Wilton

Wilton is a town in Wiltshire, England, which was host to the Kingdom of Wilcsland and its various predecessor states from 1995 until 2019, and the hometown of the House of Mac Donnchadha-Houghton. Named after the River Wylye, Wilton in turn gave its name to the county of Wiltshire. It was considered the official capital of Wilcsland, and despite the kingdom never exercising control over more than a small part of the town, dozens of local schoolchildren living in and around Wilton were involved with or at least aware of Wilcsland at the nation's height from 2009-11.

History

Pre-Wilcslandian

Wilton has a long and interesting history. It was once capital of Wiltshire and a royal seat of the ancient Kingdom of Wessex, and was the site of a defeat of Alfred the Great by the Danes in 871. It also saw a defeat of King Stephen by the forces of the Empress Matilda on 1 July 1143.

Wilton Abbey was founded in the early 800s by King Egbert of Wessex and his sister St. Alburga, who became its first abbess. Another royal saint at Wilton Abbey was St. Edith (961-984), illegitimate daughter of King Edgar, who lived there under the spiritual direction of her mother St. Wilfrida (d. 988), the abbess, who had become a nun soon after her illicit liason with the king. Despite Edith's illegitimacy, she was asked to take the throne upon the death of her half-brother Edward, as well as during his contentious rise to the throne, but both times refused out of devotion to her life in the Abbey. Other saints connected to Wilton Abbey are St Wulfhida of Barking (940-c.990), who began her life as a nun there, and St Iwig of Lindisfarne (d. c. 690), a Northumbrian hermit (and disciple of St Cuthbert) whose relics were translated to the Abbey in the mid-10th century.

The Abbey was surrendered to the Crown in 1539 during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. No trace of the buildings now remain, with the site now home to Wilton House, seat of the Earls of Pembroke.

Wilton is mentioned in the Domesday Book along with Salisbury. The town once flourished and became very rich. But when the Cathedral of Old Sarum was moved into the valley and rebuilt as a 404 ft high cathedral a new city called New Sarum (Salisbury) was built. The construction of this small city meant that traders and people did not have to go through Wilton anymore, diverting the economy and hitting the town quite hard, although Wilton became home to a prosperous carpet factory from the mid-1700s. Hundreds of years on, in the 20th century, Wilton had lots of shops and two train stations. However, as time went on people took their shops and moved to Salisbury - which has come to completely eclipse Wilton economically - and the two train stations were closed in 1965 and 1966.

Wilcslandian

The origins of micronationalism in Wilton are hazy, but c. 1995 the Chiefdom of the Plains, the first in a series of playground-based small polities established by schoolchildren, was established at Wilton First School. Ruled by Nectombetec I, the Chiefdom of the Plains had by 1998 splintered into or directly inspired three smaller chiefdoms; one of these, the Chiefdom of the Sun, conquered the other two over the course of 1999 under the leadership of Nectombetec II. On 1 May 2002, Nectombetec II migrated the Chiefdom of the Sun to another nearby site and established the Kingdom of South Bank, re-assuming his birth name and ruling as King Declan I.

In September 2003, many of the citizens of South Bank started at Wilton Middle School, where the kingdom was refounded by Declan I as the Kingdom of Atlantis. Atlantis saw conflict and interaction with various vassals and rivals which it founded or inspired, most of which were conquered by Declan I. Another migration took place when Declan left Key Stage 2 and started at Westwood St Thomas School in September 2005; those citizens of Atlantis and the nations under its sphere of influence who went with Declan were now refounded into the Kingdom of the Taklamacan.

On 11 June 2009, Declan I created a new nation, the Kingdom of Moylurg, which in March 2010 annexed the Taklamacan and another Wilton-based nation named Corran. Unlike the other two nations, Moylurg claimed various properties and territories around all of Wilton, and was not based purely within the grounds of a school. Its activities and influence therefore spread around the whole town, leading to Declan I proclaiming all Wilton to be the official capital of Moylurg.

Although Declan I had been the driving force behind Moylurg and its predecessor states since his conquests of 1999, Wilton produced many other leaders who actively aided or challenged him. Barry I and Alexander I rebelled against him, co-monarchs and vassals such as Laura I and John I supported him as active monarchs in their own right, and he was even overthrown for a week by Joshua I. However, by mid-2010 Declan I had become the undisputed and unassailable leader of Moylurg, and was keen to promote and display his right to absolute power and authority.

It was at this time that Moylurg began to engage in foreign affairs with nations outside of Wilton. This led to an official state visit from the Empire of Austenasia to Moylurg on 7 August 2010. Crown Prince Jonathan, Prime Minister of Austenasia, along with his sister Princess Caroline, mother Vicereine Margaret and grandmother Dame Joyce, met Declan I in Wilton and were given a tour of the site of the carpet factory and nearby shops, and a treaty was signed establishing an alliance between Moylurg and Austenasia.

Wilton remained the home of Moylurg until it was renamed to the Kingdom of Wilcsland on 10 November 2010. The nation continued to thrive until mid-2011, by which point many of Wilcsland's subjects had lost contact with Declan I. By 2013, the kingdom existed in little more than name, and soon afterwards Declan I left Wilton and moved to London, cutting off contact with his former citizens. Despite Declan I being overthrown and replaced by his brother Ptolemy II in December 2014, there was little to no recognition of this in Wilton; Wilcsland never recovered, and was officially dissolved in 2019.