty impressive moat. Just going by OTL, although Britain sees more invasion attempts than Japan, they are still far more likely to fail than they are to succeed. Even with the reduced distance, compared to what Japan has, the same scenario of "would-be invasion fleet gets totally wrecked by unexpected storm, ha ha fuck you" actually occurred in both cases.

I'm inclined to think that Britain's proximity to the mainland creates the inherent risk that a foreign monarch (not Scottish, as was previousy suggested, but perhaps French...) might exploit the very division that is needed to really produce a British Sengoku-equivalent. However, if (as I've suggested) various interested parties all turn on each other, and you get a "nice" multi-polar series of wars, then this could easily prevent a continental power from effectively exploiting the situation. And then you can at least plausibly imagine the ultimate victor of those civil wars to be utterly sick of foreign power-brokers and their puppet claimants... and closing the country off.

Once he does that, with the cuntry unified, I think that invading Britain will be as hard as it's ever been, in OTL. After recent failed attempts (which ended up causing the isolationist new regime), the costs of invading Britain will probably be viewed as outweighing any benefits.

 

[Atarlost]

Another difference is the character of the dominant religions. Christianity does not tolerate complete isolation. If England is pagan it's a target for missionaries. If it's heretical it's a "North Korea" which you don't want. If it's orthodox there's religious community drawing it together socially with the rest of Europe, or at least the rest of whichever of Catholic/Protestant Europe it falls into.

Buddhism has some missionary tendency else it would have never left India, but it isn't as strong and there's no catholicising tendency. There is nothing like the church councils where everyone gets together and discusses the possibility that some regional variance in teaching might be heretical. Buddhists just don't care about what other Buddhists in another country are doing to anything approaching the degree to which Christians do.

 

[ATP]

I've been thinking about the somewhat obvious comparison between Britain and Japan. Both insular domains, right off the coast of the great Eurasian continent. Therefore always close to the goings-on of the relevant continental powers and their struggles. Occasionally ambitiously involved in said struggles, and at times even bold enough to claim massive continental holdings. Yet also both inclined to stay apart, and aloof, to remain separate and distinct. Both Britain and Japan have also seen periods of civil wars, which defined the future course of each in major ways.

What I find interesting is that after the tribulations of the Sengoku period, Japan turned to a fairly thorough policy of isolationism. (Not as total or consistent as is sometimes imagined, but still clearly and strongly dedicated towards isolation and the "inward turn".) Britain, very obviously, did not do this. In fact, its periods of civil warring resulted in subsequent periods more obviously dedicated to outward-facing objectives. (Thus, the Wars of the Roses were followed up by the Tudor era, and ultimately the Elizabethan exploration ventures. And the English Civil War, Protectorate, and then the Restoration period resulted in the Glorious Revolution and a Britain more engaged in foreign relations than ever before.)

My question here is: would it be possible for Britain to become as isolationist as Tokugawa-era Japan?

What I'm not looking for, to be clear, is a modern scenario where some British totalitarian regime goes the way of North Korea. Let's say that this has to happen before 1700. (To be as analogous as possible to Japan, I think that pre-1600 would be even better, but there might be some workable PODs involving the English Civil War or the Glorious Revolution.)

My own first though is of the Wars of the Roses, which we may imagine as the British equivalent to the late Sengoku Period. Sure, the Sengoku Period in Japan lasted a century and a half, and the Wars of the Roses lasted only three decades. But then again, the Hundred Years' War was also a cause of considerable disturbance, and it preceded (and to a considerable degree, led to) the Wars of the Roses.

I'm not exactly sure how it would -- or could -- work, but I could imagine a scenario where Richard III beats Henry Tudor at Bosworth Field, but some time later ends up getting assassinated before getting his own succession in order. And then various pretenders to the throne (some claiming to be the murdered Princes in the Tower) come out of the woodwork, several of them backed by foreign powers...

This would then require one contender decisively beating all the rivals, and (presumably due to the foreign attempts to put a puppet on the throne) deciding to close his Kingdom off from the outside world.

