06-18-2010, 02:39 AM
Many of you who routinely visit these forums will have noticed that Letters Patent of His Majesty the King were gazetted this morning giving recognition to an idea: the idea that the kingdoms of Hanover and Sconeland together comprise what the Patent termed a "neighborhood" of kingdoms.
As a regular observer of these forums, you are aware that this community has been undergoing something of a cultural transformation over the past several weeks and months. The Kingdom of Hanover, which in the past suffered from a bit of a cultural identity crisis, has seen a number of her institutions renamed and reimagined in such a way as to project an unquestionably Anglophile atmosphere.
The former Kingdom of Varennes, abandoning her Francophile attributes, has now become the Kingdom of Sconeland, and means to adopt for herself a new persona, if you will, inspired by the Celtic cultures of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales.
In all of these changes even the least astute observer will gather that this community is being wholly transformed to become one grand homage to that great and renowned kingdom that has, almost from the outset, been our model and our guiding light: Great Britain.
The British Isles and the British Empire have long been for many of us a source of inspiration and endless fascination. Hanover's public offices and institutions have usually been patterned after elements of the monarchy, aristocracy, and government of the United Kingdom.
The words "Westminster" and "Whitehall" have for years featured in any conversation in which we have asked ourselves, "how do we do this"? Our documents and legal instruments are crafted after the pattern that Whitehall has provided. Our King summons his Parliament using the same words that the British monarch employs to summon the "Mother of Parliaments" at Westminster. All in all, our modes of experiencing statecraft and nationhood have been, to one degree or another, modelled upon all that we know and admire about Great Britain.
Today, this community takes another step toward becoming a faithful mirror of her British mentor. While England, Scotland, (Northern) Ireland, and Wales are collectively known as "Britain", Hanover and Sconeland, together, have lacked a name and an idea by which to express their newfound amity and sisterhood.
The King's Letters Patent by which he now gives formal recognition to the existence of a "neighborhood" in which his two realms together subsist forever rectfies this deficiency, and from this day forward the kingdoms of Hanover and Sconeland may be collectively known as "Glennain". The term "neighborhood" is used as we lack the benefit of an island, of course.
These Glennish kingdoms of ours, now more closely unified by this notion of neighborhood formally defined, have not by this recognition seen the end of their transformation. Indeed this step is just the beginning of a new day for our cherished community.
To those few who have privately expressed irritation at the developments they have witnessed over the past months, I can only respond with the question, "where have you been all this time?" There has been ample time and ample opportunity for any of His Majesty's loyal subjects to publicly interject their thoughts and ideas into this very public national transformation. These forums have all the while been open to you and at any time you may have presented yourself for active citizenship once again. And the doors remain open even now.
But by now the ideas have all been formulated, the plans have all been presented, the names have all been decreed, the heraldry has all been draughted, and the major decisions have all been made, without your input, which we would have welcomed. And although it is now too late for second-guessing and armchair quarterbacking, it is not too late to rejoin your compatriots, here, in this transformed place, and to take an active civic role once again in the life of this community that you once regarded as something of a second home.
Now is not the time to complain or to indicate what you would have done differently had you opted to involve yourself in our project of national renewal. Now is the time to recognize the turn that this community has, in fact, already taken, and to opt to actively participate in her forward march into the future along a path already determined by those of us who have opted to remain involved in the life of this nation. If you would like to take an active part, once again, in the continued development of this, our cherished community, now is the time to return. There is still much that awaits us and there will be plenty of opportunities for rewarding civic involvement.
I can confidently imagine the profound sentiments of gratitude which His Majesty the King would express to those of you who have remained faithfully involved in the life of this community were he able to be in your actual presence. I know he is delighted by the energy, time, and talent that you have contributed to the transformation of these, his realms.
Conversely, those of us who have been involved owe a debt of gratitute to our King for the constant support and encouragement he has given to us as we have laboured, and as we continue to labour, for a renewed future for this now historic and celebrated community.
As I have always been proud to be Hanoverian, I shall henceforth be every bit as proud to be Glennish. May these Glennish realms continue to grow and prosper under the benevolent rule of our gracious King, and may His Glennannic Majesty ever have cause to proudly reign over his subjects who dwell in harmony together within these grand realms of Glennain.
