The Revolution of Litirland
1735 to 1792 AD
The Revolution of Litirland was a religious and political movement that began in 1735 and spread to the entirety of Ældenglic culture. In 1735, a scholar named Hyniss Jager was residing in the city of Mædwai
[1], which was, at the time, the largest city in the Kingdom of Acsanmúða. 25 at the time, he had lived in the city since his graduation from the Royal University of Acsanmúða, one of the greatest universities in the Ældenglic-speaking world since its foundation in 1410. He frequented himself at the Hremmhus, a restaurant not two miles outside the campus, with his friends; people who had studied Philosophy with him in the university. It was there, philosophizing with the people in the restaurant, that they formulated the groundwork for the belief system that was eventually called "Fróforgæd", or "Holy Union". The idea was eventually detailed in Jager's treatise, "
The Case for the Union of All Phrygian Principalities", published May 22nd, 1735. Shown below is a piece of the paper detailing the goals of his philosophy:
"The case for union stems primarily from the stance that we must defend ourselves. Although the Scandinavians have been kind to us in centuries past, they have never gained the trust of the people. What has been taken by the kings of our culture as respect is merely mercy. They have taken mercy on us, and they could easily take us over if one Danish duke chose to take that mercy away... Religion is an important part of any Phrygian man's character. A unification of the principalities of Phrygia under one central government would see the splinters of the Christian religion unify themselves under a worship to one single place. The kings, who have pledged themselves to a god, but to no god in particular, will then finally have somewhere to truly place their misguided worship. [2]"
His conservative beliefs against the Scandinavians came at a time when expansion from them was at their speediest. Thousands poured into the colonies every year, faster than the Ældenglic countries were able to grow. His paper spread through the college town quickly, and then throughout the rest of Acsanmúða. In 1737, Jager and his colleague, Dwight Dunstan, moved to Cerenandred, one of the largest cities in Litirland, and the paper too gained a lot of fame there. Other philosophers agreed with his points, due to many turning more conservative as the Scandinavian colonies grew in military might. The philosophy eventually morphed into one with three tenets:
1.
The unification of all Ældenglic principalities would lead to a unified military that would eventually control the entirety of the continent.
2.
There would be a unification of the different branches of Christianity that had arisen, and everyone would worship towards Hálga Martinus, the place where the Frygian Pope lived.
3.
The political system of the new Ældenglic Commonwealth would be a republic, in which representatives from each former kingdom would serve in the Þing, or Parliament. There would be one single leader, known as the Chief Minister, elected by the people.
The popularity of the philosophy grew exponentially by 1740, when Emer III, Emperor of Ælfgaránweald, endorsed it. However, with his personal philosophy, he made one tiny change; instead of representatives serving in the Þing, the kings of the principalites would serve instead, and would elect a Chief Minister between themselves. He wanted this because Ælfgaránweald, at the time, had the largest military out of any Ældenglic state, and he knew that if it ever came time to elect a king to be Chief Minister, his military would enforce his win in the election.
Quickly, the philosophy gained a collective name. Emer adopted Fróforgæd as the basis for his governmental choices, and also used the idea of unification against the Scandinavians to rally the people of Ælfgaránweald to join the military. He waged wars against neighboring kingdoms, something his father had failed to do during a time of peace. Quickly, he took over Wælgeuga, Burggemót, and the various provinces of Hæfen. In 1746, the Treaty of Aeccestane was signed with Ðesmengi, another powerful state to the north. In the treaty, the two countries agreed to unite and form the United Ældendic Commonwealths. Emer, partly believing the philosophy and wanting Ældendic culture to unify, was willing to do anything to have this new Commonwealth subsume the entirety of Litirland. So, he agreed to allow the people to participate in the first democratic Þing election, then actually stepped down, hoping to be elected by the people. He was elected to his post as the rep from Cerenandred, as he was a very well-loved king. He served as the first Chief Minister of the UAC, and stepped down in 1751, after a single five-year term.
