England

Kingdom of England

Conventional short name:
Local:	England
English:	England
National motto: Dieu et mon droit
Established:	927, Athelstan's conquest of Northumbria
Languages:
Official:	English
Others:	Scots, Brithenig, Wessish
Cities:
Capital:	London
Other:	Newcastle, Portsmouth
Queen:	Diana I
First Lord:	John Smith
Area:	Good question
Population:	approximately 7 million English
Currency:	1 pound=20 shillings=240 pence
Organizations:	Federated Kingdoms, Commonwealth of Nations, League of Nations

England is one of the three constituent nations of the Federated Kingdoms, occupying the south-eastern third of Britannia to the East of Kemr. England is named after the Angles, one of a number of Germanic tribes believed to have originated in Angeln in Northern Germany, who settled there in the 5th and 6th centuries. England is one of the principals of the Federated Kingdoms, comprising the southeastern third or so of the British Isle. We know that the current Queen is Diana I, of the Second House of Plantagenet. She is the daughter of Elizabeth I, who abdicated quite recently.

Administration

Government

England is a constitutional monarchy, with power vested in the English Parliament, which can trace its origins to the Anglo-Saxon witenagemot.

In 1265, Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, who was in rebellion against Henry III, summoned the first elected parliament without any prior royal authorisation. The right to vote in Parliamentary elections for county constituencies was uniform throughout the country, granting a vote to all those who owned the freehold of land to an annual rent of 40 shillings (Forty-shilling Freeholders). In the Boroughs, the franchise varied and individual boroughs had varying arrangements. The archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls and barons were summoned, as were two knights from each shire and two burgesses from each borough. Knights had been summoned to previous councils, but the representation of the boroughs was unprecedented. De Montfort's scheme was formally adopted by Edward I in the so-called "Model Parliament" of 1295. At first, each estate debated independently; by the reign of Edward III, however, Parliament had been separated into two Houses: one, including the nobility and higher clergy, the other, including the knights and burgesses. This division of Parilaiment into the House of Lords and the House of Commons has remained until the present day, and the two houses remain fairly equal in power.

Until the 19th century, the Monarch was both head of state and head of government and expected to take direct control of the Government. However, after the short-lived Second Union of Crowns (England and Scotland with Kemr), this became difficult, as the Monarch tended to spend more time in Kemr than England. The King appointed the First Lord of the Treasury as his representative in Parliament. Unlike *here*, the title of 'Prime Minister' was never conferred upon him, and he is usually known as simply 'the First Lord'. When Victoria came to the throne, she continued to use him as a representative, and the office of First Lord has evolved into a constitutional head of government.

The current First Lord is a Scottish-born Socialist by the name of John Smith. He has been in power longer than any other First Lord of that Party.

Parliament is composed of two houses, as *here*. These are the House of Lords and the House of Commons. There was no civil war *there*, and so, the two houses are significantly closer to equality, as far as power goes. Also, as a result of James III(James II *here*) never being deposed(which caused the creation of the British political parties), party lines are different, not really forming until the beginning of the 20th century. The main parties are: The Socialist Party, the Liberal Party, and the Conservative Party. Admittedly, the only party with a different name is the Socialist Party, but the Liberal and Conservative parties have different roots to *here*'s Liberal and Conservative parties.

Much of the business of English government is handled by the Secretaries of State for the Northern and Southern Departments (Error 404).

Administrative Divisions

England, is, as *here*, divided into counties, though many of these were eliminated in a recent reshuffle, and others simply do not exist, instead being inside Kemr(Non-existent counties include Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Warwickshire, and others). It is a current issue how much autonomy these counties should be given. The chief regions of England are Kent in the southeast, Sussex in the southwest, the Midlands north and west of London, Northunbria in the northeast and Cumbria in the northwest.

Traditionally, the highest level of local government in England has been the county or shire, of which there are twenty-four:

1. Northumberland
2. County Durham
3. Yorkshire
4. Lincolnshire
5. Nottinghamshire
6. Rutland
7. Leicestershire
8. Northamptonshire
9. Buckinghamshire
10. Berkshire
11. Southamptshire
12. Middlesex
13. Oxfordshire
14. Bedfordshire
15. Huntingdonshire
16. Cambridgeshire
17. Hertfordshire
18. Middlesex
19. Surrey
20. Sussex
21. Kent
22. Essex
23. Suffolk
24. Norfolk

Counties are generally further subdivided into hundreds, with the exception of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. It is a current issue how much autonomy these counties should be given. The Local Government Act of 1888 set up county councils for each of the counties taking over from the responsibilities of the Quarter Sessions, and the the Local Government Act of 1894 gave the Hundreds (or in Yorkshire, Wapentakes), councils of their own. A

There are also free cities within counties, not part of any Hundred, that have somewhat more powers of their own. These Cities are cities either on account of having a cathedral (or by extention, a Catholic cathedral south of a certain line an a Protestant one north of it), by being the chief city of a county or by being given letters patent by a monarch, led by a Lord Mayor. These cities are; Abingdon, Bedford, Bradford, Brighton, Buckingham, Cambridge, Canterbury, Carlisle, Chelmsford, Chichester, Coventry, Derby, Dorchester, Durham, Ely, Guildford, Hertford, Huntingdon, Ipswich, Kingston-upon-Hull, Lancaster, Leeds, Leicester, Lincoln, London, Maidstone, Newcastle, Norwich, Northampton, Nottingham, Oakham, Oxford, Peterborough, Portsmouth, Ripon, Salisbury, Sheffield, Southampton, St Albans, Wakefield, Westminster, Winchester and York.

