Monarchies in The Americas - Current Monarchies - Settled Monarchies - United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The British Crown possesses a number of overseas territories in the Americas, for whom Queen Elizabeth II is monarch. In North America are Anguilla, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Montserrat, and the Turks and Caicos Islands, while the Falkland Islands, and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands are located in South America. The Caribbean islands were colonised under the authority or the direct instruction of a number of European monarchs, mostly English, Dutch, or Spanish, throughout the first half of the 17th century. By 1681, however, when the Turks and Caicos Islands were settled by Britons, all of the above mentioned islands were under the control of Charles II of England, Scotland, France and Ireland. Colonies were merged and split through various reorganizations of the Crown's Caribbean regions, until 19 December 1980, the date that Anguilla became a British Crown territory in its own right. The monarch is represented in these jurisdictions by: the Governor of Anguilla, Andrew George; the Governor of Bermuda, Richard Gozney; the Governor of the British Virgin Islands, David Pearey; the Governor of the Cayman Islands, Stuart Jack; the Governor of Montserrat, Adrian Davis; and the Governor of the Turks and Caicos Islands, Ric Todd.

The Falkland Islands, off the south coast of Argentina, were simultaneously claimed for Louis XV of France, in 1764, and George III of the United Kingdom, in 1765, though the French colony was ceded to Charles III of Spain in 1767. By 1833, however, the islands were under full British control. The South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands were discovered by Captain James Cook for George III in January 1775, and from 1843 were governed by the British Crown-in-Council through the Falkland Islands, an arrangement that stood until the South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands were incorporated as a distinct British overseas territory in 1985. The monarch is represented in these regions by Nigel Haywood, who is both the Governor of the Falkland Islands and the Commissioner for South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands.