The Sons in Splendor Vol IV: The Eclipse of the Sons

20 years of the TL to go, lots could happen, how much detail would you like?


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...This can't be the Great Conde, on one hand, so maybe this is fine? On the other, maybe this is the alternate timeline version of him, born much earlier? Very odd, in any case. Honestly, If I was Tilly, I'd train him up, then send him to the New World to see what he can wrest away from the Britannic Empire there.

Well, 5 years (or maybe less) to prepare for more war. Honestly, on the Protestant side, they really need that. Magnus to come up with more tech and tactics to deal with the Catholics. Brittany, Oudenburg, the Netherlands and the Reich to train up companies of men. John to build the Reich. England to hopefully end the Civil War and be able to help. The Catholics... well, Louis and Tilly got what they wanted mostly, and I doubt they care about the Reich that much. There's nothing really keeping them to the treaty, obviously, but it's a bad look if they break it without cause and if they ever lose could mean no chance of a fair treaty, so I think the French won't break it unless they really have to.
Of course the Spanish and the German Catholics are going to try and run wild at the Reich, but without French support and Tilly's genius, I don't think they'll be that successful. John might be young and untried, but he's got a lot of land and men now, relatively loyal and high morale people, and good leaders/administrators for his regions - his mother for Prussia, Thurn for Bohemia, etc. He also doesn't really have any immediate threats, and allies that can probably help.
I think Sweden is in a good position too - Gustavus Adoplhus should be 14, and he was 16 when he became king OTL. With no inherited war with Denmark, Russia being very weak and likely on his side, he can probably take parts of Poland too, and in 5 years (if there's that much time) fully enter the wider war. Honestly, I see now way back for Poland.

Another interesting thought is what the military reforms are doing for Spain and France's civilian population. With that many citizens now trained for war, with arms and experience, might we get to see more democratization, something like England? If another Fronde starts up, it'll take a lot more effort to put it down. And obviously giving more power and representation in the Estates General is an option (for France, say), it could also be a liability in the future - such a body might support a war against Normandy or Brittany, but see no reason to send troops to help the Spanish fight the Reich.

I can't wait to see how these five years (or less~) pass!
Spot on vis a vis the Reich Meneldur, there are some wars of unification to come, and with GA emerging in Sweden, Poland is truly screwed.

Conde is biologically the same guy from OTL but of course his upbringing was very different. Havn't quite decided what will happen with him yet...

As for Spain and France, I also hadn't really thought about the impact on the populations, but the Church is covering a multitude of sins at this stage. Now that there is peace, there will be some changes to society, and I feel that there will be an increase in demands for representation and taxation!
 
1608: Britannia
The History of the First Britannic Civil War by RJ Evans (2003)

By the end of 1607, the battle lines had been drawn. The forces of Richard II of the House of Stewart held the north and west of England, Wales and Scotland whilst the Parliamentarian-Tudor faction, under Anne and Arthur, controlled the south and east. Figure 1 shows a rough disposition of loyalties. Such maps are notoriously inaccurate as they do not represent individuals or outliers, nor could they hope to represent widespread public feeling in an era before opinion polls. Nonetheless, figure 1 has some uses.

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Richard II enjoyed support from the Scottish nobility, most obviously from the Lords of March including: Earls Lennox, Home, Gordon, Kellie, Mar and Maxwell, and Lords Carmichael, Sandilands, and Johnstone. Of particular import was William Stewart, Earl of Westmorland, who commanded the Emperor’s army. By spring of 1608 this army numbered close to 40,000 men but was scattered across garrisons in the northern and western midlands and the Severn valley.

English support for Richard II was far less secure and relied on individual reasons and intimidation. The northern Lords – Northumberland, Humber and Warwick – were more or less coerced into supporting Richard. With Scots crawling over the land, there was no shortage of replacements if the English Lords showed any sign of treason, and the Earl of Lincoln’s execution gave them no doubt that Richard would remove them.

That being the case, there were some English who fought willingly for their Scottish Emperor. Richard Stanley, Earl of Derby, was desperate to prove his House’s loyalty after his nephew’s treason and declared his public support for Richard no less than four times between April 1607 and January 1608. The House of Seymour too supported Richard. This was perhaps obvious given that Edward Seymour’s sister was married to the Emperor, though their marital troubles were an open secret, and it seems the Earl of Surrey and Bedford stayed loyal to his brother in law out of genuine intent rather than sentiment. Finally came the Dorset branch of the Grey family. Lionel Grey was married to a Seymour but had also been appointed Lord Paramount of the West when Richard dissolved the old Council in 1605. Furthermore, Grey’s main local rival was the Earl of Lincoln, a strong ally of the Tudors, and he potentially stood to lose his position in a Tudor court. He thus supported Richard out of necessity.

These were the major families, but there were hundreds of smaller names who joined the Royalists, including many gentry from the north and midlands. Two of note were Roger Frecheville and Robert Bertie. Frecheville was a wealthy landowner in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire but had found his rise strangled by the Earls of Humber and the Lords of Hastings. He was also a former commander of the Calais garrison and was a vital part of the Stewart war machine. Even more important was Robert Bertie. Bertie had remained loyal even in the madness of the April Days. Though he had commanded the Middlesex Regiment, he was originally from northern Lincolnshire and was instrumental in bringing Lindsey and Grimsby to the Royalist side. He was made Duke of Lindsay for his efforts and appointed a General of the army.

The Parliamentary faction, in contrast, could bank on the majority of the population of south east England and London, including the nobility. The House of Tudor was disadvantaged by their northern and welsh estates being occupied, but they still possessed some land in the south. Of main import were the Earls of Thetford, Essex, St Albans, Lincoln, Huntingdon, Wiltshire, Kent and Arundel but they were joined by many Lords and members of Parliament.

Primary amongst these were was George Carew, Lord of Totnes. Carew had been a junior commander in the Low Countries and Swedish wars, but in the absence of Oudenberg, Magnus the Red or Henry Tudor, he was one of the few who had more experience of war than politics. Talking of politics, it was Thomas Richardson who continued to lead the political element of the rebel cause from London alongside the other leading Parliamentarians from the previous year.

Wales is a special case which deserves a separate discussion. Though the Tudor were an old Welsh family, the Principality initially sided with Richard II. The Emperor had lightened the burden upon him when he had abolished the regional councils and his son Richard Prince of Wales, though 11, ruled from Ludlow under the auspices of Sir Herbert Grey of Ruthin which won over much of the northern marches. In the southern marches, the Pembroke lands around Wye and Raglan had been confiscated a few years earlier with only the peasantry still loyal to their Earl. Further west and in mid Wales the same fate befell the Tudor lands. There was more resistance here but it was still easily dealt with. Though not a major population centre, Wales was nonetheless denied to the rebels.

Figure 1 does have some limitations which bear discussing. A colour-coded system for showing allegiances always glosses over the undecided or smaller voices. A prime example in is northern Lincolnshire. Though largely Puritan, this part of the county was lost to the rebels because of the actions of Robert Bertie. This is not to say that the region of Lindsay was unanimously Royalist, and there were local skirmishes throughout the Civil War. Likewise in the south, a number of supporters of the Seymour, Stanley and Grey families agitated against the rebels either by moving north to support their Emperor or by local passive resistance, which was usually clandestine.

War by its very nature destabilises. With the decline of central authority many local issues flared up and scores were settled. Some of these had political dimensions and were contested by local rivals from different sides – the Lincolnshire stand-off between Bertie and Hastings is the clearest example – but many merely took advantage of the situation. The Raleighs of Dorset, for example, used the war to smuggle in tonnes of Tobacco from their Goughton cousins. Accordingly this account of the First Civil War could not hope to encompass all of these disputes and ‘smaller’ stories, though they must be acknowledged as part of the wider picture of the war.

The 1608 campaign opened with a Royalist march on London once again. Richard II’s aims were simple: retake the capital and purge the traitors. The Parliamentarians had a more challenging aim. They had to bring Richard to battle, defeat and arrest him without causing so much damage or bloodshed to lose them popular support. The Emperor in contrast showed little reticence to burn or plunder, to him the lands south of the Trent were in rebellion and did not deserve leniency.

In mid-April 1608, over 25,000 men crossed the Trent at Newark and marched directly down the Great North Road towards Huntingdon. A garrison army led by the Earl of Thetford was defeated at Costerworth on the 1st of May, only 5 miles from the site of Tudor’s defeat at Corby Glen. Devereux was able to escape with half of his 12,000 men and flee south. This was a mere skirmish compared to the Battle of Ashwell over a week later. Thetford had been met by the Earl of Essex and Sir John Killigrew north of Stevenage which had bolstered their forces to 24,000 men, almost on par with the advancing Stewarts.

Between them the three men decided to hold Ashwell Hill just to the east of the Great North Road. The issue was that neither Essex nor Thetford were particularly skilled in commanding a large army. Killigrew was far more experienced and had been a junior officer at Nybro over a decade earlier. Unfortunately, Killigrew was low-born and had merely an advisory capacity with Thomas Cromwell II, the Earl of Essex, in official command.

Thus on the morning of the 11th of May 1608, the Parliamentary force drew up facing north-west towards the road along a low sloping ridgeline. Essex was taking advice from Killigrew and positioned his cannon in view of the road with the infantry behind. The majority of these men were levees from the south east. The majority of the trained units being further west at the time.

In contrast the Earls of Westmorland and Lindsay, with Warwick supporting them, had a well trained force of infantry and cavalry having brought their best forces to battle. Westmorland was an experienced commander, and had actually fought as a mercenary alongside Killigrew in Sweden. He refused the obvious advance up the slope and instead sent his cavalry under Sir John Maxwell on a long loop to the south and east whilst he and Lindsay took their infantry to the east and approached the Parliamentary line obliquely from the north.

In the ensuing pincer movement, the right most flank of the rebel army was caught between the infantry and cavalry and destroyed in short order with Killigrew killed. Desperate and in shock, the two Earls pulled to the west and left the Great North Road to London open for Richard II who had remained in Royston during the battle.

Ashwell demonstrated the weakness of the rebel cause in these early days. For generations the Britannic fighting men had been exported to Calais which had become a fortress. Yet with the European war in full swing, and Catholic brigands burning Picardy, these military elites were unavailable. Magnus, for example, had not set foot on English soil since his outlawing. This left the rebels with either untested or ageing men. Only the Earl of St Albans and his son Hal could be said to have military experience but they were both pre-occupied in early summer 1608.

To the rebels, the West Country remained a prime target for subjugation. Only Marquess Lionel Grey, and his local subordinates Bevil Grenville and Jacob Astley, stood in their way from controlling the region. The West Country, like Wales had benefitted from Richard’s abolition of the regional councils, but here the peasantry, and gentry in particular, were more accustomed to the international trade and rights which Richard had also curtailed and so were more bellicose.

Edward de la Pole, Earl of St Albans and his cousin Phillip, Earl of Lincoln, thus took 19,000 men west in spring 1608. Lionel Grey could muster only around 9,000 men, and much of local populace rose in support of the invaders. Running out of room, Dorset finally made a stand at Thorndon Cross, west of Bodmin Moor. A plan to use the hills for hit and run actions came unstuck given Hal de la Pole’s proficiency with light cavalry and the Royalist forces disintegrated in just a couple of hours. Dorset fled, deeper into Cornwall, and Lincoln pursued him. For all intents and purposes, however, the Royalist enclave in the west had been defeated. St Albans and his son instead returned east, having learnt of the defeat at Ashwell a few days prior to the Battle of Thorndon Cross.

In the home counties, Richard II had balked. Since Ashwell, the road had lain open to him, but the moral path to victory had not. All across the home counties the advance of the Emperor was stalled by ordinary people. Violent resistance was rare, but bridges and sheepfolds were broken to slow down the advancing army, water sources were poisoned and even food tampered with. A Baker’s wife in Hertford famously poisoned loaves seized by the invaders which laid up an entire cavalry company for a week. All of this was ultimately ineffective, and Richard reached Enfield on the 20th of May. However, it did send a clear message that Richard and his army was not welcome.

The Emperor was faced with the same issue which had made him quit the capital in the previous year. He could subjugate the populace but only with severe bloodshed and the corresponding moral backlash. The Emperor’s entire cause and motive had centred upon him being the morally superior and rational, God appointed, monarch. Enraged though he was he could not countenance such a massacre of his own capital. The impasse dragged on for a week with the Royal army camped in the Lea valley. Lennox, desperate to avenge his father, encouraged Richard to advance with fire and sword but even William Stewart, the Earl of Westmorland, advised against this. The problem was that the rebels did not really have depots or bases to target. Of course London was the intellectual and industrial heart-land, but the army at Ashwell had been common conscripts; they had no barracks or staging grounds which could be obliterated. Those soldiers which had not followed Essex and Thetford west had simply melted back into the fold.

By the 29th, word reached Richard that another army was massing near Salisbury as Essex and Thetford had joined forces with St Albans. Knowing this was his chance to break the spirit of the rebels completely, but wishing not to be forced to give battle near London, Richard marched his army west towards Oxford in order to protect his lines of communication. The hoped for battle occurred at Boar’s Hill 2 miles south-west of Oxford on the 4th of June 1608.

Westmorland had chosen Boar’s Hill for the superior view it gave of the countryside and the fact that the eastern flank was protected by the Thames. As had become custom, Richard II himself waited in Oxford whilst Westmorland led the army into battle. Boar’s Hill was perfect for a static defence, and the Royalists had the cannon for it, but Stewart had been tasked with destroying the rebel army, he had to be more aggressive.

Accordingly, on the morning of the 4th of June Westmorland and Lindsay drew up their forces facing south west. Their dispositions were in 2 ranks with cannon between them – perfect for a static defence. However Westmorland had placed a flanking force – 3,000 cavalry and 4,000 light infantry led by Sir John Maxwell and the Earl of Lennox respectively – in a thicket along the eastern foot of Boar’s Hill. Westmorland planned to have this force sweep around behind the rebels after they were engaged upon the hill.

This wooded thicket, after the day’s events, became known as Hal’s Hollow. The father and son of St Albans, accompanied by the Earl of Thetford, knew that Stewart would try to bleed them upon the hillside. Accordingly they planned for a ferocious counter charge upon two fronts. St Albans senior would take the western flank of Boar’s Hill the Hertsmen in the vanguard with the intention of piercing the Royalist line at one end. Thetford would take the eastern flank followed by Hal de la Pole who would them break off and descend Boar’s Hill into the thicket and thence loop around behind Westmorland’s line. Appropriately, Hal had the Richmond regiment who were named for the military college near London, but sported the Tudor colours in recognition of the fallen Earl.

The early stages of the Battle of Oxford played out as the Earl of Westmorland had hoped that they would. The entire rebel host charged up Boar’s Hill into his prepared defences and seemed to shudder to a stop. However after a brief pause, the Hertsmen on the left surged forward and on the right Hal descended into the thicket. By chance this later charge ran straight into Maxwell and Lennox’s enveloping charge taking the latter totally by surprise and having the advantage of the slope. Maxwell’s cavalry took losses and galloped south before they could sustain anymore, leaving Lennox’s infantry to be pinned down and annihilated.

On Boar’s Hill, St Albans’ thrust at the western end of the line successfully pierced the first rank of Scots causing Lindsay to send up his northerners, men of the Earl of Warwick. The northerners promptly defected. As the routing Scots charged through the massed ranks of northern firearms, their commanders ordered them to turn their muzzles to the sky and not fire. Almost all of the men obeyed, and allowed St Albans’ men to storm past them into the rear. Richard II’s intimidation of the northern Lords could only apparently be taken so far, and Warwick refused to fight fellow Englishmen on the commands of a Scot. Fearing such an outcome, he had already sent word to his family in Yorkshire to flee to Europe five days before the Battle and his wife and daughters arrived in Rotterdam by the 7th of June.

The dual reversal meant that Westmorland’s centre, who had been containing Thetford’s probing attacks, were forced to retreat. Lindsay tried to rally the Scots in the west whilst Lennox tried to retreat in the east but both were fighting an up hill battle. The defection of Warwick and the surprise charge of Hal de la Pole downslope created an atmosphere of panic in the Royalist army – who else had betrayed them? With the retreat turning into a rout, Stewart ordered the withdrawal.

What followed was a chaotic afternoon as the Royalists tried to extricate their forces from Boar’s Hill and cross the Thames into Oxford. There was little order, and an instruction by Westmorland to destroy the bridges behind them was misinterpreted leading to looting and burning of the western parts of Oxford. The smoke and confusion hindered both armies, with commanders on either side unable to locate their foe or even their own men. Lennox was stuck the wrong side of the Thames and captured whilst Maxwell, having rallied his cavalry, returned to find the battle lost and so he forded the Thames at Abingdon and then moved north.

In the chaos Richard II and around 13,000 men were able to escape to the north but the rest were either killed or captured in the bloodied streets of Oxford as the rebels tried to restore order. Once again frustrated, Richard left a trail of destruction as he marched through Northamptonshire, Warwickshire and Leicestershire. Oxford was a much needed respite for the rebels, alongside Thorndon Cross it represented the first real victories of the war. However unlike the battle in Devon, Oxford was a victory against Richard II himself. The battle, and his furious response to it, proved that the Emperor could and should be beaten.

Nonetheless the Royal army was not entirely defeated, and it returned to Nottingham by the end of the month. The second half of the 1608 campaigns would instead be characterised by small and localised skirmishes as both sides jockeyed for an advantage. A rebel victory near Droitwich in August momentarily opened the West Midlands as the Earl of Derby scrambled to retreat from an army under the Earl of Lincoln, but the timely arrival of the Earls Home and Huntly with Scottish reinforcements forced him to pull back to the south.

To the east Richard himself and Westmorland secured the line of the Trent whilst Lindsay engaged in counter-insurgency in northern Lincolnshire. This saw one of the darker episodes of the Civil War. In early September, Robert Bertie’s agents had tracked down a group of Puritans and other traitors in the village of Scrooby about 10 miles from Doncaster. This was right on the edge of the Earl of Lindsay’s jurisdiction, but the man was eager to prove his loyalty to Richard after the debacle of Oxford. As far as we can tell, Lindsay was not himself at fault, but Westmorland had begun to use him as a convenient scapegoat and so he was desperate to prove his loyalty. Thus when Lindsay and around a hundred of his men entered Scrooby on the 5th of September 1608, their bloodlust was up.

The village Rector, Andrew Wray brother of MP John Wray, came out to meet the armed cavalrymen, but after a short parlay in his Church he was beaten to death in his own Vestry having apparently failed to answer some of Lindsay’s questions. Some of Wray’s parishioners tried to prevent their clergyman’s death and were set upon themselves. Before long arms had been raised against the village and as many as 100 civilians lay dead including women and children. It is unknown whether any members of the village were actually harbouring fugitives of Richard II.

The Scrooby massacre typifies the mood in the Royalist camp after the Battle of Oxford. Already suspicious of their enemy’s machinations, the supporters of the Emperor now turned their wary eyes on each other. The Earls of Northumberland and Humber were placed under veritable house arrest until such time as they were required. In such an event, a party of loyal Scots was left with their families to guarantee good behaviour. Warwick’s defection also affected the ordinary folk of Yorkshire. The number of armed Scots roaming the lanes of God’s County, already uncomfortably high, rose even further. It wasn’t long before isolated groups of Scots began to turn up murdered, only increasing the animosity and suspicion.

