I was rather unhappy with my first update and considered breaking it up into more chunks, but seeing how happy everybody is with it I've decided not to do that and just go to the next event.
Reactions in Scotland and Ireland
News of the Conflagration took several weeks to reach Scotland and Ireland by which point the Carlists and Elizabethans had emerged and were consolidating themselves. The delay was largely due to confusion and the smaller conflicts between frightened county militias which made travel in much of the English countryside dangerous.
In Ireland, the Conflagration came only a few years after a large rebellion. With England crippled and divided, the Catholic lords of Ireland saw their chance. Alongside Old English settlers, and High Church Anglicans who feared the plantations of Scottish and New English settlers who brought their more radical Protestantism with them, forged an alliance. Together, they raised an army, and marched on Dublin in 1606. Here, they forced the dissolution of the Irish Parliament, and held new elections. Taking control of the few ships and barracks on Irish land, they declared the Kingdom of Ireland under their control. Hugh O'Neill took control of Ireland, but his reign was not yet fully secure. He lacked legitimacy amongst the Southern Irish, and the imposition of Scottish settlers in Ulster meaned a Protestant rebellion.
O'Neill lead an army north to deal with the Scots personally, and routed their hastily formed militias. Controversially, he decided not to put them to death and instead expelled them from Ireland, using his own few ships to send them back to Scotland. In the South, he found it difficult to convince the Southerners to support an Ulsterman in a time of peace. They were convinced that if an Ulsterman ruled Ireland then they would suffer from neglect. O'Neill's solution came in 1607 with the Declaration of Indulgence from the Court of Queen Elizabeth II. O'Neill recognised Elizabeth II as Queen of Ireland. Robert Catesby knew a good opportunity when he saw it, and O'Neill was declared Viceroy of Ireland. Many of the policies that the Tudor conquerors had used to bring Ireland to heel were reversed particularly the use of Plantations. However, O'Neill did find that he had to use his own seneschals as more than a few Irish lords sought to rebel against his newly centralised government. By 1608, O'Neill was well integrated into the Court of Elizabeth, and was building an army and some ships in preparation to help his queen in her war for recognition in the South.
Scotland on the other hand, had to suffer no such rebellions, or forging of new kingdoms. Of course for a time, there was confusion over whether or not to declare for Elizabeth, but when the London mob produced the young Prince Charles and crowned him King, the Scots saw their chance. Unlike Elizabeth, Charles was in a weak position, isolated and weak. If his throne was to survive, then he needed Scottish support. And if he had to, he and his minders would pay through the nose to get it. With O'Neill having united and enforced his rule over Ireland, and acquiring money and arms to send an army to Elizabeth's aid, Charles and the emerging Council of England, desperately needed Scotland to bring their martial prowess to bear on their side.
The Scots offered to invade Northumberland, and strip Elizabeth's regent of his seat. At the same time, they would secure London's coal supplies, and advance the cause of Charles in the North. But in return they demanded that England's Church should be properly reformed to align the southern kingdom with the Presbytery of the northern, that after the war, a Parliament would replace the Council that had emerged from the Mob and the Militia, and that for the duration of the War, some Scots should sit on the Council, and during peace time, there should be Scots in Charles' Regency Council.
The Carlists were eager to accept, and they sealed the alliance. After putting down a short rebellion amongst the northern Catholics, they marched south in 1609, taking control of Newcastle. The Earl of Argyll had risen up as leader of the Scots, and was determined to bring England to heel. Stripping the Earl of Northumberland of his titles, he imposed one of his allies on the county as Earl.
The Second of the Triplicate Wars had begun. The British Civil War would soon spread, as across the Channel, a fleet was prepared in the Spanish Netherlands for an invasion on the south of England. Negotiations to marry Elizabeth to a Spanish princeling were reaching fruition. If the Spanish invasion succeeded and London fell, France would be surrounded on all sides by Hapsburgs. And they couldn't have that...
Within England, the Elizabethans had been more successful in securing power and influence. They were able to attract aristocrats and nobles whereas the common and 'mechanical' make up of the mobs who had united under the Council with Charles as their rallying flag alienated those with real power. However, the populist nature of the Carlists did have its positive marks. In 1607, when the young King Charles had only just gained the throne, an insurrection broke out in the Midlands against the enclosing of common land. Leicestershire, Northamptonshire and Warwichshire were far from either of the thrones' centres of power. Importantly, those that the peasants directed their anger towards most were the Treshams, a family that sided with the Elizabethans from before the Conflagration if that can be credited. Hence, the peasants aligned themselves with the Carlists. When the Elizabethans attempted to send troops to put down the revolt in Northamptonshire, it wasn't long before militias in the whole of the East Midlands sided against her.
The Lord Lieutenants in these counties were removed from power by their own militias, and peasants councils based on parish councils were established. While their territories were not contiguous with the Carlists in London and the Southeast, they were fierce in defending themselves from those around them. In reaction to this displacement of property owning men, Yorkshire aligned herself with the Elizabethans fearing that the banner of Charles I (now the Union Flag or Old Charlie as its colloquially known) represented anarchy and peasantish bloodlust.
During this time, Wales had tried to keep its distance, but with Elizabethans dominating the Welsh Marches, and the Irish mustering for war on the other side of the Irish Sea, as far as the Welsh could see it they had little choice but to side with the Elizabethans. Unlike the Northerners who had been drawn to Elizabeth by Catholicism, a new type of Christianity was gaining currency in Wales. The Conflagration had lead to many explanations but the idea that it was a divine portent was popular amongst the Welsh. Radical sectaries emerged from the established Church, and ripped apart the old religious fabric of the country. The Declaration of Indulgence protected radical Protestants as much as it did Catholics, and in 1609 with the Carlists agreeing to impose Prebytery, the Welsh aristocrats already repulsed by the Carlist support for mob rule aligned themselves to Elizabeth.
By 1610, a line was emerging across England. The efforts of the clubmen, and the Lords Lieutenant to maintain their neutrality had not gone well. The North and West was falling under the sway of Elizabeth, while the Peasants' Councils of the Midlands expanded their sphere over the East, and the Carlists in London marched across the South. Only East Anglia remained reluctant to align with either side, and to a certain extent the Navy was reluctant to aid either side, with one looking stronger but the other occupying their key ports.
