Crown Principality Thoughts.

.....This is one of those discussions we've been dancing around for years, kind of jokingly. But every time the thought becomes a word spoken to another it takes on a form. Get enough forms going, you might just get some reality. Doesn't indicate how long that will take though. :-)

.....TBT and I were having an interesting debate last night on the topic of a 'Crown Principality'. I was thinking it might be the logical first step in our area to move from its somewhat nebulous 'Regional' status over to that of a Principality. TBT was not overly fond of that idea as it meant, in her opinion, that since the Crown Principality wouldn't have a Prince and Princess, why go to all that trouble to make the Administrative Region when it didn't give you any benefits in return as far as Pageantry and a Royal presence? I disagreed as I was positive that a Crown Principality allowed for a Prince and Princess.

.....As it stands, neither one of us had a clear understanding of what a Crown Principality actually is.

.....I did a little digging today. Corpora and the Governing Documents of the SCA make no mention on the subject of a Crown Principality. Nothing at all.

.....A search on the Internet produced some interesting results up front. The Crown Principality of Tir Mara, a Crown Principality of the East Kingdom, has Prince Edward and Princess Thyra acting as Prince and Princess for the Crown Principality and representing Their Majesties of the East, King Kenric of Warwick and Queen Avelina Keyes. The Crown Principality of Insulae Draconis, before becoming a fully formed Principality, had Viceroys fulfilling the duties of representative of Their Majesties (if I'm understanding things correctly). Aethelmearc had a position of 'Lord Protector' who took on the Ceremonial duties of Royal Representation before they become a full Principality. Other Crown Principalities have no titled leaders, merely a set of officers at a more Regional level.

.....There does not seem to be a concrete definition in the SCA of what a Crown Principality actually is. Just the fact that various options have been tried, seemingly successfully (the Prince and Princess of Tir Mara are still active as a Royal Entity), lends to the belief that the Crown Principality, in full consultation (and full agreement) with the Kingdom giving birth to it, actually decides the form is best suited for it as it takes on the role of a Crown Principality.

.....Although, just to throw a little cold water on the subject, the Seneschal's Handbook has the following to say on the subject:

"Use "Crown Principality" status to recognize regional development. Where an area is obviously suitable for eventual Principality status, a Kingdom can reward and encourage the trend by declaring the area to be a Crown Principality. A Crown Principality is exactly and only a region with a fancy name and a line in the Coronation ceremony - the King and Queen also become the Prince and Princess of the pseudo-Principality when they assume the thrones. It has no laws by the Kingdom laws. Its officers are regional deputies to the Kingdom officers. However, the name lends it extra emotional reality. The Kingdom can allow it to have a champion and to develop some usages of its own, and these steps will smooth the eventual transition.

All the procedures for creating a Crown Principality are under Kingdom control, as long as the Kingdom doesn't attempt to hand over functions reserved to the royalty or officers of SCA Principalities. (That is, the ceremonial representatives for the Crown within a Crown Principality may NOT warrant subordinate officers, proclaim banishments, or bestow armigerous awards without specific Crown approval for individual recipients.)

Please be cautious with the idea, and do some enthusiastic straw polling before advising your royalty to establish a Crown Principality - imaginary though it is, a Crown Principality develops enough personality that it would be very painful for an area if the Kingdom later decided to take the status away."

.....These paragraphs are somewhat contradictory as they state essentially there is no royalty involved with a Crown Principality, and then turns around and speaks to the 'ceremonial representatives'. I rather think this was deliberately done myself. It gives groups a little wiggle room to define what it is they want. But it also gives the Kingdom Seneschal a hammer to use if it is needed to protect the best interests of the Kingdom and / or the Society. I think the writers were trying to define it as narrowly as possible so as to limit wild and thoughtless formation, but still allow for various groups to move forward if there was enough real willingness to do so.

.....We've talked about a Principality formed of the West side of Puget Sound for a while now. I think the idea has enough roots where it would only take the leadership of a small group of people to start the formation process. There are problems of course. That path requires a lot of effort and energy and the willingness to give up a lot of time for a number of years in order to gain the momentum to move forward. The borders of the potential Principality would require a great deal of discussion and thought. The populations of Dragon's Laire, Druim Doineann and Glymm Mere alone are enough to form a Principality. But would the Populace in all these areas be willing to do this? There is also the issue of Peers. We have a goodly number of Laurels and Pelicans, but not a great deal of Knights or Royal Peers. You could adjust your borders to gain on this, but the discussions again would be lengthy.

.....Then there is the added workload of simply being a new administrative region. The Inlands Regional area had given thought of going Principality a while back and put together a nice and easy list of the Pros and Cons to going towards Principality status:

"A Few of The Positive Aspects:

An identity for the region.
Larger events with more pageantry.
More of a chance to meet and interact with Royalty. A better chance to BE Royalty.
A direct voice to the Crown for our area.
The opportunity to build our own traditions, awards and customs.

A Few of The Negative Aspects:
More work. Do we have the manpower to fill the required positions?
More event dates to chisel out of an already tight Kingdom and local calendar.
Less visitation from the Crowns.
Loss of identity as citizens of An Tir.
Enough qualified fighters showing up for a Coronet Tourney."

.....I'm just putting some thoughts on this in black-and-white while I'm pondering for the moment. I'm not even implying that we move forward anytime soon. This is mainly put out there for future reference.

.....But it does make me keep going, 'Hmmmm....'. :-)

.....Aaron / Arontius.