O Lord, our God, Arise: More Weekly Reports from England

[Milites: Fortunately you'll be getting some more of that. We're getting some rather big developments indeed in this update!

Morsky: You'll get to see just what his ineffectual son (with some rather ineffectual stats, as you can see) will do!

RGB: At least someone seems to be on our new ruler's side. Ollie had Penn shunted off to exile in America specifically so he wouldn't do anything, but since we'll be slipping in an American update soon you'll get your wish.

Kurt_Steiner: You, on the other hand, get to keep waiting.]



Titles: (claimed but unrecognised in brackets)

Emperor of Great Britain (formerly Lord Protector of Great Britain)
King of Ireland [and France]
Lord of the Scottish [and Greek] Isles
Duke of Lothian, Albany, [Holland and Friesland], Flanders, Cornwall, [Iceland and Bretagne]
Defender of the Elect within Great Britain and Ireland
Chancellor of the University of Oxford (to 1657)




One month after Oliver became Emperor, on 26 June 1657, the people of London crowded as well as they could to see his coronation procession. Preparations had already been underway before the Humble Petition had been passed, and even before Cromwell had agreed to the Imperial dignity; it was expected, that, if he had rejected it, an investiture ceremony would be held instead. That, of course, was no concern; the coronation continued as expected, though somewhat more subdued than previous coronations owing to Puritan influence. This did not, of course, prevent Oliver from appearing in proper Imperial regalia, though as most of the Crown Jewels had been lost or melted in the early Commonwealth some recasting and improvisation was necessary; only the Anointing Spoon, the Sword of Mercy, of Temporal Justice, and of Spiritual Justice survived. The Scottish crown jewels, still extant, were in Borcalan hands. The new crown made was itself simply a state crown, the only notable jewel set into it being the Duchess of Leinster's Ruby, which came into that venerable princess' possession in 1367 as a gift from the new king Menendo of Castile, a token of thanks for the de Cornouailles' support of his bid to that monarchy.


The Coronation Chair, by an anonymous engraver (1855)

King John's Chair, then still inset with the Stone of Scone, had also survived, but the traditional clerical hierarchy had not. Fortunately for Cromwell, the main legal viewpoint of the time, coming from Thomas Cranmer himself, was that the anointing by a bishop was not necessary; therefore, that portion of the ceremony was gracefully glossed over, though of course the supporters of the Borcalans were quick to note its omission. A great gold sceptre and the traditional newly-made ring completed the pomp of the ceremony. What it might have lacked in jewellery, however, was made up in the enthusiasm of those who crowded the streets to try and catch a glimpse of it. Cromwellian propaganda had been successful, despite the complaints from Levellers, in portraying the Instrument as a set legal defence of British liberty, and Oliver's new monarchy enjoyed broad popular support.

It soon began to collect a few noble supporters as well. Less than a month after the coronation, Oliver created his first new peer, Charles Howard becoming Viscount Morpeth; he also created several baronets in his early reign, notably a former Royalist, John Read, who had been appointed a Baronet by Emperor Charles in 1642, an appointment rejected by Parliament. The Petition had recreated the House of Lords, though at the time it was only called the Upper House. Convincing peers to return to the House was no easy task, especially as this version still contained commoners (the recluctant Charles Fleetwood among them). Slowly replacing the commoners with proper peers was no simple task, and was far from complete by the end of Oliver's reign.

Other minor difficulties had already arisen. An uprising by the natives across the British colonies along the southern Columbian coast was only a footnote, but the rift between John Lambert and the new Emperor was the main talk of Britain at the time. Lambert refused to take an oath of allegiance, and in return was deprived of his commission; Cromwell requested, and Parliament granted, a yearly pension of £2000. Lambert retired to the former royal manor at Wimbledon, and, importantly for the stability of the new regime, stayed ouf of political life for the time. One disaffected former supporter, however, was not so benign. In early 1657, a pamphlet, entitled "Killing no Murder", appeared in Britain under the pseudonym William Allen; the actual author was likely Colonel Silius Titus. It was not he who acted to commit the pamphlet's called-for assassination of Oliver, but a Leveller, Edward Sexby. He had taken part in earlier, similar plots, but his own attempt was in July of 1657. It, of course, failed, and Sexby was arrested and died in prison.

Ireland remained oddly quiet, partially thanks to the efforts of Oliver's younger son, Henry. The now-prince's policy in the region was surprisingly enlightened, not only keeping the peace among the various Protestant groups but in careful measures allowing the Catholics of the country a few lapses in enforcement. His wide popularity within Ireland slowly began to seep over into Britain itself, beginning to overshadow that of his undistiguished older brother, Richard. Many began to wonder whether Richard was truly suited to the Imperial throne, and noted that the Petition allowed Oliver to name a different successor than simply his first-born son.

If Oliver was debating a change in the succession, however, he never had an opportunity to put it into effect. In June of 1658, only little more than a year after having been given the Imperial throne, Oliver was struck with severe illness. He lingered for months, but finally, on 3 September 1658, he died of blood poisoning, leaving the throne to his son Richard.



Titles: (claimed but unrecognised in brackets)

Emperor of Great Britain (to 1659)
King of Ireland [and France] (to 1659)
Lord of the Scottish [and Greek] Isles (to 1659)
Duke of Lothian, Albany, [Holland and Friesland], Flanders, Cornwall, [Iceland, Bretagne] (all to 1659) and York
Defender of the Elect within Great Britain and Ireland (to 1659)
Chancellor of the University of Oxford (to 1667)



The outcry that accompanied Richard to the British throne was surprisingly immense, even given the lack of support he had already entertained prior to his father's death. In all areas that those of the time could think of to judge a ruler by, they could find none which they considered good or even sufficient. He had likely never served in the army (some records state that he had during peaceful times in the late 1640s, but even that may be pure propaganda), had not administered any notable extent of land (the estate on which he lived belonged to his father-in-law, Richard Maijor), and had only served without any notable action in the two Protectorate Parliaments. Though he was called to the bar, he again had little to show for his legal profession, and few felt that this was enough to make for a proper ruler of an Empire that spanned so great an area of territory, especially with possible threats to its current state increasing every day.

John Lambert, who had begun reconciliation with Oliver not long before the latter's death, distanced himself from the new ruler, as did Richard's brother-in-law, Charles Fleetwood. The previous Parliament had ended, and the calling of another would require another round of elections, one that Richard would not well be able to control. The Puritan clergy did not feel that Richard had the piety or zeal of his father. All of this left him with no true base of power, a precarious position indeed. In more peaceful and prosperous times this would have been little trouble; but Richard had neither time nor resources to develop a base before problems arrived. Rumors reached the island daily of plans for invasion by Prince Charles, requiring a certain amount of constant readiness from the now-demoralised army. Said readiness did little good for the finances of the Empire, now running a debt for several years straight; a new Parliament was, in fact, called for early 1659 to fix these financial problems.

