Kingdom of Redonda

The Kingdom of Redonda is a micronation associated with the tiny uninhabited Caribbean island of Redonda.

The island lies between the islands of Nevis and Montserrat, within the inner arc of the Leeward Islands chain, in the West Indies. Redonda is a dependency of the country of Antigua and Barbuda. The island is just over 1 mi long and 1/3 mi wide, rising to a 971 ft peak. The island teems with bird life, but is more or less uninhabitable by humans because there is no source of freshwater other than rain, and most of the island is extremely steep and rocky, with only a relatively small, sloping plateau area of grassland at the summit. Landing on the island is a very challenging process, possible only via the leeward coast on days when the seas are calm. Climbing to the top of the island is also very arduous. Despite these difficulties, from 1865 until 1912 Redonda was part of a lucrative trade in guano mining, and many thousands of tons of phosphates were shipped from Redonda to Britain. The ruins associated with the mineworkings can still be seen on the island.

Various parties claim Redonda as a micronation. An account told by the fantasy writer M. P. Shiel in 1929 claimed that Redonda was established as an "independent kingdom" decades earlier in the 19th century. The title to the supposed kingdom is still contested to this day in a half-serious fashion. The "Kingdom" is also often associated with a number of supposedly aristocratic members, whose titles are awarded by whoever is currently the "King". There are a number of individuals in different countries who claim to be the "King" of Redonda.

History
The early history of the "Kingdom" of Redonda is shrouded in doubt. There is no known evidence, documentation, or third party verification of Shiel's story.

During Shiel's lifetime
M. P. Shiel (1865–1947), an author of works of adventure and fantasy fiction, was the first person to give an account of the "Kingdom of Redonda," in 1929, in a promotional pamphlet for a reissue of his books.

According to Shiel's story, Shiel's father, Matthew Dowdy Shiell, who was a trader and Methodist lay preacher from the nearby island of Montserrat, claimed the island of Redonda when his son, Matthew Phipps Shiell, was born. Supposedly the father felt he could legitimately do this, because it appeared to be the case that no country had officially claimed the islet as territory. Shiell senior is also said to have requested the title of King of Redonda from Queen Victoria and according to the legend, it was granted to him by the British Colonial Office rather than by Victoria herself, provided there was no revolt against colonial power.

The son (originally named Matthew Phipps Shiell but later known as the writer M. P. Shiel) claimed he was crowned on Redonda at the age of 15, in 1880, by a bishop from Antigua. However, as M. P. Shiel's recounting of this story never saw print until 1929, it is possible that some, most, or all of the story of his being crowned King of Redonda is pure invention.

Shiel cites two different names for the bishop who performed the coronation: the Reverend Dr Mitchinson and the Rev. Hugh Semper. These men were both genuine clerics in the Caribbean during this period. Whether Shiel had a faulty memory or couldn't keep his invented story consistent is unknown. In "About Myself" Shiel writes that he attempted to impose a tribute tax on the American guano miners, but the request was refused. There has been no independent evidence provided of any such demands.

Several of Shiel's works of fiction concerned various aspects of monarchy. One of his detective heroes is called Cummings King Monk. In Shiel's 1901 end-of-the-world story The Purple Cloud, the protagonist Adam Jeffson, the last man on earth, establishes himself as monarch of the devastated globe, while Shiel's novel The Lord of the Sea (1901) has Richard Hogarth, another Overman figure, coming to dominate the world. In 1899, Shiel wrote about visiting Redonda in his adventure novel Contraband of War.

In later life, Shiel gave the title, and the rights to his work, to his chief admirer, London poet and editor John Gawsworth (Terence Ian Fytton Armstrong), the biographer of Arthur Machen, who was the realm's Archduke. Gawsworth (1912–70) seems to have passed on the title several times when the writer was low in funds. Gawsworth's realm has been facetiously termed "Almadonda" (by the Shielian scholar A. Reynolds Morse (1914–2000)) after the Alma pub in Westbourne Grove, Bayswater, London, where "King Juan" frequently held court in the 1960s.

After Shiel's death
Gawsworth had also apparently promised to make Max Juan Tonge Leggett, the first son of his friends Charles and Jean Leggett, his Redondan heir if they gave the child (born in the late 1950s) his royal name of Juan.

Some researchers accept that Gawsworth bestowed the title on his friend the publican Arthur John Roberts in 1967, by "Irrevocable Covenant". Prior to this the late writer Dominic Behan (1928–89) also claimed Gawsworth transferred the title to him in 1960. It is also said that Gawsworth handed on the throne to one Aleph Kamal, whose peers include the novelist Edna O'Brien.

Self-appointed monarchs of Redonda include/included Michael Lawler in 2010, Marvin Kitman and William Scott Home. Scott Home's claim to the title was, he says, based on ESP and reincarnation.

