Godwinnia

Godwinnia

Flag of Godwinnia
Motto: For Honour and Freedom
[No map available as yet ]
Region	Conservative Paradise Reborn
Capital	Lundun
Official Language(s)	Anglish
Leader	King Harold III
Population	over three billion
Currency	mark
NS Sunset XML

Introduction

Godwinnia is an island nation, which has been inhabited since 1069AD when a fleet of "Old English" refugees arrived there under the leadership of Godwin Haroldsson who became their first king. Its official language, derived mainly from those original settlers' native tongue, is consequently related to - but quite distinct from - the modern forms of English. There has been some immigration from various sources over the years, however, so that the country's Human population today is no longer purely Anglo-Saxon in ancestry: The early arrivals included a few shiploads of Elves, of the mortal [although relatively long-lived] Ouph variety, but intermarriage has been frequent enough that most of their contemporary descendants are now also partly Human in ancestry. The country's population level remained fairly stable in the low millions for several centuries, but has quite recently started to increase again.

Geography

Godwinnia proper consists of a group of islands which are located in the North Atlantic Ocean, on a branch of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge which only exists on some versions of the Earth rather than in all of them, between three & seven hundred miles west of Ireland and about twice that distance south of Iceland. Its three largest land-masses, which are known today as 'Wessex', 'Sussex' & 'Essex', have a combined area slightly less than that of England: Adding the lesser islands as well still leaves it slightly smaller than Great Britain. Eleven volcanic peaks are present, but none of these have been active in recent centuries although several of them are thought to be only dormant rather than fully extinct. The climate is basically temperate, due to the Gulf Stream, and rainfall is abundant as also - in coastal regions - is fog. This archipelago is situated in a region where two separate versions of the Earth overlap, but basically has a “real” existence in only one of those worlds: This is a reality where intelligent life failed to evolve, and Godwinnia was actually colonised from the other member of that pair (which is one where Humanity had the same origin and early history as was the case on many of the others that are known, such as the so-called ‘RealWorld’). This situation has led to some uncertainty about the islands’ position and even their very existence, amongst people from that latter Earth, because it’s quite likely that any ships & aircraft from that world which enter the potential transition-zone without Godwinnia-born pilots aboard will travel right through it without this affecting them at all. There are also substantial Godwinnian settlements in various regions of the originally-uninhabited Earth, especially in its continent of North America.

Flora & Fauna

Godwinnia's native flora is basically a slightly impoverished version of the "Atlantic" European one, as we might expect considering the islands' location, but with a few species of North American origins also present. Its native fauna also seems to be basically of European origins, and is rich in birds - especially seabirds, especially on certain of the smaller & more isolated islands (one of which, called Wulfstan's Rock, still houses a breeding colony of the 'Garefowl' or Great Auk...) - but relatively poor in mammals. The largest species of [land-dwelling] mammalian predator that's native to these islands is 'Godwin's Fox', which appears to be descended from the 'Arctic' species - presumably from members of this who arrived there during the Ice Age - instead of from the 'Red Fox' of temperate Europe. There's also one species of large reptile which is found only here: This is the Godwinnian Dragon, which grows up to about three feet in length (plus up to two feet more for its tail) but which differs from the legendary dragons in being capable neither of breathing fire (the best that it can manage in that respect being to hiss steam "like a tea-kettle"...) nor - despite having rudimentary winglike structures attached to its shoulders - of flying.

Prehistory

The islands' first Human inhabitants, who were of unknown origins, arrived there during the Early Bronze Age but apparently either moved on to somewhere elese or died out just a few centuries later on. They left a number of megalithic structures behind, and some other, less obvious archaeological evidence of their presence, but no written inscriptions. There has been speculation that they came from Atlantis, but modern scholars normally just call them the 'First-Folk' and admit that neither their arrival nor their departure can be explained on the basis of current knowledge.