Quickly, other kingdoms, seeing that they were either going to join politely or get taken over by the greatest military power of the Ældendic world, chose the former option. The size of the Þing grew from 12 representatives to 83 by the 1751 election. Some philosophers who had originally supported Fróforgæd took back those endorsements, seeing the new UAC as an Empire, as opposed to a unit of the people. Others, however, believed the UAC was exactly what was necessary. One of these believers in the new system was a politician from Cerenandred by the name of Hyniss Jager. In the 1756 election, at age 46, he ran for Chief Minister, and won. His policies unified the Christian religion (somewhat violently, may I add, though that's par for the course with religious conquest), and gave autonomy to Hálga Martinus as a region run by the Frygian Church. He also passed new rules on language, standardizing the Ældendic alphabet to 30 letters
[3].
The final two tenets of Fróforgæd, therefore, were achieved by 1760. The first one, however, to unify the entire continent, was not. A unified military had been created, but the Scandinavian colonies still survived. This could be explained by the fact that Jager didn't really want to go up against a huge military power in a gigantic war. He was all talk and no action when it came to the military; plus, 25 years had passed since he wrote his esteemed paper, and he had grown more docile with time. So, he never waged war against Scandinavia, but he also never criticized the anti-Scandinavian part of his philosophy. So, after Jager's sudden death in 1769, after having served nearly three full terms, a snap election was called in the Þing, and a radical named Aegelmaere Hricyng became Chief Minister.
Hricyng followed Fróforgæd more closely than the man who had created the basis of it. He believed, after years of pouring through papers made by philosophers who agreed with Jager, in an innate superiority to Scandinavia. So, he made it his secret duty to take over the Scandinavian colonies before two terms in office had went by. The Scandinavians themselves had already taken notice of the vitriol Fróforgæd rose against them, and had been flooding as many people into the colonies as possible to create a potential counter to the new threat the UAC caused. Hricyng quickly united the rest of Ældendic culture into his reach, and began taking over countries that weren't a part of the historical Frygian region. He took over the Kingdom of Iyesanyathi, a Native kingdom, by way of Efenhléoðor, a new settlement formed by Jager in 1766. He also sent troops into Gulyrfæra, an Ældendic state that practiced paganism after the exile of the former pagan homeland of Hálignausé westward, to instigate revolution. The goal of the revolution was to get Gulyrfæra to join the UAC, and to eventually convert to Christianity. However, by the time the revolution ended in 1778, with the Scandinavian-supported pagans as the victors, Gulyrfæra would have changed its name to Wodenslund, as the pagan part of its heritage would be accepted and flaunted.
Hricyng had a line of successes, but that line stopped in 1775. On August 6th, 1775, Hricyng made the Hremmhus Proclamation. Standing in the same cafe Jager had created his philosophy, Hricyng declared war on Scandinavian Herbergia, and detailed his aims to take over the entire continent and to push the Europeans out. Not one month into the war, a fight broke out in the Þing, in an event that was soon called the "Hricyng Þingdryre", or "Hricyng's Þing Collapse". The way the story goes is that Hricyng got into an argument with Kendriek Lempe, the former King of Semminoa, who was then a representative in the Þing. Lempe voiced his distaste that Semminoan people had to serve in a war hundreds of miles away from the borders of his kingdom. Hricyng said something along the lines of "We are all one culture and country now," before getting socked in the face by Lempe. A fight broke out, which was followed by Lempe seceding from the UAC. Hricyng was fine with this, at first, as all he had to do was send a garrison of soldiers to kill the king and take over the capital of Semminoa. However, he started losing his luster after dozens of other reps, mostly former kings from southern Frygia, seceded with Lempe.
Eventually, the UAC was in disarray. Hricyng was booted from office after a no-confidence vote by the remaining reps in 1776, and the Scandinavians won the war officially one year later. In the treaty that solidified that victory, the Treaty of Jakobia (Jakobia being the capital of former Dismoeland) officially dissolved the UAC. The reps were out of jobs. The kingdoms that had seceded 2 years earlier were the only Ældendic states to survive the transition, while the rest of the former UAC fell into anarchy. The violence of the "Later Litirlandi Revolution", the euphemistic nickname given to anarchy that befell northern Frygia in the 1780's and '90's, lead to the stereotype that the Ældendic don't know how to manage their anger, and can't form a stable government to save their lives. In some European countries, this stereotype still persists today, where Ældendic emigrants get skimped because they're thought to be dangerous. The conservatism that was a staple of Fróforgæd was also no longer a part of the societal zeitgeist. Liberalism was prevalent in early-1800's Litirland. In addition, the economic center of Ældendic culture shifted to the south. Formerly, the center was in the regions the first settlers had arrived at, which the Ælfgaránweald controlled the entirety of. However, after that area fell into disarray, kingdoms like Schenga and Mintenðia, both very powerful southern powers before the UAC, picked up the pieces.
