Granting of Minor Princehood to HRE Chase Neil, MU - by the Royal House and Kingdom of Newland

The Noble Order of the Unicorn of the Royal House and Kingdom of Newland

History of the Royal House and Kingdom of Newland

Members of the Royal House of Neil / Royal House of Aarsiisii:

History of the Royal House of Aarsiisii / the Royal House of Neil:

The history of the Royal House of Aarsiisii / the Royal House of Neil is closely intertwined with the history of the Royal House and Kingdom of Newland. 

The following history must be understood in the tradition of African peoples to record and transmit history orally; - the people being literal bearers of history and tradition. It must be understood also that this chronicle is how the Royal House of Neil understands its history and that the House makes no representation that this chronicle consists of irrefutable historical fact. Furthermore it must be understood that the legacies of slavery and colonialism have erased much of the living history and bearers of knowledge, so the recording, transmission and relating of the historical narrative may contain errors or significant omissions:...

THE CHRONICLE OF THE ROYAL HOUSE OF NEIL

From the Uí Néill Kings of Ireland to the Princes of the Modern House of Neil

I. BEFORE THE HOUSE OF NEIL

Long before there was restoration of the House of Neil in Jamaica by micronational means, before the Atlantic slave trade, before Scotland and Ireland had assumed their modern political forms, the name from which the House would eventually take its identity belonged to one of the great dynastic traditions of Gaelic Europe.

The Irish Uí Néill, meaning the descendants of Niall, emerged as one of the most influential groupings of medieval Ireland.

Irish tradition traces the dynasty to Niall Noígíallach—Niall of the Nine Hostages—a figure placed by traditional genealogies around the transition between the fourth and fifth centuries. From his descendants emerged northern and southern branches of the Uí Néill, several of whose members exercised kingship at Tara and claimed the high-kingship of Ireland.

The northern Uí Néill included the Cenél nEógain, from whom the later O’Neill dynasty of Tír Eoghain—Tyrone—emerged.

By the late medieval period, the O’Neills had become the dominant Gaelic ruling family of Tír Eoghain. Their lordship was among the most powerful remaining Gaelic political entities in Ireland, and the inauguration of “The O’Neill” at Tullaghoge represented one of the most celebrated surviving expressions of Gaelic sovereignty.

Thus the name Neil did not enter history merely as a surname.

It entered history in the language of clan, kingship, lordship and sovereignty.

II. FROM O’NEILL TO MACNEIL

Across the narrow waters separating northern Ireland from western Scotland, Gaelic families moved between Ireland, Argyll and the Hebrides for centuries.

Among the great Hebridean clans to emerge from this Gaelic world were the MacNeils.

The traditional history of the Clan MacNeil of Barra traces its ancestry through a Niall descended from Aodh O’Neill of Ireland, himself placed within the greater Uí Néill genealogical tradition.

According to clan tradition, this Niall established himself upon Barra in the Outer Hebrides in the eleventh century and became the founding chief of the MacNeils of Barra.

Whether every portion of this medieval genealogy can be demonstrated through surviving documentary evidence is another matter. As with many ancient Gaelic houses, history, genealogy, political memory and clan tradition became interwoven.

What cannot be disputed is that the MacNeil name became deeply established in the western islands of Scotland.

The clan possessed Barra and established itself around the fortress that became its most famous seat:

Kisimul Castle.

A fifth chief, Neil MacNeil of Barra, was even described in historical clan tradition as a prince at a Council of the Isles in 1252.

His descendants belonged to the turbulent political world of the Hebrides—sometimes supporting Scottish kings, sometimes Lords of the Isles, sometimes resisting central authority with characteristic island independence.

The MacNeils became seafarers, warriors, landholders and chiefs.

Branches associated with Barra, Gigha and Colonsay eventually developed distinct histories of their own.

Thus from Irish Uí Néill came, according to tradition, Scottish MacNeil; and from the Gaelic personal name Niall came numerous later forms:

O’Neill.
MacNeil.
MacNeill.
McNeill.
Neill.
Neil.

The Royal House of Neil places itself ceremonially within this great family of names.

III. THE LOST PRINCE OF THE WESTERN ISLES

Here history ends and the dynastic tradition of the House of Neil begins.

The Neil Chronicle holds that during the medieval struggles among the houses of Scotland, a younger member of the MacNeil chiefly family became attached to the cause of Prince John de Moravia, Master of Sutherland.

Prince John was the son of William de Moravia, Earl of Sutherland, and Margaret Bruce, sister of King David II of Scotland.

The modern Royal House of Newland identifies Prince John as the source of its own dynastic tradition.