God save the King.
As a regular observer of these forums, you are aware that this community has been undergoing something of a cultural transformation over the past several weeks and months. The Kingdom of Hanover, which in the past suffered from a bit of a cultural identity crisis, has seen a number of her institutions renamed and reimagined in such a way as to project an unquestionably Anglophile atmosphere.
The former Kingdom of Varennes, abandoning her Francophile attributes, has now become the Kingdom of Sconeland, and means to adopt for herself a new persona, if you will, inspired by the Celtic cultures of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales.
In all of these changes even the least astute observer will gather that this community is being wholly transformed to become one grand homage to that great and renowned kingdom that has, almost from the outset, been our model and our guiding light: Great Britain.
The British Isles and the British Empire have long been for many of us a source of inspiration and endless fascination. Hanover's public offices and institutions have usually been patterned after elements of the monarchy, aristocracy, and government of the United Kingdom.
The words "Westminster" and "Whitehall" have for years featured in any conversation in which we have asked ourselves, "how do we do this"? Our documents and legal instruments are crafted after the pattern that Whitehall has provided. Our King summons his Parliament using the same words that the British monarch employs to summon the "Mother of Parliaments" at Westminster. All in all, our modes of experiencing statecraft and nationhood have been, to one degree or another, modelled upon all that we know and admire about Great Britain.
Today, this community takes another step toward becoming a faithful mirror of her British mentor. While England, Scotland, (Northern) Ireland, and Wales are collectively known as "Britain", Hanover and Sconeland, together, have lacked a name and an idea by which to express their newfound amity and sisterhood.
The King's Letters Patent by which he now gives formal recognition to the existence of a "neighborhood" in which his two realms together subsist forever rectfies this deficiency, and from this day forward the kingdoms of Hanover and Sconeland may be collectively known as "Glennain". The term "neighborhood" is used as we lack the benefit of an island, of course.
These Glennish kingdoms of ours, now more closely unified by this notion of neighborhood formally defined, have not by this recognition seen the end of their transformation. Indeed this step is just the beginning of a new day for our cherished community.
To those few who have privately expressed irritation at the developments they have witnessed over the past months, I can only respond with the question, "where have you been all this time?" There has been ample time and ample opportunity for any of His Majesty's loyal subjects to publicly interject their thoughts and ideas into this very public national transformation. These forums have all the while been open to you and at any time you may have presented yourself for active citizenship once again. And the doors remain open even now.
But by now the ideas have all been formulated, the plans have all been presented, the names have all been decreed, the heraldry has all been draughted, and the major decisions have all been made, without your input, which we would have welcomed. And although it is now too late for second-guessing and armchair quarterbacking, it is not too late to rejoin your compatriots, here, in this transformed place, and to take an active civic role once again in the life of this community that you once regarded as something of a second home.
Now is not the time to complain or to indicate what you would have done differently had you opted to involve yourself in our project of national renewal. Now is the time to recognize the turn that this community has, in fact, already taken, and to opt to actively participate in her forward march into the future along a path already determined by those of us who have opted to remain involved in the life of this nation. If you would like to take an active part, once again, in the continued development of this, our cherished community, now is the time to return. There is still much that awaits us and there will be plenty of opportunities for rewarding civic involvement.
I can confidently imagine the profound sentiments of gratitude which His Majesty the King would express to those of you who have remained faithfully involved in the life of this community were he able to be in your actual presence. I know he is delighted by the energy, time, and talent that you have contributed to the transformation of these, his realms.
Conversely, those of us who have been involved owe a debt of gratitute to our King for the constant support and encouragement he has given to us as we have laboured, and as we continue to labour, for a renewed future for this now historic and celebrated community.
As I have always been proud to be Hanoverian, I shall henceforth be every bit as proud to be Glennish. May these Glennish realms continue to grow and prosper under the benevolent rule of our gracious King, and may His Glennannic Majesty ever have cause to proudly reign over his subjects who dwell in harmony together within these grand realms of Glennain.
God save the King.