IC:
Fireworks flew over Green Park, and the nation rejoiced - after seven years of war, on February 10th 1763, the Treaty of Paris was signed. And what a treaty it was! Sure, some concessions were made here and there, a few islands abandoned, a few French colonies and factories returned... but all in all, Britain won and won big. The French fleet was in ruins, and so was the French colonial empire. Louisiana and New France were British - a huge empire was born in North America. In India, France retained a few factories (as trade posts were then called) and ports on the coast, but a subcontinent of unspeakable wealth was at the British feet. This was the zenith of Britain's might. Britain ruled the seas, Britain ruled the colonies. Britain was on top of the world.
But even in this jubilant moment, some could see the roots of future ignominy and ruin. Britain's greatness, might and prosperity were more superficial and fragile than ever before. Diplomatically, Britain was isolated. Once, it had allies on the Continent - Russia, Sweden, Prussia... But Russia and Sweden left and fought against Britain in this war, while Prussia was indignant at the withdrawal of British economic assistance in 1762. Obviously neither France, nor Spain, nor Austria - the other great powers of Europe - liked Britain neither, as they too fought against it, and the first two had always been Britain's enemies. Then all that remained was Hannover - which was in union with Britain anyway! - and, feh, Portugal, an old ally, old and withered and by now virtually insignificant on the world stage. But, ofcourse, Britain never needed friends. It was safe on its island and behind its wooden wall-o'-ships from external threats, and Britain's diplomats had by now grown experienced in playing foreign rulers against each other.
However, few empires died from war, at least, from war alone. Far more often they fell because of structural weakness and internal problems, social strife, political instability and economic decline. And Britain in the 1760s had all of that. Structurally, its great colonial empire was overstretched, disparate and mis-managed, not because of the incompetence of local or central administrators - they were actually exceptionally competent - but because it was far from set in stone, it was neither a federation of more-or-less equal components nor an autarkic, centralized empire. There still was much work to do for the British Empire to become a stable, trully viable one. In India, the British were far outnumbered by natives and had to work with local princes, far from all of whom were complacent. In North America, the colonies were lightly governed - and, importantly, lightly taxed and fearful of a change in this regard - and independence-minded, and had decreasing ties with the Metropoly, and ever less reasons to work with it after the disappearence of French threat. There was a genuine possibility of these colonies separating, as they had both local governments and local militias, interests separate from those of Britain and lots of potential allies that would gladly blow up Britain even at the price of setting a dangerous precedent. And even aside from these problems and general difficulties in imposing central authority and consolidation both the old empire and the new gains (the worst of which was New France, with its comparatively high colonial French Roman Catholic population), there were issues unresolved in Britain Proper. Though the Act of Union had served to link Scotland and England together and over time Great Britain indeed came into being as a trully unified nation, there still remained the unresolved issue of Ireland.
Social strife in Britain was probably never worse than this. An arrogant old upper class fiercely defended its priveleges; an ambitious, aggressive, ascendant middle class sought power - some for the first time making common cause with the masses and rousing the rabble to battle, some, instead, working and bribing their way into the House of Commons, many enough, like John Wilkes, doing both. The lower classes were also uniquely discontent. The Agricultural Revolution had greatly assisted agriculture itself, but, as all revolutions, shook things up considerably and displaced many agricultural workers; another capitalized Revolution, an Industrial one, was also beginning. This was a time of social progress too, but technological progress, as is usual, was faster; and that, ofcourse, led to problems, especially as the political reaction and economic woes, of which I will talk immediately after this, slowed said social progress down (something that ALWAYS happened before revolutions).
Politically, Great Britain was slowly, at first unnoticeably moving towards 1642 all over again, but different in many regards - for the worse. Religious strife was taken away, but social and political strife was embittered. Britain was ruled by a young, German king; well-meaning, but generally incompetent, increasingly out of touch with his people and authoritarian in the manner that would have only helped in Continental Europe, but jeopardized his position in Britain where it reeked of Charles I. George III wasn't all that bad a ruler at all, but he was precisely the kind of monarch that Britain didn't need at this moment - he was competent, not brilliant, he was conservative, not reformist. Furthermore, he was all too inexperienced, and made several mistakes early on, appointing and dismissing ministers and failing to find proper replacements, failing to either lead the Tories or counter the Whigs, and generally behaving with terrible inconsistancy. Again, this was precisely the worst time and place for mistakes to have been made. The 1760s saw administration after administration change, and unprecedented ministerial chaos ensue...