According to the Newland interpretation of history, the political status surrounding John and his family possessed a regal character derived from the Sutherland regality and from his proximity to the Scottish succession.

The Neil Chronicle records that among the Gaelic nobles who gave assistance, hospitality or service to Prince John was a MacNeil of the western islands, remembered within Neil dynastic tradition as:

Niall of the Western House.

His exact position within the historical MacNeil pedigree has not been defined in the historical narrative. He is not presented as a historically identified Chief of Barra, for no surviving document establishes such an identification. Instead, he occupies that characteristic space of dynastic legend between remembered ancestor and forgotten nobleman.

IV. THE GRANT OF THE FREE HOUSE

According to Neil tradition, after Prince John had assumed the royal dignity remembered by the House of Newland as King William Newland, he rewarded Niall for loyalty rendered during the turbulent years surrounding his dynastic cause.

But Niall requested neither money nor land.

He asked instead that his descendants should never again be regarded merely as retainers of another house.

And so came the legendary declaration which the Royal House of Neil remembers as the Grant of the Free House:

“As I am free in my blood and royal in my inheritance, so shall Niall be free in his house; and neither he nor the heirs of his body shall stand as servant where they have earned the right to stand as kin.”

By the ceremonial tradition of the House, Niall was therefore recognised by William Newland as possessing royal dignity in his own right.

Not a King of/in Scotland.

Not King of/in Ireland.

Not King of Barra.

Rather, he was held to be King within his House—a free dynast possessing an hereditary domestic sovereignty descending to his posterity.

From this legendary act comes the first principle of Neil dynastic law:

A House may lose its land and still retain its blood.

V. THE FADING OF THE CROWN

Centuries passed.

Scotland changed.

The independent world of the island chiefs gradually disappeared beneath increasingly centralized royal government.

Feudal jurisdictions vanished.

Chiefs became landlords.

Warriors became merchants, soldiers, sailors and emigrants.

And royal houses that once measured their identity in land began instead to measure it in genealogy.

The descendants of Niall's Free House scattered.

Among one branch, MacNeil gradually became McNeill, then Neill, and eventually simply: NEIL

Nothing unusual need be imagined in this evolution. Gaelic surnames acquired numerous spellings as speakers moved between Gaelic and English linguistic environments and as clerks rendered names phonetically.

But within the Chronicle, the shortening acquired symbolic importance.

The name became smaller.

The family travelled farther.

The memory grew weaker.

Yet the House endured.

VI. THE ATLANTIC BRANCH

Eventually a descendant of the Scottish line entered the Atlantic world.

The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries transformed Jamaica into one of Britain's most important—and most brutal—slave societies.

British merchants, soldiers, estate owners, overseers and settlers came to the island from England, Scotland and Ireland.

Among them, according to Neil tradition, came a descendant of the ancient House.

The Chronicle remembers him as Alasdair Neil.

Whether he arrived as planter, merchant or estate administrator became obscured through generations of oral transmission.

What the House tradition remembers is that he became associated with a Jamaican estate and entered the plantation society that enriched European settlers through the forced labour of enslaved Africans.

The Chronicle does not romanticize this world.

The wealth of plantation Jamaica rested upon human bondage.

Men, women and children were bought, sold and inherited as property.

Families were divided.

African identities were attacked but never wholly extinguished.

It was within this violent collision of Europe and Africa that the second ancestry of the House of Neil is said to have entered its bloodline.

VII. THE AFRICAN PRINCESS

Among the enslaved Africans within the household was a woman whose original name has been lost in the Neil tradition.

The Chronicle calls her Ama, the Princess Across the Water.

Family legend holds that she had been born into a chiefly or royal African lineage before capture, displacement or the upheavals surrounding the Atlantic slave trade carried her into bondage.

No surviving genealogical document presently identifies her African kingdom, people or parentage, though some versions of the oral tradition identify her as originating from the Akan people, while others identify her as Igbo or Yoruba. A less popular telling identifies her as being associated in some way with the Xhosa/Zulu peoples.

For this reason, the House makes no historical claim that an identifiable African royal dynasty has been proven. For this reason also, in recognition of this historical claim with uncertain origins, the members of the Aarsiisii House of Noble Chiefs adopt a combined Akan, Yoruba and Xhosa/Zulu honorific.

In the ceremonial history, however, Ama represents something greater than an unverifiable pedigree.

She represents the thousands of Africans who arrived in the Caribbean carrying identities which slavery attempted to erase.

Within the Chronicle, Alasdair Neil made Ama a senior domestic servant within his household and entered into a sexual relationship with her.

