Anglo-Corsican Kingdom
Anglo-Corsican Kingdom Regno di Corsica | |||||||||
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| 1794–1796 | |||||||||
 Flag1
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| Motto: Amici e non di ventura (English: Friends, and not by mere accident) | |||||||||
| Anthem: Dio vi Salvi Regina | |||||||||
 Location of Corsica in Europe | |||||||||
| Status | Unrecognized state | ||||||||
| Capital | Corte, then Bastia | ||||||||
| Common languages | Italian, Corsican, French, English | ||||||||
| Religion | Roman Catholic | ||||||||
| Government | Parliamentary democracy and Constitutional monarchy | ||||||||
| King2 | |||||||||
| President of the Council of State | |||||||||
| Legislature | Parliament | ||||||||
| Historical era | Age of Enlightenment | ||||||||
• Established | June 17 1794 | ||||||||
| October 19 1796 | |||||||||
| Area | |||||||||
| 8,680 km2 (3,350 sq mi) | |||||||||
| Currency | soldi | ||||||||
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1The flag of the kingdom was the Corsican Moor's head united with the British royal arms. 2 Represented by a Viceroy. | |||||||||
The Anglo-Corsican Kingdom was a short-lived self-declared independent state on the island of Corsica during the mid-1790s.
Background and history of the kingdom
During the time of the French Revolution, Corsica had been a part of France for just two decades. The Corsican leader Pasquale Paoli, who had been exiled under the monarchy, became something of an idol of liberty and democracy, and in 1789 was invited to Paris by the National Constituent Assembly, where he was celebrated as a hero in front of the assembly. He was afterwards sent back to Corsica with the rank of lieutenant-general.
However, Paoli eventually split from the revolutionary movement over the issue of the execution of the king, and threw in his lot with the royalist party. Accused of treason by the French National Convention, he summoned a consulta (assembly) at Corte in 1793, with himself as president, and where Corsica's formal secession from France was declared. He requested the protection of the the British government, then at war with revolutionary France, and suggested the Kingdom of Ireland as a model for an autonomous kingdom under the British monarch. In 1794 Britain sent a fleet to Corsica under Admiral Hood. For a short time, Corsica was added to the dominions of King George III, chiefly by the exertions of Hood's fleet, and Paoli's cooperation.
Sir Gilbert Elliot represented the king's government as viceroy. Carlo Andrea Pozzo di Borgo was procureur-general-syndic (chief of the civil government), and later president of the council of state.
The relationship between Paoli's government and the British was never clearly defined, however, resulting in numerous questions of authority; in particular, tensions arose from the conflict between Sir Gilbert's loyalty to the British monarchy, and Paoli's republican leanings and desire to defend Corsican autonomy. There was also a pronounced division between Corte, the traditional capital and an inland stronghold, and Bastia on the coast, where Sir Gilbert moved the capital in early 1795, and which was the center for French and Corsican royalists.[1] At last the crown invited Paoli to resign and return to exile in Britain with a pension, which, having no alternative, he did in 1796. On October 19, 1796, the French reconquered Bastia, the British withdrew, and Corsica became a French département.[2]
References
- ^ Thrasher, Peter Adam (1970). Pasquale Paoli: An Enlightened Hero 1725-1807. Hamden, CT: Archon Books. pp. 291–326. ISBN 0208010319.
- ^ Gregory, Desmond (1985). The Ungovernable Rock: A History of the Anglo-Corsican Kingdom and Its Role in Britain's Mediterranean Strategy During the Revolutionary War, 1793-1797. London: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. p. 171. ISBN 0838632254.