History

Early History

The islands apparently remained undiscovered from the end of their Bronze Age settlement right through until 1009AD, when a ship commanded by an Englishman called Godwin Wulthnothsson (who was later to become the famous ‘Earl Godwin of Wessex’, but at that time was in exile from England because his father was at odds with King Ethelred the Unready…) was blown thence by a storm. Occasional vessels may also have called there during the following few decades, but the next recorded reference to these lands comes from 1070 AD when Godwin Haroldsson, who was one of the Earl’s grandsons (as one of the children whom Edith Swan-neck had born to Harold Godwinsson, i.e. the ill-fated King Harold II of England), took a fleet of English refugees there quite shortly after England itself had been conquered by the Normans… Those colonists established the ‘Kingdom of Godwinnia’, which they named after the Earl, with Godwin Haroldsson as its first King: He married a woman named Etheldreda, shortly after his coronation, and it is from them that the ‘Godwinning’ dynasty which still rules the kingdom to this day is descended.
The early Godwinnians decided to keep a low profile, and the ships which they occasionally sent back to visit the British Isles or the mainland of Europe not only sailed there by way of Iceland — where a few of the leading families had been let in on the secret of this nation’s existence — but normally pretended to be of Icelandic origins themselves when dealing with those other lands’ inhabitants. The kings of England apparently didn’t learn about Godwinnia until 1504AD, when an English ship that had actually been sent to explore the American coasts southwards from Newfoundland but which had accidentally passed between the worlds during the westward stage of its outbound voyage was allowed to return home after visiting the kingdom. Godwinnia was a bit less advanced technologically than England in those days, and its centuries of almost complete isolation from other humans meant that the [relatively small] armed forces which it had retained as a precaution lacked any real experience of warfare, but opening contact with the ‘Old World’ on a more regular basis was considered reasonably safe by Sweyn III [who was the King then] anyway because of the difficulty that outsiders would have in finding their way there without local assistance. The Godwinnians had already been visiting their own world’s version of North America for over two centuries by that point, but apparently it was only during this expansion of trading arrangements their navigators finally developed methods for sailing eastward from the islands without re-entering their ancestors’ old home-world and it wasn't until 1520AD that one of their squadrons — commanded by Earl Harold of Essex, who was a nephew of King Sweyn III — was sent to visit their native reality’s own version of the British Isles… That region turned out to be occupied by yet another nation which had been founded by English refugees, namely Suthsaexe, whose original colonists had departed from the same England as Godwin’s fleet but had done so through a temporary "gate" [of supernatural nature] that a mysterious wizard had created for them within the ‘Weald’ forest of south-eastern England.

Modern History

This country has never been formally incorporated into anybody else's empire, although it was strongly influenced by Britain during the 19th century, and most of the colonies that it acquired in earlier centuries and that didn't subsequently get taken over by more powerful countries have been given their independence by now. (See also St Edmund, Princess Edwina Island, Essekwibo, Bali Lo, the Gilbert and Sullivan Islands, and the New Godwinnian Isles.)
Godwinnian navigators found out how to cross over between the two Earths at whose overlap the islands lie at quite an early date... Consequently, when the population of Godwinnia began approaching the maximum level that could live comfortably in the nation's original islands, a programme of colonisation in the "empty" world's version of North America -- and subsequently in other portions of that Earth, such as southern Africa, too -- was begun.

Government

The national government today takes the form of a constitutional monarchy in which the Kings (who still belong to a branch of the 'House of Godwin') retain significant influence, with a bicameral legislature called the 'Witan': The latter consists of the 'House of Thanes', which includes hereditary & appointed members as well as elected ones, and the 'House of Folks' which is democratically elected. Voting rights are held by all adult citizens who are at least 21 years old and who have either completed an initial term of training in one of the armed forces or have fulfilled their 'national service' obligation in another legally-approved manner. Godwinnia's original classification by the UN was as a "Right-Wing Utopia", but it has subsequently passed through a brief stage as a "Moralistic Democracy" and a longer one as an "Inoffensive Centrist Democracy" into designation as a "Capitalist Paradise" instead.

Religion

Religion is regarded as a matter of personal choice, as long as this isn't used to justify the commission of acts that would be illegal if performed in a secular context, but there is a 'national' church - commonly called the Godwinnian Catholic Church - which broke away from Roman Catholicism shortly after the nation was established. The country's patron saint is St Alphage [of Canterbury]. Religiously-inspired charities carry out a wide range of 'social welfare' activities, so that the population's less sucessful elements aren't actually as badly-off as the lack of government programmes along those lines might suggest.