The Parliament that Richard got was all the more hostile. The large Republican minority decried the Imperial government itself, the Puritans decried his uncertain faith, the generals in the Upper House decried his lack of experience, and some dropped very careful hints that they might prefer Charles Borcalan on the throne to him after all. A fire that badly damaged Inverness on 10 February 1659 only worsened matters as Richard recommended further spending to replace the city's infrastructure. Parliament accepted this last matter, warily, but refused to pay for the army and asked that it be cut back. Oddly enough, this bit gave Richard some relief - it turned the army's anger away from him and towards Parliament, especially as Richard had spoken up in favour of the military's power - but the entire matter destroyed the last hope he had in building any sort of power.


17th-centry Inverness, as rebuilt after the fire

As winter turned to spring, the rift between the army and Parliament threatened again to turn into civil war. On 12 April 1659, Parliament impeached Major-General William Boteler, accused of mistreatment of a Protestant prisoner, and a few days later forbade any councils of officers to meet without the Emperor's permission. The army, in response, demanded that the Emperor dissolve Parliament; Richard responded, simply, that the Instrument required Parliament to sit for five months, and refused. In response, portions of the army assembled and threatened to return the old Rump Parliament to power by force.

In the space of a month, Richard made the two bravest decisions of his life. The first was on 22 April, when the units of the army moved into London to make good on their threat to dissolve Parliament. Richard, having been well advised on which portions of his personal guard were not in sympathy with the army, put these loyal force into place to defend Parliament, and then brought out the piece of propaganda needed to end the situation. Noting to the populace that the army was intent on, in his view, being rid of the popular Instrument and return to military dictatorship, he managed to get into place a decent amount of irregular civilians armed with what was available. While this force would not likely have been sufficient to win a battle, it was enough to convince the army that this action would lead to large portions of Britain rising up in revolt against them. It was a bluff - Richard could not count on any further support than what he already had - but it was an effective one, buying him enough time to organise his other decision.

Richard knew that his days on the throne were numbered. The next month was a feverish one - preparations were made, Richard's much more popular and persuasive brother Henry was recalled from Ireland to support him, and negotations went on with Parliament. On 25 May 1659, after Parliament agreed to his details and after the vital smooth transition was ensured, Richard abdicated the throne in favour of his brother, who became Emperor Henry IV with Parliament's relieved and hopeful acclaim.

Morsky said:

Bad news for the Borcalans, then. Feh. I was so hoping for some drunken debauchery and court intrigues.

Click to expand...

Nobody said you weren't getting any court intrigue. That tends to come with the territory of having a, you know, court. As for the drink, maybe not so much this time around.

Eh well... It'll be interesting to see if (false and usurpatious) Emperor Henry's Puritanismus gemildert durch Schlamperei will manage to establish itself successfully in the face of military opposition.

Click to expand...

[hook]The only way to find out is to keep reading![/hook]

Howard? Of the notably papist Howards of Norfolk? Or are they different in TTL?

Click to expand...

This fellow.* As for the Papist part, he converted away from that, as you can see. He'll be showing up again a couple times, of course, that wasn't just a throwaway line. As for Ollie giving him the title, that actually happened.**

__________
*I love how it says "he urged Richard Cromwell to defend his government by force against the army leaders" (emphasis mine). Force, you know, when the army is the one threatening to rebel. "You and what army" comes to mind right now. Well, okay, it worked for our Richard, but that was a bluff.
**See Oliver Cromwell: King in All but Name, by Roy Sherwood, ch. 8. One of my main sources about Oliver's 1657 ceremony, actually (our coronation, the book's second investiture). In fact, even if you don't care a bit about Charles Howard, see this book anyway, it's an interesting read.

[RGB: No kidding, especially with how being Emperor will treat even the considerably more competent Henry...

jmberry: No need to miss it any longer! And considering just how long it was away, I can't say I blame you for not noticing, or perhaps believing, it. ]


Titles: (claimed but unrecognised in brackets)

Emperor of Great Britain
King of Ireland [and France]
Lord of the Scottish [and Greek] Isles
Duke of Lothian, Albany, [Holland and Friesland], Flanders, Cornwall, [Iceland and Bretagne]
Defender of the Elect within Great Britain and Ireland (to 1660)
Supreme Governor of the Church of England (from 1660)



Henry would most likely have preferred to inherit the Imperial title at a better time, or at least in a better situation; he knew his duty, however, and Richard had surrendered the title to him for a specific reason. Several important portions of Parliament - those with some royalist leanings especially - rallied more overtly behind him, but where he truly shined over his brother was the administrative and military experience he could claim. Ireland had remained quiet under his rule, and though by no means rich, he did ensure that any monetary losses on the island were minimal - a difficult task even in the best of times. Prior to his appointment in Ireland he had also spent time in the military; although too young to fight in the Civil War itself, he had been involved in some suppression of Borcalan sympathisers in Flanders, and both fellow officers and his superiors recognised his ability.

This military connection was the most important one at the moment he came to the throne; the army still waited outside London, and had the new ruler not had this connection; it was likely that they would have struck immediately; as it was, they waited to see what Henry did. With this moment, Henry was able to call upon two very important allies, one within Parliament and one without. The former was the same Charles Howard whom Oliver had made a marquess; Howard took a hard line against the attempted military coup, and organised those nobles still remaining on the Emperor's side. The latter ally was none other than John Lambert himself, whom Henry had contacted as soon as he returned from Ireland; Lambert had come to accept the new Imperial family not long before Oliver's death, and felt that Henry would be capable of preserving the Instrument in the form Lambert wished. With these two, along with the loyal members of the Council of State, at his side, Henry met with Fleetwood and the other "grandees" at Woodford, on the banks of the River Roding not far northeast of London, on 7 June 1659.

Leaving the safety of the old city's walls was somewhat of a risk for the emperor, but Henry could not afford to be accused of cowardice at this juncture. The emperor arrived at the meeting with his personal guard, and the grandees kept their end by only bringing a small guard force. Negotiations could begin; Henry began by simply saying that, as Emperor, he ordered the army to return to assigned camps. Fleetwood rejected this out of hand; he restated his demand that the Rump Parliament be reinstalled. The emperor replied that, if Fleetwood continued in his goal of defying his ruler and essentially overturning the Instrument, he would be dismissed, replaced with Lambert or Howard, and put on trial for treason. Fleetwood, enraged, was within moments of returning to his army and marching on London; Henry, apparently unconcerned, insisted upon going to speak with the army itself if Fleetwood would not listen to reason. Before Fleetwood could speak a word of protest, most of the other grandees accepted the proposal and led the chastened general back eastward.