Several situations are worthy of special mention:

Yorkshire

Yorkshire is the largest of England's counties, at 3,882,851 acres. This great size is due to the county's status as a successor entity to the Viking Kingdom of York. Consequently, Yorkshire is divided into three Ridings which are subdivided into wapentakes rather than hundreds as the other counties. Indeed, the ridings have councils of their own, as does the Wapentake of Ainsty (not in any hundred), rather than one county council.

Linguistically, Yorkshire is also notable for having dropped the singular/plural distinction in the second person, using you for both singular and plural. This can really confuse Englanders from other, more sane, parts of the country.

County Durham

Properly called the County Palatinate of Durham, County Durham is exceptional among English counties in that temporal power within the county resides in the Prince-Bishop of Durham (currently Nicholas Thomas Wright). Among other details, the Prince-Bishop has the right to mint the county's own coins and administer justice within the county- the court of last appeal in County Durham is that of the Prince Bishop rather than the Monarch.

Lincolnshire

Lincolnshire is divided into three "parts" - Parts of Holland, Parts of Kesteven and Parts of Lindsey. (Parts of Lindsey is itself divided into three ridings.) Each of these Parts have their own councils instead of one county council.

Metropolitan Board of Works

The Metropolitan Board of Works is an institution set up by the Metropolis Management Act 1855. Rather than expand the City of London, the English government made a new institution to goven the area surrounding London - "Greater London" to avoid confusion - to maintain its transport networks, sewers, police (the Metropolitan Police), fire brigade (Metropolitan Fire Brigade) and some other things I can't think of now. Unlike here, it was never plagued with the same level of corruption as following 1898 its was organised by a Council who met - and still do meet - at the Metropolitan Hall in Brixton, Surrey.

Liberties

There are various areas of counties that in C15 and earlier were given independance from surrounding county areas to deal properly with their own affairs, called Liberties. Most of these were abolished in C19 but two still remain - the Isle of Ely and the Soke of Peterborough. In the former, the bishop of Ely has some ceremonial power. They have their own county councils and are de facto self governing with own county councils.

Council of the North

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History

Also see the List of Monarchs of England and Scotland.

There are certain differences in the prehistory of the of England. The XVth century witnessed the Wars of the Roses, a conflict between the Kentian and Yorkist branches of the First House of Plantagenet. The Kemrese did not intervene, and ultimately the heirs of Richard III, a Yorkist, held the throne. Since the marriage of Richard's daughter Margaret to James, King of Scots, England and Scotland have been in personal union. Since the Tewdrs never intervened, then at the time of the Reformation a Stewart monarch ruled in London. Without the dilemma of providing an heir to Henry VIII the Stewart monarch chose not to nationalise the monasteries and remaind Catholic. Successive monarchs married into the dynasties of France and Castile creating a strong alliance that stemmed the impact of Protestantism. The Stuarts remained in Edinburgh, permitting the existence of an episcopal reformed church in Scotland. Conversion to Protestantism spread to create a influential minority, and after a period of savage conflicts a sustantial number choose emmigrantion to the New World as the only peaceful alternative... (adapted from a Sessiwn post)

In Ill Bethisad, it was James V rather than James VI who achieved the Union of the Crowns. The Tudors never came to the throne of England (they were busy being kingmakers in the independent Kingdom of Kemr in the western part of Britain), and although there was a technical change of dynasty when Henry VII (the pretender Henry IX in our timeline) died, the current Monarch of England and Scotland has Stuart ancestry. Diana I has reigned since 1997, when her mother abdicated in her favor. I hasten to add that this is *not* the Queen of Hearts from our timeline: she's also Head of the Second House of Plantagenet.)

Geography

England essentially occupies the lowland zone of Britannia, and is characterised by gently rolling hills and broad river-valleys.

Borders

North: Scotland. West: Kemr. South: British Sea East: British Sea.

Culture

England is, in many ways, rather old-fashioned, though not quite Dunein standard. Cobbled streets are still the norm in small towns. Red telephone boxes may be spotted throughout the nation. England has an organisation, known as 'Her Majesty's Army'(The HMA), devoted to the dissolution of the FK. Due to its (inaccurate) name, it will never be referred to by name, but simply called 'The Separatist Group'. Its name has also given rise to several conspiracy theories about Diana's involvement in the organisation.

Languages

England is interesting linguistically. English is marked foremost by a lack of a single standard based upon the London dialect. Several Englishes are therefore correct, notably those of the South (London), Northumbria (Yorich) and the North (Edinbro). Of interest to note are the continued use of the letter thorn, "þ", to designate the TH sound; the use of -es as a generalised plural verb ending, distinction of the second person pronouns tha (singular) and ye (plural), and differentiation of the gerund and participle. Some dialects in Yorkshire have dropped the familiar form 'thou', and adopted 'you' throughout their speech, entirely confusing singular and plural. This can really confuse Englanders from other, more sane, parts of the country.

England's largest island, the Isle of Wight, did, until the early 1600s, have its own Germanic language, Wessish, but this fell out of use and died out in favour of English.

Religion

England is fairly evenly divided between Protestants and Catholics. The Protestants are largely based in the north of the country, the Catholics in the south. The Archbishop of Yorwich is a Protestant (specifically Lutheran), and the Archbishop of Canterbury a Catholic. The queen is, in fact, a Catholic, but also legally the head of the English Presbyterian Church.

See also

• List of Monarchs of England and Scotland
• The Commonwealth

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SOMER ISLANDS Well off the east coast of the NAL lie the Somer, or Hogg, Islands. Once the lair of corsairs and privateers, it was the setting for Shaxpear's "The Tempeste"; it now enjoys the fruits of tourism and is an international banking and tax haven. Somer Islands are an English Crown Colony.

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See: http://www.geocities.com/ill_bethisad/commonwealth.htm (Old)