Thus as the campaign of 1608 came to an end, the rebels were really on the ascendancy. George Carew had spent the year training a new army in London and Essex and these men would be ready for action in 1609. Without the expert skills of the Calais Company or other veteran regiments, Carew had instead eschewed complicated manoeuvres and had drilled the men in the use of the Snelbus for 10,11, sometimes 12 hours a day until their fingers were raw and their eyes streamed with tears from the smoke. This New Rebel Army was merely a very dumbed-down version of Magnus the Red’s volume of fire tactics. They could simply out-shoot the Royalists, and Carew hoped that this would suffice whilst the Richmonds, Hertsmen and their brothers-in-arms carried out the more difficult tasks.

As for Richard II, Westmorland was trying to get him to see sense. The military advantage, if one had ever existed, was truly gone now. Westmorland was a loyal and tenacious soldier and he was not stupid. He would fight if his Emperor ordered him to, but he did not want to lead men to their deaths for a lost cause. However, as so many before him had failed, so too did the Earl of Westmorland. Instead, Richard dispatched Lord Maxwell, his Chancellor, to gather funds from abroad. The problem of course was that with London lost, the Netherlands and Germany beaten and the Catholic states unthinkable, there were very few ready sources of coin open to the Emperor. So it was that in October 1608 the Chancellor of the Exchequer set sail for New York in the New Canaan Republic and the Banking Houses there. Meanwhile, Richard also needed men and so he sent Earl Home to Dublin to entreat King Michael to support his Emperor.
 
1608: Biographies
The Big Book of Biographies: Chapter 7 The Seventeenth Century
Bacon, Francis (22nd Jan 1561-????) Philosopher, Political Scientist, Revolutionary. B: Hartsport, Columbia. D:????

The culmination of Bacon’s work on political philosophy came in the summer of 1607 with the ‘note of secession’. Nailed to the door of the Union House of Hartsport University and quickly circulated around the fledgling colony, the ‘note’ simply stated that Colombia should not support ‘a tyrant Lord who wars against his own’. To Bacon, it was nothing more than a public manifestation of his private ideals of representation and responsibility, but in the fractious society of Grand Colombia it sparked a general rebellion which became the Colombia secession.

A group of Merchants, lawyers and landowners, led by John Guy, Mentor Alting, Bartholomew Gosnold and Duke Reginald of Hartsport chased all Crown officials, especially those collecting customs, from Hartsport and all but declared independence. Bacon remained at his home south of the city while this happened, and was only latter summoned to join the ‘Colombian Council’ established by the leaders to govern the new free colony.

Conde, Henri, Prince of (29th Dec 1552-????) Aristocrat, Politician. B: La Fert Sous Jerrat, France D:????

1607 was the beginning of the downturn for Bradbury. The Britannic Civil War did not impact the territory directly – Conde pledged allegiance to Emperor Richard but did little else – but it provided ample cover for an explosion of violence in the New World. The European War, however, had drawn over 4,000 Huguenot to defend Britany, including Henri’s heir Louis, and the territory was undefended in summer 1607 when the Gaels stormed over the Chattahoochee River and began looting and burning plantations west of Duboisier.

There was little Prince Henri could do. He received some help from Goughton, but the Tudors to his south declared for the rebel faction in the Britannic Civil War. They did not invade Bradbury, but nor did they send aid. Instead Louis ordered Richard de Coligny, Count of Rouchelle to lead 1,000 men west to drive off the Gaels. This succeeded in ending the raids in late summer 1607, but they resumed once more in 1608. 1608 saw more setback for Conde, the defeat at Duboisier laid Bradbury open to the Gaels, and in the Winter he discovered that his son and heir had defected to France and converted to Catholicism.

Fitzhenry, Tristram (6th June 1587-????) Politician, landowner B: Nishuck, Yucka, Grand Colombia D:????

Great-grandson of John Fitzhenry (1509-1569), the bastard son of Henry Tudor, first Earl of Colombia, Tristram was the fourth Lord Maze and controlled a vast swathe of the Yucka peninsular from his plantation at Nishuck [OTL Cancun]. Raised to the head of the family upon the death of his father from Malaria in 1605, Tristram would go on to shape the destiny of the Colombian Gulf. His first political action was to recognise the Colombian Secession in 1607 and to join his Tudor half-cousins in declaring for the rebel faction in the Britannic Civil War.

O’Donnell Hugh/Aodh ‘Roe’ (30th Oct 1572-????) Warrior B: Dundeirenach, Tir na Gaelige, Norland D:????

The Sciath (Shield) of Tir na Gaelige from 1592 after he challenged Aodh Ui Neill to a Bhaldraithe from the place of Uachtarain. He lost the duel, but was made Ui Neill’s shield. For decades Roe led raids into Bradbury to free Irish slaves from the Huguenot Plantations. In 1607 he and his Uachtarain led a great raid into the country around the frontier town of Duboisier, but escaped when the Count of Rouchelle arrived with a relief force. The following year O’Donnell won his greatest victory to date during the First Battle of Duboisier when a night raid through a weakness in the town’s defences brought it into Gaelish hands and led to the destruction of Rouchelle’s force.

Raleigh, Walter (22nd Apr 1572-????) Aristocrat, Politician. B: Goughton, Norland D:????

By the outbreak of the Britannic Civil War in 1607, Raleigh was in his mid-30s and at the height of his power. When news reached Goughton of the April Days, Raleigh immediately affirmed his loyalty to Emperor Richard, something which put him at odds with the Tudor’s in Hampton who supported their English cousin’s claims. Before Raleigh could act against his arch-rivals the Gael-Creek forces invaded Bradbury.

Raleigh had long maintained good relations with the Prince of Conde and the Huguenot settlers in Bradbury and he sent them aid in the form of 200 light cavalry from Goughton’s defences. This left the colony weakened when the New Cambridge Rising broke out during winter of 1607-8. The citizens of the sparsely populated County of New Cambridge were mostly Presbyterian and refused to offer even tacit support for Emperor Richard after the death of Henry Tudor. Sandwich between the Rappahannock and Potomatch Rivers, the County declared for Prince Arthur and his wife and sought the protection of the New Canaan Republic. Councillor Griezmann, only recently elected after the death of the legendary Levi Slusky, baulked from declaring war on the Britannic Empire and refused to aid the New Cambridge rebels. Raleigh spent the spring and summer of 1607 in the north of his colony suppressing the revolt, but it persisted into 1608. Support from sympathetic Canaanites, Gaelish raids, and the rough terrain all served to prolong the rising

Shakespeare, William (26 April 1564-????) Playwright, MP, Military Commander B: Stratford-Upon-Avon D:?????

The Britannic Civil War intersected Shakespeare’s career. Though not involved in politics before the war, Shakespeare lived in London by this time, and had a front row seat to the April Days in 1607. In early 1608, his play ‘Richmond’ depicting the recently deceased Henry Tudor was first performed at the Globe Theatre. It was well received by ‘rebel’ faction in London and became a potent propaganda tool; Emperor Richard was depicted as a tragic and gradually more insane King whilst Richmond remained the voice of reason. Even today ‘Richmond’ remains a key work on the subject of reason over autocratic authority.

The success of ‘Richmond’ brought Shakespeare to the attention of Justice Thomas Richardson, the key political voice in the rebel cause. Richardson realised that Shakespeare’s fame and his way with words could become a vital asset in winning support for the Arthurian cause, as it was becoming known. By the end of 1608, Shakespeare had become an honorary Colonel in the New Rebel Army but worked with a small team of other writers in offices just off Fleet Street producing propaganda and hand bills to gather support for the cause. This included early stagings of ‘King Arthur’. Set in pre-Plantagenet Britain, the play was nonetheless heavy with foreshadowing of ‘a great Prince of Wales’. In a particularly memorable scene, Arthur and his loyal knights pick flowers from a rose garden to adorn their armour; the King himself chooses a Red rose, his subordinate Mortimer chooses a white rose and his wife gifts him with a purple thistle of Scotland. The imagery is poignant and on the nose. In a soliloquy by the King he reflects on the beauty of Britannia ‘from purple hills to dreaming spires’ the latter a less-than-veiled reference to Oxford and the battle which took place there in 1608.

Tudor, John (2nd March 1577-????) Politician, Explorer B: Hampton City, New Kent, Norland D:????

Second son of Henry Tudor ‘the weak (1552-1604) and younger brother to Henry Tudor ‘the Hammer’, Earl of Colombia (1570-????), John Tudor was made Lord of Towton in 1599 and given the delicate task of managing the border of the Tudor’s power with Bradbury to the northeast and the Gaels to the north and west. From his seat at Towton [OTL Tallahassee, FL), Tudor threw back Gaelish raids in the summers of 1607 and 1608 which, despite being lighter than those into Bradbury, nonetheless threatened New Kent.
 
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1607 was the beginning of the downturn for Bradbury. The Britannic Civil War did not impact the territory directly – Conde pledged allegiance to Emperor Richard but did little else – but it provided ample cover for an explosion of violence in the New World. The European War, however, had drawn over 4,000 Huguenot to defend Britany, including Henri’s heir Louis, and the territory was undefended in summer 1607 when the Gaels stormed over the Chattahoochee River and began looting and burning plantations west of Duboisier.

There was little Prince Louis could do. He received some help from Goughton, but the Tudors to his south declared for the rebel faction in the Britannic Civil War. They did not invade Bradbury, but nor did they send aid. Instead Louis ordered Richard de Coligny, Count of Rouchelle to lead 1,000 men west to drive off the Gaels. This succeeded in ending the raids in late summer 1607, but they resumed once more in 1608. 1608 saw more setback for Conde, the defeat at Duboisier laid Bradbury open to the Gaels, and in the Winter he discovered that his son and heir had defected to France and converted to Catholicism.
Something's wrong here - the Prince is called Louis, but then the text says 'Henri's son Louis', impying he's Henri and his heir is Louis, but the text continues to refer to him as Louis. I think you mean 'Louis' son Henri'?
Raleigh has long maintained good relations
had

Interesting stuff, hope everything in your life is going well, and no worries - we say we can't wait for more, but we can. Real life comes first!
 
Something's wrong here - the Prince is called Louis, but then the text says 'Henri's son Louis', impying he's Henri and his heir is Louis, but the text continues to refer to him as Louis. I think you mean 'Louis' son Henri'?

had

Interesting stuff, hope everything in your life is going well, and no worries - we say we can't wait for more, but we can. Real life comes first!
Oh yeah its Henri, apologies! Changed now
 
1609-1610: Britannia: The end of the War
The History of the First Britannic Civil War by RJ Evans (2003)
In hindsight, the Battle of Oxford on the 4th of June 1608 was the high-water mark of the Royalist-Stuart cause in the Britannic Civil War. Almost nine months passed between it and the next large battle at Newark on Trent but those months only saw the balance of power shift even further in favour of the Rebel-Parliamentarian-Tudor cause. Oxford was significant for two reasons: first, it represented the defeat of Emperor Richard’s complete army in the field for the first time and secondly, the destruction to the city after the battle – immortalised through Shakespeare’s propaganda – became the rallying cry for the rebel cause.

The victory at Oxford was capitalised upon by Princess Anna and her husband Arthur Tudor in December 1608. On Christmas Eve 1608 Anna was crowned Empress Anna I by Bishop of Norwich William Helyar in Westminster Abbey. That this claim overlooked that of her father and elder brother was quietly ignored. Instead, Anna was portrayed as the very paragon of virtue and responsibility. Pivotally, her husband Arthur was not also coronated as Emperor but as ‘Prince-Consort’. This allowed for the delicate piece of political theatre which played itself out two days later on St Stephen’s Day. For the first time in Britannia’s History Parliament elected a Lord Protector and then presented them to the Monarch for approval. Anna acquiesced immediately, and Arthur Tudor Earl of Richmond and Prince-Consort of Britannia also became Lord Protector.

In the heat of the First Civil War arose the precedent that Parliament would select a Lord Protector, with the Empress or Emperor permitted merely a veto. In 1608 this was vital to portray the coronation and subsequent Parliament as a move for the common good rather than a dynastic power grab. Primary architect of this political masterpiece was Justice Thomas Richardson. Richardson was one of the greatest politicians of his age, perhaps of all time. He used the weight of public sympathy behind the Tudors, and the outrage of Oxford to begin the journey of raising Parliament from a rubber stamp to the primary political engine of England, if not the Empire.

Arthur Tudor may have been the first ‘Parliamentarian’ Lord Protector, but it was obvious even to contemporaries that he was Emperor in all but name. The peculiarities of Anna’s gender were merely circumvented by her husband’s role as Lord Protector. She could act as the figurehead for his decisions whilst he had the authority to carry them out. The tension inherent of this arrangement – that Arthur was head of his wife, but she was his head of state – was worried over by many contemporaries, Bacon amongst them, but practically it did not have a great impact in the first few months of the new regime; they had a war to win.

Very few people south of the Trent or east of the Severn questioned this new government taking control in London. These areas were fully committed to the Rebels, and saw the Empress Anna’s new government as legitimate. This was only helped by the Empress’ own actions at her first Parliament. Held over Christmas and New Year 1608-1609 the Empress’ Parliament (as it became known) passed two major pieces of legislation vital to winning the Civil War.

The first was to attaint Emperor Richard II and his son the Prince of Wales as traitors and ‘villains to the common weal’ the events at Oxford were top of the charge sheet but so was the Scrooby massacre, the April Days and the execution of the Earl of Lincoln in 1607. Though trumped up, these charges nonetheless held enough weight to be accepted by many of those in the rebel heartlands, and some of those undecided. It also served to underline the legitimacy of Anna’s claim to the Imperial throne.

The second piece of legislation to sweep through Parliament was the Emergency Council Act. This created a new and ‘official’ government of England and the wider Empire to be controlled by Anna and her husband. Anna was keen from the outset to rule the whole Empire, aware that the colonies and even Normandy-Picardy had been neglected in the previous years of War. Anna was further helped by the Treaty of Heidelberg in November 1608. Though it signalled a resounding defeat for Protestant Europe it nonetheless freed up a whole raft of strong and capable individuals to form her new government, this is outline below.

Empress Anna I of the House of Stewart-York
Imperial Constable: William of Oudenberg, Prince of Anhalt-Kothlen, Duke of York and Oudenberg
Keeper of the Imperial Seal: Thomas Cromwell II, Earl of Essex
Imperial Chief Justice: Sir Thomas Richardson
Imperial Chancellor: Sir Robert Boleyn
Viceroy of Colombia: Henry Tudor ‘The Hammer’ Earl of Colombia
Lord Protector of England: Arthur Tudor, Earl of Richmond and Prince-Consort of Britannia
Chancellor of the Exchequer: Sir Robert Naunton
Marshall of England: George Carew, Lord of Totnes
Master of Horse: Giovanni Hartson II
Bishop of Norwich: William Helyar
Lord Privy Seal: Sir William Ames
Keeper of the King’s Records: Anthony FitzAlan (b1569) Earl of Arundel
Admiral of England: Sir William Monson

This final composition, which passed Parliament without any hesitation, speaks a great deal to the new united front Anna and Arthur were trying to achieve. Essex, Richardson and Colombia were all loyal stalwarts, but Ames, Boleyn, Naunton and Carew were all ‘outsiders’ brought in more for their loyalty to Parliament and the people than the new dynasty itself. Finally came Oudenberg and Giovanni II. The former stayed in Europe, trying to shore up defences after the disastrous Heidelberg Treaty, but Giovanni led a delegation of European soldiers who returned to their ancestral homeland to finish off the Lost Emperor. These included younger sons such as Lionel of Amiens, Sir John Grey and especially Edward Al Mann, the Leopard of Nantes.

All this is to say that the Tudor-Parliamentary faction entered the campaign season of 1609 no longer a mere collection of rebels but as a united faction with a united purpose: to eliminate Emperor Richard II and his son and pave the way for Empress Anna’s rule. The work of George Carew the previous summer meant that the New Parliamentarian Army was a large and well drilled – but not that experienced force – of some 40,000 men armed with Snelbus and trained in line infantry tactics. To them was added another 20,000 more professional soldiers including three regiments from the continent – The 2nd Calais, La Marck and the 1st Breton – who were experienced and could bolster a line where needed.

Just as Oxford had been a boon for the Parliamentarian-Tudor forces, so it had been a bust for the Royalist-Stuart faction. For the second year running Richard II had marched on London but failed to take the city. In fact, so vociferous was the opposition to him, and so disastrous militarily and morally the Battle of Oxford, that many in his court began to quietly wonder whether Richard II could truly defeat his enemies. To make matters worse, Oxford had also caused a rift between Richard II and his chief commander, William Stewart the Earl of Westmorland. Westmorland was loyal to his King and Emperor, but Oxford had been a disaster. Westmorland was not to blame – rather Maxwell and Lennox’s timidity and Warwick's treachery had lost the day – but in the aura of suspicion which followed the defeat, Westmorland’s strategies curried less favour with the Emperor.

Instead Richard II fell back into his old patterns of trusting very few people and those he did trust were selected out of familiarity rather than any kind of ability. Accordingly the two brothers of Lennox – sons of the Emperor’s former mentor – Ludovic and Esme II became Richard’s key advisers alongside the Earls Huntly and Kellie. Westmorland meanwhile was dispatched to the ‘western’ theatre around Stafford where the Earl of Derby, Richard Stanley, had spent the winter months being constantly harassed by the cousins of St Albans and Lincoln.

Richard II’s only realistic hope to turn around the war lay across the seas in Ireland and Norland but alas minimal help came from both quarters. In the autumn of 1608 Richard had dispatched the Earl Home to Dublin and Lord Maxwell to New York. Ireland replied first; some 3,000 men landed in Liverpool throughout January and February. Led by George Butler and Michael Packenham, heirs to Kildare and Longford respectively, these men were not professional soldiers of the sort that Emperor Richard II needed but rather adventurers, chancers and miscreants.

King Michael of Ireland, the realm’s first Protestant King, had died in September 1608 and been succeeded by his 38 year old son Matthew I. Irish born he may have been, but Matthew knew the world and politics. He had seen his father’s realm crumble during the Connacht rising in 1580 at the age of 11. Matthew had seen how service to Britannia had led his father down this path and how it had broken him. Accordingly he was not quick to rush to defend the same Empire again. Another limitation was the Dail. In the chaos after the Connacht Rising, King Michael had created the Dail as an Irish Parliament with a First Lord chosen by them to represent their interests to the King. In 1608 the First Lord was Edward Packenham the Earl of Longford, but most historians agree that he was under the auspices of the long term ‘Iron Lord’ that was Richard Butler Earl of Kildare. Between them Longford and Kildare mentored the younger King Matthew and, according to Earl Home’s report to Richard II ‘blocked our requests at every turn’.

Between October and December 1608 King Matthew dithered and prevaricated in the face of his Emperor’s request for aid. Matthew cited a rebellion in southern Ulster as reason for his reticence but Farrell has since shown that this was a distant cousin causing limited damage to the Cavan and Fermanagh region, possibly at the behest of his King. More pressing were the December riots in Dublin after the Dail was asked to vote on taxation to pay for an army to send to Richard II. Again, whether these riots were instigated by Mathew himself, or agents of Longford and Kildare remains a mystery, but Ireland’s answer to Richard was clear: they would not support him.

