Great Britain, as a nation and an Empire, covers an area of nearly half the world. Over the course of centuries, the Church of England has maintained a presiding influence in ensuring that the British dynasties remain strong and powerful. After all, with ecclesiastical enemies such as the Catholics and Orthodox, each of whom hold a greater dominance worldwide than the Anglicans, it is in the Anglicans' interest to back strong rulers. Thanks to them, the succession of weak rulers known as the House of Stuart never took the throne, and consequently the House of Hanover likewise never ascended to power.
Following Elisabeth Tudor's death without issue, the Church of England (which had been created by Henry VIII) instead used their influence to install their own monarch, of the singularly 'Gifted' House of Cosdale. The Cosdales proved to be wise and powerful rulers, and they involved themselves actively and readily in the affairs of their people. King Michael in particular was hailed as a 'commoner of blue blood', and enacted a number of royal decrees effectively securing Britain's place as among the most free parts of the world to live. He also effectively disempowered himself somewhat, offering some executive powers to the House of Lords and others to the House of Commons. As such, Parliament and the Cosdale dynasty have enjoyed a far more harmonious relationship than their Stuart contemporaries. The monarch's power is roughly equal to the representative government.
The monarch's more active role in the country's affairs mean that it is not Royal Assent, but Parliamentary Assent that is required to pass laws.
The Empire is far-flung, retaining much of the northern New World as well as holding a variety of trading posts and military outposts throughout central and sub-Saharan Africa, full dominion over India, Pakistan and full dominion over the Australian provinces. They held North Africa too, however some disastrous campaigns against the Eastern Roman Empire some 60 years ago led to them ceding these territories.
The British people are generally prosperous, and due to having split from the Catholic Church are generally somewhat more secular than their continental counterparts. British society is fairly open and people enjoy greater freedoms throughout the Empire. Many provinces have local Governors and hold seats or lordships in a greatly enlarged Parliament, and a number also have devolved assemblies and local governments to decide on issues. The Colonial Senate, made up of officials from across the continent of North America, is the biggest of these and with the most devolved powers.
Slavery is completely abolished and illegal throughout the Empire, and socially the British people are free to practice beliefs as they please (although the de facto state religion is, of course, the Church of England) and are also free to protest and join unions. Britain's borders are kept relatively open, offering opportunities to a wide variety of foreigners. This looser level of security is taken advantage of by foreign infiltrators and enemies, but Britain prides itself on it and it scores them many points among the hearts and minds of the people.
Britain's take on mages is, however, more controversial. Though the monarchs, including the incumbent Queen Caroline, and the clergy are all gifted, all mages are subject to more controls than ungifted. All mages must be registered with the Home Office, must display an emblem marking them out to be in some way Gifted, and are compelled into 'Services of the Crown' (military, police, healer or other associated work) or 'Services of the Church', and in spite of the monarch's being Gifted, they enjoy fewer rights. Mages cannot vote in Parliamentary elections, nor can they be entitled as hereditary peers (though they can become life peers) of the Realm. This is an appeasement to the non-Gifted to prevent mages acquiring all the power of the British government, and the respect and responsibility involved in their appointments to the Services offsets a lot of the distrust. These regulations spark much controversy from rights croups and mages, but incredibly they were spearheaded by the Cosdales who foresaw this resentment.
Military
The Royal Army
The British Army was formerly formed under the old 'regimental' system whereby nobles would levy an army on behalf of the monarch - effectively turning the army into a series of local militias united under one banner for a period of time.
This was the case up until Richard IV's reforms in response to local rebellions and disillusionment following a series of unsuccessful campaigns against France during his reign. Following that, Richard IV instigated a fully professional army paid for fully from the privy purse much as the Navy and Sky Force are.
