Acting Witan of Mercia

The Twenty Shires of Mercia

The Mercia Movement was formed in 1993 to produce the blueprint for the Draft Constitution for Mercia, along with a work entitled 'The Mercia Manifesto: A blueprint for the future inspired by the past'. The Mercian Constitutional Convention was formed in Birmingham on 17 March 2001 and decided to accept the Draft Constitution for Mercia as the basis for its deliberations.[3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] The Convention debated the draft for over two years and passed a series of amendments to it, although the essence of the draft remained the same and most of its content was unaltered. The Convention published the final draft of its work as The Constitution Of Mercia, a 21-page booklet, in 2003. It consisted of 28 Articles and numerous sub-articles and claimed to be 'the ultimate legal authority in Mercia', stated in Article 1.1 to 'comprise its historic twenty shires ([1] Bedfordshire, [2] Buckinghamshire, [3] Cambridgeshire, [4] Cheshire, [5] Derbyshire, [6] Gloucestershire, [7] Herefordshire, [8] Hertfordshire, [9] Huntingdonshire, [10] Leicestershire, [11] Lincolnshire, [12] Middlesex, [13] Northamptonshire, [14] Nottinghamshire, [15] Oxfordshire, [16] Rutland, [17] Shropshire, [18] Staffordshire, [19] Warwickshire and [20] Worcestershire) or such of these as find a common Mercian identity and wish to be included in the region'.[14][15][16][17][18] The Constitution offered a new holistic society in Mercia, based on organic democracy, co-operative community and ecological balance.[19][20]

Declaration of Mercian Independence

On 29 May 2003, three members of the Convention (Jeff Kent, Joyce Millington and David Bastable) issued the Declaration of Mercian Independence, in Victoria Square, Birmingham, in the heart of the region.[10][21][11][22][23][24] After the declaration, the Convention renamed itself the Acting Witan of Mercia, which aimed to spearhead the full democratisation of the region and the re-establishment of its de facto independence.[19][25][15][17][26][27][28][29][30] On 29 May 2004, the first Mercian Independence Day anniversary, members of the Acting Witan launched a new currency for the region, the Mercian penny, in Victoria Square, Birmingham, and handed out the coins free to people who registered as citizens of Mercia.[31][32][24] By May 2009, over 2,000 people had registered as Mercian citizens.[33][34] On 26 February 2010, outside the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, in Stoke-on-Trent, the convener of the Acting Witan (Jeff Kent) and the Acting Sheriff of Staffordshire (Philip Snow) made a declaration claiming the Staffordshire Hoard to be the property of the citizens of Mercia.[35][36][34]

• Regionalism (politics)
• Secession

• 1066: The Story of a Year, Denis Butler, Anthony Blond Ltd, 1966.
• 1066: The Year of the Conquest, David Howarth, Wm Collins Sons & Co Ltd, 1978.
• The English Rebel: One thousand Years of Troublemaking from the Normans to the Nineties, David Horspool, ISBN 978-0-141-02547-6, Penguin Books, 2010.
• A Radical Reader: The struggle for change in England, 1381-1914, Christopher Hampton (editor), Penguin Books Ltd, 1984.
• Liberty Against The Law, Essay 5, Robin Hood, and Essay 6, Robin Hood, Possessive Individualism and the Norman Yoke, Christopher Hill, ISBN 0-713-99119-4, The Penguin Press, 1996.
• The English Resistance: The Underground War Against the Normans, Peter Rex, ISBN 0-7524282-7-6, Tempus Publishing Ltd, 2004.
• Bondmen Made Free: Medieval Peasant Movements and the English Rising of 1381, Rodney Hilton, ISBN 9780-4150188-0-7, Routledge, 1995.
• Puritanism & Revolution, Essay 3, The Norman Yoke, Christopher Hill, ISBN 0-4362032-0-0, Secker & Warburg, 1958.
• The Mercia Manifesto: A blueprint for the future inspired by the past, The Mercia Movement, ISBN 0-9529152-1-9, Witan Books, 1997.
• A Draft Constitution For Mercia, The Mercia Movement, ISBN 0-9529152-4-3, Witan Books, 2001.
• The Constitution Of Mercia, The Mercian Constitutional Convention, ISBN 0-9529152-6-X, Witan Books, 2003.

• http://www.independentmercia.org