Henry's famous speech at Loughton two days later cemented Fleetwood's fall. While perhaps not a masterpiece of oratory, it did get the point across. He stated his own experiences in the army, and his sympathies with the soldiers and the officers; he promised that those in the military would recieve fair compensation for their services; and he noted the present threat from across the sea, and the need for unity against it. It was enough to drive Fleetwood away, and after being replaced with Lambert he went into semi-voluntary exile in Holland. Henry and his guard returned to London, crisis averted, in order to plan and carry out his coronation in September of 1659.


Route of Monck's planned march to London from Coldstream, Scotland.

He could now turn to the other potential threat to his reign, Charles Borcalan. His plotting came to a head when, on 7 May 1660, a message inviting Charles to return to Britain was intercepted by the patrols Henry had put in the Channel, Atlantic, and North Sea to attempt to catch Borcalan supporters going to and from the Continent. Nicknamed the "Cabal" after a pro-Borcalan publication of the 1650s (itself named after the Jewish kabbalah),* it implicated several military and political leaders, most famously Major-General George Monck. Monck, then in Scotland, promised to put his by no means insignificant force at Charles' disposal, and to use his connections to paralyse those forces loyal to Henry until it was too late. Armed with this, Monck was quickly arrested and convicted of treason, executed not long after. Charles was limited to remaining in France and attempting to find whatever opportunites he could. A further attempt to gain control of Flanders in December of 1662 ended just as the others had.

Henry's final matter was religious. Debate erupted between the Presbyterians and those who felt that, with an Emperor on the throne again, the Church of England should return to having bishops as before. Henry himself personally agreed with the former, but he also knew that returning to an episcopalian church would draw yet more support away from the Borcalans. The debates of June and early July of 1660 were heated and numerous, but the more traditional House of Lords, as well as Henry's own implied influence (he could not come out directly on the episcopalian side without alienating the Presbyterians) Parliament passed a further religious settlement on 12 July 1660, allowing the appointment of bishops and archbishops, but also ensuring protection for Protestant non-conformists. William Juxon, a pre-Civil War bishop whose connections to the former Charles were limited enough, became Archbishop of Canterbury.

The stress of Henry's first years on the throne had been considerable, and he persevered just long enough to ensure that everything was in order before showing his mental exhaustion in December of 1661. Leaving matters in the hands of Parliament, Lambert, and Charles Howard (now Earl of Carlisle, and appointed Lord Protector for this period), Henry spent several months in Reading recovering from the ordeal. Very few indeed faulted him for needing to do so, and it was not until 1664 that a matter truly needing his attention would arise. Charles Borcalan had changed his strategy, now hoping to pick off Britain's more vulnerable colonies, especially as Admiral Penn's suspect loyalties came into play. The Governor of Pennsylvania never himself spoke out in favour of rebellion, but in September of 1664, semiorganised groups arose in Philadelphia, with others appearing in New Jersey, and Catholics from Massachusetts arriving to provide their own aid.

Provided with an "Imperial" charter from Charles, this new "Dominion of New England" attempted to secure the entirety of that region, using Philadelphia and Boston as starting points. The new army now organised for this effort, under the command of Cecilius Calvert, Baron Baltimore (a Catholic who had founded the colony of Maryland), began marching northward. No loyal force large enough to deal with the matter could be found until the force made an error upon reaching Rhode Island. The leader of the Wampanoag tribe, Wamsutta, refused to provide any support to the force, and was not long after found dead. His younger brother Metacomet blamed Baltimore, and organised his tribe (along with the neighbouring Narragansett, Nipmuc, and others) to fight the army. Some British colonists loyal to Henry rallied along with him, while Baltimore managed to convince the Pequot and Mohegans to aid him. The result was three years of vicious fighting, known as "King Philip's War" after a British nickname for Metacomet. More than one-tenth of the entire population of the native tribes involved was killed in the fighting, along with a large number of British. The Borcalan army was pushed out of New England, however, and on 6 June 1667 a militia force led by Richard Bellingham, governor of Massachusetts, retook Philadelphia and ended the revolt.


Metacomet, or "King Philip", a caricature by Paul Revere (1772)

Another unusual matter concerning America arose in the early 1660s. Evangelization efforts among the natives outside British territory had been occuring wherever the opportunity arose, but except for small groups of "Praying Indians" there had been little success. However, in early 1662, a representative of Paullu Inca, ruler of a vast empire along the western coast of Columbia, arrived in London with a message for the British Emperor. Although Henry was still indisposed, Carlisle recieved the astounding message: Paullu, despite obvious opposition from his court, had converted to Christianity and asked for priests and some aid against the Spanish encroaching from the north. No doubt Paullu had paid close attention to world politics in choosing a direct enemy of Spain to contact; his conversion, however, was undoubtedly genuine, considering the turmoil in his own nation it caused. Carlisle gently told the ambassador that direct aid, which could potentially restart hosilities with Spain, could not be given in Britain's state at the time, but the British government did turn a blind eye to those selling weapons or their own services to Paullu.

By 1665, Henry was once again able to become more engaged in government. Carlisle and Lambert had performed their duties admirably; Britain was stable, Borcalan efforts bogged down in America, and Europe fairly peaceful. But even as Henry prepared to return to London, he recieved a message recommending that he stay in Reading: the city was caught in an outbreak of plague. Perhaps a hundred thousand died in the epidemic, although aside from Henry (as well as Lambert who took the opportunity to visit the Emperor) most of the government remained in the city in defiance of the disease. Although the event was certainly tragic, it tapered off enough that Henry could return later in the year, and would have been quickly forgotten had it not been for the event which ended the year-and-a-half-long outbreak.

On 2 September 1666 (the potential symbolism of the year not being lost on the British, especially the suddenly resurgent Fifth Monarchists), a fire broke out on Pudding Lane in London. At first, it seemed that it might have been contained, but the Lord Mayor of London, delayed the necessary demolition of houses until Henry hastily sent out the order to do so. By this time, the fire had spread too far for this to be effective, and several of the hand-pumped fire engines sent to douse the flames fell into the Thames. 1666 had also been a year of drought, and for the next three days the fire continued to creep forward until almost the entire area within the old walls was aflame, as well as some west of that. Henry insisted upon remaining in Whitehall to direct the effort against the fire, even as the flames crept closer; finally, on 5 September, a combination of an end to the winds that had fueled the flame, as well as continued creation of firebreaks, stopped its spread.


