Kingdom of Rushymia

This article is about the contemporary Austenasian crown dependency. See here for the original kingdom based in the Playground between 1995 and 2000 and later nominally resurrected as a legal entity between 2010 and 2018.

Rushymia
Crown Dependency of Austenasia
Prodromia, as seen from Westwood.
Flag
Satellite view
Established (original)	October 1995
Established (modern)	29 August 2018
Government
• King	Jonathan I
• Vizier	Fabian Sapong
Area
• Total	0.14301 km2 (0.05522 sq mi)
Population
• Total	0
Time zone	UTC+1

The Kingdom of Rushymia is an uninhabited Crown Dependency of the Empire of Austenasia ruled directly by the Austenasian Monarch in their role as King of Rushymia. Rushymia claims legal continuity with a micronation of the same name which existed from 1995-2000.

Etymology

The name Rushymia is a portmanteau of "Rushy Meadow", the name of the primary school at which the original iteration of the kingdom was based. The name is customarily assumed to have been created by General James upon Rushymia's founding in October 1995 to designate the realm over which he had taken military control, but alternative traditions state that the polity had simply been known as "the Playground" until the coronation of King Billy in September 1997, when the name of Rushymia was created to give a more dignified appellation to his kingdom.

History

Rushymia was a non-sovereign micronation existing in the playground of a Carshalton primary school between 1995 and 2000, which transitioned from a military dictatorship to a monarchy in late 1997. Upon the abdication of King Alex (r. 1997-2000), he decreed that his legitimate successor would be the first person to retrieve a plastic bottle which he lodged high in a fence. None of his former subjects were able to achieve this feat, and so government of Rushymia quickly collapsed. A decade later, on 17 October 2010, the bottle was finally retrieved by Esmond III of Austenasia, who claimed the title King of Rushymia and so united the legal right to the crown of Rushymia with the Austenasian Throne.

For several years, the Emperors of Austenasia did nothing with their legal right to the Rushymian crown other than bestow various associated ceremonial titles. However, on 31 October 2017, the Parliament of Austenasia passed the Rushymia Act 2017, authorising the Monarch to make use of his title of King of Rushymia and claim an area of land on which to refound the kingdom as an Austenasian Crown Dependency. On 7 April 2018, notices were placed around an unused area of land in the United Kingdom under a mile from Wrythe announcing the intention of the Austenasian government to claim the land as a new site for Rushymia should no objections be raised.

No responses or objections were received from the notices, and so Emperor Jonathan I claimed the current site for Austenasia as the new location of Rushymia by an Imperial Edict on 29 August 2018. As 29 August is the feast day of the Beheading of John the Baptist, Jonathan I named St John the Baptist as patron saint of Rushymia.

On 15 May 2021, Jonathan I appointed Fabian Sapong as Vizier of Rushymia, to act as his viceroy and administer the kingdom in person. Sapong thereby became the first person to hold said office as anything more than a ceremonial title in more than two decades.

Government

Rushymia is an Austenasian Crown Dependency, and as such - although it is under Austenasian sovereignty and has no independent foreign or military policy - it is completely autonomous from the central government. Crown Dependencies fall under the absolute rule of the Monarch, who is generally represented by a Governing Commissioner; Rushymia is unique in that it is ruled directly by the Monarch as King of Rushymia. In the absence of the king, Rushymia is governed by his deputy, the Vizier of Rushymia. Two other titles - Warlord of the Playground and General of Rushymia - remain legally extant from the original kingdom and available for the King to bestow, but are currently vacant.