Donnacona's Dream
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Update 45A - Charles Skutawenondi (part I)
Update 45A - Charles Skutawenondi (part 1)
Update 45A – Charles Skutawenondi (part 1)
(Hochelaga, March 1632)
Charles always felt strange returning home to the Clan Mothers' compound. Maybe it was because of his mother's rejection of her chiefly lineage, and her stubborn desire to make a life for herself and her husband outside of the palisade. Certainly, Charles had lived the first few years of his life largely unaware of how important a woman his Grandmother Marie was. However, once his parents had died of the Red Plague, and Marie and Aunt Thérèse had taken him in, the Sheep Clan longhouse in the Clan Mothers' compound became Charles' new home.
It certainly helped that Charles' parents had given him the family name Skutawenondi from his father's pre-Christian name. Marie's children bore the family name Adukra, and Thérèse's children the family name Poirot, so many of the boys at school did not associate Charles with the Sheep Clan's two most prominent women. By being a Skutawenondi, Charles avoided the embarrassment of having the boys at school find out that Charles was actually the great-grandson of Charles Grignon, the War Chief of Stadacona, and his wife Hélène, the leader of the Stadaconan Exodus. [1]
However, today in school, Charles' identity had become crystal clear. Père Jean-Baptiste had called called Great-Grandmother Hèlene a heretic. And, at that point, Charles had had no choice but to out himself. “How dare you call my great-grandmother a heretic!” he had called out. “She brought teachings to us directly from God and Saint Mary; those teachings saved our people from the wrath of DuFort! And you, you just spout off the same nonsense that your superiors back in France tell you to say! I doubt that God has ever spoken directly to you!”
This was Charles' first year of Collège, [2] and his first year with Père Jean-Baptiste as a teacher. Jean-Baptiste was a Jesuit Priest from France, who has just arrived in Hochelaga last year. He was much stricter than the Kanatian lay brothers who had taught Charles in primary school. He often went on and on about the danger of 'false prophets', and often warned his students about 'falling into heresy'. He warned about the 'great heresy' [i.e. Protestantism] which threatened to overtake Europe and often times praised the 'Kanatian dedication to the One True Church'. The students often times called him 'the Priest of Rocks' due to his overuse of Matthew 16:18 “I also say that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church.” [3]
Well, today the 'Priest of Rocks' had left his mark on Charles. He was returning home with some new bruises and sore spots where Jean-Baptiste had vowed to 'beat the devil out of the child'. Luckily, Aunt Thérèse was good with her herbs, and had a large stash of healing balms and teas which were good for bruising.
“What happened to you today?” Thérèse asked as Charles entered the longhouse. “You look like you're in pain.”
“The Priest of Rocks beat me....”
“The Priest of … oh, you mean Père Jean-Baptiste. I'll make sure to let the Jesuits know that that sort of punishment is unacceptable on this side of the ocean. [4] Some of these Frenchmen seem to have very wrong-headed ideas about how to treat children. Should I put on a pot of my pain-relieving tea?”
“Yes please,” replied Charles. Thérèse soon left to gather her medicines and put a pot of water on the fire.
As Charles sat and waited, his cousin Emmanuelle approached from farther down the longhouse. “So what did you do to deserve a beating?” she teased. Emmanuelle was older than Charles, but had always been teased by her own older siblings. She seemed to like to pick on Charles, if only because he was the one around the house who was younger than her.
“All I was doing was defending the name of our great-grandmother. The Priest of Rocks called her a heretic, and I simply stood up for her. I told him that her teachings, based upon her divinely-inspired visions, couldn't be heresy because they came from God!”
“Charles,” Thérèse interjected, “it's not really that simple. Just because Grandmother Helène was a great woman who led our people in the Exodus from Stadacona doesn't mean that everything she ever said was the Word of God.”
“But that's not what Aunt Madeleine says…” Emmanuelle broke in.
“My Aunt Madeleine, your Great-Aunt Madeleine, is the leader of the Magdelene Sisterhood. All the teachings of her Sisterhood derive from Hélène's writings, and thus admitting any error in her writings detracts from the authority of the Sisterhood. Madeleine's position depends on Hélène being a prophet, so of course she's going to say that every word out of her mother's mouth was divinely inspired. But she knows, as do my mother and I, that not every word that Hélène said or wrote was prophecy.”
By this point in time, it had become clear that Emmanuelle had lost interest. She was not that interested in learning about religion from her Mother, and she soon disappeared back down towards the other end of the longhouse. However, Charles, who was captivated by what Thérèse was saying, continued to listen intently. He gestured for her to continue as her pot of tea continued to heat up on the fire.
“You see,” Thérèse continued, “there's something that happens to people when they get old, or sometimes when they go through a troubling time. People's souls get pulled halfway to heaven. This means that they're closer to God and can hear a lot more of what God says. However, since these people are still human they're often unable to understand the language of heaven spoken by God. Sometimes words and ideas get confused, and sometimes what these people say make no sense at all. Other times, what they say makes sense, but it's been confused enough that these teachings, while divinely inspired, result in heresy. It's very rare that a true prophet appears who can hear what God has to say and can translate it into words understandable to the rest of us humans.” [5]
“So you're saying that Hélène was a heretic?”
“Well, I'm not the best person to say, because I only really came to understand her teachings once I got old enough to read her books; I was too young when she died too have ever had a chance to have these deep conversations with her directly. However, at least some of what she wrote runs contrary to everything I have ever heard, so yes, I would say that some of what she wrote was heresy. But that doesn't mean it was all heresy. There are some things, like her criticisms of the male dominance in the Catholic Church which I do think hold some truth in them.”
“But how can I know which is which?” Charles asked.
“Well, you can never really know. That's what faith is for, my dear nephew. You accept and believe, but there's never really any proof.”
“But Saint Anselm proved the existence of God, did he not?”
“Well, that's certainly what the Jesuits would say. To be honest, I'm not a scholar like Madeleine is or Hélène was. I've never had a chance to read Anselm myself, and I probably never will. The duties of Clan Motherhood are simply too pressing. In the end, I simply am not overly eager to believe everything the Jesuits have to say. Just like your great-aunt Madeleine, the Jesuits' authority depends on a certain version of the truth. Just as your great-aunt Madeleine treats your great-grandmother as nothing but a prophet, the Jesuits treat her as nothing but a heretic. The reality is most likely somewhere in between.”
Charles thought for a minute and then spoke. “So, why can't I have a teacher who thinks more like you do? Why can't I have a teacher who teaches us that my great-grandmother can be a prophet and a heretic?”
“Well, my dear nephew, people who think like me rarely become teachers. To be a teacher, you have to have a truth to teach to your students. When you're like me and change your mind from week to week about what you believe is prophecy and what is heresy, it's hard to have a consistent doctrine to pass on to your students.”
“However,” Thérèse continued, “my own questioning of the Catholic version of the truth is shared by my husband and his Huguenot kin. One of the core beliefs of the Huguenot version of religion is that the teachings of the Catholic Church have been corrupted by the influence of human error and that, rather than believing the Church's account of things, everyone should read the Bible for themselves. While they do have their own Huguenot version of the truth, and they still see Grandmother Hélène as a heretic, they're at least fairly good at encouraging people to think for themselves rather than simply obeying what the Jesuits tell them. After all, their own movement arose when a number of scholars back in Europe starting questioning Catholic teaching.”
“So are there Huguenot teachers out there?” Charles asked.
“Well, there are few enough Huguenots here in Hochelaga, so no there are no Huguenot teachers here. Here, Huguenot children tend to just learn from their parents. However, there is a Huguenot school in Nouvelle Genève. I'm wondering if you might be happier there…”
Footnotes to part 1:
[1] Charles and Hélène Grignon had three children: two daughters Marie and Madeleine, and one son Simon. We've already heard from Simon. Marie became Clan Mother of the Sheep Clan upon her mother's death and Madeleine became the head of the Magdalene Sisterhood. Marie and Madeleine are both quite elderly at the time of this scene, and Hélène has been dead for years.
[2] Collège here refers to the secondary level of Jesuit schooling in Hochelaga. In today's France “collège” is middle school and “lycée” is high school, and from the brief research I've done, it seems that the term “collège” does date back to the time of the POD.
[3] Matthew 16:18 is the Biblical verse which is most commonly used by Catholics to defend Papal Supremacy against Protestantism.
[4] Iroquoians (including TTL Kanatians) appear to have been opposed to using corporal punishment on children. This is not to say that they were morally opposed to inflicting pain on other humans, as they did sometimes torture war captives. However, in Iroquoian society, children were rarely disciplined, and were never subject to corporal punishment.
[5] This is Thérèse's own understanding of what we would refer to as mental illness. It's filtered through a worldview influenced both by Christianity as well as some of the 'shamanistic' tendencies of pre-Christian Kanatian spirituality.
Update 45A – Charles Skutawenondi (part 1)
(Hochelaga, March 1632)
Charles always felt strange returning home to the Clan Mothers' compound. Maybe it was because of his mother's rejection of her chiefly lineage, and her stubborn desire to make a life for herself and her husband outside of the palisade. Certainly, Charles had lived the first few years of his life largely unaware of how important a woman his Grandmother Marie was. However, once his parents had died of the Red Plague, and Marie and Aunt Thérèse had taken him in, the Sheep Clan longhouse in the Clan Mothers' compound became Charles' new home.
It certainly helped that Charles' parents had given him the family name Skutawenondi from his father's pre-Christian name. Marie's children bore the family name Adukra, and Thérèse's children the family name Poirot, so many of the boys at school did not associate Charles with the Sheep Clan's two most prominent women. By being a Skutawenondi, Charles avoided the embarrassment of having the boys at school find out that Charles was actually the great-grandson of Charles Grignon, the War Chief of Stadacona, and his wife Hélène, the leader of the Stadaconan Exodus. [1]
However, today in school, Charles' identity had become crystal clear. Père Jean-Baptiste had called called Great-Grandmother Hèlene a heretic. And, at that point, Charles had had no choice but to out himself. “How dare you call my great-grandmother a heretic!” he had called out. “She brought teachings to us directly from God and Saint Mary; those teachings saved our people from the wrath of DuFort! And you, you just spout off the same nonsense that your superiors back in France tell you to say! I doubt that God has ever spoken directly to you!”
This was Charles' first year of Collège, [2] and his first year with Père Jean-Baptiste as a teacher. Jean-Baptiste was a Jesuit Priest from France, who has just arrived in Hochelaga last year. He was much stricter than the Kanatian lay brothers who had taught Charles in primary school. He often went on and on about the danger of 'false prophets', and often warned his students about 'falling into heresy'. He warned about the 'great heresy' [i.e. Protestantism] which threatened to overtake Europe and often times praised the 'Kanatian dedication to the One True Church'. The students often times called him 'the Priest of Rocks' due to his overuse of Matthew 16:18 “I also say that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church.” [3]
Well, today the 'Priest of Rocks' had left his mark on Charles. He was returning home with some new bruises and sore spots where Jean-Baptiste had vowed to 'beat the devil out of the child'. Luckily, Aunt Thérèse was good with her herbs, and had a large stash of healing balms and teas which were good for bruising.
“What happened to you today?” Thérèse asked as Charles entered the longhouse. “You look like you're in pain.”
“The Priest of Rocks beat me....”
“The Priest of … oh, you mean Père Jean-Baptiste. I'll make sure to let the Jesuits know that that sort of punishment is unacceptable on this side of the ocean. [4] Some of these Frenchmen seem to have very wrong-headed ideas about how to treat children. Should I put on a pot of my pain-relieving tea?”
“Yes please,” replied Charles. Thérèse soon left to gather her medicines and put a pot of water on the fire.
As Charles sat and waited, his cousin Emmanuelle approached from farther down the longhouse. “So what did you do to deserve a beating?” she teased. Emmanuelle was older than Charles, but had always been teased by her own older siblings. She seemed to like to pick on Charles, if only because he was the one around the house who was younger than her.
“All I was doing was defending the name of our great-grandmother. The Priest of Rocks called her a heretic, and I simply stood up for her. I told him that her teachings, based upon her divinely-inspired visions, couldn't be heresy because they came from God!”
“Charles,” Thérèse interjected, “it's not really that simple. Just because Grandmother Helène was a great woman who led our people in the Exodus from Stadacona doesn't mean that everything she ever said was the Word of God.”
“But that's not what Aunt Madeleine says…” Emmanuelle broke in.
“My Aunt Madeleine, your Great-Aunt Madeleine, is the leader of the Magdelene Sisterhood. All the teachings of her Sisterhood derive from Hélène's writings, and thus admitting any error in her writings detracts from the authority of the Sisterhood. Madeleine's position depends on Hélène being a prophet, so of course she's going to say that every word out of her mother's mouth was divinely inspired. But she knows, as do my mother and I, that not every word that Hélène said or wrote was prophecy.”