Ludgate and St. Paul's during the Great Fire, by an anonymous artist (1670)

The death toll from the fire is not known (counts range from only single digits to hundreds or even thousands), but the extent of destruction was quite obvious to all who cared to look. Almost the entire centre of London was burned to the ground, and many thousands of residents dispersed to other nearby cities, at least temporarily. Unsurprisingly, blame for the event quickly fell upon Catholics; that one of them intentionally set the fire was considered commonly-accepted knowledge until the early 19th century.

Henry, for his part, was more concerned with rebuilding. Even with Imperial finances more in order, Parliament was forced to levy a tax on coal to help pay for it. The men who became the heroes of the hour, however, were John Evelyn and Christopher Wren. Evelyn and Wren both submitted plans for rebuilding the city grander than it had been before; it was Evelyn's which was accepted, but Wren was assigned to rebuild Saint Paul's Cathedral, which he had already been remodeling prior to the fire. Evelyn's plan straightened and widened the streets of London, although at the cost of angering some who claimed without quite enough evidence their ownership of the lands being altered. Those who had been rendered homeless by the fire were quite happy to be hired in the rebuilding, as not only did it give them much-needed work, it was perhaps their home (should they be fortunate enough) that they were erecting. The rebuilding took many years, but eventually London stood in greater glory than ever before.


Christopher Wren (1711) and John Evelyn (1687), both by Godfrey Kneller.

The centrepiece of this rebuilt city was Wren's new St. Paul's, although work did not begin until 1677 and was not complete until 1708. Although many accounted the design too "Papist" - it was partially influenced by St. Peter's Basilica in Rome - most recoginised it as a masterpiece of architecture. Wren also worked on the rebuilding of fifty other churches in London. The result of Evelyn and Wren's work was accounted both in Britain and abroad as one of the great cities of the world, a fitting capital for an emerging empire. The remainder of Henry's reign would be devoted to ensuring the wealth and stability of said empire.
__________
*Although it is accurate that the names of the five men Charles sent to organise the plot - Sir Thomas Clifford, the Earl of Arlington, the Duke of Buckingham (son of the famous one), Sir Anthony Ashley-Cooper, and the Earl of Lauderdale - formed "cabal" as an acronym, the term predates the plot and the fact is simply a coincidence.

[I love how the picture of Wren and Evelyn managed to have the artist's name shortened so it says "Wren and Eveyln, by God". :wacko: ]

[Morsky: Maybe. We'll see what Henry's heir is like in a little bit here. As for the old order, well, the Puritans were never quite enough in number to keep the old order away forever.

canonized: And the Americas are far from done yet, as you're about to see. If you're expecting a Glorious Revolution, at that, I'm going to tell you right here and now to expect to be very disappointed.

Deamon: I've read through that again a couple of times myself. I'm amazed I've managed to get through 600 years now myself, and I intend to keep this going through at least Victoria so we've got another 270 to go...

Half-century report for 1669 coming after this update, whenever I get that whole mess done. ]


With Britain now stable and the rebellion of the Dominion of New England put down, expansion in America continued. The first notable event of this period was the establishment of a new colony at the mouth of the Belize River in Central America. A direct affront to Spanish claims of dominance in the region, the colony was at first not officially sanctioned by the British government, although they of course did absolutely nothing to discourage further settlement or defence against Spanish attempts to destroy it. The settlers were lumberjacks known as "Baymen", there to harvest the logwood trees both for the wood itself and for its rare dye. The Baymen brought a large number of slaves to the new colony; their relations with the nearby natives, however, took an odd turn in the late 1660s. Spanish attempts to consolidate their control of the Mayan regions in the Yucatan, only recently conquered, resulted in a widespread uprising that for a short time completely pushed the Spanish out of Mayan territory. The Baymen, gleefully - and perhaps somewhat overzealously - supported the Mayans and began negotiating various trade and other rights with them.

Unsurprisingly, the Spanish returned as soon as possible, and to prevent a wider conflict the British government did not openly support the Baymen. Thus, the conflict became a matter of the disorganised Baymen and their slaves joining with the Maya in a somewhat motley army from the self-declared Kingdom of Peten, of the Itza Maya. The traditional view of civilised, advanced Europeans showing the natives how to properly fight modern warfare likely had it backwards: the Maya, organised into a nationalist army and tested in several battles against the Spanish, integrated the English into their force and, despite complaints, under Maya leadership. The situation became more desperate with the betrayal of the Xiu in 1669 and the subsequent loss of the northern Yucatan to the Spanish. When the Spanish moved south, a couple hundred Baymen (including their slaves) joined with no more than 3000 Itza to face a several-thousand strong Spanish and Xiu army intent on being rid of Itza and Baymen both.


Modern Tayasal, on its island in Lake Peten Itza.

The commander of the Spanish-Xiu force, Martin de Ursua, attempted to lay siege to the Itza capatal of Tayasal in early 1670. Waiting for him as he descended from the hills north of the city were the Itza and their Baymen allies. In what could only have been seen as a good sign for the larger Spanish force, Canek III, leader of the Itza, did not arrive in time to prevent Ursua from deploying on the plains surrounding Tayasal. Canek, however, did not panic; using the Baymen as irregulars to slow the Spanish down, he drew them to a rougher region near the village of Tzalbal. There, on a small, slightly elevated open region, he engaged the Spanish and Xiu force. He had learned that the British and Spanish were old blood enemies from across the sea, and therefore set the British on his right flank, the only open place for the Spanish cavalry to go. The rest of the field was composed of dense forest, land which the Xiu and Itza were used to fighting in.

Vitally, the Spanish had not trusted the Xiu with metal weapons or armour, nor with any part in the battle plan aside from holding the Itza in place so that the Spanish could sweep in and destroy them. Canek and the Itza, veterans of a decades-long conflict for survival, had distributed proper arms and armour among his soldiers, and unlike the fatally weakened morale of the Xiu his men were willing to fight to the death. As for the Europeans, the Spanish cavalry unsurprisingly found the forest difficult going, while the British, in the main former privateers and pirates, adapted their own tactics already used to cramped quarters and three-dimensional thinking.

Therefore, the result of the Battle of Tzalbal should have been less of a surprise than it was. When the Spanish arrived on the flank, the British, whom the Spanish had not even known were in the area, set upon them with extreme ferocity. Meanwhile, Cenek's own infantry blasted the Xiu with scattered guns, while holding them off with captured or improvised pikes and swords. The Xiu, their little will broken and casualties high, made no progress, and when most of the force attacking the hill Canek was on were caught in the valley in front of it, they were cut down by the hundreds. Ursua himself barely escaped the British looking for Spanish blood, and he limped back northwards with a decidedly smaller army.


The Battle of Tzalbal. Each line is c. 250 men. Europeans are in darker colours.

