States within a State

I read with interest today that the sleepy, vaguely hippy dippy town of Totnes is adopting its own currency.

On that note I'm thinking of declaring my own house an independent state. The fun part is deciding what form of government to adopt. A republic is too boring (everyone's a republic nowadays) and so is a constitutional monarchy (who wants to sit around signing off other people's laws, ffs?). An empire, unfortunately, is too grandiose (I'm talking about a house in York after all). Which is a shame, as being an emperor would be cool.

So, I'm left with some kind of grand duchy (which has a pleasant sound to it) or maybe a militant theocracy (which would probably and amusingly annoy the Anglicans. They're quite the thing in York y'know. But despite this, I'm not really fired up with any kind of maniacal religious zeal as, perhaps, the infrequency of my blog postings might indicate).

I've also considered some form of ancien regime absolutist monarchy but I think the survival chances of my new state-within-a-state hinge on a cordial relationship with my erstwhile ruler, Queen Elizabeth II, and I figure her government may not be as tolerant of an absolutist king living in one of her archbishoprics than a less controversial ruler, like a margrave or something.

So, lacking marches to be a grave over, I have decided on Landgrave of South Bank. Now to convince the wife to live under my benign munificence. Maybe I'll do the washing up first (that often helps with things like this).