By this point in time, it had become clear that Emmanuelle had lost interest. She was not that interested in learning about religion from her Mother, and she soon disappeared back down towards the other end of the longhouse. However, Charles, who was captivated by what Thérèse was saying, continued to listen intently. He gestured for her to continue as her pot of tea continued to heat up on the fire.
“You see,” Thérèse continued, “there's something that happens to people when they get old, or sometimes when they go through a troubling time. People's souls get pulled halfway to heaven. This means that they're closer to God and can hear a lot more of what God says. However, since these people are still human they're often unable to understand the language of heaven spoken by God. Sometimes words and ideas get confused, and sometimes what these people say make no sense at all. Other times, what they say makes sense, but it's been confused enough that these teachings, while divinely inspired, result in heresy. It's very rare that a true prophet appears who can hear what God has to say and can translate it into words understandable to the rest of us humans.” [5]
“So you're saying that Hélène was a heretic?”
“Well, I'm not the best person to say, because I only really came to understand her teachings once I got old enough to read her books; I was too young when she died too have ever had a chance to have these deep conversations with her directly. However, at least some of what she wrote runs contrary to everything I have ever heard, so yes, I would say that some of what she wrote was heresy. But that doesn't mean it was all heresy. There are some things, like her criticisms of the male dominance in the Catholic Church which I do think hold some truth in them.”
“But how can I know which is which?” Charles asked.
“Well, you can never really know. That's what faith is for, my dear nephew. You accept and believe, but there's never really any proof.”
“But Saint Anselm proved the existence of God, did he not?”
“Well, that's certainly what the Jesuits would say. To be honest, I'm not a scholar like Madeleine is or Hélène was. I've never had a chance to read Anselm myself, and I probably never will. The duties of Clan Motherhood are simply too pressing. In the end, I simply am not overly eager to believe everything the Jesuits have to say. Just like your great-aunt Madeleine, the Jesuits' authority depends on a certain version of the truth. Just as your great-aunt Madeleine treats your great-grandmother as nothing but a prophet, the Jesuits treat her as nothing but a heretic. The reality is most likely somewhere in between.”
Charles thought for a minute and then spoke. “So, why can't I have a teacher who thinks more like you do? Why can't I have a teacher who teaches us that my great-grandmother can be a prophet and a heretic?”
“Well, my dear nephew, people who think like me rarely become teachers. To be a teacher, you have to have a truth to teach to your students. When you're like me and change your mind from week to week about what you believe is prophecy and what is heresy, it's hard to have a consistent doctrine to pass on to your students.”
“However,” Thérèse continued, “my own questioning of the Catholic version of the truth is shared by my husband and his Huguenot kin. One of the core beliefs of the Huguenot version of religion is that the teachings of the Catholic Church have been corrupted by the influence of human error and that, rather than believing the Church's account of things, everyone should read the Bible for themselves. While they do have their own Huguenot version of the truth, and they still see Grandmother Hélène as a heretic, they're at least fairly good at encouraging people to think for themselves rather than simply obeying what the Jesuits tell them. After all, their own movement arose when a number of scholars back in Europe starting questioning Catholic teaching.”
“So are there Huguenot teachers out there?” Charles asked.
“Well, there are few enough Huguenots here in Hochelaga, so no there are no Huguenot teachers here. Here, Huguenot children tend to just learn from their parents. However, there is a Huguenot school in Nouvelle Genève. I'm wondering if you might be happier there…”
Footnotes to part 1:
[1] Charles and Hélène Grignon had three children: two daughters Marie and Madeleine, and one son Simon. We've already heard from Simon. Marie became Clan Mother of the Sheep Clan upon her mother's death and Madeleine became the head of the Magdalene Sisterhood. Marie and Madeleine are both quite elderly at the time of this scene, and Hélène has been dead for years.
[2] Collège here refers to the secondary level of Jesuit schooling in Hochelaga. In today's France “collège” is middle school and “lycée” is high school, and from the brief research I've done, it seems that the term “collège” does date back to the time of the POD.
[3] Matthew 16:18 is the Biblical verse which is most commonly used by Catholics to defend Papal Supremacy against Protestantism.
[4] Iroquoians (including TTL Kanatians) appear to have been opposed to using corporal punishment on children. This is not to say that they were morally opposed to inflicting pain on other humans, as they did sometimes torture war captives. However, in Iroquoian society, children were rarely disciplined, and were never subject to corporal punishment.
[5] This is Thérèse's own understanding of what we would refer to as mental illness. It's filtered through a worldview influenced both by Christianity as well as some of the 'shamanistic' tendencies of pre-Christian Kanatian spirituality.
Update 45B - Charles Skutawenondi (part II)
Update 45B - Charles Skutawenondi (part II)
P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; } (New Bristol, July 1635)
The town of New Bristol was smaller than Charles had thought it would be. From all the talk he'd heard back in Nouvelle Géneve, he'd figured that New Bristol was a city ten times the size of Hochelaga. Certainly, it was much larger than Nouvelle Géneve, but Nouvelle Géneve was barely more than a village. Now that he was here, New Bristol seemed to Charles to be only half the size of Maisouna, maybe a quarter the size of Hochelaga. [1]
However, while the size of New Bristol was distinctly unimpressive to Charles, he still found the city itself quite remarkable. While the buildings were more or less similar to those he had seen in Nouvelle Géneve or Hochelaga's Petite Rochelle, their architecture still seemed strange and exotic to Charles, and the buildings here were certainly much grander than anything in Nouvelle Géneve. What impressed Charles most of all, though were the ships in the harbour. In Hochelaga, Charles would often see the Kanata Boats [2] which sailed upriver from Stadacona. He had always assumed that the ships which carried Kanata's furs across the ocean to France would be more or less similar to these Kanata Boats.
But the ships that Charles now saw in the harbour of New Bristol dwarfed the Kanata Boats as much as the Kanata Boats dwarfed his own people's canoes. These ships were the size of Hochelaga's largest longhouses, and great trees sprouted from their decks to support sails larger than anything Charles had thought was possible. All that he had read about ships and sailing had not really prepared him for the reality. [3]
“I can take you down to the harbour later,” spoke Jean Frechet, Charles' traveling companion. “Right now, I need to introduce you to the Bishop.” Frechet was one of Nouvelle Genéve's Huguenot ministers and the teacher at the Huguenot school. He had taken a liking to Charles ever since he had met him three years ago. Since then, Charles had gone on to become one of Frechet's best students, and Frechet had made it his mission to prepare Charles for a proper education in Calvinist Theology.
The Bishop who Charles was about to meet was the Anglican Bishop of the Diocese of New England. While the Huguenot Church of Nouvelle Géneve, like all Huguenot churches, was independently governed at the congregational level, it shared much doctrine in common with the Church of England. [4] The French Bibles used by the Huguenots were printed on English printing presses, and many Huguenots were sent to England to attend Theology school. Frechet travelled to New Bristol every summer to meet with the Anglican Bishop. This summer, he had decided to bring Charles along.
New Bristol's cathedral was much smaller and plainer than the Jesuit Church in Hochelaga. This, Charles thought, was likely due both to New Bristol's smaller number of parishioners as well as the Calvinist abhorrence of decadence. However, there was something about the straight lines and simple geometric perfection of this cathedral which captivated Charles. It was almost as if everything organic had been drained from the cathedral's structure, leaving nothing but its mathematical skeleton. But somehow, this skeleton was more beautiful than the flesh clinging to it had been. [5]
Frechet brought Charles inside the Cathedral, where he was greeted by a small middle-aged man with a kindly face. “Bishop Woodrow, how good it is to see you!” Frechet called out. He spoke in Latin, likely for Charles' benefit, although Charles had been studying English for a number of months in order to prepare for this meeting.
“Jean, my friend!” the Bishop replied. “Please call me 'Thomas'. You're not my subordinate, and formality shouldn't be necessary between us after all these years. Who is this who you bring along?”
“This is Charles Skutawenondi,” Frechet replied, “he is the student I was telling you about. He is only sixteen years old, yet he is able to astound me with his insight into Scripture.”
“Ahh, yes, you did write to me about him. He is a little…” the Bishop paused to find the right word “…darker than I thought he might be.”
“Well, he is a Kanatian,” Frechet replied, “he may look like the savages you find around these parts, but his people are much more civilized. [6] Besides, he is just as much a Christian like you or I.”
“It's a pleasure to meet you,” Charles broke in, speaking English. He caught a look of surprise on the Bishop's face.
“Thank you, Mr. … uh … Skawendy?” the Bishop said.
“Skutawenondi,” Charles replied.
“How about I just called you 'Charles Wendie'? I don't think I can quite wrap my tongue around your last name.” As the Bishop spoke, Charles replied with a nod. “By the way, your English is quite good. How long have you been studying it for?”
“Only two months,” Charles replied.
“He's a quick learner,” Frechet broke in. “I have been astounded many times with how quickly this boy can pick things up. To be honest, I'm starting to reach the limits of what I am capable of teaching him, and I really think he'd benefit from travelling abroad to attend University. I don't want to send him to France where he'd be studying under Catholics, so sending him to England is probably the best bet. However, in order to get him admittance into Oxford University, he'll need someone to recommend him. I was hoping that maybe you could play that role.”
“I don't think…” the Bishop started.
“Thomas,” said Frechet, “you don't have to make a decision now. Spend a few days, weeks, even months talking with the boy. Give him a chance to impress you with his intellect. Once you have gotten a chance to know him, you will want him to have a chance to attend Oxford just as much as I do. You'll see…”
* * * * *
(Oxford, February 1638)
The air inside the Raven's Eye Tavern was warm and comforting. Charles could smell the scent of fresh food and hear the sounds of his fellow students busy in conversation. It had been months since Charles had been inside his favourite tavern. He had been sick for much of this time. While the fact that he had survived smallpox as a child had spared him from that particular disease, there had been many other illness which had struck him over the past two years. Many, like this last one, had left him bedridden for months.
“Charlie Wendie! Come over here!” a familiar voice called out. It was Charles' fried Bart, a fellow Oxford student. As usual, most of the tavern patrons were students, and Bart was seated with a group of them, although most looked unfamiliar to Charles.
“Come, grab an ale, sit down with us,” Bart said, “Harry here was just talking about a Faustus Socinius, and his Arian heresy.” [7] The Raven's Eye was well known as a place where Theology students could speak freely about religious matters without risk of being branded a heretic. Oxford University enforced a fairly strict adherence to Calvinist orthodoxy within the classroom itself, but the Raven's Eye was one of the many places where deviations from that orthodoxy were tolerated.
“How many times to I have to tell you that Unitarianism is not the same thing as Arianism!” shouted a red-haired student, who seemed to be at the centre of this particular group. This must be Harry, Charles thought. “Arianism holds that Jesus was a divine entity below God but above humans. Socinius, on the other hand, teaches that God was and is the only divine entity. Jesus was simply the human son of God, nothing more.”
Bart ignored Harry and continued speaking to Charles. “Let me buy you a beer,” he said, “and are you hungry?”
“Thanks,” Charles replied, “I've been sick for so long that I've fallen behind on my translation work. [8] I haven't been paid in a couple of months, so I haven't really been eating well.”
“…there's nothing in the Bible that says that Jesus was God.” Harry continued. “Certainly, he was the Son of God, none of us doubt that, but Socinius argues that he couldn't have been God Himself. How can anyone, even God, be his own son? That's just nonsensical!”
“Harry,” interrupted another student. Charles couldn't remember his name, but he could remember that he was a Navarran, from Pamplona. [9] “What you're saying sounds an awful lot like the Mahometan [sic] teaching that Jesus was a prophet but nothing more. How is Socinius still a Christian and not a Mahometan?”
“Well, he doesn't follow the teachings of Mahomet for a start. Saying that Jesus is not God is not the same thing as denying that he was the son of God, or denying that, through his sacrifice, he saved us from sin. Really, all that Socinians and Mahometans have in common is that we're - I mean they're - both monotheists! Socinius simply takes seriously the idea that there truly is only one God, rather than three Gods in one!”
By this time, Bart had returned with ale and a bowl of stew for Charles. Taking a sip of the frothy drink, Charles was reminded of how much better English beer was than Kanatian beer. If he ever got homesick and though of returning home, a taste of good Enlgish ale was enough to convince him to stay. “Ok, Harry,” Bart said, “let's suppose for the sake of argument that there is nothing in Scripture which says that the Trinity exists. At the same time, there is definitely nothing in Scripture which says that the Trinity doesn't exist. So, the question becomes, if both positions are equally unjustified by Scripture, why not go with the one that every Christian has followed since the First Council of Nicaea?”
