Grove Koger

The chances are that you’ve never heard of Sealand. But I’ve been reading about the place recently, and here’s what I’ve learned.

Sealand is properly known as the Principality of Sealand, and exists on (or should I say “in”?) a seafort off the mouth of Britain’s Thames River. Seaforts are military installations that were designed by Guy Maunsell (1884-1961) and erected by Britain in the estuaries of the Thames and Mersey rivers during World War II to guard against German air raids and the deployment of mines.  

The installations were abandoned after the war, but one, Roughs Tower, was later occupied by adventurer Paddy Roy Bates and operated as a pirate radio station. Like the other forts, Roughs Tower was outside Britain’s territorial limits at the time, and although British authorities made several efforts to seize it from Bates and his family, the efforts were eventually abandoned as being unproductive.

The saga of Sealand is recounted at some length in Dylan Taylor-Lehman’s 2020 book Sealand: The True Story of the World’s Most Stubborn Micronation and Its Eccentric Royal Family (Diversion Books).

Taylor-Lehman refers to Sealand as a “micronation,” and explains that the term is distinct from “microstate,” which is “a tiny country recognized worldwide with membership in international organizations.” As examples of the latter, he cites Andorra, Lichtenstein, and Niue. A micronation, he says, “is generally defined as as an invented country within the territory of an established nation whose boundaries typically go unrecognized on the world stage.” They’ve been declared “for reasons serious and tongue-in-cheek,” but, as he points out, “Sealand was founded on territory that was in genuinely international waters and has endured since 1967. All the while, the Sealanders have fought to keep these claims alive in ways unmatched by most other micronations.”And, on top of everything else, we can think of Sealand as a very small island, or at least as something like an island.

I’ve visited some pretty small islands, here and there (as well as Lichtenstein), and I can testify that their appeal is real, at least to some. I’m reminded in this regard of D.H. Lawrence, who wrote a cruel short story, “The Man Who Loved Islands,” about just such a person. The story’s protagonist—Cathcart—was modeled on a real individual, fellow writer Compton Mackenzie, who was attracted to islands. Mackenzie had spent a few years with his wife on the Italian island of Capri during the second decade of the twentieth century, and went on to buy and live on, successively, two small islands in the English Channel, Herm and Jethou. Subsequently, he made his home on the Scottish island of Barra. So intense was his interest in such things that he became known as a “collector” of islands—which strikes me as a pretty good thing. In Lawrence’s story, however, Cathcart’s moves to increasingly small islands are indicative of growing mental illness.

But to get back to Sealand … Its online site explains that it “was founded as a sovereign Principality on a military fortress,” and that its national motto is “E Mare Libertas”—“From the Sea, Freedom.” It has its own flag, passports, currency, stamps, and even its own Facebook page. What more could you ask? Perhaps a noble title? Well, that can be arranged. A knighthood, for instance, goes for $149.99, for which you’ll receive a digital, printable deed of title. There are classic and premium grades of knighthood as well, the latter of which comes with a title deed personally signed by Paddy Roy Bates’ son and current sovereign, Prince Michael of Sealand.

If you’d like to learn more about the entity from which you might be procuring your knighthood, you can watch a 60 Minutes episode about the principality here.

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