From Tayasal to the coast at Campeche, the Mayans rallied under Canek's banner. Despite a few other minor probing expeditions, he was now too well situated for the Spanish to dislodge, and soon the Belize River colony was under his protection as well. An unoffical bargain (the British government was still too concerned with politics to officially support him) was struck: in exchange for trade rights and the protection of the Belize River colonists, the Kingdom of Peten could expect tribute and fighting men. Over time, as British influence increased, Peten became itself a satellite state of Britain's colonial empire.*

Meanwhile, in the north, the rapid expansion over the Appalachians left a confused situation where Maryland, New Lothian, and North and South Carolina had overlapping claims of settlement. From New Lothian, the Loyal Land Company claimed the Cumberland River basin, as well as the rich farmlands of Kentucky north of that, while other New Lothian claims in the Appalachians themselves overlapped with Maryland. Further south, the two Carolinas both tried to settle Tennessee (North Carolina also claiming part of the Cumberland River), the spark for conflict coming when South Carolina placed Fort Loudoun in the region.

In September of 1668, Parliament intervened to create an official division of the region. The act set forth a series of lines, to be surveyed on site, which gave Maryland very little and New Lothian quite a lot. Tellingly, the act also mostly ignored native settlements; although it would be quite some time before the British could advance much further into them, the claims for such an advance were put into place. Movement across the mountains was slow, however; even a century later, the region was still sparsely settled.


A reconstruction of Fort Loudoun, given to North Carolina in 1668.

In Europe, Helvetia again became the centre of a minor conflict with Baden. However, this time France was not involved, nor did the fight lead to much; in fact, not long after, Helvetia was convinced to aid Britain's grand alliance to check French expansion into Germany. Oldenburg, the other nation involved in the war, was convinced by the appearance of the British, Dutch, and Palatine military to return to their old state as a vassal of Britain. Aside from that, Europe was in a unique period of peace; though tensions existed, even in shattered Italy the various states had found a reasonable equilibrium. It was certainly not expected that such a peace would last, but for a time the war-weary states of Europe took the opportunity gladly. In Britain, it was both the period of the "English Hippocrates", Thomas Sydenham, whose advances in classification of diseases advanced medical science in Britain considerably; and Restoration Comedy, a surprisingly (and, for the Purtians, shockingly) frank series of theatrical styles developed after the reopening of theatres in the 1660s. That these could be shown showed just how much society had drifted away from the strict regiousness of the previous decades.

Henry, for his part, would have little time to enjoy the plays. By 1671 he had again fallen into mental inability to continue running the Empire; the turmoil of previous decades had taken its toll on the still only middle-aged ruler. Lambert again aided Henry in stepping into the vacuum, with Carlisle dealing with diplomatic matters; Henry's son, also named Henry, was also now ready to start helping his father run the nation, and gain experience in the process. In 1672 the younger Henry was named Lord Protector due to his father's continued inability, a position he retained until, on 23 March 1674, the 46-year-old Henry IV finally gave in to stress and illness, and the prince became Emperor Henry V.
__________
*That's a long-winded way of telling how a province defected to me.

Europe

Click for full version

Once again, Western Europe has been quiet and uneventful, at least aside from inner turmoil that does not show up in this map. Only in North Africa, where Spain has continued its expansion somewhat, has anything changed.

Scandinavia, surprisingly, has also been fairly quiet, apart from Sweden's conquest of Denmark. The two powers (and in fact, now, only nations) in the region are fairly closely balanced and as such neither can make headway despite constant warfare between the two. Finnland has, however, pushed slightly into Russian land on their border, a loss which Russia has more than made up to its south.

Both the Abesanids and Egyptians have expanded somewhat, with the former capturing Bosnia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan, and the latter taking Tunis from Algiers, as well as finally conquering Jerusalem and Syria. Persia's hemegony over much of Arabia has been lost due to revolts, one of them setting up an independent Emirate in Baghdad. Bulgaria has risen up in a brave but ultimately ill-fated revolt.


Central Europe



1. County of Oldenburg
2. Bremen (to Finnland)
3. Republic of Mecklenburg-Schwerin
4. County of Cleves
5. Imperial City of Frankfurt
6. County of Savoy
7. County of Lombardy
8. Republic of Venice
9. County of Parma
10. County of Modena
11. County of Naples

The Babenburgs have been the great loser of the past few decades, with the Helvetians expanding along the Alps to the south, and the Poles overrunning Bohemia to the north.

Baden has also lost land, in this case to a resurgent Margravate of Brandenburg, although it has made up this loss in finally conquering Bavaria.

The Duchy of Lower Lorraine has itself disappeared, divided between France and the Palatinate (the Netherlands, as well, gaining the region around the city of Aachen). France's expansion into Germany has caused considerable consternation by several regional powers, all of which are simply waiting for the excuse and ability to throw the French out. None wish to start the war without assurance that it will end well, however, and therefore it is unlikely to happen unless something else triggers such a conflict.

Siena has lost Lombardy to revolt, while Romagna, despite capitalising on such revolts in the north to slightly expand, has lost much land in the south to an attack across the sea by the Abesanids. The presence of the Turk in Italy has obviously resulted in much panic from the neighbouring powers, but only Spain has the power to dislodge them, and nobody else trusts the Spanish with even more land in Italy.


Colonies


Click for full version

Spain has done quite a lot to expand its colonial holdings in America and Columbia, taking down several organised empires in the process. Britain has responded meagrely with the settlement in Belize, a year prior to that settlement's consolidation and alliance with a resurgent native kingdom at the Battle of Tzalbal, but even that cannot dislodge Spain from its nearby holdings.

In Indonesia, both the Netherlands and Portugal have created small settlements, which in both cases will come to control more land as time goes on. Africa has actually seen a loss of European control, however, as the conquest of Denmark encouraged that nation's colonial ventures to fold, and Britain's small way station on the east coast is unnecessary now that there is a safer island to perform that task.

France has begun taking an interest in America, in two places: in the central coastline of the continent, as the colony of Louisiana, having quickly become a central part of France's colonial empire; and in the north, at the fur-trading outpost of Quebec, expanding fairly well but also choked by British control of both straits leading to the Atlantic Ocean.

The Caribbean



Most islands have been claimed by European powers by this point and properly settled, although some of the Lesser Antilles remain unclaimed havens for the natives or for pirates. Most of the American and Columbian coastlines are, or soon shall be, claimed by Spain, but the islands themselves are a mixture of several powers hoping to profit from the region's good sugar-growing land.

Cuba, Jamaica, western Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and Martinique are Spanish, creating a large supporting region for Spain's continental possessions. Although these allow Spain to cover much of the region with their naval power, there are still far more islands than that nation could ever hope to control, and therefore several naval threats to their power.