“Bart,” Harry replied, “are you really saying that we should believe something just because it's orthodox to do so? If we followed that line of reasoning, wouldn't be still be following the Pope as our ancestors did 100 years ago? What's the point of the Reformation if it isn't to question orthodoxy?”
“Point taken,” said Bart, “but my question still stands. Why not believe in one God in three persons? What's the reason why God can't manifest himself in three different ways?”
“Or five different ways,” added Charles in a muffled voice.
“Five?” asked Bart, turning to Charles. “Why five?”
“Oh, well, back where I come from, in Hochelaga, there's an order called the Magdalene Sisterhood. They believe that God has manifested himself not just in three different persons, but in no fewer than five. My aunt is one of the leaders of the Magdalene Sisterhood, and I was just thinking of a letter I recently received from her. She's very interested in what I am learning here…”
“Ok, but back to the five. I'm assuming Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three of them, but what are the fourth and fifth aspects of God?”
“God the Mother and God the Daughter,” answered Charles, “my people have this idea that there needs to be balance between the male and female aspects of things. Since two of the aspects of God are male, the Magdalenes have come up with the idea that there must be two female aspects to balance these two. God the Mother is supposed to be Mary, of course, and God the Daughter is a supposed to be the form in which God will come to Earth again.”
“And what do they say to the fact that God the Mother and God the Daughter are not mentioned in Scripture?” this time it was the Navarran who asked the question. The whole group had turned to listen to Charles; Harry was no longer the centre of attention.
“Well, my Aunt would say that Scripture only mentions the male aspects of God because the Bible was written by men. She firmly believes that there are other Gospels which were written by women apostles, but they have simply been forgotten.” [10]
“So, do you believe any of this?” continued the Navarran.
“Well, not really,” replied Charles. “To be honest, I feel that the Magdalenes are much worse than the Catholics when it comes to disregarding Scripture. However, I do feel that we have to be mindful of the fact that the Word of God has been passed down to us by men. I'm wondering if rather than 'God the Father' and 'God the Son', we should really be saying 'God the Parent' and 'God the Child'. I mean, is the 'He' used to refer to God supposed to signify that He is specifically male, or is it the generic 'He' which includes the female. I'd like to think its the latter. A perfect being would have to have both male and female aspects, would He not?”
“I don't know about that,” added another student whose name Charles didn't know. “Isn't the female just an imperfect version of the male? I mean, wasn't Eve created to serve Adam? Wasn't she created from just one of his ribs?”
“To be honest,” Charles replied, “it doesn't really matter whether women were created to serve men or not. The fact still remains that there are things that women can do, like bearing children, that men cannot. Any perfect, omnipotent being must be able to bear children, and thus must have a female aspect.”
“Ok, let's suppose that God in fact does have a female aspect,” said Harry, who had re-entered the conversation. For a while he had had an annoyed look on his face. He was likely disappointed that he was no longer the centre of attention. “Jesus, on the other hand, was a man; he could not bear children. Ergo, Jesus was not God, he was only the son of God.”
Charles sat back and started drinking a fresh mug of ale which the Navarran had just placed in front of him. He was glad that Harry had shifted the centre of the conversation away from him. It was good just to be able to sit here, eat, drink, and talk with other students. Some day, Charles would graduate and become a Pastor in a church somewhere, but, for now, he was living the easy life of a student.
* * * * *
(Muirkirk, October 1641)
The sun was beginning to set when Charles returned from his walk on the moors. He would have liked to be out longer but the damp cold weather was starting to chill him, and his flask of whisky was nearly empty. It would be better to return to his house to warm up and have his housekeeper make him some dinner.
While there was a certain natural beauty to the wilderness of rural Scotland, it was nothing like the forests of home. To be honest, a posting in Muirkirk would definitely not have been Charles' first choice. It just happened to be that, when he graduated from Oxford, it had been Scotland that had been most in need of Calvinist Pastors. Besides, while Charles had been made welcome as a student at Oxford, it had been made clear enough that he was just not English enough for a career in the Anglican Church.
Charles shuddered whenever he remembered why Scotland was in such desparate need of Pastors. The last Pastor sent to this parish had only lasted four years before he had been captured by the Scottish Inquisition. With the Supplicants [11] in control of most of the Ayrshire, Charles hoped that he could now avoid that fate.
As he approached the small house that adjoined Muirkirk's church, Charles was surprised to see a young boy waiting on his doorstep. The boy was dressed in the military clothes of the Supplicant army, although his clothes were torn and almost falling off his body. As he got closer, Charles realized that he recognized the boy's face, although there was something wrong about it.
It was only when he was almost at the doorstep that Charles realized where he knew the face from. It wasn't a boy, it was a girl, but she had cut her hair short and put on military clothes. Her name was Margaret, Charles recalled, and she had been a member of the local congregation until a few months ago. Last spring her father and older brother had left to fight in the war, and she had been left behind with her mother. When her mother had died in an accident, she had left to go live with her aunt and uncle in the nearby village of Auchinleck. So, what was she doing back here?
“Pastor Wendie!” she called out. “I'm glad you're back! Your housekeeper wouldn't let me inside without your permission. I don't think she recognized me…”
“Oh, poor girl,” Charles replied, “please come inside. What is it that's troubling you?” As Charles opened the door for her, he realized that it wasn't just her clothes that had been damaged. She had bruises on her face and cuts on her arm.
“Please, Pastor, protect me and pray for me. Keep me safe!”
“Safe from what?” asked Charles.
“This,” Margaret said, gesturing towards her cuts and bruises.
“Tell, me, who did that to you? Why would anyone hurt you?”
Margaret didn't speak for a minute or so. “I should probably start at the beginning,” she finally said. “After my mother died, which was the last time you saw me, I began hearing the voice of the Holy Spirit in my head. The voice talked to me, told me that God had a special plan for me. The voice told me that my father and brother had been killed by the Catholic armies, and that I was needed to go out and fight to save Scotland. The voice told me that I would need to pretend to be a boy in order to join the armies, so I did. I cut my hair, and found boy's clothes, and went off to fight, just like Joan of Arc did.”
“Joan of Arc, you say?” She must have heard that from the French Priest who was preaching here before the Supplicants took over, Charles thought. No Scot or Englishman would ever tell that story, or at least wouldn't tell it in a way that treats Joan as a heroine.
“Yes, Joan of Arc went off to fight for France, and I went to fight for Scotland”, Margaret continued. “But,” she paused, as if fearful of what she was going to say next, “but I was a coward! I couldn't do it. God sent me off to war, but I couldn't face battle. God didn't grant me the strength I needed, and I ran away from there as fast as I could. I've prayed to him all I could, but I just couldn't face the thought of all that blood…” she was crying now.
“My child,” Charles said. “It's not in everyone's nature to be a soldier. Remember, God sent you to Earth as a girl, not as a boy. If He'd truly wanted you to be a fine warrior, He would have made you a man. Instead, He must have another plan for you.”
“But, God spoke to me… He did… I know it…” Margaret seemed even more fearful than she had been before. She was not comforted by Charles' words, and he wasn't sure why. “Unless…”
“Unless what?” Charles asked.
“What if I am a witch and I don't know it? What if it was Satan who was speaking to me and not God.”
“Of course you're not a witch,” Charles said, “you're a good Christian. Even good Christians are misled by Satan from time to time. But God is merciful; if you have done wrong, just ask for forgiveness and you will have it…”
“But I tried that!” Margaret cried out in frustration. “When I came back from the war, I asked my aunt and uncle for forgiveness. I asked them to take me back into their home, and they refused. They said that I was unnatural for wanting to dress in boy's clothes, and they told me that they knew that I was a witch. They said that they had heard me talking to my dead mother. 'Anyone who talks to the dead must be a witch', they said.”
“Talking to your dead mother?” Charles asked.
“Yes,” Margaret replied. “When God first started speaking to me, he spoke to me in my mother's voice. I thought He was her at first. It was only later that I discovered that it was actually God who had been speaking to me all along. But, my uncle told me that he didn't believe me. He told me that God would never disgrace himself and take on female form.”
“I then told him what you told me in your sermon last year,” Margaret continued. Her voice had gotten calmed and more confident at this point. “You told me - you told all of us - that God has both male and female inside of Him. You told me that, just as God once came to Earth as a man, that He might also someday come to Earth as a woman, and that, because of that, all women should be respected and cherished.”
“But my uncle didn't like that. He told me then and there that I was a tool of the devil, and that all women, including me, were evil. That's when he…” Margaret stopped and gazed at her bruises. Charles could tell what she meant by this.
“He told me, my uncle told me, that if I ran, if I told anyone about what he'd done to me that he'd have to have me burnt at the stake. He told me that unless I kept quiet, he'd tell the whole village that I was a witch and had killed my own mother. But I knew I couldn't stay there. I knew I had to go. So I came here, because I know that you'll help me, that you'll keep me safe.” [12]
By this point in the conversation, the night had become quite dark. The stars and moon were out, but there was another glow on the horizon, not in the Western sky where the setting sun had been, but in the South, down by the river. “I'll keep you safe, I promise,” Charles said, “but I need you to get out of sight. Stay put, and don't come out until I tell you to…” Charles got up and went to the door.
As Charles exited the house he caught sight of the mob. The were coming up the road from the river with torches in hand. They were carrying what must be makeshift weapons, and had an angry look to the way they were walking. As the mob drew closer, Charles noticed that the man leading it walked with a limp and had a black eye. This must be the uncle, he thought, it seems that Margaret isn't quite as bad a fighter as she makes herself out to be. “What business do you have here at so late an hour?” he called out.
“We're here after a witch!” the uncle called out. “A girl, although she's dressed as a boy. Margaret is her name! Have you seen her?”
“A witch, you say?” Charles asked. “I haven't seen any witches about.”
“Margaret,” the uncle repeated. “She's my niece. The innkeeper said that she had been seen walking up this road a few hours ago. Are you sure you haven't seen her?”
“No, I haven't,” Charles said.
“Then you'd have no objection to us looking through your house to see if she's in there?”
“You don't trust me, the Pastor of this church?” Charles questioned. “How would you feel if I told your Pastor back in Auchinleck that you ransacked my house because you didn't take me at my word?”
“I'm his Pastor,” another man called out, “and I wouldn't take anyone of your savage race at his word either! For all I know you're a servant of Satan too! Let's go in and get the witch!” As he said this, the mob charged the door. Charles threw himself between the mob and the door, but, before he knew what was happening, something cracked him across the top of his head, and he fell to the ground and blacked out…
…Charles awakened to the feel of heat and the scent of smoke. His housekeeper, Fiona, was standing above him shaking him and talking frantically. Looking up Charles could see that he had been dragged away from his house, which was now on fire. “Where is Margaret?” he asked, “is she safe?”
“She's inside,” Fiona replied, “and you're not going back in there. They only let me go just in time to save you from the flames.” Charles heard a scream as the roof of the house collapsed. He felt devastated.
“Fiona,” he said, “I'm leaving this place. I cannot preach the word of God to those who will not hear it. I don't know where I'm going, but I'll make do. I'm sure I'll be able to find translation work somewhere.”
“Take this,” he said handing her his watch, “this is your severance pay. And feel free to take anything else of mine that has survived the fire. You've served me well, and I know you'll serve the next Pastor here just as well. Good-bye.”
Charles head was still ringing with pain, and his flask of whisky was empty, but he forced himself to get up and walk back out onto the moors… [13]
Footnotes to Part II:
[1] At this point in time, New Bristol has a population in the thousands while Hochelaga has a population over ten thousand. And Hochelaga's population is just going to keep growing at this point. Hochelaga won't rival major European cities until probably the 19th or 20th centuries, but New Bristol will never surpass it in population. I don't think even TTL's New Amsterdam will ever catch up to Hochelaga in population, but am not really sure.
[2] The Kanata Boats are one of TTL's alternate techs. They're riverboats built specifically for the fur trade, and have a design somewhere between a European riverboat and a Kanatian canoe. Really, they're fairly similar to OTL's Voyageur canoes, as they serve the same purpose, but have become a
'thing' a little earlier than OTL.
[3] While transatlantic ships can make it upriver to Hochelaga, the nature of the dual Canada Company/Arkevujay control Kanatian fur trade means furs have to be offloaded in both Hochelaga and Stadacona, so ocean going ships rarely risk the shoals and sand bars upriver from Stadacona.
[4] Remember TTL's Church of England is much more radically Reformed than OTL's. Really TTL's Anglicanism is just 'Calvinism, but with Bishops' due to the influence of Edward VI.
