Kingdom of Redonda

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Kingdom of Redonda
Flag	Arms
Motto: Floreat Redonda (English: May Redonda Flourish) Musical Anthem: God Who Gave Our Island Soil, by Leigh Henry
Location:	Redonda Island, Antigua & Barbuda
Co-ordinates:	16°56′20″N 62°20′30″W
Area:	1.3 km2
Capital:	None
Membership:	< 200
Date of foundation:	1929
Leadership:	Multiple claimant kings
Organisational structure:	Absolute monarchy
Language:	English
Currency:	None

The Kingdom of Redonda is a micronation, the purported 19th Century origins of which are probably an invention of British fantasy fiction author M P Shiel (born Matthew Phipps Shiell), (21 July 1865 - 17 February 1947). It is named for its putative territory - the uninhabited 1.3 km² Caribbean island of Redonda, a dependency of the present-day sovereign state of Antigua and Barbuda.

Likely fictional origins

According to popular legend, the kingdom came into being in 1865, when Montserrat trader Matthew Dowdy Shiell (18 September 1824 - 7 January 1888) ^[1] purportedly sailed to Redonda, took formal possession of it, proclaimed himself its king, and then - satisfied that he had secured for his new-born son - Matthew Phipps Shiell - a legitimate claim to royal status, sailed away again.

Aerial view of the island of Redonda.

One version of the legend asserts that Shiell sought and gained acknowledgement of his self-proclaimed royal title from Queen Victoria - on condition that there would be 'no revolt against colonial power' - however there is no documentary evidence of this in British archives.

The legend further asserts that in 1880, fifteen year-old Matthew Phipps Shiell succeeded to the Redondan throne as King Felipe I, when he was crowned in a ceremony conducted on the island by a visiting Antiguan bishop.^[2] The Anglican Bishop of Antigua in 1880 was William Walrond Jackson,^[3] however there is no reference to a coronation on Redonda in any of his writings.

In fact, the first time the purported events surrounding the foundation of the Kingdom of Redonda were mentioned publicly was in a 1929 booklet advertising the reissue by Victor Gollancz of four of M P Shiel's novels. There is little evidence that Shiel took the Redonda tale seriously, and his biographer, Harold Billings, speculates that it may have been an intentional hoax foisted on the gullible press.^[4]

King Felipe - British author M P Shiel, creator of the Redonda legend.

On Sheil's death, writer and poet John Gawsworth (a pseudonym of Terence Ian Fytton Armstrong) (29 June 1912 - 23 September 1970) became both his literary executor and his appointed heir to the "kingdom", styling himself King Juan I.^[5] Gawsworth took the legend of Redonda to heart. He never lost an opportunity to further elaborate the tale and spread the story to the press.^[6]

Conflicting claimants

During Gawsworth's reign the Kingdom of Redonda assumed an increasingly complex existence - due in part to the king's liberal award of Redondan titles to friends, colleagues and drinking partners (Dorothy Sayers, John A Knopf, Dylan Thomas, and J B Priestley were some of the many literary figures who received Redondan peerages), but also as a consequence of his attempts at alternately selling the Redondan kingship outright (he once advertised it for sale in The Times), or else formalising its succession arrangements. By the time of Gawsworth's death as an alcoholic pauper in 1970, two competing claims to the kingship had arisen.

King Juan I - Poet and writer John Gawsworth, a lifelong ceaseless promoter of the Redonda legend.

One of these contends that in October 1966 Gawsworth endorsed a legal covenant by which he abdicated as the third King of Redonda in favour of Arthur John Roberts, a member of the Redondan aristocracy, with effect from 17 February 1967. Roberts thereby assumed the kingship on that date as King Juan II. He was succeeded in 1989 by William Leonard Gates, who styles himself King Leo.

The other contends that the Redondan kingship passed to the independent publisher Jon Wynne-Tyson, when he became Gawsworth's literary executor in 1970. He also assumed the style King Juan II. When Wynne-Tyson sold Gawsworth's papers, and the part of Redonda's archives that came with them in 1997, they were purchased by Spanish novelist and translator Javier Marías (born: 20 September 1951), who has since styled himself King Xavier I.

Marías relates the story of his investiture in Negra espalda del tiempo (published in English as Dark Back of Time). He operates a vanity publishing house under the name Reino de Redonda ("Kingdom of Redonda"), and has created a literary prize with the same name. The award is worth several thousand Euros, and comes with a Redondan duchy.

Several prominent Spanish and foreign artists and writers have also been awarded Redondan titles by Marías, including film makers Pedro Almodóvar (Duke of Trémula) and Francis Ford Coppola (Duke of Megalópolis) and writer J M Coetzee (Duke of Deshonra).

King Robert the Bald

King Robert the Bald - Eccentric yachtsman Robert Williamson, shortly before his death in 2009.

