And technically, George III wasn’t king of England either. It’s just fairly common to call the monarch of the UK “The King/Queen of England” because people tend to forget about Scotland and N. Ireland.
Poor old Wales - first the EU forgets it exists and now this…
And then you have poor Monmouth (what is it now, Gwent or something?) – not part of England or of Wales! 
That’s precisely what we want you to think old chap…
Actually, according to the Treaty of Paris linked above, he was: " the most serene and most potent Prince George the Third, by the grace of God, king of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, defender of the faith, duke of Brunswick and Lunebourg, arch-treasurer and prince elector of the Holy Roman Empire etc."
The current Queen is titled: “'Queen Elizabeth II by the Grace of God, Queen of this Realm and of Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.”
Hey, even the Act of Union forgot Wales existed.
If it were only that easy for thhe rest of us.
I’d say you’d want to be ignoring wales after they stuffed your rugby team. Ha!
Yes,that was a sweet victory but the edge was taken off it when even the French did it as well.
Back to the topic of the thread… (well sort of,) It’s worth mentioning that the first time a British monarch saluted the American Flag was Queen Victoria in 1887, at a command performance of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show in London. Legalities aside, for many this was the moment England truly recognized the US.
http://historynet.com/we/blannieoakley/index1.html
http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/hst/biography/LastoftheGreatScouts/chap27.html
So I guess the Treaty of Ghent in 1814 doesn’t count. Nor the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of the 1840s. Nor the numerous other treaties the two countries signed.
It all comes to down to Buffalo Bill
[Hank Hill]
They were happy to recognize our soverignty when we saved their asses in World War II, I’ll tell you what!
[/Hank Hill]
Well, that’s a snarky way of putting it, but yes. Need I point out that Britian signed the treaty of Paris in 1783, as pointed out earlier in this thread, yet they still attacked us in 1812?
To put Buffalo Bill’s moment in perspective: Imagine the top performer in all of North Korea puts on a show celebrating North Korean pride, and highlighting everything about North Korea that separates it from the rest of the world. Imagine they bring this show to Washington, and Bush requests a command performance. Then imagine they bring out the North Korean flag, and Bush stands up and bows to it.
Of course, I hope that doesn’t happen, but you can see that if it did, it would change the way all of us saw North Korea and our relationship with the place. That’s effectively what Buffalo Bill’s show did. Not as nice or neat as a treaty, sure, but probably more meaningful to the common man, and more effective in a pedestrian manner.
IANAL, but I do work in foriegn policy, so I can give an answer that I’m pretty sure will be mostly accurate, but may need some tweaking on the edges.
If Queen Elizabeth woke up tomorrow and decided to withdraw from the Treaty of Paris, it wouldn’t mean jack. Even if the UK’s Parliament voted to end the treaty, it wouldn’t matter.
There is within international law a distinction between dispositive and non-dispositive treaties. Dispositive treaties are those which create durable obligations for nations, such as the fixing of borders. This stands in contrast to non-dispositive treaties, like, say, treaties of friendship or of navigation, which expire upon the dissolution of a state or other circumstances. The Treaty of Paris is most certainly a dispositive treaty, so even if the monarchy would end tomorrow, the unit of the international community known as Britain – distinct from the government or monarchy of Britain – would still be bound by that treaty.
Further, the text of the Treaty of Paris basically says that the UK does not have the option of withdrawing from the treaty. In short, if Britain were to try to end the Treaty of Paris, they would have no legal basis in international law to do so.
Nixon went to China, visited with leaders, saw musical productions done by the Chinese, pretty much came close to what was described above
That still didn’t normalize relations between the two countries. That didn’t happen until the Carter administration.
Yup! And Nixon’s actions are still generally credited as the reason relations got normalized. Thank you for illustrating my point.
It’s a border town, but AFAIK it’s never been in neither country. And Gwent is certainly Wales.
Monmouth was formerly also the name of the county now called Gwent, and it had some sort of peculiar relationship to Wales in which it was always named separately; IIRC laws applying specifically to Wales (or specifically to England) were not construed as also applying to Monmouth unless it was specifically stated that they did. That anomalous relationship seems now to have been fixed.
Other issues to consider are whether parts of the treaty are inforced, namely Article 10, or if it is inconsequential since the Treaty of Paris is dispositive. Also look at the differences between the treaty and the Declaration of Independence. Supposedly, Franklin and Adams agreed in the treaty to establish intercourse while in the Declaration they clearly have indicated otherwise. And was friendship restored or created? Considering that those two men were in part authors of both the treaty and the Declaration of Independence, I thought it was quite interesting to say the least. The part of Article 1 that states, “relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety, and territorial rights” indicates that the United States is not recognized as a colony but isn’t it interesting that the United States is not a member of the Commonwealth.
Treaty of Paris
- Restore friendship and establish intercourse. (Article 1)
- Acknowledges the said United States, viz., 12 of the 13 original states, to be free sovereign and independent states, and relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety, and territorial rights. (Article 1)
- “The navigation of the river Mississippi, from its source to the ocean, shall forever remain free and open to the subjects of Great Britain and the citizens of the United States.” (Article 10)
Declaration of Independence
- “When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people* to dissolve the political bands * which have connected them with another…”
- “We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.”
- “That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that *all political connection * between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.”
I’m not sure I follow you. The 1783 Treaty was to end the war and recognise U.S. sovereignty. The War of 1812 wasn’t an attempt to re-capture the U.S. You can recognise another country’s sovereignty and still go to war with them.
Also, it was the U.S. that declared war on the U.K., starting the war.