The Netherlands has gained eastern Hispaniola, as well as the distant island of Barbados. Although only two islands, this is more than enough to give them a strong presence across the entire region.

Britain has likewise chosen a few strategically useful islands: the Bahamas, Caymans, and Guadeloupe. As the region is not far from Britan's colonial centre of America, she is quite able to project power from outside, and (thanks to the colony on the Belize River) is even capable of threatening Spain's continental possessions should it prove more profitable than the cost involved.

France has gained no small number of islands, although limited only to the Lesser Antilles. Trinidad is the largest of these, with Dominica and almost all of the Leeward Islands under their control.

No other European powers are present, although Portugal and Sweden both have some expressed interest should the opportunity arise.

[RGB: The Treaty of Tordesillas pretty much got ignored by everyone as soon as they had the opportunity. Portugal has had Brasil for a while longer than a unified Spain has existed, so they don't feel beholden to limit their colonial empire. France doesn't care much what the Pope says in the first place, Catholic or no. All the other major colonial countries are, of course, Protestant. ]



Titles: (claimed but unrecognised in brackets)

Emperor of Great Britain
King of Ireland [and France]
Prince of Wales
Lord of the Scottish [and Greek] Isles
Duke of Lothian, Albany, [Holland and Friesland], Flanders, Cornwall, [Iceland] and Bretagne (from 1703)
[Count of Guines] (claimed after 1700)
Supreme Governor of the Church of England



Henry's ascension to the throne was notable in one specific area: He was the first of the Cromwell family to have been Prince of Wales beforehand. Oliver, obviously, had been lifted directly to the imperial throne by act of Parliament, and had not had time to appoint Richard to be Prince of Wales before his death. The elder Henry, also, found his place on the throne rather suddenly when his brother abdicated. The younger Henry, however, became Emperor in a peaceful, previously expected succession, groomed well for his new place over the previous decade and having been considered one of royal blood for nearly as long as he could remember. Aside from his political training, he had spent time as an officer in the army (naturally enough) and was remembered as "Colonel Henry" by the men under his command. It was widely expected that, at the very least, Henry would have few opportunities for causing problems; Britain was stable, Parliament had the running of the country well in hand, and the Emperor could content himself mostly with ceremonial duties.

In a sense this may have contributed to the radical shift away from Puritan morals in the court. Some of the remaining old guard decried the young king as decadent and letting power go to his head; in essence, they saw the potential of Henry going they way of the Borcalans. Most, however, noticed that he generally left governance and taxation in the hands of Parliament, never violating the pro-Parliamentary spirit of the Instrument. If he tended to prefer family members for positions under his control, or if not that then whoever paid him well to gain consideration, that was considered normal procedure for the time, Emperor or not. If he wasted some money on extravagance and enjoyment, so long as he didn't do so by squeezing the money out of the rest of the nation that was fine as well. At the very least he seemed to maintain a level of morality acceptable to all but the most rabid moralists.

Only two years into his reign, however, Henry already had foreign troubles to deal with. Louis IX of France, with an eye on gaining yet more neighbouring territory, instituted the Chambers of Reunion in the mid-1670s. These were legal bodies which advised the French king on the acceptability of his claims to regions which he saw as properly French: areas such as Lorraine, Alsace, Luxemburg, and Flanders, in some extreme cases including all territories on his side of the Rhine. Obviously, this was a direct affront to the British and Palatine rulers, who had been governing the territories in question for quite some time and saw no reason that they should be considered part of France. The old alliances against France were reaffirmed as the League of Augsburg, the central part of which was the old alliance of Britain, the Netherlands, the Palatinate, and Baden, with Helvetia joining in. Several other states of the Holy Roman Empire also joined into the agreement. The League succeded in discouraging French expansion for the time, but it was quite obvious that Louis was only waiting for an opportunity.

One result of the League was the marriage of Elisabeth Charlotte, daughter of the Elector Palatine, to the young Emperor Henry. The marraige was hailed in Britain as an excellent choice; her father, Karl Ludwig, had been a supporter of the Parliamentary cause during the Civil War (in opposition to his own brother, Prince Rupert of the Rhine) and a few had supported him as a possible Emperor, though his extensive continental holdings made both Parliament and the Holy Roman Emperor somewhat nervous of this and of course it came to nothing. In any case, Elisabeth was a good Protestant wife for the new Emperor, ensuring she would be well supported in her new nation, fondly referred to by her childhood nickname of "Liselotte".


Elisabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate, by an unknown artist

France was suitably cowed, and Henry's marriage soon bore fruit; in December of 1677 he already had an heir, named Thomas after the Cromwell family's patriarch back in the reign of Henry III. Most of the Emperor's time away from his wife, however, was spent with foreign affairs, as tensions suddenly began to increase over the decades. Helvetia's inclusion into the League of Augsburg actually proved to somewhat be a liability; the small Alpine confederation found itself constantly fighting to protect and even expand its lands. In a short campaign in 1677 the Confederation took the city of Milan, while Austria attempted to retake Tirol and Salzburg in 1678. Although Helvetia succeeded, with Baden's help, in keeping the lands, the event exposed a crack in the League of Augsburg between the Holy Roman Emperor's faction, and the Duke of Austria's faction. The limited conflict failed to become an all-out war only due to the recognition of the immediate threat of France.

Said threat was lifted somewhat in 1679. Louis, tired of constant problems from the Huguenot population in the southern portions of his country, revoked the Edict of Nantes and ordered them to leave France. Unfortunately for him, however, this only resulted in a return to the Wars of Religion of a century previous, and any hope of expansion was temporarily stopped by the civil war. Britain and the other Protestant powers of the League, of course, were only too happy to support the rebels both for political and religious reasons. Although there had been a movement away from religious influence in politics over the previous century, it was still somewhat a factor, especially from zealously Protestant Britain. A few subsequent events, however, would show a weakening of religious stringency even in British foreign policy.*


In 1682, in response to generally poor governance in their Italian territories, Sicily rose up in general revolt against Spain. The "Sicilian Vespers" of 30 March which began the revolt had a somewhat mysterious trigger, although accounts often attribute it to attempts by Spanish soldiers to have their way with the women of Palermo. WHatever the case, the island was soon under the control of Gugliemo Malaspina, a Sicilian noble and distant relative of the old Altavilla dynasty, and he prepared for the inevitable Spanish counterattack. As might be expected, the British government was thrilled at the opportunity to weaken the Spanish further; France, although certainly no friend of the Babenburgs, was too busy with the Huguenots and in any case had other plans for Spain and Sicily.