Such a scenario runs the risk of veering closer to pure fiction than anything else, of course. It's interesting, but is it really still alternate history?

If anyone can think of a more plausible way to turn Britain into an analogue of Tokugawa Japan, I'm all ears. There are always things such as Cromwell installing some puppet king and essentially becoming a Shogun-like ruler. Or, considering that Japan didn't have anything like the Anglo-Saxons invading, we might even imagine that Britain that remains Celtic has a better chance at becoming isolated from the continent. Again: I'm interested in the ideas others here may have.

I have better idea - Oliver Cromwell live longer and leave dynasty.He really rtied to turn England into "new Izrael",so they could close country and start doing that for next 200 years.
It would be interesting,becouse in that case Norh america would be settled by nominally catholics powers.

 

[Skallagrim]

Another difference is the character of the dominant religions. Christianity does not tolerate complete isolation. If England is pagan it's a target for missionaries. If it's heretical it's a "North Korea" which you don't want. If it's orthodox there's religious community drawing it together socially with the rest of Europe, or at least the rest of whichever of Catholic/Protestant Europe it falls into.

Buddhism has some missionary tendency else it would have never left India, but it isn't as strong and there's no catholicising tendency. There is nothing like the church councils where everyone gets together and discusses the possibility that some regional variance in teaching might be heretical. Buddhists just don't care about what other Buddhists in another country are doing to anything approaching the degree to which Christians do.

It depends on the POD. While Christianity does have its far more hierarchical, encompassing ecclestiastical structure (certainly before the Reformation), this doesn't automatically mean that there can be no real isolation. I'd agree that "generally speaking", if England/Britain were to separate iself completely, against the pre-existing Catholic back-drop, this would effectively constitute a schism. Rome would object, and would encourage the Catholic powers (France? Spain? Portugal?) to undertake attempts to "open that insular realm up once more (to the love of Christ)".

On the other hand... let's see about the half-way ueful PODs. If we go early, th stability of the Church is really anyone's guess. "No William the Conqueror" means we diverge a mere 12 years after the Great Schism. The Byzantine Empire still exists as a separate claimant to supremacy over all Christendom. Safe to say, the future of religious relations if far from set in stone.

If we go to the very end of the Wars of the Roses, and aim to prevent the Tudor consolidation (replacing it instead with another two decades of bloody civil war), then our hypothetical "British sakoku" would be imposed in the first decade of the 1500s or so. Maybe even the decade after that, if we really stretch out the civil war between post-Ricardian claimants to the throne. Either way, the Reformation is about to be kicked off on the Continent, and that means the British swerve to isolationism will not be a priority.

An English Civil War POD, meanwhile, occurs when the Reformation has already torn Christendom asunder. If it ends with Cromwell functionally becoming the British Shogun, that's still a side-show to the events on the mainland, which is in any case still recovering from such terrors as the Thirty Years' War and (in the case of France) the Fronde. My main objection to this scenario, as such, isn't that it wouldn't be sustainable... but that a puritanical theocracy would be too close to a "North Korea"-esque set-up, which in't really what I'm aiming for here.

I have better idea - Oliver Cromwell live longer and leave dynasty.He really rtied to turn England into "new Izrael",so they could close country and start doing that for next 200 years.
It would be interesting,becouse in that case Norh america would be settled by nominally catholics powers.

As I said above: it's definitely an option, but runs the risk of turning the Protectorate into a sort of "North Korea". Ideally, for the analogy to work as well as it can, we'd want Britain to close itself off, but without becoming otherwise inherently radicalised in the process.

As far as Cromwell is concerned, I think the ideal solution here would be for the OTL plan to put Henry (the younger brother of Charles II and James I) on the throne as a figurehead. This was actually discussed, but they didn't go through with it. The result would be that Cromwell would (presumably) still become Lord Protector, and have the real power. So we'd have a real counterpart to the Shogunate. And Henry did in OTL become a Protestant during his captivity, so there is potential there for it to work out.