As a sop to the Emperor then, came the Irish forces unloading in Lancashire in the early months of 1609. Matthew had permitted volunteers to go to England, and both Kildare and Longford sent their sons as a sign of solidarity. That neither Packenham nor Butler had any great military skills or experience was lost on Richard II, and the Irish were gratefully welcomed into his service east of the Pennines. By March 1st 1609 Richard II had a disparate force of around 20,000 men marshalling in Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire and Derbyshire. Most were Scots, but 3,000 were Irish and around 6,000 were English from the northern Earls of Northumberland and Humber. This latter contingent, however, was incredibly unreliable. Warwick and his retinue had already fled England or defected to the rebels and Richard II was wisely trusting his northern compatriots as much as he could throw them. Both the Humber and Northumberland households were being kept under veritable house arrest by detachments of the Scots guards and so the English contingent was mostly fighting under duress.

Richard II needed more soldiers. There were plenty of mercenaries available in the winter of 1608-9 as the western portion of the Twenty Years War entered a respite, but the problem was finding enough funds to pay for them. To this end the Lord Maxwell was sent to New York in October 1608, arriving in the free city just before Christmas. Alone in the New World, the Jewish, Czech and Anglo bankers of the New Canaan Republic supplied credit. They were a new and unique source of income in that they granted loans to both Catholic and Protestant realms. Maxwell hoped to secure a substantial loan and mercenaries in the New World to bolster his master’s forces.

Maxwell returned to Liverpool by way of a neutral NCR ship in the second weak of Lent 1609 with mixed news. The New York banks had granted him a not insubstantial sum of £100,000 in loans, but less than 200 Canaanites had chosen to come and fight in England. With the war in Norland ongoing, and the Raleighs of Goughton becoming more bellicose, there was enough fighting to go around, and only the most desperate chose to brave the north Atlantic in late winter to fight on foreign shores. The Canaanite loans were less than Richard hoped for, but they were enough to hire 3,000 French and Wallonian line infantry led by experienced commander Antoine de Gramont and the newly defected Louis of Conde, both men seeking employment after the peace of Heidelberg. These ‘Gramontines’ arrived in Hull in mid-April to find the war already begun.

All of these delays and disappointments, and the ongoing rift with Westmorland, prevented Richard II from mobilising his army on the Trent until well after Easter 1609. This allowed the Parliamentarians to get the jump on them. It was the 2nd of April before the Lennox brothers, Richard II’s commanders in the east, realised that George Carew, Giovanni II and the Earl of Thetford were at Grantham and bearing down on them. The brothers managed to marshal the Royalist army to Newark, where the Great North Road crosses the Trent, in time to meet Carew’s army on the 4th of April.

The terrain around Newark complicated the ensuing battle. The town sits on the eastern bank of the Trent surrounded by a thin curtain wall anchored at its south end by a small Castle. Just north of this fortification, inside the walls of the city, was the bridge across the Trent to the west. Beyond this bridge, however, lay Kelham island, a 10km square patch of land surrounded on both sides by spurs of the Trent. Further west were the two exits from Kelham island; a bridge to the west and a ford to the north. All of this made Newark itself a difficult nut to crack, but thanks to the Lennoxes lack of experience, they played right into Carew’s hands. Ludovic Stewart, Earl of Lennox, held the town itself with 7,000 men whilst his brother Esme held Kelham island with another 15,000 men. Richard II was still in Nottingham overseeing the campaigns in west and east.

Marshal of England, George Carew, knew that he had stolen a march on the Lennox brothers, that was precisely his point, and he knew their forces at Newark that day amounted to about half of Richard II’s entire army. In reply, Carew commanded almost 40,000 men. Giovanni commanded 6,000 of these as cavalry but the remainder were infantry and artillery of which 8,000 were the professional forces including the Richmond regiments and the 2nd Calais. Carew had also brought Edward Al Mann and his Breton.

The morning of the 4th of April 1609 dawned bright and cold. Carew gave Thetford the command of the artillery and placed Edward Al Mann alongside him with 12,000 infantry (2,000 Breton/Richmonds and 10,000 ‘volunteers’) with the job of shattering Newark’s weak defences from the south and east and storming the town. Carew, Giovanni, Lionel of Amiens and Carew’s promising protégé Ferdinand Fairfax meanwhile had already been moving since before midnight. Using local guides, Carew had been able to pick a route through the marshes and the Trent north of the town and was on the west bank some 5 miles north of Newark.

Within an hour of dawn, the Battle of Newark began. Robert Devereux’s artillery began reducing the south-eastern London Gate to rubble whilst Giovanni’s cavalry looped west and then south in a wide arch to occupy the ridgeline north west of Kelham island and observe the Stewarts’ response. Initially, Ludovic believed he was facing merely the vanguard of Carew’s army outside of Newark, it wasn’t until his brother’s scouts on Kelham Island saw unidentified forces moving across farmland to the north that they realised the danger. Lennox immediately dispatched a message to his liege in Nottingham asking for help, and ordered his brother to evacuate Kelham island to the west. For all of his faults, Ludovic Stewart was not an idiot and he knew that Carew had outplayed him, he planned to evacuate Newark as soon as the island was clear of soldiers.

Unfortunately, Esme Stewart did not possess all of his brother’s intelligence. The evacuation of Kelham island could therefore be described as piecemeal and chaotic. With Newark under siege, he had no choice but to go west and head for Nottingham. The problem was that Giovanni’s cavalry on the ridge could see his movements and pick off his infantry in isolated groups. Around mid-morning the Grandson of Il Nero took his first blood as a company of Lothian skirmishers were torn apart by Schragbus fire.

In panic and fear Esme ordered his forces to form up inside the village of Kelham on the west bank to protect the crossing from the island. Not trusting his Irish or English allies, Esme took this role himself with around 3,000 of his best Scots who occupied the Inn and houses northwest of the Bridge over to Kelham Island, and placed his handful of cannon in the Church yard to their rear. This prevented any further losses to Giovanni’s roving Cavalry but it meant that the Royalist line was incredibly condensed and static when Carew’s main army arrived.

By noon on the 4th of April the evacuation of Newark was in full swing. In just a matter of hours this bulwark of Richard II’s defenses over the Trent fell. With the London Gate now a pile of rubble and a yawning gap, Edward Al Mann led a ferocious charge into it, only to find around 100 terrified Scots holding the breach. Ludovic Stewart had fled the town, but had left another 100 or so men to hold the castle and deny the crossing to the Breton and their allies. Whilst Devereux brought up his cannon, the battle on Kelham island continued.

The ford to the north of the island had been only lightly guarded by Scottish and Irish sharpshooters, but it was enough to prevent Carew sending men over in force. Instead Lionel of Amiens and his 2nd Calais Regiment held down the crossing in a light skirmish. This placed all bets on the bridge at Kelham village. By early afternoon around 10,000 Royalist infantry had made it over the bridge and had garrisoned the buildings at the western end to protect the rest of their comrades still to cross.

Opposing them to the north came the 20,000 men of George Carew’s army. The majority of the professional forces were elsewhere and so Carew had his inexperienced volunteers with which to close the crossing and trap the Royalists on Kelham island. Despite their weaker numbers, the Stewarts had the advantage of cover in the village whilst the Parliamentarians were crossing open ground. True to their training, the volunteers were capable of unloading up to 20 shots every 10 minutes onto the defenders of Kelham, but many of these buried themselves in walls or trees whilst the Scots had clear targets in open field. After almost an hour, Carew withdrew to regroup and sent in Giovanni’s cavalry to tie down the Stewarts. Unfortunately, cavalry were even less suited to fighting in these conditions and they withdrew with heavy losses.

By mid-afternoon, with the number of Stewart forces west of the Trent only increasing, Carew sent in his trump card. The Marshal of England had spent 1608 in London training the volunteers to fire quickly and efficiently. But he had also spent it training Ferdinand Fairfax to fight like Magnus the Red, Richard the Younger and Giovanni Hartson before him. To fight fiercely, fearlessly, and without ceasing. Even stealing some of the Grenadier tactics from Marshal Tilly, Fairfax had taken command of around 500 men. These were known as the Oxford Regiment as they were the remnants of other units which had survived that battle the previous year.

Around 3pm Carew again formed up his infantry line and advanced towards Kelham in the open. Meanwhile Fairfax and his Oxford Regiment moved down the bank of the Trent through undergrowth and trees towards the Kelham Bridge. The Kelham Inn – called the Fox – stood closest to Kelham Bridge. It was a large 2 storeyed coaching inn and dominated the bridge approaches. Accordingly, Esme Stewart had used it as his command post and fortified it with as many Scots as he could cram into it. The Earl of Lennox’s brother was said to be in the main tap room when the first of the Oxford grenades came sailing through one of the open windows around 3 30pm.

In the ensuing bloody melee the Fox Inn fell to Fairfax and his men who brutally cleared the building room by room using Schragbus and Grenades. Esme Stewart was surely killed in this fierce melee. For his trouble Fairfax would earn the title Lord Kelham, and the Inn being renamed to the Fairfox, which it still bears today.

The fall of the Fox broke the Stewart lines in half. Giovanni Hartson, in close support with his cavalry sent a further 100 men into the Fox and ordered them dismount so as to hold the inn from the inevitable counterattack. When it came, this counterattack was bloody and brief, the Stewart Cannon in the Church yard across the road were fired into the Inn point blank as Ludovic Stewart led his men over the bridge to avenge his brother. This tactic may have succeeded had the Inn not caught fire. Fairfax was obliged to retreat from the Inn he had just captured, but the fire also prevented many more of Ludovic’s men from crossing the bridge. Instead men trapped on the island dumped their weapons and armour and tried to swim the frigid Trent to safety.

It was at this moment that Stewart’s allies betrayed him. The Earls of Humber, and Northumberland along with Packenham and Butler had watched the fall of the Fox Inn with awe, and its brutal combustion with horror. As Ludovic was obliged to retreat back towards the island, they turned their coats and charged the Stewart cannons from the rear. This intervention by the Northern and Irish Lords led to the swift collapse of Stewart resistance. With Kelham in flames, the cannon quieted and their commander dead, those loyalists west of the Trent surrendered. As for Ludovic himself, his escape from Kelham island was now impossible. The castle had also fallen and the northern Ford would be a hopeless route of escape.

The final denouement to the battle of Newark was the arrival of Richard II with around 1,000 cavalry from the south. The Emperor arrived just in time to see the last of his 25,000 men surrender and the Trent defensive line being broken. Within 12 hours his remaining forces in Nottingham were pulling back towards Doncaster harried all the way by Giovanni’s cavalry.

If Oxford was the end of the beginning, then Newark was the beginning of the end of the Civil War. From that day in April Richard II would never again march south, always northwards. For Carew, the battle had vindicated his measures the previous year. The volunteers had taken losses but they had stood and fired round after round, which was all their commander could have asked of them. For around 25,000 men captured or killed Carew had lost less than 10,000 wounded or killed. He now held the Trent crossings open for the western armies of Lincoln and St Albans to join him and give chase to the Emperor.

This western army of around 20,000 men received word of the victory at Newark late on the 7th of April. The Earl of Lincoln and his cousin the Earl of St Albans had spent the previous month trying to pin down Westmorland in Shropshire and southern Staffordshire. Westmorland, with the Earl of Derby’s local knowledge, was able to keep them at bay with around 15,000 men and a number of small skirmishes around Market Drayton and Bridgemere were inconclusive but kept the tactical advantage with Westmorland.

When the two de la Poles got word of Newark they tried to force their advantage and marched on Stafford only to discover that Westmorland was already marching north with speed. The two Earls wanted to give chase but were stopped by Carew’s orders,; they were ordered to Newark to press their advantage. Westmorland was allowed to make it to Glossop where he crossed the Pennines and rendezvoused with his Emperor near Doncaster on the 15th of April. Regardless of their antipathy, the destruction of half of Richard’s army at Newark meant that he and his paramount commander now needed each other.

General and Kings Youtube Channel ‘The Battle of Doncaster 1609’

Welcome to the Generals and Kings Channel and our ongoing series on the Britannic Civil War. Today we have reached the Battle of Doncaster, the largest battle of the war. In the spring of 1609 Emperor Richard II was licking his wounds after his defeat at Oxford the previous year. However, an army of 40,000 men under George Carew Lord Totnes defeated one of his armies at Newark on Trent on the 4th of April and crossed the Trent, breaching the Emperor’s defences in the north. For our video on this Battle, please click on the link in the description.

After his defeat at Newark, Richard II was desperate to retreat and to unify his surviving forces. These included 15,000 men under the Earls of Derby and Westmorland in Cheshire and Staffordshire, his own force of 9,000 from Nottingham, the Scottish reserve forces of 12,000 under the Earl of Kellie and 3,000 French and Wallonian mercenaries under Antoine de Gramont, Richard II set the old Roman town of Doncaster on the River Don as his mustering point as it allowed him to hold the River and was convenient for all of his forces. By the 15th of April Richard II had almost 40,000 men camped along the Don’s north bank between Doncaster and Rotherham.

To his south advanced the army of Parliament led by their chosen commander George Carew. This army numbered almost 55,000 men of which around half were Carew’s well-drilled but inexperienced volunteer army. Carew did have 8,000 cavalry under the Earl of St Albans and Giovanni II Hartson, but he also possessed a number of crack companies; the Breton under Edward Al Mann, the Richmond under the Earl of Lincoln, the 2nd Calais under Lionel of Amiens, the Oxford led by the newly ennobled Ferdinand Fairfax, Lord Kelham and the Hertsmen under Hal de la Pole, St Albans’ son.

The problem for the Parliamentarians was that the Don was in flood at this point in spring. It was only passable in a handful of places but the best place for this was along the Great North Road west of Doncaster itself near the village of Sprotborough. Here there were two crossings and a relatively narrow channel which would allow Carew to get the most advantage for his numbers. The first of these crossings to the west lay under the brow of Cadeby hill but was actually two bridges with an island in the middle of the River. Half a kilometre to the east was the wider bridge but this was hemmed in by marsh on its southern side making manoeuvrability difficult.

Richard II is not renowned for his military skill, but at Doncaster he was forced to rely on the Earl of Westmorland and Antoine Gramont. The defeat at Newark had left the Emperor little choice, and the Earl of Kellie spoke up for Westmorland’s skill. It also helped that Richard had taken a liking to Louis of Conde, part of Gramont’s force, who advised him to listen to Westmorland and Gramont. Accordingly, the Stuart army was dispersed to defend these two crossing on the morning of the 17th of April when Carew finally attacked. Westmorland commanded the western approach with his cannon arrayed on Cadeby Hill to provide enfilading fire and relied on his own 15,000 men alongside the Earl of Derby. The Eastern approach was held by Antoine Gramont, the Earl of Kellie and Earl Huntly with Richard in reserve. The Stuarts only possessed 2,000 cavalry commanded by Richard himself with the rest of their 40,000 fighting as infantry.

The Battle of Doncaster was not a battle of movement like Newark had been. Carew had been unable to find an alternative route across the Don, and so he had to go through the Stuart army rather than around it. Carew turned to the military works of Magnus the Red, even now fighting in Pomerania. He divided Thetford’s cannon up into small mobile detachments designed to provide fast and ferocious artillery support depending on weak spots. Furthermore he broke his volunteers down into 5 columns each led by a professional military company. Each of these columns numbered around 9,000 infantry, of which 3,000 or so were professionals. To the west he sent Edward Al Mann and Lionel of Amiens with the Breton and Calais companies and to the east came Hal de la Pole (Hertsmen) Lincoln (Richmond Regiment) and Lord Kelham (Oxford Regiment). Carew himself took up station with St Albans and Giovanni’s Cavalry squadrons in the centre of the field in Warmsworth.

The battle began with a simultaneous advance on both River crossings with the Breton charging the West and the Richmonds the East. The western crossing immediately came under cannon fire from Cadeby Hill which caused the attack to falter, but in the east the Earl of Lincoln was able to gain a bridgehead. The Richmond Regiment engaged their eastern flank against the Earl of Huntly’s men whilst their volunteer support actually went toe to toe with Gramont’s elite musket line. Though bloodied, they were able to hold long enough for Hal de la Pole to bring up his Hertsmen in support.

In these early stages the Battle immediately ground down into a stalemate as Thetford’s artillery tried to manoeuvre for position without being pulverised by the Cadeby Hill batteries. Whilst the Breton column reformed, Lionel of Amiens went in with his Calais Regiment in the vanguard. Under Thetford’s covering fire they were able to cross to the small island in the Don and from there establish a small artillery battery of their own before carrying on to engage the Earl of Derby at close range.

In the east, the bridge head was hard pressed as the Earl Huntly brought up his men to the west where he pored fire into the flank of Hal’s volunteer units. These men were green and began to buckle under the pressure applied against them. Carew saw this threat and ordered Lord Kelham over the bridge to then attack west into Huntly’s forces. Concurrently, Thetford shifted his concentrated fire into Huntly’s flank forcing his men to take cover.

Throughout the day the battle raged until the Don ran red and was covered with cannon smoke. By mid-afternoon, all artillery guns were running low on ammunition and were struggling to sight their targets through the haze. This allowed Edward Al Mann to charge across the western bridges again in support of his cousin Lionel of Amiens. Unfortunately, Amiens was engaged with the Earl of Derby and was not able to communicate to the volunteers to his rear, hearing the Breton charge and assuming they were Scots to the south, his volunteers turned in fright, some loosing volleys into their own men and others fleeing in panic. This allowed Westmorland to countercharge, and Lionel was killed and the Calais Regiment forced into an ordered retreat.

As disaster unfolded to the west, Kelham, Hal and Lincoln were making gains in the east. Huntly’s men, severely mauled by Parliamentarian Artillery began to give way under Ferdinand Fairfax’s trademark ferocity as the Lord of Kelham and his men began to make ground to the west. In the east the Earl of Lincoln was likewise slowly widening the bridge head. Only the centre held under Antoine Gramont as his men poured volley after volley into volunteer soldiers. At this crucial moment, with the bridgehead widening and the Scots becoming over-stretched, Louis of Conde saw a gap in Lord Kelham’s rear. The hero of Newark might have been ferocious but his inexperience and bloodlust had allowed his Oxford Regiment to become disjointed from his volunteer companies to his rear and it was into this gap that Conde put 500 soldiers and – astonishingly – the 2,000 cavalry of the Emperor’s personal bodyguard who had responded to his request for aid.

South of the Don, Carew was only partly aware of these reverses through the smoke and confusion. He knew that Amiens had fallen in the west and that his column was in retreat, and he had heard the Bagpipes of Richard’s reserve as they advanced in the east. Gambling everything on one final throw, Carew took his own reserve and St Albans’ cavalry west whilst ordering Giovanni east. Carew even ordered Thetford and his engineers to arm themselves with Schragbus, billhooks and anything they could find and support the eastern bridgehead.

The battle of Doncaster ended in a furious melee at both crossings. To the west, the Earl of Derby’s men were chasing down the retreating volunteers of Amiens column when they were met with the full force of St Albans’ counter charge breaking them instantly. Carew himself led his infantry in support of Edward Al Mann who was slowly falling back from the Earl of Westmorland, being pushed into flooded land west of Sprotborough. Carew’s arrival steadied the line, and gave St Albans an opportunity to out-flank Westmorland and oblige his retreat.

