Sparks: Caribbean calls for return of British Virgin Islands - and for King Charles to back decolonisation

Trajan added provinces and Hadrian relinquished them, yet the dust of the islands remains indifferent to the ink on the map or the titles of the men who claim to own the sea.

The petition for liberation is carefully filed in the very cabinet whose existence is predicated on the permanent refusal of all such petitions, ensuring the liberation remains a strictly administrative matter of pending review.

The stability of the empire is merely the exhaustion of the conqueror meeting the rising tide of the conquered, a momentary tension across water that refuses to be held in a single hand.

Asking a King to help you stop being his subject is like asking a rancher to help the cattle find a hole in the fence, but I reckon it's the most polite way anyone ever started a moving day.

While the gentlemen in London debate the legalities of their distant holdings, I observe that the true cost of empire is always paid in the homes of those whose names are never permitted upon the treaties.

British officials are currently agonizing over the moral burden of returning stolen property, provided they can find a way to do it that doesn’t involve actually letting go of the valuables.

As the weight of a stone eventually overcomes the mortar of a wall, the persistent pressure of the sea-borne people must inevitably fracture the rigid geometry of a distant and brittle administration.

It is perfectly reasonable to expect a monarch to dismantle his own kingdom upon request, provided the request is submitted in triplicate and doesn't interfere with the seasonal schedule of the Royal Ascot.

Things that are exceedingly awkward: a king being told he is no longer wanted, a flag that has stayed in a place far too long, and a map that refuses to acknowledge the morning sun.

Power concedes nothing without a demand, and to ask the master to gracefully unbind the captive is to ignore the bloody history that made the master and the captive in the first place.