Economically, Britain was overstrained by the Seven Years War. Never before in its history did it have to bear the burden of such heavy taxation for so long, and even then it had to go into debt. Government expenditures were almost tripled due to war expenses. Commerce was damaged as well. For all the 1760s, British economy was trying to recover - but all along it was impeded by rampant unemployment (precisely a result of the aforementioned technological progress), terrible harvests and rising food prices.
An attempt was made to increase the ludicrously-low taxes in the colonies in order to help save the economy, but after that nearly led to an open rebellion, these Townshed Acts were revoked by a vacillating George III; thus the colonies got neither taxation nor representation, a compromise that would create a semblance of peace for a few years, but a one that would have tragic consequences - not just because the British economy was hit even harder by this, but also because George III was seen as a weak, indecisive ruler. Probably had those acts been imposed, or were combined with some sort of administrative reform to set in stone the future of Britain's relations with its colonies, instead of a bad compromise there would have been either reconciliation and revival of Britain's faltering fortunes, either a revolt, but a one that could be crushed in any case. Either peace or war, instead of phony peace and delayed war. We will never know. Perhaps, perhaps had George III made just a few right decisions instead of wrong ones (both in the relations with the American colonies and in other economic and political questions of the day), the British Revolution could have been averted. After all, Britain wasn't more weak and fragile than many other empires undergoing this stage, the stage of consolidation or stagnation; all the societies in human history underwent tests of history in several spheres, tests of strenght, tests of endurance. Hannoverian Britain ALMOST endured, and it probably had fairly good chances of surviving, had its luck been just a little bit better.
In any case, it didn't survive. To make a very long story short, in 1769 and 1770 a series of events shook royal authority and British stability, shook them just hard enough to destroy both. In America, the War of the Regulation raged in North Carolina, and the Boston Incident caused public indignation in both America and Britain. Back in Britain, yet another government fell - coming under extreme criticism, Prime Minitser Augustus Fitzroy resigned, and was replaced by Lord North - generally a popular man, but a one who, due to his loyalty to George III, from the start had to defend unpopular causes that he himself disliked; and, just like Augustus Fitzroy and others, he became a natural target for verbal abuse from the Radical Whigs and from the opposition in general. The British East India company ran into lots of problems due to famine and resistance to heightened taxation. Generally the weather in Britain that year was also quite bad. All of this made for an explosive situation - and the explosion came from one of the many scandals caused by John Wilkes. Having returned from Europe in 1768, he eventually got arrested for severe criticism of King George III despite his parliamentary immunity. Through his many supporters he organized riots, and, despite still being imprisoned, got elected MP in Middlesex twice (and immediately expelled from the Parliament on both occassions) and finally got himself elected alderman of London. When King George III and his supporters prevented John Wilkes' release in 1770, more and more riots broke out, the Parliament was filled with debates, and finally, in a situation reminiscent of 1642, the King made one last attempt to restore order and arrest John Wilkes' supporters, it backfired as most of the soldiers refused to shoot at the rioters or dismiss the Parliament, and the King was eventually persuaded to flee. Meanwhile, rioters freed John Wilkes and other prisoners, and the British Revolution had begun.
OOC: I know that this isn't a terribly PROBABLE thing to happen. However, IMHO it would have been POSSIBLE in this situation, and as far from all the events in OTL were probable (merely possible, and in a few specific cases even extremelly unlikely), I think that this is acceptable as an initial condition. In any case, it makes for interesting althistory, so that works for me. More probable scenarios with a British Revolution are a) too easy, b) done already and c) give France too much of an advantage early on, and thus too predictable. This, meanwhile, knocks Britain out WITHOUT immediately giving us a replacement hegemon - precisely my objective here.
Still, constructive criticism would be welcome. I realize that the last two paragraphs are a bit confusing - but I'm no good at describing revolutions. It will get better once I get out of the cramped streets of London and into the realm of greater geopolitics where a key player and a great power was suddenly shaken (details on how badly later!). Also, if you really dislike the PoD, I suppose I might try and find another, like blatantly worsening the weather just enough to cause a revolution.
Now, if we could have some sort of leverage over him to keep him updating... then maybe...