To the east Giovanni Hartson’s cavalry caught Emperor Richard’s horse exposed and out of order, allowing multiple casualties from a flanking attack. Thetford’s motley collection of artillerymen and engineers bolstered the retreating volunteers and allowed them to rally into Conde’s flank finally forcing him and the Gramontines to retreat. Given the confusion and exhaustion of the battle, the majority of the Stuart commanders was able to escape the Battle of Doncaster, only the Earl Kellie was captured and died later of his wounds whilst the Earl of Derby died outright in St Albans' final charge. However any sense of order or organisation had collapsed, only the Gramontine retreated in good order. Richard II had no choice but to retreat to Newcastle whilst Westmorland departed for Cumbria to arrange partisans to slow down the Parliamentary advance.

The Battle of Doncaster cost Richard II around 22,000 men captured or killed whilst Carew actually paid a similar price of 19,000 killed or wounded, mostly in the volunteer ranks. Crucially though, Carew still had around 35,000 men and Richard last than 20,000. Carew had also retained the initiative and pushed his foe almost entirely out of England. However, that would take a number of further battles and so join us next time on the Generals and Kings channel.

‘Pocket Biographies: Tricky King Dickie – Scotland’s most infamous King’ J Forestall, 2019

When Emperor Richard II arrived in Newcastle in May 1609 he must have known that his war against ‘traitors’ was surely over. His army numbered less than 20,000 men, all of them either Scottish loyalists or French mercenaries. His Irish and English supporters had all abandoned him. The Castellan of Newcastle – John Petrie – was a Scot and so the city admitted Richard and his army, but with dwindling supplies it could not support them for long.

Richard of course refused to give in. It seems that the Earls Huntly, Home and Westmorland all tried to convince Richard that he should sue for peace, so as to stand some hope of maintaining his throne, but the Emperor was having none of it. Richard by now was well known for his volatility, even cruelty, to those beneath him. This coupled with his unwillingness to accept responsibility and a crippling lack of trust for others meant that the Emperor was not for changing his mind. Worse than that, as summer 1609 dragged on, Richard became even more enraged and insistent on waging war against his enemies.

Those who talk of the ‘madness of Richard II’ erroneously often try to include his entire reign, but even they would have evidence of his insanity in the last two years of the war. Richard had moved into Alnwick Castle after it had been confiscated from the Northumberland’s. The Earls family had successfully escaped his defection at Newark and made their way to the Netherlands, but Richard now claimed their land and titles as his own. According to numerous chronicles and reports he was often seen wandering the battlements of Alnwick late at night talking to himself. Richard reserved special hatred for Magnus the Red and William of Oudenberg who he came to see as the architects of his downfall and he would launch into long and unwarranted rants against them. These months were solitary; Richard had sent his wife and two remaining children to Scotland with Lord Maxwell, and he had very few trusted confidants left.

While the Emperor raged, his support ebbed away. Newcastle was a good defensible position, even with less than 18,000 men, and Westmorland had unleashed a band of Brigands across the north and north west of England to keep the Parliamentarian forces busy but these measures were not enough. Antoine de Gramont, seeing the writing on the wall, was desperate to get his pay and return to France and day by day Scots returned home as rumours of Richard’s madness spread. Trying to hold it all together was Westmorland, loyal to the last. William Stewart would rather negotiate, but he dared not betray his liege and so he carried on securing Newcastle’s defences against all odds.

As the summer drew to a close Gramont made one final attempt to claim his pay, this time to Maxwell who had returned from Edinburgh. Only when he threatened to take shipping in Newcastle harbour in lieu of payment did Maxwell relent and pay the mercenaries. They left and when Richard discovered this he summoned Maxwell to Alnwick to explain himself. In his fury, Richard had Maxwell carried back to Scotland in chains charged with theft of Royal funds. That Maxwell was Chancellor, and permitted to use such funds, was apparently not taken into account.

This occurred in September 1609, the same month that Empress Anna carried out a visitation of Cheshire, Lancashire and Yorkshire, touring her newly won territories. Though these lands had technically been in rebellion against her but 6 months before, they welcomed her with genuine acclaim. The comparison to her father could not be more stark and the slow trickle of deserters and defectors only increased.

Then in November, another blow for Richard II: the Prince of Wales was dead. At the age of 14 Prince Richard was not an unhealthy boy, but nor was he completely safe from seasonal diseases. In November Tuberculosis took him. He died at Holyrood and was buried before his father at Alnwick was even told. In his grief and rage, Richard II reportedly bludgeoned the messenger to death with an ornate stone ink well and refused any kind of disturbance for the next two days. Instead he sat on the floor of his chamber covered in blood and ink with only a corpse for company until the Earl Huntly, one of Richard’s remaining friends, arrived from Hawick and grounded the Emperor enough to remove the body.

Fresh from his reverie, Richard decided to quit Newcastle and to leave for Scotland, to the relief of Westmorland and the rest. The royal party was back in Edinburgh for Christmas and Empress Anna was able to celebrate Christmas Day from Newcastle Cathedral. Back in Scotland, Richard set about the task of rebuilding his homeland in order to retake the Imperial throne. He began this by granting the Maxwell and Kellie land to an even smaller circle of allies, and by mandating military training for every military-aged man.

1610 was a quiet year. Two embassies from London were both turned away unheard, and a summer invasion by George Carew was stalled when Berwick refused to admit his army. A lengthy siege ensued, but Carew did not wish to use artillery against a settlement which was not actively occupied by Richard or his supporters. In the meantime, Richard continued to be unstable and another three servants met their end – allegedly – at his hands. Scotland was close to bankruptcy and could not support the military build up that the King asked of it. All the while Westmorland and Huntly tried to convince Richard to sue for peace and all the while he refused them.

Then in September 1610, news from Bohemia sent Richard into a fit of activity. He summoned Earl Huntly to him, furnished him with the remaining Royal jewels and coin that he had and sent him on a mission to the east. Whatever hope for reclaiming his Empire Richard may have had was surely now futile, but he could still get one last slice of revenge before the end.

The First Empress: Anna by L Worsley (2018)

Whilst her father brooded in Scotland, Anna set about restoring her Empire. Throughout 1610 she tried two separate diplomatic missions and a military campaign to try and unseat her father, or even just to bring him to the negotiating table but all were rebuffed. Anna was especially reluctant to wage war on her Scottish homeland and so Carew’s siege of Berwick dragged on without an end in sight. Whilst the end of the war seemed to evade her, Anne nonetheless began to stabilise her own dynasty.

The Emergency Council passed in early 1609 was retained, and ambassadors sent to New Kent, Goughton and Colombia in the New World to reestablish connections. The New Kent mission was successful given that Henry ‘The Hammer’ Tudor was a distant cousin by marriage and had already declared for Anna and her husband. Goughton was more complicated, given Raliegh’s support for Richard II but initial signs were that he was willing to come in from the cold. Finally the Colombian embassy was most intriguing; Anna offered to restore relations without punishment, even with concessions, providing that Bacon was willing to come to London to explain his new political ideas. His safety was to be guaranteed by the Bishop of Ipswich who had accompanied the delegation himself. Bacon agreed and set sale in September 1610.

Closer to home, Anna led a series of tours through the West Country, Wales and even the North of England where she was greeted with almost unanimous warmth. Here she pardoned those who had joined Richard II and accompanied this with a ‘Bill of Grace’ which stated that those who did so were merely acting under the duress of one they took to be their Overlord. In short, they hadn’t had a choice and so Anna would not punish them. This was an immediate relief to tense parts of the country and served to heal the wounds that the Civil War had done. All the same, Anna still had Chief Justice Richardson launch legal enquiries into any crimes committed 1607-1610 in order to ascertain culprits and punish them accordingly.

Also gaining clemency were those intellectuals and clergy part of the Melville enclave in Amsterdam. These returned to England throughout the summer of 1610 and many of them participate din a conclave at Lambeth in August to elect a new Archbishop. John Whitgift was still technically Archbishop but had fled to Edinburgh with Richard II. On the pretext of absenteeism, he was de-frocked and a new Archbishop, Lancelot Andrew, elected in his place. Andrew had been the Puritan candidate back when Whitgift had become Archbishop, and his liberation from Ricardian captivity in York allowed him to become a staunchly Puritan Archbishop.

Anna also dispatched her husband to Calais to meet with William of Oudenberg. The two then travelled to the Netherlands, Brittany and finally to Ireland seeking to win support for Anna and to heal any wounds. Calais was the easiest meeting where Arthur Tudor merely proposed a return to the status quo before 1603. The Netherlands and Brittany were trickier, where Tudor proposed and agreed new Treaties of friendship and mutual support. Finally came Ireland where King Matthew had been sitting on the fence and quietly ignoring summons from both sides for almost a year. The Irish King could ignore letters, however, not two of the most powerful men in the Empire. After a week’s visit – with all the pageantry of state – Matthew agreed in principal to accept Anna as his Lord. Matthew’s one condition would change Ireland’s relationship with the rest of the Empire for centuries. Matthew did not like the idea of being beneath a woman alone, and to protect his sensibilities he knelt to Tudor as the facsimile of his wife’s authority and, crucially, as Lord Protector. Ireland was thus now subservient to the Empress and the Lord Protector of England. This was the first step towards the Lord Protector becoming an Imperial-wide jurisdiction.

For all the propaganda, acts of clemency, embassies, appointments and legal tours, however, Anna’s greatest contribution to unity and stability in 1610 was her own pregnancy. Announced around Easter and finally going into labour in September, Anna gave birth to a loud and healthy baby boy who was christened Henry on the 9th of September 1610 by Archbishop Andrew himself. Thus, the Empire was truly on the mend in 1610 until a disaster in Bohemia threatened to upset the entire apple cart.
 
strong and capable individuals to form her new government, this is outline below.
Interesting, no Gloucester line nobles in here... I guess even though their lands might be restored, their fortunes now lie in Prussia, with England just a nice source of capital. I assume Magnus's lands were passed to his grandson, and the Gloucester lands held by a steward?
Anna also dispatched her husband to Calais to meet with William of Oudenberg. The two then travelled to the Netherlands, Brittany and finally to Ireland seeking to win support for Anna and to heal any wounds.
No official embassy to the greatest other Protestant realm in the Reich, though? Or maybe it was all done unofficially and the official one was forestalled by the war?
Magnus the Red, even now fighting in Pomerania.
Swedish Pomerania with Gustavus Adolphus, or Polish Pomerania with John?
Thus, the Empire was truly on the mend in 1610 until a disaster in Bohemia threatened to upset the entire apple cart.
Looks like the Eastern Theater will be heating up again, with more of the Gloucester line to be seen in action! I do wonder what Richard did - who exactly did he supply with funds? What exactly is going on here? Will we see a second Grand Protestant Alliance? I can't wait to find out.

All of these delays and disappointments, and the ongoing rift with Westmorland, prevented Richard II from mobilising his army on the Trent until well after Easter 1609. This allowed the Parliamentarians to get the jump on them. It was the 2nd of April before the Lennox brothers, Richard II’s commanders in the east, realised that George Carew, Giovanni II and the Earl of Thetford were at Grantham and bearing down on them. The brothers managed to marshal the Royalist army to Newark, where the Great North Road crosses the Trent, in time to meet Carew’s army on the 4th of April.
Something seems off here - Easter 1609 was April 19th, but you have the brothers marshaling the Royalist army and getting it to Newark on April 4th. Unless you meant that the full Royalist army was not mobilised until after Easter? But by that point a large portion of it had been destroyed, so that's kind of obvious...

Anyway, great update, lots of good battles, nice diplomacy, and I can't wait to see how Anna and Arthur deal with all the issues they're going to have, along with whatever is going to go down in Bohemia!
 
1609-1610: The East: To build an Empire
The Formation of the German Reich, C Clark (2015)

No one would have believed in the Winter of 1608-1609 that John of Saxony would one day become the great Kaiser of a German Reich. Still short of his seventeenth birthday in the first months of 1609, the boy who would one day be Kaiser possessed more titles than he did visible skills. Duke of Saxony, Duke of Gloucester, Duke of Prussia, Earl of Pembroke and King Bohemia John may have been on paper, but in practice only really Saxony was uncontested. Pembroke and Gloucester were both either moribund or occupied by factions in the Britannic Civil War, Prussia was still surrounded by Poland, and Bohemia was assailed by the House of Habsburg.

The Stappelberg Conference with Franck of Hesse the previous winter had failed to win Richard much support from the German Princes still licking their wounds after the cataclysm of Brackenheim. Instead, John had to secure his claims and his borders with what he already had. In Bohemia, Thurn and Valdstejna were securing the southern marches with the former ruling as Pan Ochrance (Lord Protector) in Prague. Saxony was becoming the hub of the coming Reich with Bartolomaus Scultetus as Chancellor and his very capable civil servants and bankers in support. Militarily, John may have lacked numbers – an estimated 40,000 men to cover the whole of Bohemia, Prussia, Saxony, and western Poland – but he had the capable military commanders of John of Saxe-Weimar, Charles of Mecklenberg, Jurgen von Karensbach, Canaanite Volchek Hamzel and Ulrich von Bartenstein.

Most importantly, for all the disaster that Brackenheim had become, it had nonetheless freed up a real ace for the young John: his Great Uncle (sic) Magnus the Red. In his late 60s, Magnus had mourned the death of his son at Brackenheim and immediately offered his services to his distant relation. Magnus may have been a younger son and so out of line for the inheritance, but it was still the oldest male left standing from the House of Pembroke-Gloucester, that venerable dynasty from the founding of the House of York. He had a responsibility to see his brother's line flourish. Magnus took up residence in Torgau in northern Saxony where we spent the winter of 1609 training John and his men to fight in his own inimitable style. Magnus also became the young Duke’s military adviser.

As the snows of Winter began to abate, the tactical situation in the east was a fluid and complex one. John, and his late father Albert-Henry, had held the line against the Habsburgs and Poles, their main rivals, and had even sent Poland into civil unrest as the ‘Thunderbolt’ Rebellion even now raged against the inept mis-rule of Sigismund III. Magnus, however, expected the respite to be a slight one; after Heidelberg, Maximillian of Habsburg would now have a freer hand, and more willing volunteers, with which to retake Bohemia, Hungary and Transylvania by force. He therefore advocated a strike on Lower Austria with the hopes of pinning down and destroying the Archduke before he could mobilise a larger force. John, however, demurred. Though tactically wise, and typical of Magnus’ aggression, the Austria plan did not have the romanticism which John needed.

John of Saxony was a capable soldier, his upbringing and bloodline made this inevitable, but his education had been far more political in nature. Where Magnus saw a devastating military blow, John saw an insignificant piece of highly Catholic territory. Far more appealing to him was Pomerania. John already had the support of the Duke of Courland and the Lord of Saxe-Weimar, as well as the tacit acceptance of the Brandenbergers, all he need was to capture Pomerania in order to create a land bridge to his Duchy of Prussia. In 1609 Pomerania was split between the Crown Lands in the east which belonged to the King of Poland, and in the west the Duchy of Pomerania under Duke Phillip II. Wise, but melancholic, Phillip II was a shrewd political opponent for the young Duke John.

In February 1609 John sent a delegation to Stettin to request military access through western Pomerania in order to invade the Polish portion. Phillip agreed to this on condition that he be granted eastern Pomerania when it was won from Sigismund. This was a very steep price. In his forties and heirless though he was, Phillip II could still place his boot upon the neck of Prussia if he so wished, and John was reluctant to give him any more power or wealth. He instead enacted an audacious plan to circumvent Phillip II, land a stunning blow against the Poles, and live up to the bold ferocity his Great Uncle Magnus expected of him.

So in late March of 1609, as the snows began to melt, the Saxon army crossed the Oder and heading north-east, skirted around the southern edge of Phillip II’s domain heading for their true target: Gdansk. In the century since the fall of the Hansa, Gdansk had become an economic powerhouse for the Kingdom of Poland; it was the anchorage of their Baltic fleet, their main source of maritime customs revenue, and controlled the routes east into Prussia. John intended to claim the city, striking a military blow against the Poles and a political one against the German Princes.

The siege of Gdansk would have been a foolhardy endeavor but for two factors. The first was the Thunderbolt Rebellion; Sigismund III’s attention was directed to his east and south, and he could only spare Stanislaw Zolkiewski and around 6,000 men in Poznan to defend the west. Against John’s force of 20,000 or so Saxons, Brandenbergers, Bohemians, Prussians and English, Zolkiewski however could only shadow and harass Duke John. The second, and more important factor was Sweden. When the Poles heard of John’s advance, their Admiral Jan Wejher immediately put their fleet to sea where they ran straight into the prime of the Swedish navy. Duke John did not have any official relations with Charles IX of Sweden, but his Great Uncle Magnus had won the Swede his throne, and knew him well. When Gdansk had been selected, a joint plan with Sweden had been hatched. Even as Gdansk fell under siege, General Carl Gyllenheim’s forces were invading Polish Livonia. The Swedish navy stopped the Poles from escaping and trapped them in Gdansk harbour, they also began to resupply the Germanic forces by sea.

By late April it was clear that Gdansk would fall. It was only a matter of time. The main Saxon siege camp to the west of the city was unassailable by the meagre garrison, and John had constant patrols by land and sea sealing off any means of escape. Zolkiewski had to try, however, and by the 22nd of May he was at Tczew only 20km from the city with a hastily arranged force of around 15,000 men. With the garrison, he was only a few thousand short of John’s numbers but was tactically on the back-foot having to attack John’s siege works and palisades from the south.

Zolkiewski did the only thing he could, he attacked quickly and quietly from the south in the dea of night. In the early hours of the 24th of May 1609, Saxon pickets near the village of Jasien heard noise in the thicket to their south west. Within minutes almost Zolkiewski’s entire force had stormed up the earthworks and made over half a dozen breaches in the palisade. John and his men were roused, as were Magnus and John of Saxe-Weimar, the other commanders but Zolkiewski had gotten the jump on them. The Polish commander’s aims were simple; overwhelm the besiegers with surprise, destroy their guns and supplies, and force them to retreat.

The initial charge was devastating and took the Protestant army almost entirely by surprise, but before long the two Johns had arranged lines of infantry further inside the palisade and began launching volleys into the advancing Poles. Having lost their original momentum, Zolkiewski’s men began to bog down and take losses. It was then Magnus' cavalry struck from the rear. Zolkiewski had left his 1,000 or so cavalry (not Winged Hussars) on his western flank to protect his rear, but Magnus’ force was superior in numbers, equipment, training and leadership. The venerable commander had enough time to blow the Polish apart with Schragbus, reload and then charge into the rear of the infantry.

What had been intended to break John of Saxony quickly broke Zolkiewski’s army. Disjointed and spread out, they were cut down by expert Snelbus fire from the front and cavalry charges from the rear. Even a late charge from Gdansk itself could not sufficiently damage the Saxon army.

When the dust settled on the Battle of Gdansk, the Polish relief army had all but been annihilated and its leader had been captured. For King Sigismund III, on campaign against his own nobility in Lublin, the news of the defeat left him in an impossible position; he had no more forces to send to Gdansk, and could not afford to fight three wars simultaneously. Thus he took the remarkable step in mid-June of ordering the city to surrender and offering a ceasefire with the Saxons and Swedes.

