Omen imperii maritimi

September 1628

With the failures of the two first fleets to relieve La Rochelle , Charles I king of England , ordered a new fleet to sail and relieve the city . The new fleet would be commanded by Robert Bertie , 1st Count of Lindsey and was 29 warships strong . 31 merchantships were also gathered to save the city from starvation .
Of course , the preparation for the operation was not a secret , and Cardinal Richelieu was aware of it almost at the time Charles I finished to give his orders .
With the spare time , Richelieu was able to gather nearly all his naval strength and prepare a trap for the Royal Navy . It was simple : use the shore artillery to defend the seawall and distract the English while the French Navy was coming from behind .
The resulting battle was extremely one-sided with 11 ships sunk for the English against 4 for the French . The remaining English ships were all captured at the great consternation of La Rochelle's inhabitants . The next morning , La Rochelle surrendered , having lost all hope of rescue .

The victory was a triumph for France , and of course for Armand Jean du Plessis de Richelieu . Founder of the French Navy , the naval victory gave him the prestige to develop the naval build-up he wanted . For him , this victory would soon be followed by others . As he would say to others nobles a few months later it was "Omen imperii maritimi "(the presage of the sea ): for its first great battle the navy had vanquised its foe .
 
October 1628


Who has the strenght has often the reason in the matters of State - Cardinal Richelieu 1628
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The fall of La Rochelle in september didn't mean only the end of the Huguenot's military power . For all the nobles , it affirmed that now , unless Richelieu was to be stopped ,they were soon going to walk to their end with the royal executioner . Lead by Monsieur Gaston , brother of the king ,and Marie de Médicis , mother of the king , the conspirators had the open goal to eliminate the cardinal , in order to regain the influence they wanted with Louis XIII . The problem was that they were totally unable to conspirate without bragging about it , and the cardinal spies were very efficient .
The efforts of Richelieu to destroy various fortresses and positions among the kingdom had earned him a lot of enemies , which were only too eager to join a side with the cardinal as main opponent .
As a result , on 11 October 1628 the day later called "The Day of The Dupes " the great majority of the traitors were in Paris awaiting the fall of their enemy . What proved their undoing was the fact that Richelieu had managed to gain a letter in which Gaston explicitely made a deal with Spain . In exchange of 15000 soldiers and a large sum of gold , Gaston promised an alliance against the Dutch and a few lands of northern Italy once he was King of France .

Needless to say , King Louis XIII didn't enjoy reading the letter and Richelieu had the 20 000 men from the army of La Rochelle surrounding Paris . Arresting the nobles was not only easy , it was also ridiculous . Gaston d'Orléans was for instance taken in the act of trying to bribe the Cardinal guards .
The Duke of Montmorency , as one of the leaders of the plot was executed three days later . Marie de Médicis was sent in exile to Compiègne . Gaston d'Orléans was made prisoner , and was denied all his titles . Nearly thirty nobles were executed for treason , their castles destroyed and their possesions taken . The same number went to exile and had to swore to never go back to France again .
In one week Louis XIII and Richelieu had managed to crush all their major opponents . On this day , the centralisation of power in France at the hands of the king was beginning ...


Things on the other side of the Channel weren't looking so bright .News of the disaster had reached London and now the citizens wanted an end to this unpopular war . Charles I , had now two things to mourn : the failure to protect fellow Protestants and the assassination of Buckingham .The problem was that the public was thinking that the second was not a motive of grief , but of joy . Provocations on the Parliament between Charles and its members continued over taxations , religious and military matters . The only two things Charles managed to do during this time , was to end the war with Spain and France and imprison seven parliamentary members . At the end of the month , furious beyond any mesure , Charles I dismissed the Parliament and decided to rule alone . It would be the beginning of ten long years during which the king would make himself more and more unpopular ...

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November 1628

Usually , the coming of winter means war is coming to an end for three or four months . The end of the year 1628 was not usual at all . In Germany , Jean t'Serclaes Count Tilly and Albrecht von Wallenstein armies are roaming across the country , killing and raping everything in their path . The Danish forces of Christian IV are in full retreat : no doubt in the spring the Imperial armies will invade Holstein and Jutland bringing an end to this long war which began ten years ago .
In Northern Italy , the war of the Mantuan Succession rages . Charles -Emmanuel I , Duke of Savoy and Don Gonzalo Fernandez de Cordoba are laying siege to the town of Casale . Louis XIII can't allow Northern Italy to fall under Spanish domination and send Cardinal Richelieu to relieve the Italian city while he 's dealing with the Huguenot uprisings of Charles of Rohan in the Languedoc .
The king and the cardinal are in complete agreement that they can't allow the Habsburgs to become too powerful for their own good . However , they know also they aren't ready to enter the war . Richelieu begins to develop a new strategy which is based on three points . First , to find a kingdom to continue the war in Germany in Denmark's place . Second , to accelerate the build -up of the French Navy ,now that England has proven totally unfaithful . Third , the king needs an heir . With the betrayal of the brother of the king , there is no clear succession in France .
In the mean time Richelieu begins the formation of the Corps Diplomatique de Renseignement with the approval of the king . Whatever its name , the only purpose of the corps is to spy Europe in the name of France .

Other countries like the Netherlands , England and Spain begins to look worried with the spectacular rise in power of France . However , the wars of Religion means they don't trust each other , and their coffers are not full of money . For now , they're going to wait a better time to confront their enemies directly on the field of battle .
 
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