[5] The combination of Calvinist austerity with the monumental architecture called for by a monarch-headed Church, has led to a unique style to TTL's Anglican church architecture which emphasizes straight lines and little decoration while still maintaining some sort of majestic quality. I almost want to say it's kinda like Soviet architecture but with 17th-century technology.
[6] The fact that the Kanatians have adopted 300% more European technology than their distant cousins in New England leads many of the colonizers to think of Kanatians as in a separate racial category between Europeans and the rest of the North American Natives.
[7] Faustus Socinius was one of the OTL founders of Unitarianism. He was born before the POD, and grew up soon enough after it that I feel that he could easily have developed the same theological ideas as he did OTL. I'm guessing that his later life was different than it was OTL, although not enough different to prevent his theology from making its way to England.
[8] Charles' greatest intellectual gift is the ease with which he picks up new languages. Thus, translation work comes easy to him. There is enough translation work available in Oxford that Charles can make enough doing it to cover his tuition.
[9] Remember that, in TTL, Navarre is an independent Protestant kingdom in personal union with the Netherlands. Theological, the Navarrese share as much in common with the English as the Huguenots do (in fact, much of the Navarran population is made up of Huguenots who fled France).
[10] The Magdalene Priestesses will have a field day when the Gospel of Mary [Magdalene] is discovered, although they will have to gloss over the fact that the Gospel of Mary doesn't say most of the things they'd want it to say.
[11] The Supplicants are a sort of Scottish Protestant militia. They're really the same organization as OTL's Covenanters, although the oppression they're fighting is that of the Scottish Inquisition rather than that of the English King. 'Supplicant' was actually the term even OTL's Covenanters used to refer to themselves before the outbreak of the English Civil War.
[12] Margaret here is an unreliable narrator. Her uncle's abuse started as soon as she went to live with them, and her reason for running away to join the army was due to the abuse, not due to the fact that God spoke to her. She is a little mentally unstable, so she made have heard voices at one point or another, but really she's trying to un-victimize herself by casting herself in the role of Joan of Arc.
[13] This is not the last you'll see of Charles, I hope. I just felt like it was a good place to end, and a good segue into the Supplicant War in Scotland, which will be the next update.
P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; } (New Bristol, July 1635)
The town of New Bristol was smaller than Charles had thought it would be. From all the talk he'd heard back in Nouvelle Géneve, he'd figured that New Bristol was a city ten times the size of Hochelaga. Certainly, it was much larger than Nouvelle Géneve, but Nouvelle Géneve was barely more than a village. Now that he was here, New Bristol seemed to Charles to be only half the size of Maisouna, maybe a quarter the size of Hochelaga. [1]
However, while the size of New Bristol was distinctly unimpressive to Charles, he still found the city itself quite remarkable. While the buildings were more or less similar to those he had seen in Nouvelle Géneve or Hochelaga's Petite Rochelle, their architecture still seemed strange and exotic to Charles, and the buildings here were certainly much grander than anything in Nouvelle Géneve. What impressed Charles most of all, though were the ships in the harbour. In Hochelaga, Charles would often see the Kanata Boats [2] which sailed upriver from Stadacona. He had always assumed that the ships which carried Kanata's furs across the ocean to France would be more or less similar to these Kanata Boats.
But the ships that Charles now saw in the harbour of New Bristol dwarfed the Kanata Boats as much as the Kanata Boats dwarfed his own people's canoes. These ships were the size of Hochelaga's largest longhouses, and great trees sprouted from their decks to support sails larger than anything Charles had thought was possible. All that he had read about ships and sailing had not really prepared him for the reality. [3]
“I can take you down to the harbour later,” spoke Jean Frechet, Charles' traveling companion. “Right now, I need to introduce you to the Bishop.” Frechet was one of Nouvelle Genéve's Huguenot ministers and the teacher at the Huguenot school. He had taken a liking to Charles ever since he had met him three years ago. Since then, Charles had gone on to become one of Frechet's best students, and Frechet had made it his mission to prepare Charles for a proper education in Calvinist Theology.
The Bishop who Charles was about to meet was the Anglican Bishop of the Diocese of New England. While the Huguenot Church of Nouvelle Géneve, like all Huguenot churches, was independently governed at the congregational level, it shared much doctrine in common with the Church of England. [4] The French Bibles used by the Huguenots were printed on English printing presses, and many Huguenots were sent to England to attend Theology school. Frechet travelled to New Bristol every summer to meet with the Anglican Bishop. This summer, he had decided to bring Charles along.
New Bristol's cathedral was much smaller and plainer than the Jesuit Church in Hochelaga. This, Charles thought, was likely due both to New Bristol's smaller number of parishioners as well as the Calvinist abhorrence of decadence. However, there was something about the straight lines and simple geometric perfection of this cathedral which captivated Charles. It was almost as if everything organic had been drained from the cathedral's structure, leaving nothing but its mathematical skeleton. But somehow, this skeleton was more beautiful than the flesh clinging to it had been. [5]
Frechet brought Charles inside the Cathedral, where he was greeted by a small middle-aged man with a kindly face. “Bishop Woodrow, how good it is to see you!” Frechet called out. He spoke in Latin, likely for Charles' benefit, although Charles had been studying English for a number of months in order to prepare for this meeting.
“Jean, my friend!” the Bishop replied. “Please call me 'Thomas'. You're not my subordinate, and formality shouldn't be necessary between us after all these years. Who is this who you bring along?”
“This is Charles Skutawenondi,” Frechet replied, “he is the student I was telling you about. He is only sixteen years old, yet he is able to astound me with his insight into Scripture.”
“Ahh, yes, you did write to me about him. He is a little…” the Bishop paused to find the right word “…darker than I thought he might be.”
“Well, he is a Kanatian,” Frechet replied, “he may look like the savages you find around these parts, but his people are much more civilized. [6] Besides, he is just as much a Christian like you or I.”
“It's a pleasure to meet you,” Charles broke in, speaking English. He caught a look of surprise on the Bishop's face.
“Thank you, Mr. … uh … Skawendy?” the Bishop said.
“Skutawenondi,” Charles replied.
“How about I just called you 'Charles Wendie'? I don't think I can quite wrap my tongue around your last name.” As the Bishop spoke, Charles replied with a nod. “By the way, your English is quite good. How long have you been studying it for?”
“Only two months,” Charles replied.
“He's a quick learner,” Frechet broke in. “I have been astounded many times with how quickly this boy can pick things up. To be honest, I'm starting to reach the limits of what I am capable of teaching him, and I really think he'd benefit from travelling abroad to attend University. I don't want to send him to France where he'd be studying under Catholics, so sending him to England is probably the best bet. However, in order to get him admittance into Oxford University, he'll need someone to recommend him. I was hoping that maybe you could play that role.”
“I don't think…” the Bishop started.
“Thomas,” said Frechet, “you don't have to make a decision now. Spend a few days, weeks, even months talking with the boy. Give him a chance to impress you with his intellect. Once you have gotten a chance to know him, you will want him to have a chance to attend Oxford just as much as I do. You'll see…”
* * * * *
(Oxford, February 1638)
The air inside the Raven's Eye Tavern was warm and comforting. Charles could smell the scent of fresh food and hear the sounds of his fellow students busy in conversation. It had been months since Charles had been inside his favourite tavern. He had been sick for much of this time. While the fact that he had survived smallpox as a child had spared him from that particular disease, there had been many other illness which had struck him over the past two years. Many, like this last one, had left him bedridden for months.
“Charlie Wendie! Come over here!” a familiar voice called out. It was Charles' fried Bart, a fellow Oxford student. As usual, most of the tavern patrons were students, and Bart was seated with a group of them, although most looked unfamiliar to Charles.
“Come, grab an ale, sit down with us,” Bart said, “Harry here was just talking about a Faustus Socinius, and his Arian heresy.” [7] The Raven's Eye was well known as a place where Theology students could speak freely about religious matters without risk of being branded a heretic. Oxford University enforced a fairly strict adherence to Calvinist orthodoxy within the classroom itself, but the Raven's Eye was one of the many places where deviations from that orthodoxy were tolerated.
“How many times to I have to tell you that Unitarianism is not the same thing as Arianism!” shouted a red-haired student, who seemed to be at the centre of this particular group. This must be Harry, Charles thought. “Arianism holds that Jesus was a divine entity below God but above humans. Socinius, on the other hand, teaches that God was and is the only divine entity. Jesus was simply the human son of God, nothing more.”
Bart ignored Harry and continued speaking to Charles. “Let me buy you a beer,” he said, “and are you hungry?”
“Thanks,” Charles replied, “I've been sick for so long that I've fallen behind on my translation work. [8] I haven't been paid in a couple of months, so I haven't really been eating well.”
“…there's nothing in the Bible that says that Jesus was God.” Harry continued. “Certainly, he was the Son of God, none of us doubt that, but Socinius argues that he couldn't have been God Himself. How can anyone, even God, be his own son? That's just nonsensical!”
“Harry,” interrupted another student. Charles couldn't remember his name, but he could remember that he was a Navarran, from Pamplona. [9] “What you're saying sounds an awful lot like the Mahometan [sic] teaching that Jesus was a prophet but nothing more. How is Socinius still a Christian and not a Mahometan?”
“Well, he doesn't follow the teachings of Mahomet for a start. Saying that Jesus is not God is not the same thing as denying that he was the son of God, or denying that, through his sacrifice, he saved us from sin. Really, all that Socinians and Mahometans have in common is that we're - I mean they're - both monotheists! Socinius simply takes seriously the idea that there truly is only one God, rather than three Gods in one!”
By this time, Bart had returned with ale and a bowl of stew for Charles. Taking a sip of the frothy drink, Charles was reminded of how much better English beer was than Kanatian beer. If he ever got homesick and though of returning home, a taste of good Enlgish ale was enough to convince him to stay. “Ok, Harry,” Bart said, “let's suppose for the sake of argument that there is nothing in Scripture which says that the Trinity exists. At the same time, there is definitely nothing in Scripture which says that the Trinity doesn't exist. So, the question becomes, if both positions are equally unjustified by Scripture, why not go with the one that every Christian has followed since the First Council of Nicaea?”
“Bart,” Harry replied, “are you really saying that we should believe something just because it's orthodox to do so? If we followed that line of reasoning, wouldn't be still be following the Pope as our ancestors did 100 years ago? What's the point of the Reformation if it isn't to question orthodoxy?”
“Point taken,” said Bart, “but my question still stands. Why not believe in one God in three persons? What's the reason why God can't manifest himself in three different ways?”
“Or five different ways,” added Charles in a muffled voice.
“Five?” asked Bart, turning to Charles. “Why five?”
“Oh, well, back where I come from, in Hochelaga, there's an order called the Magdalene Sisterhood. They believe that God has manifested himself not just in three different persons, but in no fewer than five. My aunt is one of the leaders of the Magdalene Sisterhood, and I was just thinking of a letter I recently received from her. She's very interested in what I am learning here…”
“Ok, but back to the five. I'm assuming Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three of them, but what are the fourth and fifth aspects of God?”
“God the Mother and God the Daughter,” answered Charles, “my people have this idea that there needs to be balance between the male and female aspects of things. Since two of the aspects of God are male, the Magdalenes have come up with the idea that there must be two female aspects to balance these two. God the Mother is supposed to be Mary, of course, and God the Daughter is a supposed to be the form in which God will come to Earth again.”
“And what do they say to the fact that God the Mother and God the Daughter are not mentioned in Scripture?” this time it was the Navarran who asked the question. The whole group had turned to listen to Charles; Harry was no longer the centre of attention.
“Well, my Aunt would say that Scripture only mentions the male aspects of God because the Bible was written by men. She firmly believes that there are other Gospels which were written by women apostles, but they have simply been forgotten.” [10]
“So, do you believe any of this?” continued the Navarran.
“Well, not really,” replied Charles. “To be honest, I feel that the Magdalenes are much worse than the Catholics when it comes to disregarding Scripture. However, I do feel that we have to be mindful of the fact that the Word of God has been passed down to us by men. I'm wondering if rather than 'God the Father' and 'God the Son', we should really be saying 'God the Parent' and 'God the Child'. I mean, is the 'He' used to refer to God supposed to signify that He is specifically male, or is it the generic 'He' which includes the female. I'd like to think its the latter. A perfect being would have to have both male and female aspects, would He not?”
“I don't know about that,” added another student whose name Charles didn't know. “Isn't the female just an imperfect version of the male? I mean, wasn't Eve created to serve Adam? Wasn't she created from just one of his ribs?”
