Chapter XV.
Their Whit Rōse.
"The Cholera outbreaks in Angland between 1155 and 1169 ravaged the nation, killing thousands of peasants and slaves, the nobility was decimated, the economy and commerce
collapsed, even the Godwinson family was, along their nations, at the brink of death , but a miracle saved our nation and monarchy."
Extract from the Rex Bellator Anglorum.
During all those hard years the king and the royal family prayed and worked hard to stop the situation without any kind of progress until 1168, when the outbreaks reduced their strength and finally stopped in the eleven of March the next year.
During the outbreaks the earls of Wessex and Northumbria and their families died, along most of the populace, making the entire regions improductive and throw in them in chaos after the complete collapse of the governmental structure, the only survivor in the Northumbrian branch of the Godwinson was Æthelthryth, daughter of Leofwine III, she became nun.
The death of most peasants and slaves provoked a immense rising in the salaries and the liberation of most slaves, causing bankruptcy and closure of several business, even the commerce with France and the Baltic nations was shut down, shrinking the royal coffers.
The origin and end of this outbreaks are unknown to this day, the Anglish of that time believed that they were been punished and only when they had calmed God with their prayers the disaster come to a end.
This was announced by the bishops and the royal family as truth, specially by the fact that three months before the end of this ravaging plague, the king prayed in the London Cathedral, after that Prince Harold fell ill and saw in a dream a field of white roses and Christ with His mother by the side, in a hill, under Their feet was a wyvern mortally wounded representing Angland.
In this vision it was revealed to Harold that God was angry with Angland because of the injustice of their rulers, the hipocresy and corruption of the clergy and the indifference of the King and the Witan towards the suffering of the people.
Modern historians attribute this phenomena to the traumatic experiences of the prince with the Bishop of Oxnaford and other bishops that tried to sexually abuse him and his brother, the king wanted to do something but the Archbishop made him thought that his death will provoke the Papal wrath and its consequences.
When the scandal saw the light the Pope excommunicated him and his squad of degenerates and the king ripped them in pieces so tiny that they could fit in a box.
This didn’t solved the other problems in the Anglish church; Sexual scandals, bribes, indifference, utter ignorance, nepotism and incorrect celebration of the Mass, all of that was solved after the last outbreak of Cholera and other diseases, when the pope named bishops with more morality and better formation, one of them was a Norman priest called Thomas Becket.
Independently of the veracity of the vision the royal family adopted the White Rose as part of their heraldic and personal tradition, building a sanctuary with religious images and a roses planted around, in 1170 when the third child of king Edgar was born she was named Rōse.
The royal family kept growing through the pass of time, in 1174 another couple of twins saw the world, Adolf and Mathilde, in 1176 the last child of the royal couple was birthed and she was named Eowyn.
Going to more material and political questions, the death of the earldorman of Wessex and the earldorman of Northumbria let the regions without any kind of control or order, fortunately the king was the dynastic successor to both titles, he kept Wessex for him and divided Northumbria in four earldorms: Northumbria, Yorkshire, Cumbria and Manchester.
Northumbria was given to Egbert Edwinson, founder of the house Northscheld, Cumbria to Girth of Carslile, Yorkshire to Harold Godwinson, heir to the Anglish throne and Lancashire to Adolf the Dwarf, commander of the Huscarls and friend of the king.
Glancing over the Channel, in mainland Europe the business were highly unusual, the southern half of France was patrimony of the Hohenstaufen emperor, the Sicilian Normans annexed Tunisia, the HRE was centralized and became an hereditary monarchy like France, Northern Italy was pacified after the creation of the Viceroyalty, Sardinia also became Hohenstaufen patrimony under King Richard, Swedish economy collapsed due its interdependence with Anglish one, the Baltic was a mess and Iberian wars against the taifas continued as usual.
King Edgar attracted Scandinavian colonizers to repopulate several areas of the nation, started the construction of several palaces and castles, centralized the power of the monarch and started the economical revival, Edgar have greats plans for the British Isles...