Board Thread:Timeline Discussions/@comment-6912688-20130416211138/@comment-32656-20130418095140

Have to say, your scenario is just not workable.

Scotland and England by the Act of Union had, for all purposes, been the same country for a century. Same monarch, too.

There was a large number of reasons why the Scots agreed to it. For instance, Scotland, as a result of being dumb enough to try and colonize Spanish territory, was effectively bankrupt - the Scottish Parliament, nobility, and the merchants all were, or near to it. England covered these.

Even with a fifth of its population gone, England still outnumbers Scotland in population - it has roughly eight times the population, and without that fifth, it is ten times. Historically, these figures have always been the case, more or less. There is literally no way Scotland can conquer England, ever. The population difference is just too great.

Impossible to close borders in this era - your plague would clobber Scotland too.

Colonies are too small to manage independence at this point, and the Scots don't have the ability to launch such endeavors. Not that most people in the colonies would have listened, anyway.

Half the areas you list as being HRE were not members by 1700, or were part of other states but technically inside it still.

The Cherokee can't threaten anything north of the Carolinas.

South Africa in any form did not become British territory until the early 1800s - prior to that it was Dutch.