“To be honest,” Charles replied, “it doesn't really matter whether women were created to serve men or not. The fact still remains that there are things that women can do, like bearing children, that men cannot. Any perfect, omnipotent being must be able to bear children, and thus must have a female aspect.”
“Ok, let's suppose that God in fact does have a female aspect,” said Harry, who had re-entered the conversation. For a while he had had an annoyed look on his face. He was likely disappointed that he was no longer the centre of attention. “Jesus, on the other hand, was a man; he could not bear children. Ergo, Jesus was not God, he was only the son of God.”
Charles sat back and started drinking a fresh mug of ale which the Navarran had just placed in front of him. He was glad that Harry had shifted the centre of the conversation away from him. It was good just to be able to sit here, eat, drink, and talk with other students. Some day, Charles would graduate and become a Pastor in a church somewhere, but, for now, he was living the easy life of a student.
* * * * *
(Muirkirk, October 1641)
The sun was beginning to set when Charles returned from his walk on the moors. He would have liked to be out longer but the damp cold weather was starting to chill him, and his flask of whisky was nearly empty. It would be better to return to his house to warm up and have his housekeeper make him some dinner.
While there was a certain natural beauty to the wilderness of rural Scotland, it was nothing like the forests of home. To be honest, a posting in Muirkirk would definitely not have been Charles' first choice. It just happened to be that, when he graduated from Oxford, it had been Scotland that had been most in need of Calvinist Pastors. Besides, while Charles had been made welcome as a student at Oxford, it had been made clear enough that he was just not English enough for a career in the Anglican Church.
Charles shuddered whenever he remembered why Scotland was in such desparate need of Pastors. The last Pastor sent to this parish had only lasted four years before he had been captured by the Scottish Inquisition. With the Supplicants [11] in control of most of the Ayrshire, Charles hoped that he could now avoid that fate.
As he approached the small house that adjoined Muirkirk's church, Charles was surprised to see a young boy waiting on his doorstep. The boy was dressed in the military clothes of the Supplicant army, although his clothes were torn and almost falling off his body. As he got closer, Charles realized that he recognized the boy's face, although there was something wrong about it.
It was only when he was almost at the doorstep that Charles realized where he knew the face from. It wasn't a boy, it was a girl, but she had cut her hair short and put on military clothes. Her name was Margaret, Charles recalled, and she had been a member of the local congregation until a few months ago. Last spring her father and older brother had left to fight in the war, and she had been left behind with her mother. When her mother had died in an accident, she had left to go live with her aunt and uncle in the nearby village of Auchinleck. So, what was she doing back here?
“Pastor Wendie!” she called out. “I'm glad you're back! Your housekeeper wouldn't let me inside without your permission. I don't think she recognized me…”
“Oh, poor girl,” Charles replied, “please come inside. What is it that's troubling you?” As Charles opened the door for her, he realized that it wasn't just her clothes that had been damaged. She had bruises on her face and cuts on her arm.
“Please, Pastor, protect me and pray for me. Keep me safe!”
“Safe from what?” asked Charles.
“This,” Margaret said, gesturing towards her cuts and bruises.
“Tell, me, who did that to you? Why would anyone hurt you?”
Margaret didn't speak for a minute or so. “I should probably start at the beginning,” she finally said. “After my mother died, which was the last time you saw me, I began hearing the voice of the Holy Spirit in my head. The voice talked to me, told me that God had a special plan for me. The voice told me that my father and brother had been killed by the Catholic armies, and that I was needed to go out and fight to save Scotland. The voice told me that I would need to pretend to be a boy in order to join the armies, so I did. I cut my hair, and found boy's clothes, and went off to fight, just like Joan of Arc did.”
“Joan of Arc, you say?” She must have heard that from the French Priest who was preaching here before the Supplicants took over, Charles thought. No Scot or Englishman would ever tell that story, or at least wouldn't tell it in a way that treats Joan as a heroine.
“Yes, Joan of Arc went off to fight for France, and I went to fight for Scotland”, Margaret continued. “But,” she paused, as if fearful of what she was going to say next, “but I was a coward! I couldn't do it. God sent me off to war, but I couldn't face battle. God didn't grant me the strength I needed, and I ran away from there as fast as I could. I've prayed to him all I could, but I just couldn't face the thought of all that blood…” she was crying now.
“My child,” Charles said. “It's not in everyone's nature to be a soldier. Remember, God sent you to Earth as a girl, not as a boy. If He'd truly wanted you to be a fine warrior, He would have made you a man. Instead, He must have another plan for you.”
“But, God spoke to me… He did… I know it…” Margaret seemed even more fearful than she had been before. She was not comforted by Charles' words, and he wasn't sure why. “Unless…”
“Unless what?” Charles asked.
“What if I am a witch and I don't know it? What if it was Satan who was speaking to me and not God.”
“Of course you're not a witch,” Charles said, “you're a good Christian. Even good Christians are misled by Satan from time to time. But God is merciful; if you have done wrong, just ask for forgiveness and you will have it…”
“But I tried that!” Margaret cried out in frustration. “When I came back from the war, I asked my aunt and uncle for forgiveness. I asked them to take me back into their home, and they refused. They said that I was unnatural for wanting to dress in boy's clothes, and they told me that they knew that I was a witch. They said that they had heard me talking to my dead mother. 'Anyone who talks to the dead must be a witch', they said.”
“Talking to your dead mother?” Charles asked.
“Yes,” Margaret replied. “When God first started speaking to me, he spoke to me in my mother's voice. I thought He was her at first. It was only later that I discovered that it was actually God who had been speaking to me all along. But, my uncle told me that he didn't believe me. He told me that God would never disgrace himself and take on female form.”
“I then told him what you told me in your sermon last year,” Margaret continued. Her voice had gotten calmed and more confident at this point. “You told me - you told all of us - that God has both male and female inside of Him. You told me that, just as God once came to Earth as a man, that He might also someday come to Earth as a woman, and that, because of that, all women should be respected and cherished.”
“But my uncle didn't like that. He told me then and there that I was a tool of the devil, and that all women, including me, were evil. That's when he…” Margaret stopped and gazed at her bruises. Charles could tell what she meant by this.
“He told me, my uncle told me, that if I ran, if I told anyone about what he'd done to me that he'd have to have me burnt at the stake. He told me that unless I kept quiet, he'd tell the whole village that I was a witch and had killed my own mother. But I knew I couldn't stay there. I knew I had to go. So I came here, because I know that you'll help me, that you'll keep me safe.” [12]
By this point in the conversation, the night had become quite dark. The stars and moon were out, but there was another glow on the horizon, not in the Western sky where the setting sun had been, but in the South, down by the river. “I'll keep you safe, I promise,” Charles said, “but I need you to get out of sight. Stay put, and don't come out until I tell you to…” Charles got up and went to the door.
As Charles exited the house he caught sight of the mob. The were coming up the road from the river with torches in hand. They were carrying what must be makeshift weapons, and had an angry look to the way they were walking. As the mob drew closer, Charles noticed that the man leading it walked with a limp and had a black eye. This must be the uncle, he thought, it seems that Margaret isn't quite as bad a fighter as she makes herself out to be. “What business do you have here at so late an hour?” he called out.
“We're here after a witch!” the uncle called out. “A girl, although she's dressed as a boy. Margaret is her name! Have you seen her?”
“A witch, you say?” Charles asked. “I haven't seen any witches about.”
“Margaret,” the uncle repeated. “She's my niece. The innkeeper said that she had been seen walking up this road a few hours ago. Are you sure you haven't seen her?”
“No, I haven't,” Charles said.
“Then you'd have no objection to us looking through your house to see if she's in there?”
“You don't trust me, the Pastor of this church?” Charles questioned. “How would you feel if I told your Pastor back in Auchinleck that you ransacked my house because you didn't take me at my word?”
“I'm his Pastor,” another man called out, “and I wouldn't take anyone of your savage race at his word either! For all I know you're a servant of Satan too! Let's go in and get the witch!” As he said this, the mob charged the door. Charles threw himself between the mob and the door, but, before he knew what was happening, something cracked him across the top of his head, and he fell to the ground and blacked out…
…Charles awakened to the feel of heat and the scent of smoke. His housekeeper, Fiona, was standing above him shaking him and talking frantically. Looking up Charles could see that he had been dragged away from his house, which was now on fire. “Where is Margaret?” he asked, “is she safe?”
“She's inside,” Fiona replied, “and you're not going back in there. They only let me go just in time to save you from the flames.” Charles heard a scream as the roof of the house collapsed. He felt devastated.
“Fiona,” he said, “I'm leaving this place. I cannot preach the word of God to those who will not hear it. I don't know where I'm going, but I'll make do. I'm sure I'll be able to find translation work somewhere.”
“Take this,” he said handing her his watch, “this is your severance pay. And feel free to take anything else of mine that has survived the fire. You've served me well, and I know you'll serve the next Pastor here just as well. Good-bye.”
Charles head was still ringing with pain, and his flask of whisky was empty, but he forced himself to get up and walk back out onto the moors… [13]
Footnotes to Part II:
[1] At this point in time, New Bristol has a population in the thousands while Hochelaga has a population over ten thousand. And Hochelaga's population is just going to keep growing at this point. Hochelaga won't rival major European cities until probably the 19th or 20th centuries, but New Bristol will never surpass it in population. I don't think even TTL's New Amsterdam will ever catch up to Hochelaga in population, but am not really sure.
[2] The Kanata Boats are one of TTL's alternate techs. They're riverboats built specifically for the fur trade, and have a design somewhere between a European riverboat and a Kanatian canoe. Really, they're fairly similar to OTL's Voyageur canoes, as they serve the same purpose, but have become a
'thing' a little earlier than OTL.
[3] While transatlantic ships can make it upriver to Hochelaga, the nature of the dual Canada Company/Arkevujay control Kanatian fur trade means furs have to be offloaded in both Hochelaga and Stadacona, so ocean going ships rarely risk the shoals and sand bars upriver from Stadacona.
[4] Remember TTL's Church of England is much more radically Reformed than OTL's. Really TTL's Anglicanism is just 'Calvinism, but with Bishops' due to the influence of Edward VI.
[5] The combination of Calvinist austerity with the monumental architecture called for by a monarch-headed Church, has led to a unique style to TTL's Anglican church architecture which emphasizes straight lines and little decoration while still maintaining some sort of majestic quality. I almost want to say it's kinda like Soviet architecture but with 17th-century technology.
[6] The fact that the Kanatians have adopted 300% more European technology than their distant cousins in New England leads many of the colonizers to think of Kanatians as in a separate racial category between Europeans and the rest of the North American Natives.
[7] Faustus Socinius was one of the OTL founders of Unitarianism. He was born before the POD, and grew up soon enough after it that I feel that he could easily have developed the same theological ideas as he did OTL. I'm guessing that his later life was different than it was OTL, although not enough different to prevent his theology from making its way to England.
[8] Charles' greatest intellectual gift is the ease with which he picks up new languages. Thus, translation work comes easy to him. There is enough translation work available in Oxford that Charles can make enough doing it to cover his tuition.
[9] Remember that, in TTL, Navarre is an independent Protestant kingdom in personal union with the Netherlands. Theological, the Navarrese share as much in common with the English as the Huguenots do (in fact, much of the Navarran population is made up of Huguenots who fled France).
[10] The Magdalene Priestesses will have a field day when the Gospel of Mary [Magdalene] is discovered, although they will have to gloss over the fact that the Gospel of Mary doesn't say most of the things they'd want it to say.
[11] The Supplicants are a sort of Scottish Protestant militia. They're really the same organization as OTL's Covenanters, although the oppression they're fighting is that of the Scottish Inquisition rather than that of the English King. 'Supplicant' was actually the term even OTL's Covenanters used to refer to themselves before the outbreak of the English Civil War.
[12] Margaret here is an unreliable narrator. Her uncle's abuse started as soon as she went to live with them, and her reason for running away to join the army was due to the abuse, not due to the fact that God spoke to her. She is a little mentally unstable, so she made have heard voices at one point or another, but really she's trying to un-victimize herself by casting herself in the role of Joan of Arc.
[13] This is not the last you'll see of Charles, I hope. I just felt like it was a good place to end, and a good segue into the Supplicant War in Scotland, which will be the next update.
Interesting to see how some Kanatian religious ideas may make it into the European discourse...
Looks from the map that North America won't be very British, but it's early days yet. British Louisiana?