Robert Willamson, a Canadian yachtsman who resided in Antigua, claimed the Redondan kingship after apparently meeting Jon Wynne-Tyson in the late 1990s. According to Williamson's website, Wynne-Tyson encouraged him to "prepare your square-rigged schooner, drive her downwind to Redonda, plant your flag, give an inflammatory speech to the boobies; that you are now the supreme ruler; and that furthermore you intend to resurrect old man Shiell's territorial claim, which means that Antigua has no right of possession and must pay you retrospective taxes for all the help that Redonda has given the tourist industry...".^[7]

On 31 May 1998 Williamson and a group of sixty-one friends sailed to Redonda on the Sir Robert Baden-Powell a 130' square-rigged topsail schooner, and did just that.^[8] From then until his death on 27 August 2009,^[9] Williamson styled himself King Robert the Bald.

Although King Bob's reign was very much an exercise in tongue-in-cheek humour, he is the only one of Redonda's many claimant kings to have lived in Antigua for any appreciable length of time, and the only one whose ownership of a sailing vessel (the "Royal Yacht" Great Peter) enabled him to visit his "realm" at will.

Williamson is in fact one of only two of Redonda's kings who have verifiably ever set foot on the island - the other being Jon Wynne-Tyson, who visited once during the 1980s. His wry, light-hearted, self-deprecating attitude is also arguably the closest reflection of the sort of response M P Shiel probably hoped the tale of Redonda might evoke in the minds of his readers, when he first conceived it.

Williamson was succeeded by British yachting writer Michael Howorth, who was installed as King Michael the Grey at a ceremony in Fort Charlotte, Antigua, on 11 December 2009. ^[10]

Other claimants

Max Leggett, a Canadian who styles himself King Max I, claims the kingship on the basis that John Gawsworth - who lived with his parents for several months during 1950 - verbally promised them that if their first-born child was a boy, he would inherit the Redondan throne. Leggett appears to have first publicised his claim via a now-defunct website, during the 1990s.

Giancarlo Ezio Noferi, an Italian who styles himself HRH Giancarlo Ezio I of Montedoglio, claims he was awarded the kingship in 1967 by an un-named "old British lord", who had been engaged by John Gawsworth to help resolve the succession, and who became "regent" of Redonda when Gawsworth fell ill. Noferi asserts that he was deemed "fit for the investiture" due to his "birth, family, social rank and court presence". The only evidence of Noferi's claim are a 2007 wiki entry^[11] and blog.^[12] Noferi's claims remain unverified, and have the appearance of being wholly spurious.

William Leo Timlin, an Archbishop^[13] of the obscure American Orthodox Catholic Church,^[14] who styles himself His Majesty King William. Timlin declared his claim to the kingship on 5 September 2008, by modifying Wikipedia's Kingdom of Redonda article,^[15] asserting that he assumed the kingship on 1 September, after it was assigned it to him under the terms of a legal covenant by King Leo. Timlin also asserts that he has declared Redonda to be "an Empire and has placed it at the feet of the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title of Our Lady of Fatima."^[16] He has further declared Redonda to be an hereditary monarchy, with the succession passing in direct male line of descent from himself. Timlin's claims remain unverified, and may constitute a deliberate hoax.

List of kings of Redonda

The following is a list of all known kings and claimants to the kingship of Redonda. Apart from the first three, all are contested.

References

1. ↑ http://alangullette.com/lit/shiel/family/Shiell_Matthew_Dowdy.htm Access date: 21-02-2010
2. ↑ http://www.alangullette.com/lit/shiel/essays/RedondaBibliography.htm
3. ↑ http://famousamericans.net/williamwalrondjackson/
4. ↑ Billings, 83-85.
5. ↑ Wynne-Tyson, Jon,“Two Kings of Redonda: M. P. Shiel and John Gawsworth”, Books at Iowa, no. 36 (April 1982): 15-22.
6. ↑ John D. Squires, The Redonda Legend: A Chronological Bibliography
7. ↑ http://www.thekingdomofredonda.com/history.htm Access date: 22-02-2010
8. ↑ http://www.antiguanice.com/v2/client.php?id=575 Access date: 22-02-2010
9. ↑ http://www.antiguanice.com/v2/client.php?id=575&news=1#news Access Date: 22-02-2010
10. ↑ http://www.antiguanice.com/v2/client.php?id=575&news=1#news Access date: 22-02-2010
11. ↑ http://micronations.wikia.com/wiki/Kingdom_of_Redonda Access date: 22-02-2010
12. ↑ http://redondablog.5world.net/ Access date: 22-02-2010
13. ↑ http://www.jesusfocus.org/director.htm Access date: 22-02-2009
14. ↑ http://aggreen.net/other_orthodox/other.html: Access date: 22-02-2010
15. ↑ http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kingdom_of_Redonda&action=historysubmit&diff=236352894&oldid=233381344 Access date: 22-02-2010
16. ↑ http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kingdom_of_Redonda&action=historysubmit&diff=236352894&oldid=233381344 Access date: 22-02-2010

External links

• The Redonda Legend: A Chronological Bibliography
• Redonda Resources

• Kingdom of Redonda - website of King Leo.
• Kingdom of Redonda - website of King Robert the Bald.

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