John and Charles IX accepted and the result was a conference held in Poznan in August 1609. The Treaty of Poznan ceded eastern Pomerania to Prussia and the whole of Livonia to the Swedes. In exchange Sigismund gained a seven year truce and a pledge that Protestant missionaries would not enter Polish lands, he also recovered Zolkiewski and the other prisoners taken at Gdansk. This lost territory was mostly Protestant, but it was still a bitter blow for Sigismund, a King who had begun his reign with grand ambitions. Perhaps Gdansk was inevitable for the Poles, having alienated the rest of the Holy League and his own population, Sigismund was easy prey to his covetous neighbours.

In Germany, the victory at Gdansk and Treaty of Poznan was greeted with great acclaim. After Brackenheim there was a real need for a morale boost, and John of Saxony provided it. The Duke cashed in these cheques over the next few months. On his return to winter quarters in Saxony, John travelled via Stettin and Western Pomerania. Here he was greeted as the conquering hero that he was, and was invited to dine with Phillip II. That evening, the 9th of September 1609 John made the startling announcement that he was absorbing the Duchy of Pomerania and that Phillip was hereby disinherited.

It was a stunning move, and one that showed John’s innate ability to understand the way that the political wind was blowing. Phillip II was unpopular even in his own Duchy, and John’s victory at Gdansk had proven that he was the man to defend Protestant Germans from the Catholics to their east. His alliance with Sweden also put fears to rest that they would invade the Baltic coast. John was simply the better prospect than Phillip II, and he knew it. There was surprisingly little opposition to this move, Phillip had no heirs, and his melancholy forced him to accept the inevitability of his defeat even as the victorious Saxons stormed into his dining hall. The common people of the Duchy welcomed their new over-lord with little fuss and only a few of Phillip’s courtiers made complaints.

The events in Pomerania that Summer meant that John of Saxony was holding an even stronger hand when the German Princes met at Torgau that November. Unlike Stappelberg the previous year, Franck of Hesse and the others had had time to consider their positions. The Civil War in Britannia was still rumbling along, with another Irish rebellion now if reports could be believed. The news coming out of Wurttemberg – pogroms and inquisitions – was not good and the Netherlands was still in complete disarray. Germania needed a new system to protect herself. John of Saxony once again suggested a Reich with him as Kaiser and Franck of Hesse as Scheidsrichter. This time the victories in the east, and unease in the west began to make Franck see the wisdom of it. Stettin was the final nudge he needed. John gifted Franck the city and surrounding countryside to add to his existing holdings in Brandenberg. It placed the Hessians on the Baltic and gave them access to Sweden, but above all it showed Franck that John wanted an almost-equal partnership.

This was enough for Franck to accept, and with his acquiescence Otto-Frederick of the Palatinate and the other nay-sayers agreed. On the 19th of November 1609 the Torgau Declaration decreed the intention for a German Reich to be created one year from that date. The intervening time was to allow for a convention to take place at Wittenberg where the shape and constitutional make up of the Reich was to be decided. The whether of the Reich was no longer in question, Wittenberg would merely be determining the what and the how of the Reich.

A minor issue in 1609 which would flare up later was Schleswig-Holstein. John of Schleswig had died at Brackenheim and had not left any heirs. In the intervening year a Danish court was trying to apportion his lands out between multiple claimants. John of Saxony, however, coveted the land for his own Reich. Schleswig-Holstein were German speaking, and Denmark had not exactly been helpful in the previous war in the West. King Christian was changeable and insular and to allow him to decide the future of the Duchy would be to lose a significant asset for Germany. Accordingly, John would spend much of 1610 in the north and west of Germany gaining support for the Reich.

At least 1609 had passed quietly for Bohemia. With its King in the north the realm had been vulnerable, but Maximillian of Habsburg had instead chosen to focus on the Bocskai Rising in the east. The Rising had rumbled on for almost 6 years by this point, and it had been the spark which had spread into Bohemia. Maximillian’s decision hinged on the work of Giorgio Basta. The Italian had worked tirelessly in eastern Hungary and Transylvania whilst the attention shifted to Wurttemberg. By the Spring of 1609 he had identified a series of Bocskai bases in the central Salaj plateau around Cluj.

Maximillian’s campaign of 1609 was spent leading flying columns, alongside Basta, Colalto and Johan von Scharffenstein across the Salaj, pacifying the area and obliterating any rebels they found. This finally bore fruit in late July 1609 when Bocskai was killed in a skirmish with Basta’s forces. This did not kill the rebellion out-right, but it dealt it a body-blow which would take almost a year to recover from. With Bocskai’s death, his men abandoned all but the most inhospitable terrain in the mountains where they spent a frigtful winter being rebuilt by Gabriel Bethlen and others. This campaign was a great victory for Maximillian, and it emboldened him to try for a greater prize the following year.

Generals and Kings Channel ‘Battles of Ripec and Dobris 1610’

After over five years of conflict, the summer of 1610 would see the House of Habsburg finally retake their lost Kingdom of Bohemia. Welcome to the Generals and Kings Channel and our ongoing series on the Twenty Years War. Today we look at the main battles of the 1610 Bohemian campaign.

With the defeat of Bocskai and the capture of Cluj the previous year, Maximillian of Habsburg spent the first months of 1610 in the Carpathian mountains strengthening his forces and fortresses there. It was around May that the arrival of Cardinal Borghese forced him to change tack.

In Germania John of Saxony had announced his intention to become Kaiser of the German Reich in November 1610 with the support of the House of Hesse and the other major Lords. Not everyone, however, was supportive of this idea, and John spent the majority of summer 1610 in Denmark, Hanover and Schleswig-Holstein trying to win the latter regions over to his rule. John’s tactics caught the attention of the ailing Pope who dispatched Borghese to Hungary to attempt a delaying tactic against the would-be Kaiser.

The tactical map of Europe in 1610 was a delicate balance. The peace of Heidelberg had secured Wurttemberg and Brabant for France and Spain, but had committed them to a truce until at least 1613. With Britannia seemingly emerging from Civil War under Empress Anne there was an advantage in maintaining this trust. The east was even more fragile. With the Treaty of Poznan knocking Poland out of the war, Maximillian and his domains stood almost alone against the rising power of Germania, with only Bavaria for support.

Cardinal Borghese sought to redress this imbalance and strengthen the northern flank of Catholic Europe whilst sending a clear message to the newly forming Protestant Reich. The target would obviously be Bohemia. The southern reaches of the Kingdom were still Catholic and Ochrance Thurn in Prague had been left in command of around 15,000 men to defend John’s land while he was away. Thurn was joined by the King’s Great Uncle Magnus the Red – who was tired of politics – and the young cavalry commander Albrecht Valdstejna.

Thus when Borghese arrived near Budapest in late May 1610 with communications from the Pope himself, it was easy for him to convince Maximillian of Austria to leave the campaign in the hands of Girogio Basta and to invade Bohemia. Maximillian had his existing force of 18,000 Austrians, Hungarians and Bavarians under himself and Duke Augustus of Bavaria, but Papal support had brought him another 4,000 cavalry under Ernst von Mansfeld and a further 11,000 Italian-Savoyard infantry under the Count of Colalto. This 33,000 men was not large by the grand scale of the war so far, but it was double that which Thurn could field.

In late July 1610 the Catholic army left Linz marching north for Budejovice. The heat of the summer made marching exhausting, but the army was welcomed warmly when they arrived at the first town in Bohemia, Budejovice being a Catholic settlement. The Archduke desired to engage Thurn in the field, and so he spent three days in the town gathering supplies. Maximillian also sent Colalto’s forces east to Trebon in order to disguise the true size of his forces. The ruse worked, on the 12th of August 1610 Thurn reached Tabor with 14,000 men – carrying out reconnaissance in force. He made it another dozen kilometres to Ripec before Valdstejna’s scouts reported that the Catholics were advancing on two fronts; from the south-west and south-east.

The ensuing Battle of Ripec was a chaotic and desperate fight between two forces who were not entirely expecting to fight on that day. Learning that he was outnumbered, Thurn had pulled back north of the Nadymac River. With it to his south, the River Luznice to his west and a small hill to his east, Thurn prepared to defend the crossing until night fall allowed him to retreat in good order.

Ernst Von Mansfeld was the first of Maximillian’s commanders to arrive at Ripec and he reported to the Archduke that Thurn was fortifying the crossing of the stream with lines of Bohemian Snelbussers, his light cannon on his eastern flank and Valdstejna’s cavalry in his rear. Around noon, the first elements of Maximillian’s infantry were approaching the village of Ripec, and the Archduke refused a request by Colalto to allow the Italians to cross first. Instead Maximillian, advised by Johan von Scharffenstein, ordered Colalto to march east and cross the Naymac further east

By 1pm, desperate to capture or kill Thurn before dark, Maximillian ordered the advance. Fighting in the now ubiquitous Hutton-style of mobile artillery supported by ranks of Snelbus-armed infantry, Maxmillian led the central division of his army with Augustus of Bavaria to his left and Scharffenstein to his right. These forces slowly pressed over the river dividing them from Thurn’s army, with very little advantage by either side. The Austrian light guns kept Thurn on his toes as the Protestant commander was forced to endlessly move his companies around to avoid their fire. Thurn’s own batteries, fixed on the hill, had greater range but could be avoided by Scharffenstein’s divisions in front of them.

Around 4pm Valdstejna’s cavalry detected the first signs of Italian infantry to their east, and Thurn immediately sprung into action. Thurn knew that he could not hold back both armies and that he risked encirclement. The artillery was saved first; hitched to their beasts of burden and driven over the Luznice River to relative safety. With the volume of fire from his right slackening, Johan von Scharffenstein rallied his men and stormed across the River and crashed into the flank of Thurn’s own division as it disengaged. Mansfeld too saw his gap, and followed the infantry over the river to cause havoc in Thurn’s rear.

The Protestant army seemed to be trapped, as Colalto’s infantry came west to close the gap. The only thing which saved them was Valdstejna’s cavalry. The young nobleman had 2,000 Bohemian Hussars armed with Lance and Schragbus. Valdstejna was able to lead Mansfeld’s heavier cavalry on a merry chase and then counter-charge into Scharffenstein’s flank giving Thurn the chance he needed to escape. In the ensuing confusion Thurn was able to cross the Luznice leaving behind around 4,000 dead or wounded to be captured.

That night Thurn rode his men hard to cross the 15km distance to the Vltava and to cross the River. From the west bank, the Pan Ochrance of Bohemia could cover the approaches to Prague and hopefully slow down the Catholics and allow John of Saxony to arrive with reinforcements. In the Catholic camp Ripec had been another victory, but Maxmillian was frustrated that around 60% of his enemy had gotten away. The Archduke blamed Colalto’s caution, though the Italian Count was little to blame.

Over the next few days Thurn slowly retreated north whilst Maximillian’s army, now joined by Cardinal Borghese, shadowed him from the eastern bank of the Vltava looking for a way to cross. Borghese’s arrival added new impetus to the campaign. The Cardinal took personal control of the overall tactical decisions and encouraged Maximillian to chase down Thurn and destroy him. Pan Ochrance Thurn, for his part, made it difficult for the Catholics to cross the Vltava by destroying bridges at Kamyk and Orlik meaning that Maximillian’s army needed to march back south to Tyn in order to cross the great river.

All this manoeuvre gave Thurn time to gain reinforcements. Unfortunately, John of Saxony was in Copenhagen and was not able to return to Bohemia in time for the decisive battle. In his place, Thurn had been joined by Magnus the Red, John of Saxe-Weimar and Ulrich von Tiefenbach who together had brought a further 15,000 men from Saxony, northern Bohemia and even Brandenberg. With 25,000 men Thurn now felt he had enough strength to challenge the Catholics in the field. Accordingly on the afternoon of the 1st of September he drew his army up on Vylidka hill – a mound which reared up to the east of the main highway north-east to Prague. As at Ripec, Thurn’s front was protected by a stream though his right flank extended 2km until the village of Mnisek whilst his left terminated in very broken ground within 500m of Vylidka itself.

That same day, the entire Catholic host of 30,000 men made a detour to the Svata Hora – the Holy mountain – just 9km from Thurn’s battlefield. Here Cardinal Borghese led a mass at this shrine for victory in the coming battle. Accordingly, the Catholic forces did not reach Dobris until dusk on the 1st and so battle would not be joined until the following day.

Crucially, Borghese insisted on a tour of the battlefield early on the morning of the second which allowed Maximilian, Augustus, Colalto, Scharffenstein and the Cardinal himself to understand Thurn’s deposition. Atop Vylidka they saw Thurn’s own banner where he had fortified the hill as he had Rip mountain some four years earlier. The might of Bohemia had dug trenches for their light guns and around them were the 8,000 infantry of Thurn himself. On the plain to the west was the remaining 14,000 Protestant infantry in three divisions. Magnus the Red claimed the centre and protected Thurn’s flank. To his west was Tiefenbach’s Saxons and beyond them, holding the flank in Mnisek was John of Saxe-Weimar and his experienced Brandenbergers. Valdstejna had command of the 3,000 Protestant cavalry and was in the rear as he had been at Ripec.

This gave much for the Catholic commanders to discuss, and they spent a good two hours of the morning deciding on their strategy. Colalto – having been beaten by Thurn once before – was cautious whilst Maximillian wanted an all out advance on the infantry on the plain in order to isolate Thurn. In the end Cardinal Borghese – according to his account – reached a compromise. The Catholic army would avoid Vylidka hill directly. Instead they would march in three echelons up the Prague road west of the hill, wait until they had passed the stream and then peal off. Von Scharffenstein would lead the vanguard and pin down Saxe-Weimar in the village whilst Maximillian fixed Magnus and Tiefenbach in the centre. The third and final echelon would perform a 90 degree turn to the east and scale the more gentle rear slope of Vylidka, trapping Thurn in his defences. Meanwhile Mansfeld, with the 4,000 cavalry, would remain in reserve and pierce the Protestant line if an opening presented itself.

As the Catholic army advanced from Dobris the heavens opened. This was only a light downpour but it nonetheless fouled Thurn’s aiming and provided much needed cover for Scharffenstein’s men. The Catholic battleplan only had room for but a few cannon per echelon in support and so artillery cover was lacking. Instead, Scharffenstein’s men reached Mnisek fairly intact where they began to exchange volleys with the men of Brandenberg. In the centre, Maximillian and Augustus’ advance landed almost simultaneously against Tiefenbach and the ageing Magnus. Unsurprisingly, the pair of Dukes found the younger Saxon easier to handle than the warhorse in the centre of the line. Around noon the final echelon of the Count of Colalto completed its turn and began to march up the rear slope of Vylidka hill.

Thurn had seen this last move coming, but only had minimal defences protecting his flank meaning that at most 25% of his guns could be used against the advancing Italians. Thurn instead reformed his men facing west, leaving them exposed upon the hillside. Here they were vulnerable to Colalto’s light cannon but especially to his massed ranks of infantry as they advanced.

As the battle wore on, the hasty partnership of Tiefenbach and Saxe-Weimar began to strain as gaps appeared between their divisions. Ernst von Mansfeld saw his opportunity and launched a full cavalry charge at this gap breaking Tiefenbach’s western most units and separating him from John of Saxe-Weimar. Whereas at Ripec Mansfeld’s cavalry had been led astray by their lighter opponents, at Dobris Valdstejna found himself outmatched against heavy Austrian cavalry. Valdstejna’s counter-charge caused some Catholic casualties but they could not stop Tiefenbach from being partially enveloped along his right flank.

In the centre Magnus the Red saw all of this happen. He himself had seen this same move kill the great Riker of Oudenberg at Dunstable more than a decade before. Magnus himself led a counter charge into Tiefenbach’s flank to allow the Saxon’s to retreat whilst ordering his own men up Vylidka hill to reinforce Thurn.

By late afternoon the road to Prague lay open for Maximillian and his army, but they had the two pockets of resistance to finish off first. In the west, the battle around Mnisek had ground down into a careful stalemate as Brandenbergers had taken to the heights north of the village to pour fire onto Scharffenstein’s men. In the east von Tiefenbach had fallen and been captured with the remains of his division whilst Magnus and Thurn continued to fight. Valdstejna had been driven off by Mansfeld.

As darkness fell, the rain continued. Thurn and Magnus together reached the decision to break out of their encirclement and make for Prague in the coming dark. Around 7pm Thurn led a column north as Magnus’ men went north-west. Thurn faced the Duke of Bavaria who had wrapped his men around to the north, but was snarled in the shallow bog at the northern foot of Vylidka Hill which had grown throughout the day. Trapped in thick mud, the Bohemians were shot to pieces and in this fusillade Thurn was struck down and killed.

Around a kilometre away, Magnus’ break-out was similarly stymied. Though possessing the better ground, Magnus faced Colalto himself and his weary men could not create a big enough gap to escape. A small breach was created but it was immediately plugged by Mansfeld’s cavalry. In this attempt Magnus took a bullet to the shoulder and broke his hip falling from his horse. Incapacitated, he was dragged to the dwindling rear.

As night finally set in, the remaining officers on Vylidka Hill made the decision to surrender. Seeing this, John of Saxe-Weimar ordered his men up the sheep tracks and onto the heights, making for Saxony through the mountains. The Battle of Dobris was by no means the end of John of Saxony’s cause, nor that of a free, Protestant, Bohemia, but it was the end of the road for two of Protestantism’s greatest warriors: Matyas Thurn and Magnus the Red. Thurn, who had spearheaded the Bohemian Rebellion from the beginning and invited in the House of Pembroke-Prussia lay dead and drowned in the Vylidka bog. Magnus, the scourge of many a King and would-be tyrant was wounded and captured.

Prague fell within three days of Dobris, there was no sense in fighting and Maximillian promised clemency. Cardinal Borghese and his inquisitors ensured that no looting took place. As for John, Dobris scotched his plans for the creation for the creation of the German Reich in 1610, first he would have to repair his position in Bohemia. But that is a story for another video.

Encyclopaedia Britannia (2011)

Prague (Treaty of, 1610)
Colloquially known as ‘The Diabolical Treaty’. Agreed between representatives of Maximillian of Habsburg, Archduke of Austria and Richard Stewart, Emperor of Britannia on the 11th of November 1610. In return for 1,000 of the latest Model IV Snelbus, £200,000 in jewels and coin and a formal act of attainder against John of Saxony, Richard II was allowed to take custody of Magnus the Red. Transported from Antwerp to Leith aboard a Breton vessel, Magnus arrived in Scotland on the 2nd of December 1610.
 
Fucking hell, victory and defeat all in one. This cannot be fun for John, winning victories only to then see Bohemia lost, along with his most capable military commanders and civil administrator. On the other hand, the strategic situation for him is actually the best - the north and east flanks are secure, Poland is out of it, so all he has to do is deal with Maximillian. Maximillian is in hostile territory, probably not going to be helped by inquisitors, far from his bases, and John can muster more support now from all the German Princes to destroy him. Honestly, I would love to see John win a victory where he gets to loot Maximillian's supplies, looting the Britannic Crown Jewels and making them the Germanic Crown Jewels. It would be a fitting revenge against Richard. Who knows, Gustavus Adolphus is supposed to be King in a year, maybe he might come down too, either to finish off Poland or help against Austria.