Publisher, author and environmentalist Jon Wynne-Tyson, however, claims that Gawsworth, prior to dying in 1970, bestowed the kingship on him with the literary executorships, although the writer Iain Fletcher was the joint literary executor for Gawsworth.

Later developments
Jon Wynne-Tyson subsequently visited Redonda in 1979, on an expedition organized by the philanthropist and Shielian publisher A. Reynolds Morse. Wynne-Tyson ruled as King Juan II until abdicating in favour of the novelist Javier Marías of Madrid in 1997, transferring the literary executorship of Gawsworth and Shiel along with the title.

Arthur John Roberts' title was subsequently inherited by William Leonard Gates, whom Gawsworth had given the title of "Baron L'Angelier de Blythswood de Redonda". From his home at Thurlton, Norfolk, Gates, who was known as King Leo, presided over a group known as "The Redondan Foundation", not be confused with "The Redondan Cultural Foundation" set up by Paul de Fortis (see below). Gates died on 2 January 2019 and his crown passed to Queen Josephine.

As in Gawsworth's reign, meetings of these rival groups have been held at the Fitzroy Tavern in Fitzrovia, central London. King Leo 'reigned' as king for thirty years, since 1989. Williamson, who lived on Antigua until his death in 2009, set himself up as the rival "King Robert the Bald".

In 1988, London clergyman Paul de Fortis established "The Redondan Cultural Foundation". De Fortis promoted a new king, Cedric Boston (born on Montserrat in 1960). Boston claimed the Redondan throne in 1984, winning the allegiance of a number of Gawsworth's peers.

On the question of the Kingdom of Redonda, Wynne-Tyson has written:

"The legend is and should remain a pleasing and eccentric fairy tale; a piece of literary mythology to be taken with salt, romantic sighs, appropriate perplexity, some amusement, but without great seriousness. It is, after all, a fantasy."

Various people have been given a "peerage" status in Redonda. Generally, these were writer friends of Shiel's and Gawsworth in the early years of the Kingdom. They include Arthur Machen, Oliver Stonor, Edgar Jepson, Thomas Burke, Victor Gollancz, Carl Van Vechten, Arthur Ransome, Lawrence Durrell, Gerald Durrell, G. S. Fraser, Michael Harrison, John Heath-Stubbs, Dylan Thomas, Henry Miller, Julian MacLaren-Ross, Philip Lindsay, Rebecca West, John Waller, August Derleth, Stephen Graham, Dorothy L. Sayers, J. B. Priestley, Eden Phillpotts, Stephen Potter, Martin Secker, Frank Swinnerton, John Wain, and Julian Symons. This practice has continued with later kings; examples include the artist Stephen Chambers, ennobled in 2017.

Wynne-Tyson, Javier Marías, Bob Williamson, William Gates and Cedric Boston were all interviewed in the BBC Radio 4 documentary Redonda: The Island with Too Many Kings, broadcast in May 2007.

Death of Javier Marias
On 11 September 2022, Javier Marías died in Madrid. It was reported that Xavier I had named Juan Gabriel Vásquez as his successor, however, Vásquez later clarified that an official naming ceremony had never taken place.

In August 2022, Spanish writer Javier Diéguez visited the island of Redonda and left some books by Javier Marías, M. P. Shiel, and Jon Wynne-Tyson as a tribute to Javier Marías and the previous monarchs of Redonda. Diéguez's book 'Redonda' narrates his journey to the island and serves as a posthumous tribute to Javier Marías.

Current King of Redonda
After the death of Giacarlo Noferi in 2019, Giuseppe Giovanni Garbarino, a writer and administrator of a publishing house in Florence, Italy, took up the legacy of the kingdom. The name assumed by Giuseppe Giovanni Garbarino is José Juan I, and with a group of friends he tries to keep alive the tradition of a literary aristocracy.

List of kings
Original claims:
 * Matthew Dowdy Shiell, 1865–1880
 * Matthew Phipps Shiell, 1880–1947 (styled as King Felipe I)
 * John Gawsworth, 1947–1967 or 1970 (styled as King Juan I)

Later claims:
 * Arthur John Roberts, 1967–1989 (styled as King Juan II)
 * Jon Wynne-Tyson, 1970–1997 (styled as King Juan II)
 * Giancarlo Noferi, 1970-2019 (styled as King Giancarlo Ezio I di Montedoglio)
 * William Leonard Gates, 1989–2019 (styled as King Leo)
 * Javier Marías, 1997–2022 (styled as King Xavier)
 * Giuseppe G. Garbarino, from 2019 (styled as King José Juan I)

In popular culture
In 2007, the Wellington Arms pub in Southampton, England, attempted to declare itself an embassy of Redonda, in order to gain diplomatic immunity from a nationwide ban on smoking in enclosed workplaces, including pubs. This ultimately failed when the Foreign and Commonwealth Office pointed out that His Majesty's Government recognises Redonda as a dependent territory of Antigua and Barbuda which, accordingly, is not entitled to establish a separate embassy or high commission in the United Kingdom.