No, North America won't be very British. That was definitely part of the plan. There's a number of factors keeping England (not Britain) from being nearly as much a colonial power as they were OTL:
- With Spanish-backed regimes in Scotland and Ireland, England is much more concerned with maintaining a relatively large army, which means they want to keep large numbers of young men at home
- the Kings of England are diverting their energies to trying to regain the Scottish throne rather than expanding colonies
- the Calvinist bent to the Church of England means that there's no Puritan movement. The ones in England facing religious persecution are the Catholics and the ones who OTL would be the High Anglicans, and they are not welcome in the English colonies (although some are going to New Brabant)
I will also say (because it's only a few updates away at this point), that Louisiana will not be British, or English, or Scottish. By the time England realizes that their colonies are hemmed in an all sides it will be 1700 and the mouth of the Mississippi will already be controlled by another power. However, there are other opportunities England might jump on in Southern North America (say attacking Spain in the hopes of getting Texas or Florida, or maybe going after Danish Florida).
Really, OTL was a Britain-wank, so I'm trying not to make TTL a Britain-screw, but I want to delay the British overseas empire a fair bit by having a surviving indepedent Scotland and generally weaker England for a fair bit longer than OTL.
I suppose. But it's always good to have a democratic superpower or two handy, and it doesn't look like the French are going to pull it off in North America, either.
(Pardon me. One of my brother's dogs (which I was rather fond of too) just dropped dead today, and it's left me in a bit of an easily maudlin mood. )
(Pardon me. One of my brother's dogs (which I was rather fond of too) just dropped dead today, and it's left me in a bit of an easily maudlin mood.
)I suppose. But it's always good to have a democratic superpower or two handy, and it doesn't look like the French are going to pull it off in North America, either.
Well, to be honest I haven't planned exactly which powers will be superpowers by the 19th/20th centuries yet. But Britain (which probably will be united by then) will be one of the leading industrial powers (like OTL) and France will be probably the largest military power. It's just that they will be GLOBAL powers rather than North American powers. I figured that the Kanatians couldn't really survive in the long term if they bordered important colonies of one of the world's superpowers....
Oh, I totally think I just realized that you might have been (really) talking about the USA rather than Britain or France. To be honest, the New Netherlands are going to be TTL's USA-analogue. They are not democratic yet, but will be, and they're in a relatively good position to expand Westward (well, not in as good a position as OTL USA was, but still pretty good). Although, by time the New Netherlands gains independence from the mother country they'll be thoroughly multi-ethnic. They won't have the same 'melting pot' mythos as OTL USA.
More of a buffet style nation? And the melting pot mythos never made sense anyway, unless you are discussing the sort of British cooking that boils everything into an undifferentiated bland goo.
Well, more of a Belgium- or Canada- style federation where many of the constituents of the federation have their own distinct culture.
For example, you already have New Holland, New Brabant, and New Groningen which each accept settlers from a different religious group (Calvinist, Catholic, and Lutheran respectively), and then you have Van Hoorn which is populated by mostly non-Dutch German settlers from the Rhineland and Westphalia. The different religious groups will likely intermingle as they did in OTL USA (although some will remain dominant in certain regions), but some of the different linguistic groups will remain distinct, like OTL Quebec.
Update 46 - the Supplicant War
Update 46 - the Supplicant War
The following in an excerpt from The Schismatic Wars: Europe in Crisis 1590-1660 by Duncan MacCallum, Ph.D.
The Supplicant War
Traditional histories of the Schismatic Wars often treat Scotland as an additional theatre of the Second Schismatic War. They often treat the war in Scotland as an afterthought, a sort of spillover from the war in Germany. In doing so, these histories ignore the fact that the war in Scotland began years before the Second Schismatic War began in Germany, and ignore the fact that it was only because of the conflict in Scotland that England entered the German theatre of the Second Schismatic War.
The war which began in Scotland in the late 1630s erupted out of an ongoing conflict between the Catholic Bothwell regime and the Protestant Scottish populace. It is important to mention that the population of Scotland was not overwhelmingly Protestant at this time. There was a good part of the population of the Highlands which was staunchly Catholic, but the vast majority of the Scottish population was relatively indifferent on religious matters. For the average person, the proximity of a church to their home mattered a lot more than whether that church had a Catholic-leaning or Protestant-leaning minister.
Thus, for most of the people of Scotland, the reimposition of Catholicism following the Peace of York was a minor headache, nothing more. They would have to learn Latin liturgy, and they would have to adjust to new norms of worship, but the Scottish people still went to the same churches they had attended before. To a large extent, many of the existing parish Pastors were simply given Catholic Holy Orders and sent back to serve as Priests. As long as the Bishops were staunch Catholics, it was thought that the Priests would fall in line.
The result of this was that there were many men serving as Catholic Priests who were really crypto-Protestants. They would refuse to condemn Protestantism in their sermons, and some would even openly preach Protestant ideas. While the Bishops did their best to replace such men, the fact that most of these men had the loyalty of their parishioners meant that the Bishops' work was often difficult.
King James Bothwell was also a fairly moderate Catholic himself. He had been raised as a Protestant, and had only converted to Catholicism under the influence of his wife Margaret Sinclair and his ally King Phillip of Spain. When it became clear that the people of Scotland would rise up in defence of their local clergy, King James instructed the Bishops to refrain from persecuting all but the most radical Protestants, in the hopes of maintaining order. The hope was that the Protestant-leaning clergy could be encouraged to keep relatively quiet until they retired and could be replaced with more Catholic successors.
To a large extent, King James' plan worked. For much of the 1620s and 1630s Scotland was able to maintain peace as a de jure Catholic Kingdom which was de facto divided between a Catholic Highlands and Protestant Lowlands. While there were a number of low-level revolts, and a number of hard-line Protestants who fled Scotland for Dumfries and Galloway, [1] the reign of King James was otherwise peaceful.
When King James died suddenly in 1636, he was replaced on the throne by his son, who would become King Charles I. King Charles was a much more unforgiving Catholic than his father, and had little tolerance for the 'Protestant heresy'. Inspired by his wife Anne, daughter of King Phillip III of Spain, Charles decided to introduce an Inquisition in Scotland to root out the crypto-Protestants among the Scottish population.
The Scottish Inquisition first met in 1637, and, by the end of the year, over one hundred Priests had been executed as heretics. While, from King Charles' point of view, this may have been a success, the brutal repression of the Scottish Inquisition led to a polarization of the Scottish people. The hard-line Catholics who formed a minority in Scotland as a whole (but a majority in parts of the Highlands) were in favour of the Inquisition and supported the execution of heretics. However, the remaining majority was appalled by the crackdown on their clergy, and many of them began organizing in resistance to the Inquisition.
The Supplicant movement did not have its origins during the time of the Scottish Inquisition, but can trace its roots back to the time of the 'War of the Queen's Marriage', when the country was divided between a Protestant pro-English and Catholic pro-French faction. The Protestants then had formed 'godly bands' in resistance to the Catholics, although these had dissolved once the Protestants had taken control of Scotland. With the Peace of York and the re-imposition of Catholicism, these 'godly bands' inspired the creation of a 'Covenant of Supplicants' as an agreement by all Protestants to defend fellow Protestants against Catholic persecution. [2]
The Supplicant Order was at first a secret organization dedicated to hiding those persecuted as heretics from the Catholic authorities. However, with the death of King James and the imposition of the Inquisition, the Supplicant Order swelled in numbers as those who had previously been willing to live under Catholic rule were frightened into action by the brutality of the Inquisition. Soon the Supplicant Order was no longer just finding hiding places for those fleeing the Inquisition, but was organizing mobs to drive the agents of the Inquisition out of town.
By the end of 1638, there were large parts of the Scottish countryside which were under Supplicant control. The City of Ayr itself had had its Bishop [3] expelled by the Supplicants, who were now in control of the City. Thus, in early 1639, King Charles decided he could no longer rely on the Inquisition alone to put down the Supplicants, and gathered an army in order to take military action. While the Supplicants who had taken control of Ayr had poor weapons and little military training, Charles was unable to take the City, as much of his army mutinied outside the walls and instead joined itself to the Supplicants.
The Battle of Ayr marked the transformation of the Supplicant Order into the Supplicant Army. Experienced military officers which had deserted Charles' army began training the Supplicants, and the shops of the City of Ayr were put into use building weapons to equip the Supplicant Army. Charles, in the meantime, purged his army of Protestants and recruited new Catholic mercenaries from the Highlands and from Ireland.
Throughout the summer of 1639, the Supplicant Army looked abroad for support. The Principality of Dumfries and Galloway was quick to offer logistical and administrative support, but they had no army to speak of. The Supplicants offered the Scottish throne to King Edward of England in exchange for military support, although Edward was unwilling to fight another war in Scotland, for fear of a renewed Spanish intervention. While Edward had given up his claim to Scotland under the Peace of York, it was argued that he was still the rightful heir as Queen Mary's will had stated the order of succession as Henry Tudor, then James Bothwell, then Henry Tudor's sons. Since James Bothwell was now dead, according to Queen Mary's will, Edward was next in line.
However, despite the unwillingness of England to intervene, the Supplicants only grew in power. The Supplicant Army was able to hold their own against King Charles' mercenaries in the field, and their appeal amongst the people of the Lowlands led to Supplicant-backed uprisings in Edinburgh in 1639, and Glasgow and Dundee in 1640. While King Charles was able to take back Edinburgh and Dundee within weeks, Glasgow, which remembered its rough treatment by King James, continued to hold out. Soon all of the Southwest of Scotland from Glasgow South was under military control of the Supplicants, with civil administration being provided by the government of Dumfries and Galloway.
The uprising in Edinburgh had forced King Charles to dissolve the Scottish Parliament and move his capital to Stirling. [4] Soon, Charles gave up on trying to repress the Supplicant revolt directly and instead embarked on a strategy of containment. Stirling, which controlled the bridge over the River Forth and Dumbarton, which controlled the road up the West Coast were turned into loyalist fortresses, with the Inquisition taking charge of expelling all Protestants from both cities. Soon defences in both Stirling and Dumbarton were upgraded, and a series of towers were erected in a line between the two cities. Charles' hope was that he, by holding the Stirling-Dumbarton line, he could make sure that any uprisings North of the line could be swiftly and easily put down, and could prevent the Supplicant Army operating South of the line from connecting with rebels to the North.
Many students of history are surprised that it took as long as it did for England and Spain to intervene in the Supplicant War, as both powers held back until the Second Schismatic War in Germany was well underway. England, for its part, was simply afraid of a Spanish invasion. While an invasion across the Straits of Dover from the no-longer-Spanish Netherlands was no longer a threat, the Spanish control of Dublin meant that Bristol, Gloucester, Chester, and Liverpool were all under threat. Spain at this time was still much more powerful than England, and England was unwilling to go to war with Spain without allies on its side.
Spain, for its part, was under the rule of King Ferdinand IV. Ferdinand IV, unlike his father Phillip III, and like his grandfather Charles II, was more interested in consolidating his domestic rule and stabilizing Spain's finances than he was in adventures abroad. He resisted coming to the aid of his allies both in the Supplicant War in Scotland as well as in the Second Schismatic War in Germany. He didn't see it necessary to intervene in what he saw as Scotland's internal problems. The only aid that Scotland did receive was from the Spanish governor in Dublin who helped with the recruitment of Irish mercenaries to serve the Scottish King.
By the summer of 1641, the situation in Scotland had stabilized somewhat. The Supplicants had firm control of the Western Lowlands, and King Charles had cemented his grasp on everything North of the Stirling-Dumbarton line. The only territory which was still up for grabs was Lothian, including the city of Edinburgh. After Edinburgh had been retaken by King Charles in 1639, many of the Protestants had been expelled from the city, preventing future uprisings. Supplicant support was strong in the countryside of Lothian, and Edinburgh was besieged in 1640 and 1641. However, the fact that the Supplicants had no navy to speak of meant that Edinburgh could easily be resupplied by sea via the port of Leith (which never fell into Supplicant hands).
The relative stability of the military situation in 1641 led to the commencement of peace negotiations between the two sides in 1642. In these negotiations, King Charles made it clear that he was willing to cede a good part of the Southwest to the Principality of Dumfries and Galloway. However, this was not enough for the Supplicants, as they wanted at least the cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow. Thus, the peace talks still stalled, and war would continue.
It was only in the fall of 1642 that the stalemate would be broken by the entry of England into the war. A few months earlier, Spain had finally come to the aid of their Austrian allies and declared war on France. With Spain now at war with France, King Edward decided that the risk of a Spanish invasion was low enough that he could risk intervening in Scotland. Additionally, Edward had secured a formal alliance with his cousin King Anthony of Navarre. [5] As soon as the Spanish had committed their forces in an attack on French Rousillon, King Edward declared war, and an army which had been stationed in Berwick marched into Lothian to join its forces to those of the Supplicants.