Poor Magnus the Red. He's probably going to be tortured and horribly executed by Richard. On the other hand, he's old, he's seen a lot, he didn't really have a future. It's sad he could enjoy his retirement in peace, or at least victorious in war, but I somehow suspect that how Richard treats Magnus will only further backfire on Richard, leading to his ultimate downfall. Also, I really hop that it backfires on Maximillian as well, and that John gets revenge.

Amazing chapters, loved all the battles and politics, especially seeing John come into his own with some deft political maneuvering, I loved how he just took Pomerania for himself, so ballsy. Like, not only did he take Eastern Pomerania for himself by taking Gdansk instead of passing through Western Pomerania, he then took Western Pomerania as well!
 
1609-1610: The Bradbury War
The Bradbury War 1607-????, E Le Roy Landry (1981)

Like the eye of a great Hurricane, the small town of Duboisier [OTL Cordele, GA] , Bradbury Colony, lay at the centre of a swirling storm of war in 1609. The First Battle of Duboisier fought in 1608 had surrendered the town into Gaellish hands and scattered the forces of the Duke of Rouchelle. As the frontier of Bradbury, Duboisier had to be retaken and so the elderly Prince of Conde was forced to marshal an army of his own.

Though isolated and remote, Duboisier suffered for the sins of those thousands of miles away. The town became the fulcrum of Gaellish ambitions to avenge themselves and to free their enslaved brethren. It became the linchpin of Huguenot security in the New World, and it embodied the divisions at the heart of Old World politics.

Following the defeat in 1608, Conde had requested both of his neighbours for support and had received relatively little in reply. To the north, Walter Raleigh of Goughton remained loyal to Emperor Richard II, but was tied down by the New Cambridge Rising. To the south Henry Tudor of Hampton – known as the Hammer – had no ill will towards the Huguenots, but he had declared for his cousin Arthur and his wife; he had to look to his own defences. Then came the wider Britannic Empire in the Columbias; with the secession of Grand Colombia itself, the vast reservoir of wealth and manpower was confused and arrayed towards this existential threat. The final avenue open to the Prince of Conde was the New Canaan Republic but Chief Counsellor Salek Griezmann was already facing criticism for his support of Richard II, and could not levy any resources for the Huguenot. Even so, public feeling in the Republic towards the Bradbury War was one of support for the Gaels and their Creek allies, although the secret alliance between them and the NCR was still not widely known.

So it was that Conde was forced to take the field himself, ageing and ailing though he was. From his seat at New Rochelle [OTL Savannah, GA] he marshalled the militia of the entire colony to try and retake the town of Duboisier. He was able to hire cannon from a number of Norland Company vessels in order to reduce the wooden palisades of the settlement, but the majority of his 8,000 men were untrained, if well equipped with hunting Snelbus and other modern weapons.

Further west, Aodh Ui Neill, Uachtaran of the Gaels was fortifying Duboisier. That winter a great debate was held between the triumvirate over their next course of action. Roe O’Donnell wanted to push on into Bradbury and conquer territory whilst Grainne O’Malley favoured merely fortifying the line over the Thronatesska River [OTL Flint River]. According to legend, Ui Neill delivered an impassioned speech where he stated that neither conquest nor cowardice could be the aim of his realm. Their destiny was to free their enslaved brothers across the whole of Bradbury, nothing less.

With 1609 barely a few days old, raiding parties of Gael, Creek and freed slaves set out from Duboisier heading north-east for the plantations on the Savannah River and beyond, some reaching as far as Villiers [OTL Sumter, GA]. These bands attacked any slave-holding plantations they found, often by night, and freed the African, Irish and Native slaves there. Some of these fled west to safer lands, but many joined the orgy of violence which gripped Bradbury that Spring and Summer, helping to free more slaves.

There was no chance for the Prince’s great campaign to liberate Duboisier. Instead he was forced to break up his forces into smaller groups to patrol the countryside and hunt down the slaves and their liberators. This was a Herculean task, the sparse population of Bradbury and the difficult terrain – criss-crossed by rivers and swamps – provided easy cover for the Gaels, and by late summer most plantations had been garrisoned by militia units as the only way to deter raids. This great slave rebellion liberated an estimated 50% of Bradbury’s slaves, the vast majority of which crossed the Thronatesska River by summer’s end. They carried with them loot and food taken from the Huguenot lands, and it was this alone that allowed them to survive the following winter. Gaelland’s population grew by around 35,000 in these years, and food became scarce. It was only thanks to clandestine trade with the NCR and the Dutch in Nieu Amsterdam that famine was avoided.

Nonetheless, the slave raids of 1609 had been a huge success for the Gaels, only the most distant and well defended slaves along the coast remained in bondage and de facto control of much of western Bradbury had fallen to them. The window of opportunity, however, was closing. In February 1610 a force of some 6,000 men crossed the Savannah River from the north heading for New Rochelle. Walter Raleigh had finally pacified New Cambridge enough to come to the aid of the Huguenots. It was not an entirely selfish move on the part of Raleigh. The slaves in Goughton (what few there were) were becoming increasingly fractious as news filtered through from the south. To protect himself, Raleigh had brought 4,000 of the Goughton militia, 1500 of his personal guard – The Legermen – and 500 Yaguars; elite warriors and hunters descended from Aztec soldiers exiled to Goughton a century of so before. This might have been a small force, but it packed a punch, and Conde hoped that he could recover Duboisier.

Generals and Kings Channel: ‘The Second Battle of Duboisier 1610’

…Conde and Raleigh left New Rochelle at the head of their 15,000 men on the 2nd of March 1610. They marched due west hoping to reach Duboisier and capture the town before the start of the Hurricane season. Their march, however, was slowed by poor quality roads and constant harassment from brigands and outriders from the Rebel army.

For his part, Aodh Ui Neill had heard of Raleigh’s arrival in Bradbury and knew that Conde would be emboldened to meet him in open battle. Ui Neill still desired to free the enslaved Irish along the coast, but knew that it would be folly with an army chasing him the whole way. Ui Neill therefore moved his court to Duboisier - which he and his followers had taken to calling Bhfuil Fulaignt or Place of Suffering – where he prepared the defence of the town himself. Meanwhile, Roe O’Donnell and Creek commander Midnight Crow were dispatched east in order to slow the advance of the Bradbury forces.

Conde himself was inexperienced in war, but Raleigh had won his spurs during the Low Countries War - in particular the assault of the St Leger gap at the Battle of Rouen - , and the veteran commander used his Yaguars as scouts to detect and chase off any ambushes, a task to which they were well suited. Taking only slight losses, the Bradbury army crossed the Ocmulgee River only 10 miles from Duboisier on the 21st of March 1610.

Dubosier, as it existed in 1610, was a small town surrounded by a wooden palisade with stone towers on its north-west and south-west corners. The town was roughly square and built on a shallow rise with the Gencive Creek to its north and west and the Cedre to the south . As such, the town was well defended in the west, where the Huguenot had expected the threat to come from, what little time Ui Neill had he had used to fortify the eastern ramparts. The Gaels lacked any real stores of gunpowder, or means to make it, and so relied on a trio of ballista-like trunk bows which could be moved around the wooden ramparts. Otherwise, they had spent the time manufacturing arrows for their 4,000 archers garrisoned in the town to use. These men Ui Neill himself commanded whilst Midnight Crow and Roe O’Donnell, both returned from the east, each had around 2,000 men at the northern and southern gates of the town.

Walter Raleigh was filled with contempt for the defences of Duboisier and immediately on the morning of the 23rd drew up his dozen cannon on the flats east of town, out of bow range. From here the town of Duboisier was subjected to two days of bombardment as the wooden ramparts were blown to pieces. By the morning of the 25th a number of breaches had been formed in the eastern walls and at dawn the Bradbury attack began.

Raleigh had selected around 1000 'volunteers' from the Huguenot contingent to lead the charge into the largest and northernmost breach, electing to keep his own forces in reserve. This first attack was met with a wall of arrows from inside the town, along with bolts from the two surviving trunk bows not mounted on the ground to fire up the earthworks from inside the town and skewer anyone coming through the breach. Badly mauled, these 1000 men pulled back in disarray.

Raleigh reorganised for a second attack, this time an all-out offensive. Prince Henri would take the northern breach with 4,000 Huguenot, Duke Rouchelle the centre with 3,000 Huguenot and 1,000 Goughtoners and finally Raleigh in the south with his remaining 5,000 men including his elite Legermen and Yaguars as a shock troop in reserve. With a ferocious roar, the entire Bradbury line charged towards the town, Raleigh relying on sheer numbers and ferocity to break the already wounded Gael morale.

As Raleigh had expected, he faced the easiest time in the south whilst the Huguenot in the northern breach were torn apart by the pair of Trunk Bows. With the Legermen in the lead, their disciplined volleys tore through any resistance at the foot of the earthworks and before long they had a foothold in the southern buildings of the town.

Ui Neill now activated his reserves. In the north, Midnight Crow’s howling Creek warriors threw themselves into the untrained and inexperienced Huguenot militia, breaking them more or less instantly. In the south, Raleigh’s experience allowed him to predict Roe O’Donnell’s similar charge which sent the Gael reserve reeling west in order to reform. What happened next has been immortalised in legend. Brigid Sweeney, one of the refugees who had taken up residence in Duboisier, left the market square where she had been sheltering at the head of a group of women. These women were all either escaped slaves and, seeing O’Donnell thrown back, they took up knives and any spare weapons they could find and left for the southern breach. More followed until around half of Duboisier’s 4000 civilian population was moving towards Raleigh’s contingent.

In the north and centre, Conde and Rouchelle had rallied their men and were holding their breaches, but could not move forward, nor could they move to stop Midnight Crow from reinforcing the town’s women. Raleigh was now isolated. As the women of Duboisier and Midnight Crow’s Creek attacked, the Legermen were prevented from reloading their Snelbus and were forced instead into hand to hand combat, a battle they would surely lose. Experienced though they were, the elite gunners could not contend with viscious hand to hand fighting against a far more numerous for. Ui Neill had found a way to defeat massed ranks of Snelbus - charge them and engage hand to hand.

To his rear, Raleigh noticed that O’Donnell had looped around the outside of the town’s walls and was now poised to attack from behind, Raleigh signalled for the Yaguars to counter charge and terrify O’Donnell’s men into retreat. Raleigh had miscalculated. The earlier use of the Yaguars had immunised the Gaels to their terrifying appearance. Rather than check O’Donnell, the Aztec exiles were instead enveloped themselves and neutralised. They were not destroyed outright, but subjected to a gruelling fight which lasted beyond sunset where they were gradually worn down and killed.

Meanwhile, Raleigh’s main force, now completely outnumbered, was surrounded themselves. For all his military brilliance and the training of his soldiers, Raleigh could not overcome the sheer weight of Gaellish anger in their suffering and anguish. With nearly 6,000 vicious Gaels and Creek encircling him, every one of them desperate to avoid a return to slavery, Raleigh stood little chance.

The dearth of horse in the Bradbury army now came to be a problem as first the northern, then centre and final southern breaches all collapsed. There was little means of escape for the beleaguered Bradbury army. Only the dozen field guns, switching to their supplies of grape shot, were able to hold back the seething mass for any length of time.

As the sun set and night lowered, the town of Duboisier was in ruins, large parts of the eastern districts had been destroyed, and only Ui Neill’s swift work to pull down some buildings prevented a great fire from consuming the whole settlement. The entire eastern wall was all but a ruin, and almost 20,000 bodies lay strewn around it.

No quarter was given to any who surrendered and very few even asked for it. The Yaguars were the last to die, encircled though they were. The corpses of Prince Henri and Walter Raleigh were later dragged from the mire and hung from the tattered remnants of the eastern gate house as a symbol of victory.

The Gael-Creek alliance lost around 4,000 people in the battle, a number of them coming from the civilians who had run to the town’s defence. Against all odds, Brigid Sweeney had survived to become a new hero for Tir na Gaeliege, as had Ui Neill and O’Donnell. Given his losses, the Uachtaran was not in a position to capitalise upon his victory, but before long the entirety of Bradbury would be in fear of him.

The Bradbury War 1607-????, E Le Roy Landry (1981)

The second Battle of Duboisier was a calamity for Bradbury. The rising of the previous summer would come to be eclipsed by the late summer months of 1610 as Gaellish raids reached all the way to the Ocean. As the news of the deaths of Conde and Raleigh reached New Rochelle and Goughton, it sent a wave of panic throughout the populace. In a few places, worried homesteaders freed their slaves and fled for the nearest walled settlement.

Unfortunately, in this moment of need the Bradbury polity was fractured. With Henri’s son Louis in exile in Europe, and his only other descendant the five year old Edward-Henry a dynastic dispute ensued. Henri’s younger brother Francois took control of New Rochelle society and had a court nominate him as regent until the young Princeling came of age. The division was exacerbated by indecision over the next course of action. Francois advocated raising a second army and pushing the Gaels back west whilst some – including the Princeling’s mother Louisa – suggested that a peace treaty could preserve Bradbury and their way of life.

A violent Hurricane in August actually became a welcome reprieve from Gaellish raids and then in October a new source of hope arrived as Francois’ entreaties to Hampton were answered by Henry Tudor. The Hammer, as he is known to history, agreed to support the Huguenots in pacifying their realm. This change of heart can be explained by the death of Raleigh, removing a stumbling block from the Tudors’ path, and the consolidation of power in London by Empress Anna. Anna had her husband write to his cousin in Hampton asking him to intervene. If Anna was truly to become Empress and be accepted as such then she would have to begin to defend her subjects, no matter how distant they were.
 
Narrative 8: Judgements
Piazza San Pietro, Rome, 17th December 1610

Armand Du Plessis was cold. The Basilica of San Pietro loomed above him, its dome stark against the dark clouds behind it. The Piazza itself was thronged with signatories, pilgrims, clergy and beggars all jostling for a view of the chimney. The College of Cardinals had been meeting for four days now, and still no decision had been made.

The young Bishop need not have travelled to Rome, but he wanted to be here. The peace with the Protestants was an uneasy one, war was expected to return soon. A strong Pope was needed to hold the line and to secure Christendom from the heretics. He wanted to see who that would be. The Curia itself was closed, but like any secret meeting secrets still found their way out.

Cardinal Aldobrandini had been forced to bow out the first day but had refused to throw the support of his faction behind either remaining candidate. Cardinals Borghese and Medici had slowly tried to chip away at the old man’s pride. Du Plessis knew both men in passing. Medici was an academic, and spent most of his time in Rome. Nonetheless Armand had met him a few years previously during his visit to have his Bishopric confirmed by old Pope Clement. He was old, bookish, but well respected. Borghese could not have been any more different; he was well-read, certainly, but he was young and vigorous and had spent much of the past decade touring Europe trying to encourage support for the armed cause against the Protestants. He could be impulsive, even brash, but it could not be doubted that he had lain Christendom upon a path which had seen it reach heights unforeseen for a century.

“There it is! White smoke!” Came the cry from Armand’s right. The speaker was a tall man, dressed in the unmistakeable manner of a Hungarian, but had spoken Latin so as to be understood. There indeed it was. As Du Plessis looked a small plume of white smoke rose into the gloomy sky. A decision had been made.

Armand turned to the Hungarian, who regarded him unequivocally – the Bishop had disregarded his robes of office so as to listen to the crowd more easily. ‘Finally we shall see’ The gaudy man said in Armand’s direction.

‘Who are your prayers for? Du Plessis asked. It came out as an idle question, rather than the probing political surveillance it was.

‘Borghese obviously’ the man replied, without a moments hesitation or consideration, a rare thing in Rome where everyone was so guarded and careful.

‘You seem very sure of yourself’

‘Absolutely! Only Borghese can protect us from those Protestant savages. I’m from Pest, the Cardinal spent much of the last year and the 4th before this in Hungary and Moravia trying to bring those heathen rebels to heal. He is a good man, one blessed by God. I don’t know this Medici or many of the others, but I know Borghese and I know he has God’s favour.’

‘Well let us hope the Lord hears your prayers’ Du Plessis said, turning to study the Balcony facing the Piazza, hoping that Borghese had been selected. The man from Pest’s opinion was one shared by most that the French Bishop had spoken to. There was little active dislike of Medici or the others, but a real recognition that Borghese was the best hope for defending Catholicism and the gains they had won at Heidelberg.

Armand Du Plessis, son of the Seigneur de Richelieu, hoped that Borghese would be that man they wanted him to be. He was certainly unique in the respect he enjoyed from France and Spain, let alone the eastern Kingdoms and the Italian states. Borghese was surely the man to lead the Catholic rulers of Europe in defence of their lands, most of all his own beloved Vendee.

A roar from the crowd, followed almost immediately by a hushed, expectant, silence. A man had emerged on the balcony to address the massed throng. A herald. The pause dragged on for a lifetime. Du Plessis wasn’t far away, but even so the man’s voice seemed lost in the sheer weight of attention assailing it. In Latin, the voice said ‘My Lords and Ladies, assembled Bishops, Brothers, Fathers and common folk! The College of Cardinals have, with the guidance of almighty God, elected a new Pontiff. It is my pleasure to introduce to you his holiness Pope Julius IV, formerly known as Cardinal Camillo Borghese!’

As the Pope himself emerged, a great swell of noise arose from the crowd, taking the emotions in the young Bishop’s heart with it. They had done it. Borghese was Pope. As the man himself emerged above him, Armand Du Plessis, Bishop of Lucon gave a silent prayer of thanks to God. Christendom was safe: Brabant, Bohemia, Wurttemberg, even the Vendee. All would be well.

Stirling Castle, Scotland, January 11th 1611

The jangling of keys stirred Magnus Plantagenet, Viscount Don, from his slumber before he even registered the rattle in the lock and the creak of the door being opened. He raised his head, his hair – once grey, now white – matted with dirt and his own blood. His white beard, long and unshaven was stained and crusted with blood down one side. His left eye was still swollen from his last round of 'questioning' and attempts to extract a confession and petition of mercy from him.

William Stewart, Earl of Westmoreland entered the small, dank cell. He was crisply dressed in dark robes with a thick black woollen cloak tight around his neck against the chill. As the door opened another gust of icy air blew through the cell from the small slit of window.

‘It is time my Lord’ Stewart said ‘He wants to see you before the…..execution.’

Despite the cold, the pain and bruises, Magnus the Red laughed. ‘Ha, he wants to offer me clemency once more does he Westmoreland?’

The two men had always been cordial. To Magnus, Stewart was just a soldier following orders, something he could relate to. The Imperial Commander had brought extra food and water, even a doctor once before Christmas, whenever he was able. That wasn’t often, Emperor Richard had insisted on harsh treatment for his prisoner, and Stewart could only act when his liege was away.

The younger man sighed and hefted a pair of shackles in his hands ‘I believe he may have had some idea like that yes.’

He took a step forward and a pair of soldiers rushed behind him to flood into the tiny cell to secure Magnus, the second one nearly booted the shit bucket as he did so.

‘No it’s ok boys’ Stewart said turning to the men ‘you can stay outside, I don’t believe my Lord Magnus will give me any trouble?’ he finished glancing down at the former Imperial commander, the man who had once held his own position. Magnus the Red was not wearing his many years well anymore. His broad frame had been reduced. He was not skinny, but rather he had the appearance of dried beef; tough, gristly, but lacking in vigour. Aside from the white hair, stained brown with blood, crow’s feet spread from his eyes and his hands had begun to twist with age. It seemed that the fight had completely gone out of him. Only Stewart, who had spent a few nights – more of late since Richard had passed a sentence of execution against the imprisoned Lord – talking to Magnus in his cell, knew better.