We may hypothesise that with a ceremonial monarch in place, and Cromwell not just usurping all power for himself, we might get a slightly more moderated Protectorate. If not taken to extremes, various aspects of Cromwellian England may even serve to increase the similarities between the Protectorate and the Tokugawa Shogunate. For instance, there would be no "Restoration comedy" in the theatre, which introduced the modern approach of having the female parts be played by actual women, rather than boys. It's not certain whether a "milder" Protectorate would ban theatrical performances in the first place (as happened in OTL), but if it does, I don't see such a prohibition lasting. And the result is that British theatre becomes very serious and formalised, with no female actors being introduced. That sort of thing may reasonably be compared to formal Japanese theatre.

 

[S'task]

I have better idea - Oliver Cromwell live longer and leave dynasty.He really rtied to turn England into "new Izrael",so they could close country and start doing that for next 200 years.
It would be interesting,becouse in that case Norh america would be settled by nominally catholics powers.

Err... no it isn't?

During the English Civil War the British Colonies of Virginia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Maryland were already established. To the point where Virginia actually sent forces BACK to England to fight for the Crown. In addition, the Dutch New Netherlands colony (which consists of what would later become New York, Delaware, and New Jersey) was also well established and last I checked 17th century Netherlands wasn't a Catholic stronghold. Of all those colonies, only ONE was nominally Catholic (Maryland), the rest were all settled by Protestants and that one nominally Catholic colony was still English. That just leaves Quebec and Florida as settled by Catholic powers, and neither the French or Spanish were actually serious about colonizing like the English settlers were. As such, I don't think you'd see as much of a difference as you'd think.

So an isolationist Britain under Cromwell might slow down English colonization of North America, but it would be unlikely to stop it, especially as you'd see a lot of the loyalists to the Crown end up fleeing from the islands to escape persecution, likely settling in Virginia as that was a colony notably loyal to the Crown compared to the others, to the point where the modern State nickname, the "Old Dominion", is a direct reference to that loyalty.

You need a POD before the 17th century to really alter the colonial makeup of North America to a degree it becomes Catholic dominated.

 

[ATP]

Err... no it isn't?

During the English Civil War the British Colonies of Virginia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Maryland were already established. To the point where Virginia actually sent forces BACK to England to fight for the Crown. In addition, the Dutch New Netherlands colony (which consists of what would later become New York, Delaware, and New Jersey) was also well established and last I checked 17th century Netherlands wasn't a Catholic stronghold. Of all those colonies, only ONE was nominally Catholic (Maryland), the rest were all settled by Protestants and that one nominally Catholic colony was still English. That just leaves Quebec and Florida as settled by Catholic powers, and neither the French or Spanish were actually serious about colonizing like the English settlers were. As such, I don't think you'd see as much of a difference as you'd think.

So an isolationist Britain under Cromwell might slow down English colonization of North America, but it would be unlikely to stop it, especially as you'd see a lot of the loyalists to the Crown end up fleeing from the islands to escape persecution, likely settling in Virginia as that was a colony notably loyal to the Crown compared to the others, to the point where the modern State nickname, the "Old Dominion", is a direct reference to that loyalty.

You need a POD before the 17th century to really alter the colonial makeup of North America to a degree it becomes Catholic dominated.

Cromwell isolacionist England would stop colonization,and leave those 5 colonies for themselves.No new blood.
Next century France would take over them.

 

[Earl]

An English Civil War POD, meanwhile, occurs when the Reformation has already torn Christendom asunder. If it ends with Cromwell functionally becoming the British Shogun, that's still a side-show to the events on the mainland, which is in any case still recovering from such terrors as the Thirty Years' War and (in the case of France) the Fronde. My main objection to this scenario, as such, isn't that it wouldn't be sustainable... but that a puritanical theocracy would be too close to a "North Korea"-esque set-up, which in't really what I'm aiming for here.