Edinburgh fell in early 1643, securing everything South of the Stirling-Dumbarton line for the Supplicants and their English allies. However, the new fortifications at Stirling and Dumbarton proved too tough for the English armies, preventing a land-based advance to the North. Furthermore, by the end of 1643, Spanish subsidies had allowed the recruitment of more mercenaries to support King Charles, futher stiffening the Scottish defence.
Rather than attempting to break through the Scottish fortifications, King Edward decided to attempt a different strategy. A large part of the English navy had been moved to Leith in order to support the conquest of Lothian, and these ships were thus available to carry English soldiers across the Firth of Forth to make a landing at Kirkcaldy. The plan was for the English to be joined by Supplicant militias in a march on the key cities of Perth and Dundee. If Dundee could be taken, the road would be open for the English to support Supplicant uprisings farther to the North.
The landing at Kirkcaldy went as planned, and Perth had fallen to English troops by July of 1644. However, before Dundee could be attacked, a Spanish fleet arrived in the Firth of Forth. They had come via Ireland and around the Northern tip of Scotland so as to catch the English by surprise. The Battle of Forth was a Spanish victory, although much of the English fleet was able to flee to Leith. However, this meant that much of the English army North of the Firth of Forth was now cut off from resupply.
In 1644 peace talks were again attempted. King Charles, with no chance of outright victory without greater Spanish intervention, offered to give up everything south of the Stirling-Dumbarton line. However, at first King Edward and the Supplicants refused, as they felt that, once the Spanish fleet was dealt with, they could continue their advance Northward. In the end, King Charles was only able to achieve peace by offering up Fife as well. While this potentially made Charles' Kingdom weaker by giving the English a beachhead North of the Firth of Forth, this same beachhead was also vulnerable enough that Charles hoped Edward would not risk another war.
Attached to the handover of Fife was the additional stipulation that the Supplicants would be required to use the land of Fife to resettle the Protestant populations of Perth and Dundee, which were expelled from those two cities. Much of the decade following the Supplicant War would be a time of upheaval in Scotland as Protestants would be forced out of the North, and Catholics would be encouraged to flee from the South. This population exchange would help stabilize both states, and would prevent future wars.
The Southern half of Scotland was annexed to the Principality of Dumfries and Galloway, and the Principality was itself promoted to become a Kingdom. This became the Kingdom of Edinburgh which, for now, would remain in personal union with England. The government of the Kingdom of Edinburgh would be based upon that of Dumfries and Galloway, with much of the power in the hands of Parliament. Similarly, the Supplicants would embrace the Dumfries Kirk, governed by an expanded Lay Synod [6] as the official Church of the Kingdom of Edinburgh.
The Northern half of Scotland would remain the Kingdom of Scotland for all official purposes, although it would begin to be informally referred to as the 'Kingdom of Alba', as the majority of the remaining Kingdom was now Gaelic-speaking ('Alba' being the Gaelic word for 'Scotland'). To a large extent, the Supplicant War, and the subsequent population exchanges, would result in a division of Scotland between a Catholic Gaelic-speaking Kingdom of Alba and a Protestant Scots-speaking Kingdom of Edinburgh.
While, in 1644, peace was made between Scotland, England, and the Covenanters, war would continue between England and Spain for the time being. King Edward still felt he had something to gain from ongoing naval actions against Spain, and English troops would serve on the continent through England's alliance with King Anthony of Navarre. While the possibility of a Spanish invasion based out of Ireland did still cause fear amongst the English, it was thought that Spain wouldn't try such an action as long as they were tied down in their war against France.
Ending the Supplicant War would prove to be one of the last acts of King Edward VII. Edward, who had already been quite sick throughout the final months of the war, would pass away within weeks of signing the peace treaty. For the remainder of the Second Schismatic War, England would be led by King Henry X.
Footnotes:
[1] Remember, Dumfries and Galloway was split off as a separate Principality in personal union with England as a way of compensating King Edward of England for his loss of Scotland.
[2] Basically, the Supplicants have the same history as the OTL Covenanters, but are responding to different types of repression.
[3] When the Principality of Dumfries and Galloway had been split off from the Kingdom of Scotland, both the Diocese of Galloway and the Archdiocese of Glasgow had been split between the Principality and the Kingdom. The part of the Diocese of Galloway lying in the Kingdom of Scotland had become the Diocese of Ayr, and the part of the Archdiocese of Glasgow lying in the Principality of Dumfries and Galloway had become the Diocese of Dumfries.
[4] It wasn't mentioned explicitly in previous updates, but, in TTL, Queen Mary fixed the capital of Scotland in Edinburgh during her reign. In OTL, the 16th and 17th centuries were still a time where Parliament met in different cities at different times.
[5] This new alliance also means a marriage between Edward's son, the future Henry X, and Anton's daughter Luisa and between Edward's daughter Elizabeth and Anton's second son Willem.
[6] Basically, the Dumfries Kirk is lay-governed along what would OTL be Presbyterian lines.
The following in an excerpt from The Schismatic Wars: Europe in Crisis 1590-1660 by Duncan MacCallum, Ph.D.
The Supplicant War
Traditional histories of the Schismatic Wars often treat Scotland as an additional theatre of the Second Schismatic War. They often treat the war in Scotland as an afterthought, a sort of spillover from the war in Germany. In doing so, these histories ignore the fact that the war in Scotland began years before the Second Schismatic War began in Germany, and ignore the fact that it was only because of the conflict in Scotland that England entered the German theatre of the Second Schismatic War.
The war which began in Scotland in the late 1630s erupted out of an ongoing conflict between the Catholic Bothwell regime and the Protestant Scottish populace. It is important to mention that the population of Scotland was not overwhelmingly Protestant at this time. There was a good part of the population of the Highlands which was staunchly Catholic, but the vast majority of the Scottish population was relatively indifferent on religious matters. For the average person, the proximity of a church to their home mattered a lot more than whether that church had a Catholic-leaning or Protestant-leaning minister.
Thus, for most of the people of Scotland, the reimposition of Catholicism following the Peace of York was a minor headache, nothing more. They would have to learn Latin liturgy, and they would have to adjust to new norms of worship, but the Scottish people still went to the same churches they had attended before. To a large extent, many of the existing parish Pastors were simply given Catholic Holy Orders and sent back to serve as Priests. As long as the Bishops were staunch Catholics, it was thought that the Priests would fall in line.
The result of this was that there were many men serving as Catholic Priests who were really crypto-Protestants. They would refuse to condemn Protestantism in their sermons, and some would even openly preach Protestant ideas. While the Bishops did their best to replace such men, the fact that most of these men had the loyalty of their parishioners meant that the Bishops' work was often difficult.
King James Bothwell was also a fairly moderate Catholic himself. He had been raised as a Protestant, and had only converted to Catholicism under the influence of his wife Margaret Sinclair and his ally King Phillip of Spain. When it became clear that the people of Scotland would rise up in defence of their local clergy, King James instructed the Bishops to refrain from persecuting all but the most radical Protestants, in the hopes of maintaining order. The hope was that the Protestant-leaning clergy could be encouraged to keep relatively quiet until they retired and could be replaced with more Catholic successors.
To a large extent, King James' plan worked. For much of the 1620s and 1630s Scotland was able to maintain peace as a de jure Catholic Kingdom which was de facto divided between a Catholic Highlands and Protestant Lowlands. While there were a number of low-level revolts, and a number of hard-line Protestants who fled Scotland for Dumfries and Galloway, [1] the reign of King James was otherwise peaceful.
When King James died suddenly in 1636, he was replaced on the throne by his son, who would become King Charles I. King Charles was a much more unforgiving Catholic than his father, and had little tolerance for the 'Protestant heresy'. Inspired by his wife Anne, daughter of King Phillip III of Spain, Charles decided to introduce an Inquisition in Scotland to root out the crypto-Protestants among the Scottish population.
The Scottish Inquisition first met in 1637, and, by the end of the year, over one hundred Priests had been executed as heretics. While, from King Charles' point of view, this may have been a success, the brutal repression of the Scottish Inquisition led to a polarization of the Scottish people. The hard-line Catholics who formed a minority in Scotland as a whole (but a majority in parts of the Highlands) were in favour of the Inquisition and supported the execution of heretics. However, the remaining majority was appalled by the crackdown on their clergy, and many of them began organizing in resistance to the Inquisition.
The Supplicant movement did not have its origins during the time of the Scottish Inquisition, but can trace its roots back to the time of the 'War of the Queen's Marriage', when the country was divided between a Protestant pro-English and Catholic pro-French faction. The Protestants then had formed 'godly bands' in resistance to the Catholics, although these had dissolved once the Protestants had taken control of Scotland. With the Peace of York and the re-imposition of Catholicism, these 'godly bands' inspired the creation of a 'Covenant of Supplicants' as an agreement by all Protestants to defend fellow Protestants against Catholic persecution. [2]
The Supplicant Order was at first a secret organization dedicated to hiding those persecuted as heretics from the Catholic authorities. However, with the death of King James and the imposition of the Inquisition, the Supplicant Order swelled in numbers as those who had previously been willing to live under Catholic rule were frightened into action by the brutality of the Inquisition. Soon the Supplicant Order was no longer just finding hiding places for those fleeing the Inquisition, but was organizing mobs to drive the agents of the Inquisition out of town.
By the end of 1638, there were large parts of the Scottish countryside which were under Supplicant control. The City of Ayr itself had had its Bishop [3] expelled by the Supplicants, who were now in control of the City. Thus, in early 1639, King Charles decided he could no longer rely on the Inquisition alone to put down the Supplicants, and gathered an army in order to take military action. While the Supplicants who had taken control of Ayr had poor weapons and little military training, Charles was unable to take the City, as much of his army mutinied outside the walls and instead joined itself to the Supplicants.
The Battle of Ayr marked the transformation of the Supplicant Order into the Supplicant Army. Experienced military officers which had deserted Charles' army began training the Supplicants, and the shops of the City of Ayr were put into use building weapons to equip the Supplicant Army. Charles, in the meantime, purged his army of Protestants and recruited new Catholic mercenaries from the Highlands and from Ireland.
Throughout the summer of 1639, the Supplicant Army looked abroad for support. The Principality of Dumfries and Galloway was quick to offer logistical and administrative support, but they had no army to speak of. The Supplicants offered the Scottish throne to King Edward of England in exchange for military support, although Edward was unwilling to fight another war in Scotland, for fear of a renewed Spanish intervention. While Edward had given up his claim to Scotland under the Peace of York, it was argued that he was still the rightful heir as Queen Mary's will had stated the order of succession as Henry Tudor, then James Bothwell, then Henry Tudor's sons. Since James Bothwell was now dead, according to Queen Mary's will, Edward was next in line.
However, despite the unwillingness of England to intervene, the Supplicants only grew in power. The Supplicant Army was able to hold their own against King Charles' mercenaries in the field, and their appeal amongst the people of the Lowlands led to Supplicant-backed uprisings in Edinburgh in 1639, and Glasgow and Dundee in 1640. While King Charles was able to take back Edinburgh and Dundee within weeks, Glasgow, which remembered its rough treatment by King James, continued to hold out. Soon all of the Southwest of Scotland from Glasgow South was under military control of the Supplicants, with civil administration being provided by the government of Dumfries and Galloway.
The uprising in Edinburgh had forced King Charles to dissolve the Scottish Parliament and move his capital to Stirling. [4] Soon, Charles gave up on trying to repress the Supplicant revolt directly and instead embarked on a strategy of containment. Stirling, which controlled the bridge over the River Forth and Dumbarton, which controlled the road up the West Coast were turned into loyalist fortresses, with the Inquisition taking charge of expelling all Protestants from both cities. Soon defences in both Stirling and Dumbarton were upgraded, and a series of towers were erected in a line between the two cities. Charles' hope was that he, by holding the Stirling-Dumbarton line, he could make sure that any uprisings North of the line could be swiftly and easily put down, and could prevent the Supplicant Army operating South of the line from connecting with rebels to the North.
Many students of history are surprised that it took as long as it did for England and Spain to intervene in the Supplicant War, as both powers held back until the Second Schismatic War in Germany was well underway. England, for its part, was simply afraid of a Spanish invasion. While an invasion across the Straits of Dover from the no-longer-Spanish Netherlands was no longer a threat, the Spanish control of Dublin meant that Bristol, Gloucester, Chester, and Liverpool were all under threat. Spain at this time was still much more powerful than England, and England was unwilling to go to war with Spain without allies on its side.