The two soldiers left and Stewart extended a hand to Magnus. The old warrior glanced at it for a moment, as if wondering whether to accept the help. With a small grunt he took it and with a hiss through his teeth, hauled himself to his feet. The Earl of Westmoreland could feel the strength of this once proud man in his grip. Perhaps he was still proud?

‘I am sorry about this my Lord’ Stewart said as he attached the shackles to the prisoner’s wrists. ‘But the Emperor insisted. Please don’t rattle your chain either, he doesn’t like that.’ Stewart fussed over the locking mechanism, making sure it was just to his liking. ‘Also be careful, he is carrying a dagger as a matter of habit these days, he can be….unpredictable.’

As he finished, William Stewart looked up. Straight into the cold grey eyes of Magnus the Red. They were like staring into a whirlwind. The man had been standing staring straight ahead the entire time.

Stewart took a step back. He told himself it was courtesy, but he knew it was fear that made him do it. He sighed ‘I am sorry that it has come to this.’ A long pause ‘I wish there was another way’.

Magnus held his gaze. ‘Aye lad, well there isn’t is there? Your Emperor saw to that didn’t he?’

The word ‘Emperor’ dripped with scorn and derision. But then Magnus was silent; he had said his last.

‘Well. Let’s do this’ Stewart said as he turned for the door.

Magnus looked around his tiny cell. The shit bucket, the small slit for a window out of which he could see the rugged hills of Scotland, the pile of soiled straw that had been his bed for almost three months. One way or another he would not return here. ‘Ever forwards’ he thought to himself. It had been his father’s mantra – in life and in war – and it had served him pretty well, Magnus too. The old Lord knew it had served his son Mag, till the end at least. ‘Ever Forwards’. It wasn’t a bad family motto Magnus thought, and he hoped young John out in Saxony would continue to follow it.

The door creaked in the wind and brought Magnus back to his sense. Stewart was standing beyond the cell door his face flat and his gaze sorrowful. Magnus the Red, the man who had once commanded the armies of a whole Empire, took a step forward towards his end.

Stewart and two guards led the way down the stairs to the Royal apartments. Another two soldiers behind him. Magnus moved slowly; age, injury and shackles will do that to a man. Stewart had left his feet unshackled, only the hands were restrained and even then Stewart had not done the irons too tightly.

They moved through a narrow door into a cloister, the walkway was raised above a wide courtyard but was open on the inside allowing Magnus to see across the yard. He saw bodies. Three were hanging from the ramparts directly opposite him. They were grey and dripping gore, had clearly been there for a while. Magnus noticed that the ropes were at least 12 feet long, much more than on a normal gallows. The old Lord had stopped and was staring. One of the guards behind him jabbed him in the back with the butt of his Snelbus and barked ‘move it!’

Magnus the Red said nothing and did not move. He just continued to stare at the bodies. At his fate. Stewart turned and walked back to the prisoner in chains. ‘I am sorry you had to see that, the Emperor commanded them hung from this wall as an example. I will petition him for a standard gallows for you too not this.’

Magnus broke his gaze and stared at Stewart ‘so I am to hang?’

‘Unless you except the King’s offer, remember my suggestion’ he said and turned swiftly, his black cloak rippling in the cold breeze. ‘We better not keep him waiting.’ He said as he moved on. That got Magnus walking again.

At length they came to a large oak door, another guard stood to attention beside it. His stare did not shift as William Stewart approached, not did he move at all. The only signs of life were the steam of his breath and the livid red throb of his pulse against the harsh leather stock fastened around his raw neck to keep his chin up. All the guards wore them, save Stewart himself, just another cruelty of Emperor Richard II.

‘Wait here’ Stewart barked and he quietly opened the door.

A moment later he was back. ‘Just my Lord Magnus’ he said.

The four soldiers fell into attention, backs to the wall and Magnus stepped forward through the door and the black curtain beyond it. The room behind the curtain was sparse. As Imperial chambers went it was barely worth the name. A small fire spat in the grate to Magnus’ left and a sparse wooden desk stood against the wall opposite. Directly ahead were four windows facing out over the Forth. In front of them, with his back to Magnus, was Emperor Richard II of the Britannic Empire, King Richard V of England, the first of Scotland. Tricky Dickie – or worse – to his enemies and to his friends… well he had few of those left but Magnus supposed they called him ‘My Lord’ out of fear.

‘The prisoner Magnus, my Lord, as requested’

For a long time the fire spat, the wind blew and the three men stood in silence. Finally Richard turned from the window, his feet scraping on the bare stone floors. He looked awful. Magnus suspected he himself didn’t look pretty, but for a man who claimed to be Emperor of a huge Empire, Tricky Dickie was pale, thin and his eyes were red. Upon his face was painted a fixed grimace as if he had just bitten into a rotten egg. He looked like a man who had bet his whole life on the wrong Cock in a fight and lost. Badly.

The Emperor of Britannia crept forward, timorously, as if he might startle Magnus like a baby Deer or Calf. ‘The day of your execution is here, traitor, would you even yet fall upon my mercy? You know my terms, swear allegiance to me and declare my rightful rule of this Empire, confess your sins and bind yourself to my service and you shall be spared.’ The Emperor’s voice was thin and gasping as if he had just run a mile. He advanced on Magnus, who saw that he was dressed in a plain black doublet, adorned simply with the golden handle of a dagger hanging at his belt.

Emperor Richard stopped his stalking only a few paces in front of Magnus. ‘Make him kneel’ he gasped through clenched teeth. Behind Magnus, Stewart stepped and pressed a firm hand on Magnus’ shoulder. The prisoner let himself fall rather than make Stewart push him, this was hard enough for the man as it was. A jolt of pain shot up both legs as his knees crashed into the unyielding stone floor.

‘So will you accept my mercy? The Emperor asked again.

Magnus remained silent, but his gaze never moved from Richard’s face. Even the Emperor himself had to look away, he was so unnerved. It was then that Magnus spoke.

‘I’ll accept nothing from you save a quick death yer little shite’.

It was calculated to annoy, Magnus using the worst soldier’s talk he knew.

The Emperor bristled and then pulled his dagger, as Magnus knew he would.

Richard halted ‘well I am sure that could be arranged’ he said fingering the ornate knife he now held in his right hand.

‘You couldn’t organise a piss up in a brothel yer wee shit’

‘Strike him!’ shrieked Richard.

William Stewart, still behind Magnus, struck him on the ear. As his head rung, Magnus noted that Stewart hadn’t been as hard as he could have been.

Magnus recovered and returned his stare to Richard’s face. The Emperor seemed even more unsettled now. Just one more push…

‘Can’t even hit me yerself eh? What kind of little shit are you?’

That did it. The Emperor’s glassy stare broke, there was a flash of fear in his eyes and then sheer unadulterated rage.

‘I! AM! YOUR! EMPEROR!’ Richard screamed, arching his back to bring back the dagger for an elaborate downward swing.

The gilded dagger, all twelve inches of it, came gliding down to Magnus’ neck.

Magnus twisted out from under the blade and lurched upwards. He headbutted Emperor Richard in the face.

The Emperor flew backwards, blood spouting from his nose. The dagger went wide somehow still in his grasp but useless now.

Magnus sprung up, pulling his hands outwards, the shackles fell from his wrists with a clatter, as Stewart had planned. He was on Richard in an instant, grasping for the knife hand. Magnus the Red was still strong. He might have been old and imprisoned for months, but fighting was his life. Richard II was a weakling by comparison. Magnus swung Richard’s hand, dagger still clutched in his clammy grasp, up until the knife point wrested under the Emperor’s chin.

Magnus leered over Richard, laying on top of him to stare into the bloody face beneath him.

‘You are nobody's Emperor Richard, not any more’ there was a hint of pity in his voice ‘I am just glad I got to be here at the end.’

Richard’s eyes had lost their rage, the fear was back ‘No! Please!’ he gasped ‘Stewart help me!’ but the commander was stood like a statue six paces away.

‘Goodbye Dickie, I will see you in hell.’ With a final heave of exertion Magnus the Red slid the knife into Richard II’s neck. There was a gurgle of blood and a brief thrashing, but then the tyrant of the Britannic Empire was gone, his remaining blood oozing onto his black doublet and then the floor. Magnus the Red, stained crimson, gave a sigh of relief and rolled onto his back.

‘Ok Stewart’ he said ‘the job’s done, now get me out of here, that was our deal.’

Silence.

Then the click of a mechanism.

Magnus sat up. The Earl of Westmoreland was stood before him, a pistol pointing at his face. Magnus noted idly that it was a wheel-lock design, one of his recent inventions, hardly ever mis-fired even when wet.

‘We had a deal’ he said simply.

‘We did didn't we? Regicide is a terrible business, my Lord. But Richard had to go, and God gave me you as a gift. Now I need to tie up loose ends is all.’ He hefted the pistol. ‘This is a fine weapon by the way, I regret that I will have to kill its inventor.'

‘You bastard’ Magnus said. It was pointless arguing with the man. Stewart had played the game well. Too well. He had spent weeks earning Magnus' trust to use him as a weapon against the mad Emperor, had dangled the prospect of escape in front of him and now he would remove him to protect his own neck. Magnus had always known not to trust the man, but a shot at the Emperor had been too good to miss.

‘I am sorry my Lord, I shall miss our conversations. Will those be your final words?’

Magnus stayed silent. If this was to be his end, then at least he had taken Richard with him

‘Very well’ Stewart said

The wheellock, its mechanism perfectly manufactured for murder, fired once.

Magnus the Red fell backwards into eternal rest.
 
but I somehow suspect that how Richard treats Magnus will only further backfire on Richard, leading to his ultimate downfall
Ahhhhh, yessss, I was right, so happy to see it. Sad Magnus couldn't survive to enjoy it, but I'm sure he'll become a Britannic hero for killing Richard.

Hmmm, wonder what will end up happening in Bradbury. Honestly, if I was Ui Neill, this is the time to make peace. You've probably freed almost everyone you could, you don't have enough forces to do much more, and an empire could be mobilizing against you. Ask for the release of the last of the slaves, set up a border wherever it works best (the Thronatesska River?) and end the war on your terms, before you have to fight another fight. I'm honestly really surprised it ended even that well - it seemed to me like Conde and Raleigh's forces were almost full destroyed, with no surrender, and it only cost Ui Neill 4000, when he only had 10,000 (4000 of them civilians) in the first place? To my mind, at the end of the day there should have been barely 500 warriors and 2000 civilians left.

And fuck, Borghese is Pope. We all know what this means, the last phase of the War. I hope he'll be remembered as the Pope who lost the war.
 
1611: Richard II
‘Pocket Biographies: Tricky King Dickie – Scotland’s most infamous King’ J Forestall, 2019

The Death of Richard II is as controversial as his life. Since that faithful day on the 11th of January 1611 debate has raged on who killed him and why. That he was murdered is beyond doubt, the Emperor died of a single stab wound on the left side of his neck, unlikely to have been self-inflicted. However every other fact about Dickie’s death has been the subject of a great deal of argument ever since.

Let us first focus on what we know. The date and place – his upper solar on the south side of Stirling Castle – are incontrovertible facts. Other details are probably truths but cannot be proven with complete certainty. Richard II was alone when he died save for his senior commander the Earl of Westmorland and his prisoner Magnus the Red. Magnus was chained, and his execution was scheduled for later that day. According to William Bertie, chronicler of the King of Scotland, Richard had summoned Magnus to issue him a pardon and grant him clemency, though no actual record of this exists.

Beyond this we enter the realm of speculation. Richard was most likely killed by his personal dagger – depicted in a 1609 portrait by Daniel Mytens – but any narrow blade would have done the job. If we are to take this as the murder weapon, then the question becomes how did the Emperor lose control of the weapon and to whom?

The official explanation, espoused by Westmoreland most prominently, was that Magnus the Red stole the weapon and used it to murder the Emperor. This runs into the obvious snag that Magnus would have been chained before the Emperor. A number of people attested to this, and Richard II was unusual in keeping his prisoners of noble birth in squalor and ignominy. It seems that Magnus, an especial source of Imperial ire, was spared no indignity or embarrassment at his treatment during his captivity, it is likely that he was kept in chains on that day. Furthermore, Richard II may have not been a martial man but he was no weakling; that the elderly Magnus, emaciated by his months of captivity, possessed the strength to overpower him seems unlikely. And what of Westmoreland? The upper solar of Stirling, still preserved today, is not a large room and the Imperial commander would have been within easy reach of Magnus to prevent the murder. Indeed this fact, along with Magnus’ death, was one of the most suspicious which was used to cast doubt over Westmoreland under the new regime.

Richard II’s was not the only death on that day. Magnus the Red died very soon after the Emperor. Again, little is certain over his death; we know he died of a gunshot wound to the head, administered by Westmoreland from point-blank range, but the circumstances have been lost to History. Westmoreland’s own explanation was that Magnus had swiftly killed the Emperor and was shot in turn as Stewart tried to save his liege. It seems most likely that Magnus was killed by Westmoreland, but the circumstances are unknowable.

The ‘official’ historical interpretation of Magnus as murderer and Westmoreland as the too-slow-defender has a number of holes in it. Firstly, how plausible is it that Magnus would have had the time and strength to steal Richard II’s dagger and murder him with it? Secondly, it is convenient, verging on the suspicious, that Westmoreland failed to prevent Richard’s death but was able to kill Magnus with a single shot to the head, was Westmoreland trying to hide something? Thirdly, why was Magnus taken before Richard that day? Bertie’s report of clemency seems a little out of character for Tricky Dickie, was the Emperor merely meaning to gloat over his enemy before his death?

The most widely accepted alternate theory is the ‘Westmoreland Conspiracy’ namely that the Earl found some way to contrive Richard’s death, most probably with the connivance of Magnus the Red. That Westmoreland would conspire against his Emperor is not the most far-fetched of theories. By 1611 Westmoreland had served Richard II for almost two decades and during that time had suffered the ignominy being blamed for the defeat at Oxford, the machinations of the Emperor’s favourites, his increasingly erratic and cruel demands on his servants and enemies, his cold treatment of his wife, household and subjects, and the losing of a Civil War which seemed to be only being prolonged by the Emperor’s stubbornness. Westmoreland had a number of motives – selfless and selfish – for removing his Emperor and in Magnus the Red, held captive at Stirling, he possessed the perfect tool with which to do so.

Under the Westmoreland theory, the Earl either allowed or orchestrated Magnus’ killing of the Emperor. It is impossible to know which, but regardless, it is plausible that Westmoreland merely stayed his hand when he saw his Emperor’s peril. This is the main pillar of the ‘Westmoreland Conspiracy’ but beyond this many other theories have been postulated. Archibald Bower, writing in the early 18th century, went as far as to paint Westmoreland as a regicidal villain along the same lines as Guy Fawkes and points to how the numerous military units and garrisons around Scotland obeyed his orders for peace when Westmoreland himself dispatched news of the Emperor’s death on the 12th of January. William Baikie, in his seminal History of Scotland produced in 1854, however exonerated the Earl, portraying the Conspiracy as a ‘necessary evil’ to rid the world of a tyrant, an interpretation which went down well with the Reformist and Enfranchisement atmosphere of the time.

Regardless of the veracity of the Westmoreland theory, it doesn’t appear that the Earl necessarily planned a coup or any grand rebellion as Fawkes before him had. Earl Huntly, the most senior surviving member of the Lords of March, was summoned by Westmoreland to Stirling on the 11th and Richard II was lain in state in the Castle’s Chapel.

The following day Westmoreland and Huntly together issued messages across Scotland to announce the death and Westmoreland ordered his soldiers to hold their positions. Within a month, both men wrote to Empress Anna in London inviting her to be crowned Queen of Scotland and simultaneously asking for a ceasefire. If Westmoreland had planned any sort of coup, it would have happened in this time. The most obvious strategy would have been to seize power for themselves but neither Westmoreland nor Huntly did this. Instead, it seems that the Westmoreland Conspiracy – if such a thing truly existed – merely aimed at ending the war. Westmoreland did not seek power, at least in the short term. Of course, the Earl had few options; Richard II’s sole surviving heir was the Empress Anna

Huntly’s involvement may seem suspicious - had the pair conspired together - but it is likely innocuous. The two Earls had been commanders together during the Civil War but were not close. Huntly was also vocally loyal to the Emperor, having been trusted to bring Magnus from Prague the previous Autumn. It seems most likely that both Earls were confronted with a simple choice: swear allegiance to Anne and ask for mercy or find a suitable stooge as Monarch and continue the war beyond all common sense. They chose wisely.

How should we understand King Richard I of Scotland, Emperor Richard II? Well, most remember him as ‘Tricky Dickie’, the mad tyrant King who treated his allies and enemies alike with cruelty and contempt. This would be a caricature. Richard displayed these characteristics at times, but the man himself was far more complex than this would demonstrate.

As alluded to in my forward, this biography of Scotland’s first Yorkist King was intended to upset that typical tyrannical narrative. Rather, Richard’s legacy is such a tricky thing to discuss because the man was so complex. Bereft of all parents and any surrogate figures at a lowly age, the boy who became King of Scotland and thence – in the midst of a fiery tragedy – Emperor of Britannia was forced to rely on an ever shrinking circle of favourites and insiders.

Whether Richard suffered from mental illness is beside the point, and an unhelpful debate in this instance. The Emperor can be far better understood as a man who suffered from the typical human frailties of fear, hubris, loneliness and hot-headedness which we all face. He was a man thrust into a far more complex situation than his upbringing and his life experiences to that point had prepared him for.

Richard was a man who did not deal well with setbacks. Whether they be in his personal life or his political one. Perhaps that, for all his faults, was his biggest weakness. True his intractability drove the Empire to Civil War, his lust for vengeance motivated him to pawn his Crown Jewels for a final confrontation with Magnus the Red, his rage caused him to have the Earl of Lincoln executed after a show trial, and his personality caused his wife to live her life in almost monastic solitude. But all of these failings, grievous though they were, followed upon the heals of further disasters, and without the wise counsellors to guide him, or the sense to seek better advice, the young Emperor was doomed.

Perhaps Richard II should be remembered not as an evil Emperor, though he had many personal failings, but more as a mediocre Emperor who when faced with an impossible situation in the wake of the Gunpowder Plot simply lurched from one disaster to another. He may be known as Tricky Dickie to so many, but Richard II deserves a better memorial for all the tricky times he negotiated.
 
1611-1612: Britannia: The re-building of the Empire
The First Empress: Anna by L Worsley (2018)

The deaths of Richard II and Magnus the Red brought about an unexpected end to the Britannic Civil War. When news reached London of the slaughter at Stirling on the 13th of January, Empress Anna was in the midst of preparations for a summer invasion of Scotland. These were put on hold and Carew was instead dispatched to Jedburgh to meet with Huntly and Westmoreland.

