My first letter to the Queen:

SOUL

Her Majesty The Queen
Buckingham Palace
The Mall
London

Your Majesty,
Shetland and Orkney
Your loyal subjects in Shetland and Orkney have a number of grievances that I bring to your personal attention for reasons that will become clear as you read this letter.
You will be aware that Shetland and Orkney have a unique and curious history.
As you know, the islands previously belonged to Norway. The circumstances that brought them into the hands of James III of Scotland in 1468/69 only gave him trusteeship. The terms of the marriage contract between him and Princess Margaret of Denmark pawned both Orkney and Shetland to the Scottish Crown until King Christian or his successors could come up with the 60,000 florins agreed as a dowry. This was a personal arrangement between the two sovereigns and one that could never include ultimate ownership in a feudal sense, since such a concept was unknown under Norse law.
You will be aware that, in spite of repeated attempts by Denmark to redeem the pledge, the issue was evaded by successive monarchs. The anomalous status of the islands evidently gave succeeding monarchs some problems. In contrast to the Hebrides and the Isle of Man, where a legitimate change of ownership between Norway and Scotland had taken place, Shetland and Orkney were passed back and forth between the Crown and various individuals until your predecessor, Charles II remedied the situation with his Act of Annexation in 1669.
In his Act of Annexation, Charles II recognised that Shetland and Orkney were his personal responsibility as a result of the pawning arrangements in 1468/9. The Act brought the islands back into his personal care. In that document he says: “It is not only fit in order to his majesty’s interests, but will be the great advantage of his Majesty’s subjects dwelling there, that without interposing any other Lord or superior betwixt his Majesty and them, they should have an immediate dependence upon his Majesty and his Officers” and “ordains the same to be of full force strength, and effect in all time coming” (he uses the phrase ‘for all time coming’ six times in the document). He goes on: “And farther it is Declared that if any general act of Dissolution of his Majesty’s property shall be made at any time hereafter; the said Lordship and Earldom ………… shall not be understood to fall under the same” and that any future disponement or act of Parliament concerning the islands “shall from the beginning and in all time coming be void and null and of no effect” He makes it very clear that the islands were his close personal responsibility, even to the exclusion of Parliament. Clearly, although the concept had yet to be invented, he was making the islands Crown Dependencies. By this act, he was putting right two hundred years of abuse by various ‘needy and rapacious courtiers’ as Balfour put it.
Never having been incorporated into the realm, and with their position assured by the 1669 Act, the islands could not, a mere 38 years after that solemn Act, have been part of the 1707 Act of Union. (In fact Shetland is not even included in the 1707 Act’s list of boroughs). The islands have never become part of Scotland – they remain in the personal trust of your Majesty.
Charles II refers to the islands as “so great a jewel of our crown”. This description continues to apply today, the islands having provided the mineral resources which have enabled Great Britain to remain a world power these past thirty years and your government to have embarked on such adventures as the deeply unpopular Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
While not wishing to deprive the United Kingdom of the benefit of the islands’ mineral resources, your loyal subjects here submit that the government cannot prove it has any legitimate rights to the sea or seabed around the islands and has assumed those rights by subterfuge and deception. The government has to prove its right, just the same as any individual.
Your loyal subjects here therefore call upon your Majesty to follow the example of your predecessor, Charles II, and remedy years of abuse and injustice.
Your loyal subjects here have three specific grievances, which we ask your Majesty to address (when referring to ‘your government’ below, we understand that you have no personal control over the actions of the government). The grievances are:

• Your government, in 1964, appropriated seabed belonging to the islands in order to gain access to mineral resources. Also, the Crown Estates Commissioners, on behalf of your government, charge rents for seabed around the islands that could never legally have passed into their hands.  We respectfully ask that ownership of this seabed be returned to the islands.
• Your government appropriated fishing rights belonging to the islands, which were then used as a bargaining chip in its negotiations for the United Kingdom to enter the European Union. We respectfully ask that these fisheries be returned to the islands.
• When asked in 1975, your subjects in Shetland voted not to remain members of the European Union, but their wishes were ignored. We respectfully ask that their democratic rights are respected and the islands be removed from such union.

Your loyal subjects respectfully ask your Majesty to restore these islands to their true Crown Dependency status with full control of their own affairs and ownership of their surrounding seas, seabed and other resources. They ask this in the belief that this is not a matter for the government or parliament, but for your personal attention.

I remain,
Yours faithfully,



Stuart Hill, Chairman of Shetland and Orkney Udal Law Association.

The Queen's reply is here.