WHEN PEOPLE THINK OF ENGLAND such terms as ‘Great Britain,’ ‘The Queen,’ ‘The Crown,’ ‘Crown Colonies,’ ‘London,’ The City of London,’ and ‘British Empire’ come to mind and blend together into an indistinguishable blur. They are generally looked upon as synonymous, as being representative of the same basic system. During the 1950’s and 1960’s the author lived in England (London for five years) without even beginning to realize the vast difference that exists in the meaning of some of the above terms.
When people hear of ‘The Crown’ they automatically think of the King or Queen; when they hear of ‘London’ or the ‘The City’ they instantly think of the capital of England in which the monarch has his or her official residence.
To fully understand the unique and generally unknown subject we must define our terms:
When we speak of ‘The City’ we are in fact referring to a privately owned Corporation – or Sovereign State – occupying an irregular rectangle of 677 acres and located right in the heart of the 610 square mile ‘Greater London’ area. The population of ‘The City’ is listed at just over four thousand, whereas the population of ‘Greater London’ (32 boroughs) is approximately seven and a half million.
The ‘Crown’ is a committee of twelve to fourteen men who rule the independent sovereign state known as London or ‘The City.’
‘The City’ is not part of England. It is not subject to the Sovereign. It is not under the rule of the British parliament. Like the Vatican in Rome, it is a separate, independent state. It is the Vatican of the commercial world.