Weights and Measures

The core of the “traditional” Godwinnian system of weights & measures, which is also used as the standard system in all the other nations of the Godwinnian Commonwealth apart from Suthsaexe, actually dates back only to 1705 AD when the somewhat more complicated system of units that had evolved during earlier centuries was rationalised at the request of Queen Edith*.
Those reforms established two basic series of units, for measuring ‘Mass’ (as that was considered to be the same as ‘Weight’ in those days) and ‘Length’, and also a series of units for measuring ‘Fluid Volume’ that was defined in terms of the first two scales: These series were basically duodecimal in nature, although some of the other old units were also kept or redefined to provide additional, non-duodecimal subunits on an official basis in various cases where this seemed potentially useful… and of course some of the other old units remained in use on a “local” basis in the hinterlands for at least a while, or for certain specialised purposes even in the heartlands, too.
The measurement of Time was originally based on the “Solar Day”, as in many other cultures, and still follows the familiar-to-Europeans hour/minute/second scale. The calendar used is effectively the same as the ‘Gregorian’ one in most respects, including in its calculation of leap years, but differs from this not only in using names of Old English origins for the months but also — and more importantly — in defining New Year’s Day as falling on [what outsiders would call] the 1st of April rather than the 1st of January… and the Godwinnian Catholic Church has its own rules about how to calculate the dates for the Easter…
Series of units for measuring various other characteristics (such as those associated with Electricity) were added to the system at more recent dates, after the concepts involved were discovered, and commonly feature the same “basic” units that are also used in the British “Imperial” system although — again — typically with duodecimal rather than decimal scales.
Recent decades have seen the Godwinnian Commonwealth’s scientists & technicians generally adopt a modified form of this system for most purposes, especially in the many fields of scientific activity where the details measured tend to be either too small or too large for the standard series of units to be very useful: This uses Base-10 multiples & divisions of the traditional system’s fundamental units, with a standardised set of prefixes to denote the relevant power of ten in any particular case. The traditional system still remains overwhelmingly favoured for “everyday” purposes, however, even by most of those scientists and technicians.

The basic unit for measuring Weight is the Ounce, which was defined in 1705 AD as equal in size to the traditional British unit that could be called either the “Apothecaries’ Ounce” (under which name it was used, in those days, for measuring medicinal materials) or the “Ounce Troy” (under which name it is still used for measuring precious metals) rather than to the slightly lighter “Ounce Avoirdupois” that the British used for weighing materials of most if not all other types: It consequently exceeds the ‘Ounce Avoirdupois’ in size by a factor of approximately 09.7%, as it is equal to 480 ‘Grains’ rather than just to 437.5 of the latter unit. Most sets of weights for balances that are to be used for everyday purposes have divisions of the Ounce on a binary basis (½, ¼, and so on) for the lower end of the series, but those used for various “official” purposes are defined in ‘Pennyweights’ at 12 to the Ounce (and therefore of 40 Grains each, as compared to the British unit of the same name which was a twentieth of the Ounce Troy and thus weighed only 24 Grains: This difference arose because the richer silver deposits of Godwinnia had allowed their old ‘Pennies’ to be that much larger than were the old English ones…) instead.

12 Ounces = 1 Markweight, or Mark (= 1 Pound Troy, or just over 82% of 1 Pound Avoirdupois; sometimes called the “Godwinnian Pound” by outsiders),
12 Markweights = 1 Stone (= just over 9.87 Pounds Avoirdupois),
12 Stones = 1 Grossweight (just a fraction under 118½ Pounds Avoirdupois, and thus roughly comparable to the British ‘Hundredweight’ of 112 lb…),
12 Grossweights = 1 GreatgrossWeight (or ‘Greatweight’) (only a tiny fraction under 1’422 Pounds Avoirdupois, and thus roughly 63% of a Ton…).

The basic unit for measuring Length for most purposes is the Inch, which was set in 1705 AD as equal to the British measurement of the same name and had only differed fractionally from that value beforehand anyway. This is officially defined as having 12 ‘Lines’ as its main subunits, with the old unit of the ‘Barleycorn’ (which is effectively, although not actually officially, included in the modern system too) equal to 4 Lines, although in practice a binary division (½ inch, ¼ inch, and so on) is actually more commonly used for most purposes at this scale.