Although the UAC didn't survive, its governmental system was eventually restored by the Ældendic states of the present day. In addition, Fróforgæd became the basis for modern day Litirlandi conservatism. Although his political career didn't work wonders on society, Hyniss Jager's philosophical legacy carried Phrygia into the modern world.
And, eventually, by the early-1790's, the northern part of Frygia had recovered. That was, until 1792, when Scandinavia adopted their own version of Fróforgæd, and decided to take over the tiny Ældendic principalities that then scattered the lower half of the continent...
[1] - OTL Laplace, Louisiana
[2] - This last sentence likely refers to the Mearth Scandal of 1731, which occurred when the King of Wegbræda, Mearth II, couldn't remember Jesus' name. This lead to the realization that many religious leaders in western Ældenglic culture really just used their religious power to sway the people, not to spread the benefits of Christianity. Jager eventually credited this scandal as one of the formative moments of his philosophy.
[3] - Before the standardization, alphabets were different throughout the different kingdoms. In the east, there were 28 letters, and in the west, there could be upwards of 35. Obviously, this lead to some crazy accents that are still ingrained in Ældendic society in the present day, but at least there's now only one alphabet.
NOTE: Obviously, if Fróforgæd was real, I wouldn't support it. While it does give agency to the people, it also focuses on the superiority of one culture over another, which isn't good. I normally tackle these belief systems from the perspective of someone living in the timeline, which might seem like I accept the conservative-ness of the philosophy as a good thing. I don't, personally, but others might.
Chief Ministers of the United Ældendic Commonwealth
Emer Alles -
1746-1751
Godgifu Hereweald -
1751-1756
Hyniss Jager -
1756-1769
Aegelmaere Hricyng -
1769-1776
Hroðulf Hentar -
1776-1777
The United Ældenglic Commonwealths in 1775, before the "Hricyng Þingdryre".
✝ - Hálga Martinus
1 - Eadbhárda
2 - Éamonnea
3 - Hieðwinga
4 - Cyningessa
5 - Crawanbeam
6 - Leaþorburg
7 - Synnealand
8 - Choctíwa
9 - Walganus
10 - Næncha
11 - Curmealiea
12 - Mintenðia
13 - Acsanmúða
14 - Bælouchí
15 - Aneirin
16 - Æscmanngára
17 - Wegbræda
18 - Cliþæa
19 - Semminoa
20 - Timucca
21 - Oswalltea
22 - Æthelsburg
23 - Kyrkwoden
24 - Edméesburg
25 - Westyailohi
26 - Eastyailohi
27 - Caedda
28 - Hálga Ælfheah
29 - Schenga
30 - Cumaþe
31 - Berewíc
32 - Feormeháman
33 - Na Sraithe
34 - Wælgeuga
35 - Wolfe
36 - Burggemót
37 - Puwhata
38 - Mærcumba
39 - Catæba
i - Rima
ii - Persland
iii - Eringland
iv - Wealaworth
v - Dai
vi - Cystennin
vii - Muschogie
viii - Brænnus
ix - Caleusa
x - Súþdælgeard
xi - Inwarum
xii - Umbúðir
xiii - Merscha
xiv - Edvarda
xv - Carléasnes
xvi - Connacht Nua
a - Déaþwang
b - Níwe-Cerdicesford
c - Herþérgea
d - Sūþtimucca
There should be a "Litirland in the 1700's" chapter next, then some more stuff in the Americas, then hopefully we can move back to the Old World for some maps of Asia and Europe. I have a few plans for Europe that I think are a lot more plausible than the rest of the TL, but will still hopefully keep things interesting. Watch out for English colonies in Spain, Batavian-ruled Germany, a French rebound, and Scandinavian expansion into the far east.