The traditional and iconic 'red coat' typify the rank-and-file of the Army, who are organised very clinically into Regiments of Foot, Horse, Artillery and Landship (read: tanks). They are well-equipped, disciplined and it is said that even in full flight they maintain their formations. There are two other sub-branches of the Royal Army:
The Royal Army Marine Corps. They wear maroon-coloured uniforms to distinguish them from regular army, and forgo the helmet-and-tricorne-cap in favour of a tall peaked grenadiers' cap. These personnel serve aboard Navy and Sky Force vessels as boarders, anti-boarders and amphibious attack forces. They are typically even more fierce fighters than their land-borne cousins, though they typically have inter-force rivalries with Navy and Sky Force personnel on the vessels they serve on together. Entire decks of ships and skyships are designated 'Marine Country'. Navy/Sky Force personnel seldom enter Marine Country, and do so oft at their peril.
The Royal Army Auxiliaries.These are known colloquially as the 'Greenjackets' due to the fact they actually wear camouflage. Generally not recruited from the upper crusts of society, the Greenjackets cultivate a myth of being a band of murderers, bandits and outlaws (indeed, Robin Hood is their mascot), though in truth few such persons actually exist within their midst. They operate as irregulars and guerrillas, generally eschewing line-of-battle formations and instead sticking to ambushes, damage to supply lines, assassination of officers and other 'dishonourable' and 'disreputable' tactics that the line infantry captains would see as beneath them.
Naturally, the Greenjackets don't get much in the way of admiration from their red-coated colleagues but they are met with respect and treated with caution. The Royal Brigade of Ghurkas are informally branded into the Auxiliaries, as are - most surprisingly - the Royal Guard and the Office of Intelligence.
The Royal Regiment of Magi also falls under the ‘Greenjacket’ heading, though typically one or two of their number always gets seconded to each regular unit (and also to the Royal Navy and Sky Force). Mages, due to their unique status in British society, are similarly segregated in the armed forces. They serve as a separate unit, and are called upon mostly in a screening and protective role for other units, which are comprised solely of non-Gifted individuals.
The Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the oldest and most sacrosanct of British military institutions. Until the early 1800s, it employed a policy of bigger-than-the-next-two-biggest-combined. It's still the largest navy on the planet, but not quite that big. In our timeline, all ships were more-or-less modern-looking but with coal-fired powerplants. In this world, the ships look altogether cruder, though they are actually more sophisticated than they were in our timeline due to the much cleaner magite energy source. The Royal Navy does still maintain a fleet of lightweight sailships in addition to magite-powered cruisers for reconnaissance, scouting and hit-and-run duties. Wooden hulls are long gone, but with mages aboard controlling the wind, British sailships can outstrip even the fastest magite or diesel engine.
The most powerful vessels on the sea are battleships and dreadnoughts. The Royal Navy is different from most other nations' institutions in that it is at least partly meritocratic - family and noble privilege may play a role but an incompetent admiral with a peerage will, although more or less guaranteed an increase in seniority at some point, usually lag behind a common-born admiral with talent.
The Royal Navy is well renowned for its captains' ability to act on their own initiative and escape from the overbearing executive meddling that other navies might have to put up with. The current pride-of-the-navy is the battleship HMS Unrelenting.
The Royal Sky Force
The Skyship is a recent invention, having been perfected and rolled out in 1760, and with it has come a need to militarise the skies. The Royal Sky Force is the youngest British armed service. Unlike some flying forces, the RSF operates much more akin to the Royal Navy. This is because skyships bear greater resemblance to seaborne vessels than aeroplanes and Britain's naval tradition means they are more familiar with that. The Royal Sky Force are pioneering the use of manned gliders deployed from dedicated skyships as a means of intelligence-gathering.
The RSF is actually relatively small compared to some of its counterparts, because they favour quality over quantity; while other nations may have larger sky navies, the British RSF is lean, well-disciplined and organised, and well-equipped for manoeuvre combat and air-to-ground bombardments in ways that other sky navies have not yet ironed out the doctrine for. In spite of the fact that the navy is numerically smaller, the RSF does have some advantages: no other skyfleet has hundred-gunners in its arsenal, and RSF cannon range has been perfected and refined to to exceed that of its contemporaries. The RSF has collaborated quite strongly with the Byzantine Imperial Airborne Navy to come up with an airborne flamethrower. As such, the RSF and RIAN have very close ties (even if their seaborne counterparts and governments in general aren't so close). The pride of the RSF fleet is the HMSS Victory, a hundred-gunner equipped with two such flamethrowers.