12 Inches = 1 Foot (which can also be divided into 3 ‘Hands’ @ 4 inches each),
12 Feet = 1 Yoke (which can also be divided into 3 ‘Ells’ @ 4 feet each… and extensive contact with the British during the last few centuries has led to the 3-foot-long ‘Yard’ also entering common use on a quasi-official basis…),
12 Yokes = 1 Rope (which can also be divided into 3 ‘Bights’ @ 4 Ells each),
12 Ropes = 1 Longfurrow (of 144 Ells, which can also be divided into 3 ‘Shortfurrows’ @ 4 Ropes each; this is equal to 576 yards, or just under 1/3 of an English ‘mile’),
12 Longfurrows = 1 League (which, in this system’s one main break with regularity, can also be divided into 4 ‘Miles’ @ 4 ‘Longfurrows’ each; this is equal to 6’912 yards, making 1 Godwinnian Mile — at 1’728 yards — equal to a small fraction over 98% of an English [1’760-yard] mile…).
This system also includes the ‘Dayzride-Length’ of 12 Leagues (48 Godwinnian Miles, or about 47 1/8 English ones), divisible into 3 ‘Longwalk-Lengths’ of 16 <Godwinnian> Miles each, although in practice even official documents are much more likely to use multiples of the League instead at this scale.

However distances on Astronomical scales are normally defined in terms of how much time light would take to travel that far in a vacuum, whilst the aforementioned British influence during recent centuries has also led to the ‘Nautical Mile’ (with its standard subdivisions, and with its derivative the ‘Knot’ as a measurement for Speed too) being commonly used for navigational purposes both at sea and in the air.

The basic unit for measuring Fluid Volume is the Fluid Ounce, which was defined in 1705 AD as being the volume that 1 Ounce of pure Water occupies at its point of maximum density and also as 2 Cubic Inches. (Later & better calculations may have shown that those two definitions don’t quite give the same volume as each other, leading to the latter one being dropped for official purposes, but the comparison would probably be still close enough for most everyday purposes.)

12 Fluid Ounces = 1 Pint (equal to roughly 66% of a British pint, or roughly 82% of an American one),
12 Pints = 1 Gallon (which is just fractionally under 99% of 1 British gallon),
12 Gallons = 1 Keg,
12 Kegs = 1 Barrel,
12 Barrels = 1 Tun.

Area is normally defined in terms of ‘Square Inches’, ‘Square Feet’, ‘Square Ells’ and so on, up to ‘Square Leagues’, although the ‘Square Line’ is much more commonly (and just as officially) called a ‘Point’ instead. However some traditional units have also been retained for the specific purpose of measuring land, although in some of those cases they originally took the relative productivity of the land involved as well as its actual linear measurements into consideration so that their effective sizes in olden times varied somewhat from area to area: According to modern reckoning a ‘Rood’ now equals half of a Square Rope (@ 10’368 Square Feet), a ‘Fieldstripe’ consists of 4 Roods i.e. 2 Square Ropes (or 41’472 Square Feet, compared to the 43’560 that are in an English ‘Acre’), a ‘Yardland’ is 36 Fieldstripes which also equals half of a Square Shortfurrow, and a ‘Hide’ of 4 Yardlands (or 144 Fieldstripes) is therefore equal to 2 Square Shortfurrows.

Temperature is measured in degrees on the Edgarsson Scale, which is named after the Godwinnian scholar named Edmund Swithin Edgarsson who invented it: This defines the range over which pure Water is liquid at normal sea-level pressure as extending from 0o up to +144o… 12 degrees = 1 ‘Edgar’, and 12 Edgars = 1 ‘Range’, although neither of the latter two units has ever enjoyed widespread use. When a possibility of confusion with other scales exists the symbols used to indicate degrees and edgars may be written as “oe” and “ee” respectively.

Miscellanous Notes

The 'national dish' is fish & chips. The main sports played are 'Fieldball', which belongs to the same general class of games as Rugby & American Football, and Cricket.
Oh, and for some unexplained reason the country's Cats can talk...

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(* Ruled 1694-1736)