"I vespri siciliani, scena 1" by Francesco Hayez (1846)

The rebellion was only a qualified success; about half the island, including the capital of Palermo and the strategic port of Messina, remained under Spanish control, but much of the interior and southern half was permanently lost. A more direct intervention from outside, either by Britain or France, might have succeeded in bringing about an end to Spain's Italian possessions, but France was as mentioned concerned with internal matters, and Henry did not feel that angering the still-powerful Spanish kingdom would bring about good results. Fighting in the island would continue for nearly a century and a half, unresolved through all the other wars that Spain and even Sicily would be brought into.

1684 found an odd example of European politics finding their way to Britain. Officially, it was a diplomatic mission from the Russian empire, led by Franz Lefort and Count Fedor Golovin. The true centre of attention, however, was the large and memorable Vladimir Mikhailov, rapidly recognised as the Russian Tsar Vladimir I making a poor attempt to remain unnoticed. Vladimir's Great Embassy, an attempt to gain European support for a massive campaign to attack the Abesanids, had already travelled through Poland, northern Germany and the Netherlands; by the time he arrived in London, Vladimir had quickly discovered that the eyes of Europe were mostly on France, and few had any intention of bothering to turn their attention eastward. Vladimir did not waste the time, however; he also ordered the hiring of any shipbuilders and others knowledgeable in naval affairs to aid in his construction of a Baltic and Black Sea fleet. The regularity and planning of the rebuilt London also likely influenced him in his founding of the new Russian capital of St. Vladimir two decades later.

With the growing tension in Europe, fears that such tension might spread to Britain itself increased. In 1678, Titus Oates, an Anglican chaplain in the Royal Navy, accused a huge list of people of a plot to assassinate Emperor Henry and place the Borcalans back on the British throne, in exchange for a restoration of Papal authority in Britain. The accusations, known as the "Popish Plot", gripped the entire island of Great Britain in fear that Catholics would overthrow the Cromwell monarchy at any moment. Despite the fact that Emperor Henry himself noted inaccuracies in Oates' accusations and ordered his arrest, Parliament intervened, as the body of Sir Edmund Godfrey, a noted anti-Catholic was found strangled on October 17.** With Oates' fears apparently confirmed, Britain was gripped in hysteria. The Guy Fawkes Night celebrations on November 5 turned into rallies calling for the death or expulsion of all the Catholics in the nation, and in many places this was carried out.

Parliament was entirely behind Oates' accusations, and passed the Test Act of 1678, meant to find any hidden Catholics within government offices by forcing them to swear against belief in transubstantiation and other Catholic beliefs. Even this did not convince many, and a practical witch hunt started. Five lords were accused of taking part in the plot, and one of them (Carlisle's distant relative William Howard, Viscount Stafford) was executed in 1680, having quickly been found to be a Borcalan agent. Fifteen others were also executed for their supposed part in the plot, all of them later found to have been innocent. Uncounted others were killed extrajudicially either due to suspicion of being part of the plot or simply due to being Catholic.


A playing card depicting the execution of five suspected Jesuits (1849)

Henry, although with little direct Catholic sympathy and both publicly and privately supportive of the Test Act, continued to note inconsistencies in Oates' accusations. With an eye to proper administration of justice, he slowly began to convince the judges and juries at the trials to actually look at the evidence at hand. By July of 1681, none of the accused were being convicted of the accusations against them, and Oates began raving against the king himself, and others whose Protestantism was not considered in question. Unsurprisingly, this drained any support he had; although anti-Catholic sentiment among the population continued to simmer for a long time after (as nobody in the government had any intention of opposing it), the legal proceedings ended; only Oates himself was found guilty of sedition for his accusation against the Emperor and imprisoned.

A subsequent crisis tore Parliament itself apart. In late 1688 the Helvetian confederation, true to form, had gotten itself into conflict with the Republic of Siena. Henry, keeping to the Instrument, sent a request to Parliament for an expeditionary force to go to Italy and help take the Sienan-controlled city of Rome. THe question was not whether such an expedition should be approved, but who should have command of it. One faction, centered on the Presbyterians and Scots, took the position of Parliamentary supremacy and said Parliament should give its broad orders. The other, led by the Baron Godolphin, and leaning more to the authority of the Emperor, insisted that the Emperor's position as commander-in-chief of the army gave him full control over its disposition. As the debate heated and grew vicious, both sides gained unflattering nicknames: the Presbyterians came to be referred to as Whigs, after a group of Scottish Presbyterian raiders during the Civil War, and Godolphin's faction as the Tories, an Irish-derived term that implied he was a Borcalan supporter.

The matter was eventually settled in 1689; the Whigs agreed to Henry's leadership of the army in exchange for a further guarantee against Imperial encroachment. The political result was the Bill of Rights, a document appended to the Instrument. Specifically to the crisis that gave birth to it, the Bill forbade any standing army in time of peace, and sharply limited the army's use against British subjects. It also set forth or strengthened protections for many prized rights: some measure of freedom of speech, freedom of petition, and prohibition of "cruel and unusual punishments". Though the event that spawned their creation was over, the factions would remain in some measure long after, and the names "Tory" and "Whig" eventually lost their pejorative meaning. As for the military result of the settlement, Henry was now free to proceed with his intended Siena campaign.

__________
*Louis, of course, won the civil war and systematically purged Protestants and suspected Protestants from the cities of France during the 1680s. Most fled to both portions of the Low Countries, others finding their way to Britain, Upper Lorraine (under Palatine rule), or America.
**Nobody knows who actually committed the murder; it is possible that Oates had it done in order to bolster his case, but aside from motive there is no evidence of this.

[canonised: Ah, colonial tensions. That's going to get very fun throughout the 18th century... and as for the Catholics, unfortunately that's not likely to get better anytime soon...

Kurt_Steiner: Indeed! Who would have thought of such an idea?

Morsky: That's what you get when Puritans put a king on the throne. And peacefulness is about to get knocked around brutally. The Borcalans, for their part, are still waiting, and one of them is going to make it back to Britain in the update after this one. Will he succeed? Not telling. ]





John Churchill, later Duke of Marlborough, by John Riley (c. 1685)

Most expected the deployment of a British force to require a long journey down the Rhine and across the Alps, to act as a holding force in the Po river valley while Helvetian armies negotiated a path through Modenan or Florentine territory to the city of Siena itself. However, Henry's plan was more ambitious, and difficult in entirely different ways: he intended to transport a sizeable force, using the Royal Navy, through the Mediterranean to Rome itself. Most would have simply scoffed at the idea, had Henry not obviously shown his work: he noted the potential carrying capacity of naval ships, forces that could be gathered for the attack, and had already worked out the amount necessary for supplying the fleet en route. He had also chosen a commander: Sir John Churchill, son of one of the several former Borcalan supporters who had sworn allegiance to the Cromwells.