How about no Purtian Theocracy, just a totally Catholic Europe vs a Protestant Europe. Instead of a rabid Puritanism you get a "We are definitely not those papist whores on the continent, we are "ENGLISH"' upper lip contempt, while of course Europe turns there noses up in contempt at the English. There protestantism also gives the French and SPanish permission to snap up there colonies. This would be less a deliberate shut down from the whole world and more a bitter divorce from the rest of Christendom, who play spite by making sure they cant break out.

 

[Skallagrim]

How about no Purtian Theocracy, just a totally Catholic Europe vs a Protestant Europe. Instead of a rabid Puritanism you get a "We are definitely not those papist whores on the continent, we are "ENGLISH"' upper lip contempt, while of course Europe turns there noses up in contempt at the English. There protestantism also gives the French and SPanish permission to snap up there colonies. This would be less a deliberate shut down from the whole world and more a bitter divorce from the rest of Christendom, who play spite by making sure they cant break out.

You mean that only England goes (alt-)Protestant in this scenario, and the continent remais Catholic?

That's just asking for a repeat of the Crusades. It would single England out as the prime target for everybody else.

 

[Earl]

You mean that only England goes (alt-)Protestant in this scenario, and the continent remais Catholic?

That's just asking for a repeat of the Crusades. It would single England out as the prime target for everybody else.

No,more in the 1600s, we have an Hapsburg wank and the Catholic armies wipe all the protestants during the thirty years war. The English are the last remaining protestants, besides maybe Scandanavia, whod provide some contact I guess.

 

[ATP]

No,more in the 1600s, we have an Hapsburg wank and the Catholic armies wipe all the protestants during the thirty years war. The English are the last remaining protestants, besides maybe Scandanavia, whod provide some contact I guess.

That how thing would happen - if catholic France do not attacked catholic Spain during 30 years war.
In those times,religion become less important for rulers.

 

[stevep]

I think the problem is the nature of the neighbouring landmass. As S'task says there is a difference between a gap of ~120 miles compared to ~20 and also an also fairly isolated and weak Korea as the nearest neighbour compared to France and the Low Countries. Possibly even more so beyond that is China which various between chaotic civil wars and invasions and of unified power where however Kubli Khan aside never really looked eastwards towards the conquest of the Japanese islands. Instead Britain faces a divided continent with elements continually struggling for power and looking for ways, generally by conquest to extend that power. Furthermore its not just France and the Low Countries as the invasions prior to the Normans came from Scandinavia [Vikings] and prior to that N Germany [Anglo-Saxons]. Also if we're assuming the Americas are still discovered and Spain becomes the super power there's also a potential threat from there. As such its far more difficult to see an isolationist Britain being left alone, even if its intermittent raiders looking for slaves or loot.

Also with that narrow Channel being a major seaway your going to have problems with encounters with ships running into problems, especially if the weather forces ships onto British shores. After all one of the initial reasons the western powers forced some opening of Japan was to stop them executing sailors who were shipwrecked on their coastlines.

Coupled with this is that the Shogunate was able to impose a centralised government on Japan, which, apart from isolated Ainu groups are pretty much a unified culture and population. However Britain is split between 4 [at least and in earlier times more] nations and its more difficult to see them united in isolation. If nothing else say the Scots and Irish especially, if faced with an English led dictatorship are going to be eager to welcome foreign intervention to regain independence. The idea of any other group unifying the islands by force is vanishingly small, at least in a lasting way.

The final issue as Atarlost said is religious. Once Europe becomes Christian its centralising nature makes isolation very, very difficult. A Catholic Britain will want contact with Rome and the Papacy, or at least its clergy will, even more so if the temporal powers are seeking isolation. If Britain isn't Catholic but most of western Europe is there will be pressure for conversion. If say a later isolation, similar in dating to that of Japan, and most of Europe becomes Protestant your probably still going to have power struggles between factions which coupled with the factors above makes continued isolation by a British state very unstable I suspect.

Its an interesting idea Skallagrim but very, very difficult to see any attempt at an isolationist Britain to anything like the level or duration of the Japanese period being practical.