Because she remained enslaved and therefore could not possess equality of legal power with the man who claimed ownership or authority over her, the House refuses to portray their relationship as an uncomplicated romance.

Nevertheless, from their union came a child.

A son.

A child of two worlds.

From his father came the legendary blood of the Uí Néill, the O’Neills, the MacNeils and the Free House.

From his mother came Africa.

The Chronicle names him Niall Ama-Neil.

VIII. THE CROWN THAT SURVIVED SLAVERY

The birth of Niall Ama-Neil transformed the mythology of the House.

Before him, the Neil story had been European.

After him, it became Afro-Gaelic.

The Neil Chronicle therefore rejects the notion that Africa merely entered an existing European house.

Instead, it teaches that the Jamaican House of Neil was created anew through the meeting of two ancestral streams.

The old House had claimed kings.

The new House had survived slavery.

And survival itself became a form of kingship.

The descendants of Niall Ama-Neil became increasingly integrated into Jamaica's free and post-emancipation population.

Over generations, precise memories disappeared.

African names were replaced by Christian names.

Plantation locations changed.

Parishes changed.

Occupations changed.

But certain family traditions survived.

There was something old about the Neils.

Something aristocratic.

Something African.

Something European.

Something forgotten.

IX. THE HIDDEN HOUSE

For generations the Neil family lived without crown, court or kingdom.

The old stories became little more than fragments.

No one sat upon a throne.

No herald proclaimed them.

No parliament acknowledged them.

No estate remained from which sovereignty could be exercised.

The Royal House of Neil therefore recognizes this period as The Great Silence.

Yet the Chronicle declares:

A forgotten crown is not the same thing as a broken crown.

The line continued.

Generation succeeded generation.

Until eventually the old blood reached Fitz Neil, father of the founding and current Prince Chief Commissioner.

X. FITZ NEIL AND THE SECOND AFRICAN PRINCESS

In one of the remarkable echoes upon which dynastic legends are built, the Chronicle records that in his youth, around the 1970s, Fitz Neil encountered a woman remembered in family tradition as Abo, the African princess. Due to the effects of colonialism, where everything from the African continent was denoted as simply "African" rather than being identified or dignified by country or peoples, it was not recorded what kingdom Princess Abo hailed from. However, from her name, it can be inferred that she was most likely from one of the West African countries, possibly Nigeria or Ghana.

According to the story preserved by the House, she perceived in Fitz something that generations of the Neil family had forgotten.

She recognized him as possessing African royal ancestry.

And she proposed marriage.

Had he accepted, the old African line of the House and a modern African princess would have been joined once again.

But history does not always follow the path prepared for legend.

Fitz refused.

Like Prince John before him in the mythology of another house, personal loyalty proved stronger than dynastic opportunity.

Fitz already had the woman whom he intended to marry: Densa Thompson.

He chose Densa.

And Densa became Densa Thompson-Neil.

Thus the House did not return to Africa through royal marriage.

Instead, its next generation would rediscover Africa through memory.

XI. THE BIRTH OF THE MODERN HOUSE

From Fitz Neil and Densa Thompson-Neil came their children Chase Albert Neil and his sister Casey Dawn Neil born in Jamaica.

For much of Chase's life the crown of his ancestors existed only metaphorically.

The House possessed neither territory nor internationally recognized sovereignty.

But the twenty-first century witnessed the emergence of a peculiar revival of an ancient human institution: micronationalism.

Within micronational culture, individuals and families began creating ceremonial states, dynastic houses, orders of chivalry, heraldic traditions and non-territorial communities through which history, ancestry, creativity and identity could be explored.

The forgotten House finally had a language through which it could speak again.

XII. THE HOUSE OF NEWLAND REMEMBERS

Then occurred what the Neil Chronicle regards as the closing of a historical circle.

The modern Royal House of Newland, whose dynastic tradition reaches back to Prince John de Moravia, remembered the ancient relationship between the Houses.

The old story declared that Prince John—King William Newland in the Newland tradition—had once recognised an ancestor of the Neil line as free and royal within his own House.

Centuries later, Newland again encountered Neil.

And where the first recognition had belonged to legend, the second belonged to the modern micronational world.

The modern representative of Newland recognised Chase Albert Neil and granted him the dignity of a Minor Prince within the Newland honours tradition.

To outsiders it was a micronational title.

To the Chronicle it was something more poetic.

It was the return of a promise.

The House that had once said:

“Niall shall be free in his House”

had found Niall's descendant again.