Churchill's loyalty was by nobody suspect, and being a friend and political supporter of Godolphin he fit well with Henry's own semi-Tory sympahties. After a short time of organisation - Henry had already laid as much of the groundwork as he could on his own - and an equally short voyage, the 20,000 strong expeditionary force landed just to the north of Rome on 12 January 1690. Although the Italian campaign as a whole was Henry's idea, Churchill had been given leave to conduct the maneuvers as he saw fit, and his first move was to cut Rome off from Siena and capture the former city. The sight of the British army - a Protestant army - frightened the solidly Catholic Italians to no end, and many were afraid that Churchill would march on Rome, sack the city, kill the Pope and whatever churchmen he could find, and impose Protestantism on the very heart of the Catholic Church itself. As he arrived, however, Churchill sent a message under flag of truce to Pope Alexander VII, stating that Emperor Henry intended to place "þe Bury of Rome and all Landes to it beholden" - a juicily ill-defined area - under independent Papal authority.

For a Pope to make such an agreement with a Protestant nation must have seemed like a deal with the devil, but fortunately for the British, Alexander was very old, and the rest of the Curia eager to have an independent Ponficate yet again, as it had been before. When Marlborough finally took the city on 24 June 1690, after a short and uneventful siege, he did not even bother to send more than a token force into the city (perhaps for fear that more zealous parts of his army would take the opportunity to sack it violently) in order to help the Pope consolidate his position. Churchill himself marched north, along the ancient Via Cassia, until he finally met a Sienese army in the field at Bolsena. The Sienese slightly outnumbered him, and were well anchored on one end by Lake Bolsena and the other by wooded hills. The British cavalry, however, were Churchill's strength, and he used it to its fullest, punching through the line and cutting the Sienese to pieces.


The battlefield at Bolsena

Churchill put Siena under siege on 13 July, but the well-fortified mountain city never fell; it never needed to. Negotiations went back and forth, until finally, in January of 1691, Helvetia and Britain gained exactly what they wished: the region around Mantua was given to the Helvetian Confederation, and the Papacy gained the majority of what was left (he would also later gain Naples and the Capitanata). Churchill's army returned to Portsmouth on 19 July 1691, casualties minimal, political gains considerable as the Papacy was now forced to delegitimise the Spanish claim to the British throne, and Churchill already a legend. For his service in the Italian campaign, Henry made him Earl of Marlborough.

Henry's early reign was also a period of intellectual expansion in Britain. Unlike previous European philosophical movements such as the Renaissance, which had come late to the British Isles, the Enlightenment came early. The great political mind of the time was John Locke, who for the first time put forth an organised and reasoned defence of liberty, Parliamentary rule, and the right to revolution in his Two Treatises of Government in 1689. Locke, like Hobbes, stated that government was based on a social contract between the people and the one they agreed to set over them; unlike Hobbes, however, he also maintained that there were natural rights whose violation not only allowed but required rebellion to set things right. In Locke's philosophy, there was no divine right to rulership: all monarchs and other goverments only ruled by the consent of those governed. He also spoke in favour of tolerance for all those who were not atheist or Catholic.*

In the realm of mathematics and natural sciences, the undisputed master was, of course, Sir Isaac Newton. In mathematics, he developed the tools of calculus (independently of and at the same time as Gottfried Leibniz); in science, he put forth the composite coloured nature of white light, used his discoveries on the refraction of light to improve telescope technology, and, most famously, explained the motion of all objects as a function of forces in the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica of 1687. He was also a theologian, although he kept his radical antitrinitarianism, though legal by this point as a protected form of nonconformism, a secret. He also gained a position at the Royal Mint and spent 1698-99 cutting down considerably on the number of counterfeit coins in Britain.


Sir Isaac Newton, by Godfrey Kneller (1702)

Outside of Europe, Britain continued her colonial expansion apace. 1681 saw the seizing of the island of Qeshm in the Strait of Hormuz, providing a considerable amount of control over the trade passing between the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. Although the Persian government unsurprisingly complained, they did not have the ability to dislodge the British from the island. Britain would continue to use the island as a base from which to begin influencing the Persian Gulf region, and as a staging point for later bids for control. Nearby, in India, William Dampier made a careful survey of the cities and political authorities along the coastline for the purposes of trade. It would also prove, in later years, to be a useful tool once the British East India Company began to look for areas to exert control over.

The great explorer in America at this time was Peter Radisson, a Frenchman who had been captured by the Iroquois and who, in the 1670s, offered his services to Britain. Between 1673 and 1675 he explored the remaining region east of the Mississippi River, claiming it all (tenatively, of course, as settlement would be very long in coming) for the British Empire. Radisson's claim overlapped in numerous places with the equally tenuous French-claimed territory of Louisiana, and would remain a point of conflict between the two countries for another century. Radisson himself died to an attack by Native Americans in May of 1675, his expedition immediately returning home with the northern portion of his claim as yet unmapped.**

The 1690s were a period of peace and stability in Britain; the Little Ice Age temporarily weakened to bring about a boom in agricultural production through the decade, and Parliament took the opportunity to pass several acts better regulating trade both in Britain itself and with other regions. The most important of these was the founding of the Bank of England on 27 July 1694. The existence of a national bank from which to take out loans would prove to be invaluable to the funding of several projects, especially in the 18th century. Parliament also ordered the dismantling of several fortifications on the island of Great Britain itself, as their upkeep was considered far too expensive with little justification for their continued use (the navy being expected to prevent foreign invasion, and internal insurrection being considered a thing of the past).


Sir John Houblon, first governor of the Bank of England

This period of peace was not to last, however. France was beginning to stir again, and King Louis now had a different tool with which to attempt to expand his authority. Due to severe inbreeding during the previous century, the King of Spain, Carlos III, was an impotent invalid and thus had no heirs of his own. His nearest heir by blood was Louis IX's grandson Philippe d'Anjou, and unsurprisingly the French king promoted that inheritance for the sake of uniting the two kingdoms. The rest of Europe was not about to let this happen; most supported Joseph Ferdinand of Bavaria, and the Spanish government agreed, appointing him heir. It seemed as if another crisis had been averted - until Joseph Ferdinand died in 1699. Upon Carlos III's death on 1 November 1700, the battle lines were drawn: Austria put forth another Babenburg as King Carlos IV, Louis insisted that Philippe become King Felipe VI, and, when the Spanish government supported the Babenburg candidate, France declared war. Both sides waited to see if the rest of Europe would intervene.
___________
*The former because Locke believed they would not hold true to oaths; the latter because he believed that they owed allegiance to a foreign power.
**The site of his death is, of course, the modern town of Radisson, Wisconsin.