England

[past caring]

Well, I did as I suggested I'd do in my previous post - started a new game and went for a land-grab on the continental rebel provinces first. Basically, this involved taking Rennes with the army in Caen, shipping an army from England to take Antwerp and building another army in Caen to move on Bruges all in the same go.

It worked well, giving me a decent continental base (and trade) early on. I used the army in Nottingham to take York (which has the bonus of limiting Scotland's options to Inverness and Ireland) but otherwise didn't worry about the rest of Britain until I'd secured the continental provinces. When it came to it, Scotland still hadn't moved on Inverness or Ireland, so I took Inverness first then snuffed them out in a pincer move.

Admittedly, this was on M/M and the AI might be a little more aggressive on harder settings. That said, my first campaign was also on M/M and in that game the Danes had taken both Antwerp and Bruges by the time I'd secured Britain.

You'll need to use your king and all available generals to pull it off, as you'll not be able to take Antwerp in the first couple of turns without hiring almost all the available mercenaries - but these can be disbanded as soon as the job is done.