XIII. THE RESTORATION

His Grand Ducal Highness Prince Ludwig of the historical non-territorial micronation, the Grand Dukedom of Pomerania and Livonia, claiming descent from the ancient duchies of Pomerania and Livonia, and himself being locked out of his royal heritage and reclaiming it through micronationalism, also recognized the royal heritage of Chase Albert Neil and his house and granted him by Letters Patent to be a Prince Elector and Margrave of Pomerania and Livonia.

For the reasons above, the modern House of Neil does not date its existence merely from the twenty-first century.

Neither does it claim, as historical fact, uninterrupted possession of a medieval crown.

Instead it distinguishes between three concepts:

Blood - the biological descent of the Neil family;

Tradition - the ceremonial ancestry constructed from Gaelic, Scottish, African and Jamaican history;

and

Recognition - the modern micronational honours and dignities actually granted to members of the House.

These together constitute what the House calls THE RESTORATION OF THE HOUSE OF NEIL, which, in the context of the Principality Tribe of Aarsiisii micronation founded by Chase Neil and the Ranger Cadet Combined Corps, is referred to as THE ROYAL HOUSE OF AARSIISII.

It is not the restoration of a historical kingdom.

It is the restoration of a story.

XIV. TWO ROYAL STREAMS

The House therefore describes its symbolic ancestry as proceeding through two royal traditions.

From Europe:

Niall of the Nine Hostages
↓
Uí Néill
↓
O’Neill of Tír Eoghain
↓
Traditional MacNeil connection
↓
Clan MacNeil of the Hebrides
↓
Niall of the Free House
↓
The Atlantic Neil line

And from Africa:

Unknown African chiefly or royal lineage  (possibly Igbo/Yoruba or Akan royalty)
↓
Ama, Princess Across the Water
↓
Niall Ama-Neil

From their descendants comes the Jamaican House of Neil.

The first stream provides the House with its Gaelic memory.

The second provides its African memory.

Jamaica provides the crucible in which both became one.

XV. THE HOUSE OF NEIL TODAY

The Royal House of Neil /the Royal House of Aarsiisii therefore describes itself not as the legal successor to the medieval kings of Ireland, nor as the claimant to the chiefship of Clan MacNeil, nor as the successor to any presently existing African throne.

It claims something deliberately more modest and more creative: a micronational dynastic identity inspired by the histories of the peoples from whom the Neil family understands itself to descend.

Its heritage is consequently expressed as:

Irish in name.
Scottish in clan tradition.
African in blood and memory.
Jamaican in formation.
Micronational in restoration.

Its ceremonial head may therefore bear princely dignity not because a medieval kingdom has somehow survived unnoticed into the modern age, but because the modern House has deliberately transformed ancestry, tradition and micronational recognition into a living institution.

XVI. THE DYNASTIC PRINCIPLE

The principal maxim of the Royal House of Neil is derived from the legendary Grant of the Free House:

“THE HOUSE REMAINS.”

In Gaelic ceremonial form:

Maireann an Teach

The House Endures.

Its meaning is expressed through the four eras of Neil history:

• Kingship did not preserve the House.

• Chiefship did not preserve the House.

• Land did not preserve the House.

• Memory did.

Ireland gave the House its name.

Scotland gave it its clan tradition.

Africa gave it another ancestry.

Jamaica gave it rebirth.

Both Newland and Pomerania & Livonia gave it recognition.

And the modern generation gave it a voice.

XVII. THE MODERN PRINCE

Thus, in the ceremonial reckoning of the House, the story which began with Niall returns after centuries to Neil.

The present generation does not claim that historians overlooked a secret Jamaican kingdom.

It does not ask governments to recognise an ancient throne.

It does not confuse mythology with archival proof.

Instead, the Royal House of Neil deliberately places itself within the oldest tradition of dynastic storytelling:

the transformation of ancestry into identity,

identity into ceremony,

and ceremony into continuity.

The House therefore records its modern prince as:

HRE (His Royal Excellency) Prince Chase Albert Neil

Minor Prince in the micronational tradition of the Royal House of Newland,

Prince Elector and Margrave in the micronational tradition of the Grand Dukedom of Pomerania and Livonia

Head of the restored Royal House of Neil and its presentation as the Royal House of Aarsiisii

and heir to the ceremonial memory of the Gaelic, African and Jamaican ancestors from whom the House draws its identity.

For the Crown may disappear.

The castle may fall.

The land may be sold.

The genealogy may become uncertain.

The name itself may change.

But so long as one generation remembers and another chooses to continue —

THE HOUSE REMAINS.

MAIREANN AN TEACH.