The Jedburgh Conference brought about a ceasefire as both Scottish Earls requested a parlay with the Empress and a pardon under her ‘Bill of Grace’ published the previous Autumn. As a show of faith, Westmoreland rode for Berwick where he personally ordered the town to surrender to the Earl of Warwick. The ceasefire was not unanimously accepted in Scotland, a number of Lords in Dumfries and the Highlands refused to accept that their King was dead and continued in opposition against the agents of Westmoreland, Huntly and their new ‘English’ masters. For the first few months ‘loyalist Scottish’ forces under Westmoreland were forced to put down this rebellions in order to demonstrate their good intentions to the Empress.

The situation changed when Anna herself arrived in Edinburgh In late April 1611 to be coronated as Queen of Scotland. Technically her coronation in 1608 had included her Scottish title, but the ceremony in the Scottish capital – presided over by the Archbishops of Canterbury and St Andrews together – was an important piece of theatre to win over the Scottish masses and secure her authority north of the border. If the coronation was the theatre, then the subsequent Scottish Parliament was the bread and butter of bringing Scotland to heal.

Richard II had never united the two Parliaments in his time as joint monarch, and the Empress wisely decided that 1611 was not the time to do this either. Instead under the Bill of Grace she permitted any Scottish nobility or gentry who wished to attend, this included Lord Maxwell whom Anna had liberated from Prison at Holyrood before she even arrived in the city. Anna was a reconciler – she had to be – and she started this at the Parliament that Spring by granting clemency to all Scottish Lords who had fought for Richard II. Westmoreland, Huntly, Maxwell, all of the surviving ‘Lords of March’ were pardoned under the understanding that they had no choice but to serve Richard and on the basis of the oaths of allegiance they swore at the coronation.

These pardons were far more practical than merely seeking to win over Richard’s supporters, Anna needed these men to re-establish good governance in Scotland. Maxwell was appointed Chancellor of the Scottish Exchequer and Earl Huntly became High Justiciar each responsible for taxation and laws respectively. Anna, however, did not trust these men unconditionally. At the Scottish Parliament she created a new position of First Lord to lead her government during the inevitable periods of her absence. This was based on the Irish model in that the person was a chosen representative of Parliament but could be vetoed by Anna.

The choice of the First Lord was a difficult one. Anna left the Parliament to their own decision, but of course sent in her own agents to act as her eyes and ears and even to nudge the Parliament towards an acceptable decision. In this Anna showed her formidable political skills at a relatively early age. By already announcing Huntly and Maxwell’s positions, she had prevented them from being chosen as First Lord. They would be of use to her, but could not be allowed to take total leadership of the government. With other Lords of March tainted or dead, Anna had engineered a situation where none of them could be chosen as First Lord. Westmoreland in particular was present in Edinburgh but was scorned by much of the Scottish nobility. His proximity to Richard II’s death left a stain on his record, and the majority of his wealth actually came from England. William Stewart came from a middling Scottish gentry family and did not have the clout north of the border which would have made him First Lord.

After weeks of negotiating and haggling the Scots eventually chose Patrick Ruthven as First Lord. Ruthven was an interesting choice in that he was a Lord, and came from a military family in Fife, but was not especially well known in Edinburgh’s political circles. What he did have was a reputation for integrity and loyalty to Scotland and a glittering military career in service to Sweden. Ruthven had been forced to flee to exile in 1599 after a purge of Scottish Presbyterians apprehended him. In his exile Ruthven had served in Livonia and had distinguished himself well. Beyond his personal qualities, Ruthven also had the prime advantage of being a compromise candidate; he was acceptable to the old establishment represented by Huntly and Maxwell but also the newer and smaller Lords who had lain low under Richard’s reign.

Anna installed Lord Ruthven – ennobling him as Earl Forth – in a ceremony at Holyrood in July 1611 before she departed for London by a circuitous route which took in Perth, the southern highlands, Stirling, Ayr and Dumfries before crossing into England accompanied by Westmoreland. The Earl had not been welcome in Edinburgh, and felt that his future lay south of the border. Ever the reconciler, Anna chose to bring him back to London with her, to help her solve further issues across the Empire. The entire expedition was vital in bringing Scotland back into the Britannic fold. By the end of the Civil War, the battle-lines had seemed to be exclusively Scotland versus everybody else, but Anna’s policy in 1611 made it clear that they were a part of the Empire, not subservient to London but rather to her as the individual Queen of Scotland and no others. The introduction of the First Lord placed Scotland on the same level as the rest of the Empire, at least in theory.

The Scottish excursion was a long but vital distraction for Anna, but it left her with a long to do list when she returned to London. With Scotland secured, she could finally deal with the few remaining loose threads from the four years of violence. The first was John Whitgift, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, now under house arrest in Westminster Abbey. In accordance with the Bill of Grace, Anna offered him clemency for his common law misdemeanours including his actions during the London Riots in 1607. For his religious mis-deeds however, he would be tried by his fellow Bishops and Clergy led by Archbishop Andrew. Whitgift had vigorously pursued any Presbyterian or Puritan reformists, and had overseen the execution of more than a dozen including Thomas Cartwright. The newly resurgent Puritan faction, led by the new Bishop of Ely Thomas Morton, called for his execution as a heretic but Archbishop Andrew demurred.

Whether influenced by his Empress’ acts of grace or his own faith, Andrew found Whitgift guilty of a number of charges but allowed him to live out the rest of his days as a ‘guest’ of the Chapter of Westminster Abbey. He was permitted guests but was not allowed out of the Abbey grounds except by Imperial Assent.

In the remaining years before his death, Whitgift spent his time writing. Many of his personal papers, covering subjects ranging from the episcopacy to astronomy and botany, were never published until they were rediscovered in 1953 but sections of his work on Royal supremacy were published shortly before and after his death, collected into a work known as ‘essays’ and published in 1644 under the auspices of the Bishop of Nottingham, Gervase Clifton where they became central to the ongoing political debate between Autocracy and Baconism.

With Whitgift under the Church’s jurisdiction, the only other big name of Richard II’s supporters was the former Imperial Justice and Lord Protector Christopher Hatton. Unlike Huntly, Maxwell and the others, Hatton was English and had a reputation for corruption and self-advancement. It was he who had overseen the massacres during the April Days in 1607 and who had brutally suppressed them, including executing the Earl of Lincoln, in the weeks afterward. The Bill of Grace, extending to so many, ran out for Christopher Hatton.

Despite his obvious personal flaws and faults, Anna could still not bring herself to put the disgraced justice on trial. It would not be an easy affair, the man was still a brilliant legal mind, and she toyed with allowing him to go into exile at one stage. The tipping point was the new Imperial Justice, Sir Thomas Richardson. Richardson was an equally brilliant lawyer, but had fallen victim to Hatton’s corruption having been imprisoned by him in the run up to the April Days in 1607 and he had been the champion of the Parliamentary cause throughout the war.

We know from the Chief Justice’s own charges against his predecessor that he saw Hatton’s actions as not only a cause of the civil strife which had just befallen Britannia, but as a dangerous cancer on the corpus of Imperial Law. Richardson saw the entire Civil War as stemming from Richard’s own tyranny and actions, sure, but crucially facilitated and even catalysed by his corruption and ignorance of the law, encouraged and enabled by Hatton. Richardson contended that Hatton’s treatment of the law had eroded the strength of the Britannic judicial system and so to put him on trial would go a long way to healing the damage he had caused. These arguments were published before Hatton’s trial in the autumn of 1611, but it is thought that it was these which persuaded Empress Anne to go through with the trial in the first place.

In the event it was a whitewash. This was unsurprising, but Hatton had no show trial. The former justice was allowed council, but chose to defend himself. Though Richardson was present he chose three members of the Star Chamber to try Hatton, none of them known for their partiality or their stance during the Civil War, they were neutral. Hatton’s defence hinged on the Bill of Grace and the eternal excuse that he was only following his King’s orders. In this regard the testimony of the Earl of Westmoreland, present for the trial of Lincoln in 1607, was instrumental in that William Stewart made it clear that Hatton was acting upon his own initiative to find Lincoln ludicrously guilty of treason and then encouraged Richard II to carry out the execution after the verdict was given. Christopher Hatton was found guilty and sentenced to death on the 31st of October 1611, but it would be months before Empress Anna actually signed the order to have him killed by beheading which was carried out on the 13th of March 1612.

The cases of Whitgift and Hatton were important in tying up loose ends from the war, but Empress Anna was equally concerned with driving her rule forward. Already in 1611 she consulted Parliament and the Church over renewing and strengthening various institutions. With Richardson, Anna agreed to abide by Richard II’s dissolving of the Councils of Wales and the West but she increased the number of justices serving in these counties and appointed more Seneschals taking the number in the West Country from 7 to 11 and in Wales from 6 to 10. Together these measures reasserted Royal dominance over areas which had supported Richard during the war but without ruffling too many feathers.

More broadly, Thomas Richardson began work on his magnum opus ‘The Laws of Britannia’ which would eventually be published in multiple volumes towards the end of the decade. ‘The Laws’ were not in fact a large list of rules but more a treatise on the legal system of the Britannic Empire. In short, Richardson would go on to introduce a new set of checks and balances between the Crown and the Judiciary. The kind of ‘single mind’ justice which characterised Hatton’s tenure, where whatever he or Richard II said went, was made impossible. Richardson remained Chief Justice but he created an ‘Imperial Bench’ of 13 justices appointed from across the Empire by the Empress but with recommendations from the Chief Justices of each territory. This bench would hear cases of appeal from other courts and was made equal with the Imperial Justice with a veto of the Imperial Bench made possible by both the Empress and Imperial Justice agreeing to it.

Richardson also helped to oversee changes in Parliament, which were in turn encoded in the Laws of Britannia. As the first Parliamentarian Lord Protector, Arthur Tudor continued in the manner in which he was appointed by seeking to work with Parliament. The likes of Naunton, Wells, Cranfield, Ames and Payne, all heroes of the Civil War worked with the Lord Protector to build a consensus across Parliament. Rather than previous Lord Protectors who were merely the monarch’s mouthpiece to Parliament, Tudor became the mouthpiece of Parliament to the monarch as well. It helped that the Lord Protector and Empress were husband and wife, but it seems that this was genuine effort by Arthur and Anna to spread power and responsibility with Parliament in order to prevent any kind of Civil War from happening again.

In all of these changes, it is possible to see the shadow of Francis Bacon looming over them. The Colombian political scientist was finally plucked from Hartsport [OTL Veracruz] in September 1610 and he arrived in London in March 1611. As a guest of the Imperial family he was given an apartment in Limberg Palace south of London where he worked for over two years. Francis Bacon had been held responsible for the Colombian Secession during the Civil War. The entire colony had expelled Imperial tax collectors and refused to pay their dues to London, citing the mis-rule of Richard II. In reality Bacon was an academic not a revolutionary, and the leaders of the colony had used his work for inspiration and as an excuse for their rebellion.

Nonetheless Bacon’s ‘note of secession’ had intrigued the Empress Anna, and she had dispatched an expedition to the New World to bring him to London. Thanks to the Scottish expedition, Bacon had to wait almost five months before his audience with the Empress but in the meantime he met Thomas Richardson, with whom he would become good friends, and Arthur Tudor also. Bacon’s own accounts are frustratingly vague on his discussion with the Empress, and it is thought he kept them so out of respect for her, but over the first few months at Limberg, Francis Bacon became more and more involved in the political life of the Empire, helping to draft new legislation in Parliament and through his writing, provide a new framework for governance.

It was obvious to all that Richard II’s political philosophy had been defective. Even by 1611 the deceased Emperor’s political work – ‘The MacAlpine’ – had been savaged and shown to be incoherent. Richard II had essentially painted himself as the unassailable arbiter of the Empire in the face of natural perils, human superstition and the sinfulness of man. Richard’s tyranny and downfall now showed his words to be dangerous folly. But what to replace them with? The political philosophy of the Yorkist dynasty, propped up by the century old Black Book and White Book, was that of the ‘New Monarchy’ a kind of early autocratic rule where the monarch entrusted power in a small number of close, and often related, subordinates. This delegation, combined with constant vigilance and diligent record keeping, and been the main-stay of governance since Edward IV, yet the fire of the Gunpowder Plot and the anarchy after it had shown the dangers of this system too.

What began to emerge during the early years of the 1610s was a political philosophy since known to the world as Baconism. Francis Bacon began to outline his ideas in his 1612 ‘Theory of Governance’ but these can be identified in the policies of Richardson and Tudor as much as a year earlier. The central watch-word of Baconism is responsibility. ‘Every ounce of power’ wrote Bacon’ comes with an equal weight of responsibility. Just as a pulley seeks to balance two counter-weights so a leader seeks to balance their power with their responsibility.’

In short Francis Bacon originated the idea in mainstream modern political thought that those in power had a responsibility to those whom they governed. Though drawing on classical examples, Bacon used the recent failings of Richard II as the prime counter-example. Richard, Bacon claimed, acquired more and more power for himself but neither earned nor exercised the right to wield it responsibility. For example, the Emperor suspended Parliament only to disregard their responsibilities.

The horrors of the Civil War, combined with the minds of Richardson, Tudor and Empress Anna herself, gave Bacon the inspiration for his great political idea. Power by its very nature conferred responsibility upon those who wielded it, and those who shirked those responsibilities were unlikely to maintain that power for long. All of this is to paraphrase a monumental piece of political science into a few small paragraphs, but it is necessary to understand the spirit of the age which surrounded Anna’s rule. Henry Tudor had accepted the responsibility which came with his power and it had led to his death at Corby Glen, her own father had not. Anna set out to respect this responsibility throughout her reign. This helps to understand Richardson and Tudor’s work with judiciary and Parliament but also her own approach to her Empire.

Empress Anna had already dispatched her husband and the Earl of Oudenberg upon a tour of Normandy-Picardy, Brittany and Ireland the previous year, but with the new certainty the end of the war brought, Anna dispatched Richardson and Bacon to Ireland this time in April 1612. The Ulster Rebellions of 1609-1610 had been suppressed and the Irishmen who fought at Newark had also returned home. For the first time in almost 20 years, the Emerald Isle felt peaceful. King Matthew reaffirmed his loyalty to Empress Anne and spoke with both men on numerous occasions on ways to strengthen the Irish Dail alongside the Parliament in London.

Ireland remained a part of the Britannic Empire but was a largely independent entity beyond matters of religion, military and customs dues. Often dated from the accession of King Matthew in 1608, the Irish resurgence actually began around 1612 with two coincidental events. The first was the arrival of Richardson and Bacon who began a legal and political renaissance but the second was the appointment of Reverend William Bedell as Provost of Trinity College Dublin. The future Archbishop of Dublin, Bedell was unusual in his brand of Puritanism in that his tenacity for vernacular worship crossed over into Irish. This might have been the classical Irish of St Patrick and other Medieval writers, rather than the modern Gaelish preserved in the New World, but it still began a cultural resurgence where Irish language, music and sport all saw a new expression throughout the early and mid-17th centuries. What began with Bedell's Irish Bible would spread into Prayer Books, Poetry, Music and other forms of art and expression.

This resurgence was of course not universal. The landowning families of Western Munster and Connacht, those introduced since the Black Summer, vociferously retained their English and even French culture, as did some of the older families in the south and east. However across Ulster, and the other three provinces amongst the lower peoples, Irish culture became more obvious and extroverted and contributed to the distinct Irish voice within the Britannic Empire.

Though not as strong as the Irish resurgence, other ‘Celtic’ cultures in Wales, Scotland, Brittany, Cornwall and New Lothian [OTL Newfoundland] likewise became more overt. The exceptions to this were French cultures in Normandy-Picardy where they were seen as a dangerous ‘5th column’ of Catholicism and those ‘native’ cultures in the New World which were perceived as ‘barbaric’ or ‘uncivilised’.

Indeed, Normandy-Picardy was the only real area to be overlooked by this new wave of Baconist ideology and practice, and this was largely out of necessity. The previous war had only underlined the vulnerability of Normandy and Picardy (note this covers all land loyal to the Britannic Crown from St Malo to Bruges) to Catholic attacks. These lands were therefore better ruled as military fiefs controlled by the Earl of Amiens, the Duke of Normandy and overseen by the Earl of Oudenberg. In reality this was a family clique of militaristic leaders led by William of Oudenberg as Imperial Constable. The only concession Oudenberg made in the post Richard II world was to allow a single Council to meet twice a year in Calais which represented the three major families of the region, a number of other military commanders and merchants from the main ports and a few members of the judiciary. This Council of Calais was merely advisory with the Imperial Constable making arbitrary decisions where he wasn’t overruled by the Empress, but it was a start.

With the European realms relatively settled, this only left the mess in the New World for Anna to deal with. Columbia had agreed to return to the fold after Bacon personally wrote a letter to Duke Reginald and so the Columbian Secession merely petered out, more significant for its future legacy than its contemporary influence. That really only left Norland, but here the situation was grim. By midsummer 1611 Empress Anna knew of the death of Raleigh and the schism in the Bradbury ruling family. All of this came to her through her husband’s cousin Henry ‘the Hammer’ Tudor whom Anna had asked to intervene the previous Summer after the defeat at Duboisier.

In August 1611 Anna finally got around to sending a response to Bradbury. She was unaware of that Summer’s actions, and the Battle at Hampton Roads, but she knew that a decisive statement of her intent was required. It was not enough for her to pledge ‘good governance’ or listen to the ideas of Francis Bacon, what Bradbury needed in order to protect them from the Gaelish raiders was a military intervention. First step was to confirm Tudor as Viceroy, though Anna did send condolences to Goughton to the new Duke Walter II in order to soften the blow. There were of course dynastic reasons for choosing a Tudor Viceroy over a Raleigh one – Anna was married to a Tudor – but Henry Tudor was also on the spot and ready to help whereas his rival to the north was still securing his succession.

Anna’s main contribution to the Bradbury War, though, departed at the end of August with the Earl of Westmoreland at the head. The Earl had not really been able to shake the gloom around his name even in England where Richard II’s death had been celebrated. There was still unease about a man who may have killed his Emperor but had certainly terrorised southern England with his numerous attempts to capture London during the Civil War. For all the intruiges surrounding him, Westmoreland was no politician either and would not make a good diplomat. He was a soldier first and foremost and it is in this capacity which Anna used him.

The White Fleet or Imperial Navy had remained neutral for much of the Civil War and so there were more than enough ships to take Westmoreland, Fairfax and over 6,000 soldiers across the Atlantic to New Rochelle where they arrived in October 1611. The majority of these soldier were Scottish, who like their commander had found it hard to reintegrate into normal life having fought for a tyrant many tried to forget or out-right jeered at the very mention of his name. Yet the Bradbury expedition paid well, and the chance to serve the Empire was one few could pass up. This small army would join the Tudor-Bradbury force amassing on the coast ready to take the fight to the Gaels in the coming season.

The first eighteen months after the death of her father were busy ones for the Empress. The smoke of war cleared and she was finally able to get down to the job of ruling her Empire after almost three years of trying to secure her claims. In this regard the sheer energy of the Empress is a real testament to her character. In a world where women did not rule, Anna at turns used her feminine charm, her sharp wit, and her inalienable rights as monarch to mould a world which responded to her whim. With the benefit of hindsight, this would just be Anna getting started, but every inch of innovation would be needed for the challenge ahead.
 
Urgh, sad that Magnus doesn't get full credit and that Westmoreland isn't more vilified... but all's well that ends well. Anna seems to be doing excellently and will continue to do so... let's see how she faces the last of the 20 Years War.
 
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