What if Rome Never Conquered Britain?

Rome went to the edge of the known world, an island in the North Sea and took a large portion of it. We call that island Britain today. Yet what if in an alternate timeline, Rome never colonized or conquered this land? How does this change British history?

[getnohappy]

Biggest one: the economic growth of the UK is alarmingly based on Roman roads and specifically how the lead to and from London. Say York instead (the Viking capital) becomes the largest city of this land, changes the north/south divide, maybe more looking more to Denmark than France for kinship etc.

Though my boring general guess would be basically the same except the Vikings win and the become assimilated. Britain becomes more Nordic, but probably still ends up splitting from the church of Rome, becoming a seafaring nation etc

[LittleGuyer]

I visited Hadrian’s wall for the first time a couple days ago. It’s kind of insane to think about just how far the Romans made it from home, even by modern standards, that’s one hell of a distance.

[jacobparry]

Just to correct some of the people in the comments:

*Celtic is a language family, like Romance or Germanic.

*Gaelic or Goidelic refers to the branch of Celtic languages traditionally spoken in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Mann. In Ireland, the preferred name for their language when speaking of it in English is, 'Irish'. The dialects of English spoken in Ireland are called, 'Hiberno-English'.

*Brythonic or Brittonic is the name for the branch of Celtic languages spoken on the island of Britain, traditionally in Wales and Cornwall but includes Breton, which is spoken in Brittany (the first Bretons were refugees who came from the southwestern part of what we now call England.

The Gaelic languages and Brythonic languages are not mutually intelligible, but speakers of Gaelic languages can understand each other with some ease.

Speakers of Brythonic languages can also understand each other to a certain degree, with Breton being the outlier due to the French influence on the language. A dialect of Welsh was also spoken as far as Carlisle and the territory of the Otadini (Which lends its name to the name of the oldest poem in Welsh and thus the oldest poem in Britain, Y Gododdin) until around the 11thC AD.

Welsh is the healthiest of the Celtic languages with over 800, 000 speakers in Wales alone, but a couple thousand in England and a handful in a province of Argentina also speak it.

These are not mysterious, elf languages used by old folks to communicate in secret, they are living languages used to talk about our day-to-day lives, at school, at home, at the shops, even in our devolved parliaments. Movies, games, TV shows etc are made in these languages. They're not just spoken by nationalists either, and wanting to preserve them isn't a nationalistic thing. (By this I mean that even the most staunch British unionists will still seek to preserve Welsh and S.Gaelic.

They are alive, in the case of Welsh, Irish, Breton and Scots Gaelic, and are being revived in the cases of Manx and Cornish, and they all deserve respect. Not that Cody disrespected them in this vid or anything (everything he said in regards to Brythonic history was accurate).

Also, in Welsh, w and y are vowels, just as they are in English words like: noW, and partY. Before anyone makes any dumb comments.

[BeaglzRok]

As someone that's been learning German and Italian, being able to partially understand the plush plug was a ride.

[davidsmith]

I along with several others would very much like to see the continuation of this episode to the worldwide impact, provided it isn’t to much trouble or in the way of other plans

[Mr_M_History]

It's weird to think that if the Ancient British didn't get conquered, I would be speaking Gaelic

[Dragon]

As a welsh girl, yeah, most of this is fairly spot on, and our timeline's Ireland makes a good comparison for what probably would have happened if we were still independent and all that when christianity rocked up...
But that probably means Ireland stays a lot more pagan a lot longer, perhaps up until the period where Scandinavia is christianised. Which it's a LOT more likely that it got documented and preserved. So, you'd likely see in the modern day, a pop culture variant of celtic mythology similar to the way we often see Norse and Greek myth today, and a larger reconstructionist movement of people reverting to practice the old faith since it's easier to learn about.

[hagnat]

No Britannia also means less British Generals would try to claim the Imperial Throne.
Maybe that would create less chaos on Rome, and give a breather for them to last some more centuries on the West

[bustavonnutz]

This scenario could've been more likely than you think. In an Arthurian timeline, you would see the Jutes, Angles, & Saxons still invade; however, they'd lose key battles with the confederated tribes (here an "Arthur" would appear a la Vercingetorix & unite a large number of smaller groups) resulting in them either being kicked off the island or relegated to the southwest of England. The Romans didn't really play a special role here though & it's more a question of victory over Anglo-Saxons rather than not having Caesar cross the channel. Still, the result i.e. a mostly celtic British culture is tantalizing to think about.

[primrosevale]

Speaking of changing Britain's history, here's a fun idea:

_What if the Island of Sodor Really Existed?_

This island from a series of children's stories about talking trains actually has a surprisingly detailed history, going all the way back to the days of Rome. It also has a very detailed account of its geography, culture, industry, with so much more. The Reverend Wilbert Awdry has actually been compared to Tolkien in terms of his world-building.

Like seriously, forget the talking trains, what would change about Britain if the island of Sodor, its people, and its non-living railway really existed?

[finaldarkfire]

One interesting historical parallel that comes to mind is what we see with Japan. Like Britain in this alternate scenario, Japan is an island nation just off the coast of a much larger continent which has managed to nonetheless remain unconquered by any major power from the mainland.

Obviously I'm not trying to claim that we can look to Japan to find some kind of roadmap for what an un-romed Britain looks like, but I do think it's interesting that this version of Britain would be in a broadly similar situation in it's geopolitical relationship to Europe.

[JYAF]

Are we just not going to mention how a Roman soldier and a German soldier (I'm assuming WW1 by the chest patch) are speaking two different languages and yet still understand each other right off the bat with no hesitation?

[rianfelis]

It definitely would have been worth looking at the effects on Rome of not conquering Britannia. less wealth flowing in from the north could easily have sped up the collapse of Western Rome. Or did spending less effort on keeping it allow the the heartland to last longer? There were a lot of legions up there for a fairly small area.

[thuzan]

I feel like you skipped out on something important in this video. Not having Britain would have probably had effects on the Roman empire as well. England was at times a very troublesome area for the Romans, in large part because they never managed to fully lock it down. So it was at risk from the Picts, from germanic sea raiders, and even the Irish now and then. They had to sink alot of resources into holding it which otherwise may have been allocated elsewhere. Resources that would have been sorely needed in places like Germania or perhaps Dacia.

[vrabb]

Probably won't be seen but, since we've had a 'What if Rome never Conquered Britain', what about a 'What if the Normans never Conquered Britain?'
or even 'What if Harold Hardrada Conquered Britain?'

[Kainlarsen]

I think it's important to remember that, after Rome pulled out of Britan, the collapse was *not* instantaneous. Things kept on being done as they were under Rome for a good while, but without the political, military and financial influence of the empire, Romanesque settlements gradually fell into disrepair, and people either packed up and left those places, or attempted to seek allies in the form of foreign mercs, who would eventually settle... and then bring word to others of their kind to come over, which turned into invasions.

[eazy]

I’d love to see a Plushie of the stock “Germanic/Norse” character you use; that’s probably my favorite of all of the more recent designs; it looks cool as hell

[ECFOX]

Idk the Saxons and Angles, Frisians and Danes would probably still invade west and maybe even form some kingdoms in the south considering the island might be still divided in that timeline causing the instability required to call upon foreign mercenaries I doubt it would result in as much land being taken but most likely the southern coast would be Celtic with a slight Germanic influence unlike the Celto-Germanic mix we got

[annache]

This was a great video and I’d definitely want to to see a part 2!

[Professorkek]

I'm disappointed you didn't say the reason the Rome couldn't keep Britain was because Neptune smashed all their ships because Caligula took his sea shells.