Spain, for its part, was under the rule of King Ferdinand IV. Ferdinand IV, unlike his father Phillip III, and like his grandfather Charles II, was more interested in consolidating his domestic rule and stabilizing Spain's finances than he was in adventures abroad. He resisted coming to the aid of his allies both in the Supplicant War in Scotland as well as in the Second Schismatic War in Germany. He didn't see it necessary to intervene in what he saw as Scotland's internal problems. The only aid that Scotland did receive was from the Spanish governor in Dublin who helped with the recruitment of Irish mercenaries to serve the Scottish King.
By the summer of 1641, the situation in Scotland had stabilized somewhat. The Supplicants had firm control of the Western Lowlands, and King Charles had cemented his grasp on everything North of the Stirling-Dumbarton line. The only territory which was still up for grabs was Lothian, including the city of Edinburgh. After Edinburgh had been retaken by King Charles in 1639, many of the Protestants had been expelled from the city, preventing future uprisings. Supplicant support was strong in the countryside of Lothian, and Edinburgh was besieged in 1640 and 1641. However, the fact that the Supplicants had no navy to speak of meant that Edinburgh could easily be resupplied by sea via the port of Leith (which never fell into Supplicant hands).
The relative stability of the military situation in 1641 led to the commencement of peace negotiations between the two sides in 1642. In these negotiations, King Charles made it clear that he was willing to cede a good part of the Southwest to the Principality of Dumfries and Galloway. However, this was not enough for the Supplicants, as they wanted at least the cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow. Thus, the peace talks still stalled, and war would continue.
It was only in the fall of 1642 that the stalemate would be broken by the entry of England into the war. A few months earlier, Spain had finally come to the aid of their Austrian allies and declared war on France. With Spain now at war with France, King Edward decided that the risk of a Spanish invasion was low enough that he could risk intervening in Scotland. Additionally, Edward had secured a formal alliance with his cousin King Anthony of Navarre. [5] As soon as the Spanish had committed their forces in an attack on French Rousillon, King Edward declared war, and an army which had been stationed in Berwick marched into Lothian to join its forces to those of the Supplicants.
Edinburgh fell in early 1643, securing everything South of the Stirling-Dumbarton line for the Supplicants and their English allies. However, the new fortifications at Stirling and Dumbarton proved too tough for the English armies, preventing a land-based advance to the North. Furthermore, by the end of 1643, Spanish subsidies had allowed the recruitment of more mercenaries to support King Charles, futher stiffening the Scottish defence.
Rather than attempting to break through the Scottish fortifications, King Edward decided to attempt a different strategy. A large part of the English navy had been moved to Leith in order to support the conquest of Lothian, and these ships were thus available to carry English soldiers across the Firth of Forth to make a landing at Kirkcaldy. The plan was for the English to be joined by Supplicant militias in a march on the key cities of Perth and Dundee. If Dundee could be taken, the road would be open for the English to support Supplicant uprisings farther to the North.
The landing at Kirkcaldy went as planned, and Perth had fallen to English troops by July of 1644. However, before Dundee could be attacked, a Spanish fleet arrived in the Firth of Forth. They had come via Ireland and around the Northern tip of Scotland so as to catch the English by surprise. The Battle of Forth was a Spanish victory, although much of the English fleet was able to flee to Leith. However, this meant that much of the English army North of the Firth of Forth was now cut off from resupply.
In 1644 peace talks were again attempted. King Charles, with no chance of outright victory without greater Spanish intervention, offered to give up everything south of the Stirling-Dumbarton line. However, at first King Edward and the Supplicants refused, as they felt that, once the Spanish fleet was dealt with, they could continue their advance Northward. In the end, King Charles was only able to achieve peace by offering up Fife as well. While this potentially made Charles' Kingdom weaker by giving the English a beachhead North of the Firth of Forth, this same beachhead was also vulnerable enough that Charles hoped Edward would not risk another war.
Attached to the handover of Fife was the additional stipulation that the Supplicants would be required to use the land of Fife to resettle the Protestant populations of Perth and Dundee, which were expelled from those two cities. Much of the decade following the Supplicant War would be a time of upheaval in Scotland as Protestants would be forced out of the North, and Catholics would be encouraged to flee from the South. This population exchange would help stabilize both states, and would prevent future wars.
The Southern half of Scotland was annexed to the Principality of Dumfries and Galloway, and the Principality was itself promoted to become a Kingdom. This became the Kingdom of Edinburgh which, for now, would remain in personal union with England. The government of the Kingdom of Edinburgh would be based upon that of Dumfries and Galloway, with much of the power in the hands of Parliament. Similarly, the Supplicants would embrace the Dumfries Kirk, governed by an expanded Lay Synod [6] as the official Church of the Kingdom of Edinburgh.
The Northern half of Scotland would remain the Kingdom of Scotland for all official purposes, although it would begin to be informally referred to as the 'Kingdom of Alba', as the majority of the remaining Kingdom was now Gaelic-speaking ('Alba' being the Gaelic word for 'Scotland'). To a large extent, the Supplicant War, and the subsequent population exchanges, would result in a division of Scotland between a Catholic Gaelic-speaking Kingdom of Alba and a Protestant Scots-speaking Kingdom of Edinburgh.
While, in 1644, peace was made between Scotland, England, and the Covenanters, war would continue between England and Spain for the time being. King Edward still felt he had something to gain from ongoing naval actions against Spain, and English troops would serve on the continent through England's alliance with King Anthony of Navarre. While the possibility of a Spanish invasion based out of Ireland did still cause fear amongst the English, it was thought that Spain wouldn't try such an action as long as they were tied down in their war against France.
Ending the Supplicant War would prove to be one of the last acts of King Edward VII. Edward, who had already been quite sick throughout the final months of the war, would pass away within weeks of signing the peace treaty. For the remainder of the Second Schismatic War, England would be led by King Henry X.
Footnotes:
[1] Remember, Dumfries and Galloway was split off as a separate Principality in personal union with England as a way of compensating King Edward of England for his loss of Scotland.
[2] Basically, the Supplicants have the same history as the OTL Covenanters, but are responding to different types of repression.
[3] When the Principality of Dumfries and Galloway had been split off from the Kingdom of Scotland, both the Diocese of Galloway and the Archdiocese of Glasgow had been split between the Principality and the Kingdom. The part of the Diocese of Galloway lying in the Kingdom of Scotland had become the Diocese of Ayr, and the part of the Archdiocese of Glasgow lying in the Principality of Dumfries and Galloway had become the Diocese of Dumfries.
[4] It wasn't mentioned explicitly in previous updates, but, in TTL, Queen Mary fixed the capital of Scotland in Edinburgh during her reign. In OTL, the 16th and 17th centuries were still a time where Parliament met in different cities at different times.
[5] This new alliance also means a marriage between Edward's son, the future Henry X, and Anton's daughter Luisa and between Edward's daughter Elizabeth and Anton's second son Willem.
[6] Basically, the Dumfries Kirk is lay-governed along what would OTL be Presbyterian lines.
Cuāuhtemōc
Banned
Great update telynk. What of the Scottish colony in OTL Newfoundland? Did the Supplicant War have any repercussions in the New World? Any major squabbles between the Catholics and Prots?
A little bit of this was addressed in a previous update (update 41 I think). Bothwell Scotland was forced to give up again of its claims to North American territory, so New Scotland became a colony of the Principality of Dumfries and Galloway. Since Dumfries and Galloway is predominantly Protestant, and since the settlers they welcomed from Bothwell Scotland were Protestant refugees fleeing the Scottish Inquisition, there aren't really many Catholics in New Scotland to rise up. Now, with the expansion of the Principality of Dumfries and Galloway to become the Kingdom of Edinburgh, New Scotland has become a colony of the newly-formed Kingdom.
The other repercussion is that the post-war population exchanges are creating larger numbers of displaced people willing to cross the Atlantic and settle in the New World. However, New Scotland isn't really a good spot for settler colonization, so a lot of these displaced people will end up in New England instead. I'm not sure where the displaced Catholics will end up. Maybe New France? Or in the Spanish colonies? (since Spain is the Great Power sponsor of Catholic Bothwell Scotland)
Cuāuhtemōc
Banned
The Spanish colonies are quite a distance for most Scottish Catholic exiles: plus the Spanish metropole seemed to keep European immigration to their colonies at a bare minimum unless that changed TTL. The stories of gold, a large workforce to exploit and fertile land for crops will probably attract the richer elements of the exiles to try their luck and migrate to the Caribbean, Mexico and Peru. The others will probably consider New France or even think about migrating to the Dutch colonies: they're fairly tolerant and multi-cultural folk by the standards of the time. New Brabant would welcome them.
Just caught up with this. Still a wonderful, well written timeline.
Incidentally now the lowlands are bought under british control/influence, you're going to see an expulsion of the rievers.
In, OTL, the Scottish and English borders were ruled entirely by bands of criminals due to constant war and as soon as the union of crowns meant they were no longer needed as first line defences they were shipped out to ulster and the Appalachians (nearly 250,000 of them ended up in the latter and formed the hillbilly culture). In your TTl, you might see them sent to fife rather than ulster but I don't see why the british won't do the same 'send them to wherever we have frontiers' trick they did in otl. They're ready made bordermen and economically non border land is much more productive without them there.
Incidentally now the lowlands are bought under british control/influence, you're going to see an expulsion of the rievers.
In, OTL, the Scottish and English borders were ruled entirely by bands of criminals due to constant war and as soon as the union of crowns meant they were no longer needed as first line defences they were shipped out to ulster and the Appalachians (nearly 250,000 of them ended up in the latter and formed the hillbilly culture). In your TTl, you might see them sent to fife rather than ulster but I don't see why the british won't do the same 'send them to wherever we have frontiers' trick they did in otl. They're ready made bordermen and economically non border land is much more productive without them there.
Huh. I knew the reivers existed, I didn't know that OTL some of them ended up in America. In TTL, there was a period of peace between England and Scotland in the late 16th century when Queen Mary of Scotland was married to King Edward VI. However, their marriage was a troubled one (they lived apart for most of it), so I can see them postponing dealing with the reiver issue, expecting their son Henry to deal with it once England and Scotland are in personal union. And then, since the personal union under Henry IX of England was very short, the reivers are still around once the War of the Scottish Succession breaks out.
Some of them (along the Western Borders) would have been resettled at the end of the War of the Scottish Succession with the formation of the Principality of Dumfries and Galloway. Let's say they got resettled in New Calais (Northern coast of OTL Nova Scotia: created to facilitate privateer raids against French ships in the Gulf of St. Lawrence). Later, they would migrate Westward to the 'tartan shore' (along the Gulf of St. Lawrence coast of OTL New Brunswick: I've already established it as a place where Scots settled in New England). They'd fill a similar role in North America as they did in Britain: raiding across the border into New France. I like it.
Good point about New Spain not encouraging immigration. In TTL, 'New Spain' only includes the colonies North of Panama, South America consists of New Aragon, New Catalonia, and New Valencia. New Aragon (OTL Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia) is run along similar lines as New Spain since there's a large Native population. New Catalonia (OTL Columbia, Panama, and Venezuala) sees its role as that of a trade post facilitating trade across Panama rather than an extraction-based or settler-based colony, so it's not going to want settlers. New Valencia (OTL Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Paraguay) does want settlers (because they have good temperate land and few Natives). However, during the 1640s there will be a revolt of moriscos in New Valencia (the expelled moriscos were sent to New Valencia rather than North Africa in TTL), so it won't be an appealing time for settlers to arrive. So, probably Catholic Scots will end up in New France or New Brabant (both Catholic colonies will wind up being Autocephalous Catholic rather than Roman Catholic, but for ordinary people there's not much of a difference other than the liturgical language).
Yeah, David Fischer's Albion's Seed goes into a huge amount of detail about the type of early immigrants to eastern America, and the arrival of the reivers was a huge boost to their numbers.
I like the idea of them ending up in the tartan shore, facing up against New France.
Also Henry is going to be under a lot of pressure to invade Ireland and remove the Spanish bases in the north sea. Some of the late tudor/stuart statesmen got downright hysterical about the possibility of a hostile, free Ireland being used as a base for an invasion of great britian and that was without the capture of London by Spanish troops happening in living memory.
Cuāuhtemōc
Banned
You've peaked my interest once again telynk. Moriscos rebelling in New Valencia sounds very nice. I don't want to pry too much details from you right now but is settlement in New Valencia anymore spread out TTL as it was in OTL. The Spanish had difficulty penetrating anywhere beyond the coasts due to the Mapuche peoples dominating the pampas. If so, would there be some degree of cooperation between the Moriscos and Mapuche to destroy a common enemy. Even if the rebellion ends up failing disastrously, some of the surviving Moriscos might decide to join Mapuche communities. Perhaps we could get some cultural diffusion like the Mapuche adopting Arabic script to write their language?
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