Thoughts and Questions

[Mitchell, Paul]

Galen here...

Lady Catrin Mac Cracken posted a very pleasant, if long, post under this 
subject, and, rather than answer her point-by-point, I would like to offer 
my own thoughts and questions.

Most people getting into the SCA do the local stuff first, then begin to 
cast further afield as their resources, interest, and experiences increase. 
 Lady Catrin is clearly at the point where she will be headed south more 
often as her resources permit.  For now, the people she knows best in the 
SCA are in her local group, and all of them are northerners.  As she has 
gotten out of Eldern Hills, most of the people she's met have likewise been 
northerners.  This is the most natural thing in the world; no wonder she 
feels a keener loyalty to the part of the Kingdom that she knows rather than 
to the part she doesn't.  But her quest for the dream was evident, and 
she'll search ever farther afield to find it.

In my favorite movie, _Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead_, they find 
themselves aboard a boat, headed for England; but Rosenkrantz doesn't expect 
to see England.  "I don't believe it," he tells Guildenstern.

 "Believe what?" Guildenstern asks.

"England!" Rosenkrantz answers.

"Just a conspiracy of cartographers, then?"  Guildenstern teases.

I'm the same way with Ansteorran principalities.  I don't believe it.  Just 
a conspiracy of _Corpora_-lawyers, if you will.

The question to be asked in the matter of a principality in the north is, 
"does the north need the rest of the kingdom?"  I will not offer an answer. 
 If a sufficient number of people feel that the north does _not_ need the 
rest of Ansteorra, enough that they organize a northern principality and 
begin working toward kingdom status, I have no objection.  Likewise, if 
people in the north (or the south, or the center of the Kingdom) feel 
strongly enough about the benefits of being ruled by a Prince as well as a 
King, and go to the trouble to bring this to pass over the bureaucratic and 
political obstacles in the way, that's fine, too.

But I don't see this sort of popular movement, nor do I see what looks to me 
like anyone trying to start one.  Here on the list, we're talking about it 
more because it's an interesting topic than any other reason.  I don't 
expect to see it this year or next, and I doubt many others do, either.  And 
if I were going to see this sort of popular movement, I doubt it would look 
like what I _do_ see.  I don't think Oklahomans, wanting a principality for 
themselves, would much care whether people in south Texas had one.  But 
suddenly the Barons get phone calls from the Kingdom Seneschal asking them 
to start discussions, and in a number of places, it happens.  Inevitably, 
the discussions pick up on-line, and we're probably doing more here to keep 
the issue alive than anyone else.  Look for public mention of it this 
weekend at Elfsea Defender, but I doubt many will discuss it for long. 
 _Black Star_, we're told, will have mention of the issue, but I doubt that 
will lead to too much discussion.

But it seems to have sprung full-grown from someone's forehead.  Whose? 
 What process leads to the Kingdom Seneschal calling the Barons and putting 
a note in _Black Star_?  The Crown wants our input.  What prompted that? 
 They haven't asked for our input on whether we should merge with Meridies, 
presumably because no one proposed it.  Who wants this?  And who is it that, 
wanting this, instead of bringing it up for discussion here, followed a 
course that led directly, with minimal rumor leakage, directly to notices in 
_Black Star_ and Barons kingdom-wide bringing the issue up?  And why?  Why 
principalities, and why this way?

We've given this a fair hearing, and a reasonable discussion of pros and 
cons.  I think we're entitled to know how this issue came to be at the 
center of our public discourse.  We've discussed the merits of the idea 
independent of the question of whose idea it is.  I believe we have reached 
the point where it is relevant to know who brought up this issue initially, 
and for what purpose.

Probably a lot more opinion than fact from

 - Galen of Bristol,
who's not sure why he cares about this...