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dharper

Dei Gratia author
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Aug 7, 2002
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LancasterArms.png

Honor of Lancaster
1399-1599
A Magna Mundi III England AAR


This is the story of one dynasty and its struggles with greatness for two centuries, played with Magna Mundi III v1.6 and some minor updates (mainly to the Catholic Church mod). I will be updating it, on average, once or twice a week. My goals are to create Great Britain by annexing Scotland and Ireland, keep the country one faith (although which faith has yet to be decided), colonize the New World and perhaps - just perhaps - conquer Bretagne, Normandie and Aquitaine. Nothing earthshattering here, folks, but I hope you have a good time reading it...and offering advice, if you like. :)

Honor of Lancaster:

(1) The lands and holdings of House Lancaster. These lands became the core of the county of Lancashire during the middle ages. In 1362 John of Gaunt became the most powerful man in England when he united all of Lancaster and much of England by inheritance and marriage. Unlike most fiefdoms, the Duchy of Lancaster is still a personal title of the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom today.

(2) The loyalty and honor of the Lancaster Dynasty. John of Gaunt used his riches and influence to support religious reformation and prevent civil war, although he could have been king. His daughters became queens of Portugal and Castille, while his son, exiled and stripped of his titles by the king, would return in force to claim the throne of England, beginning the Lancaster dynasty.


LancasterFlag.png

The History of the Lancaster Dynasty

I. The Madness of Henry VI (1453-1456)
The end of the Hundred Years War - The Madness of Henry VI - The Nevilles - Civil War in England

II. The Crucible (1456-1463)
The Unlikely King - The Siege of London - The War of the Roses - The Auld Alliance

III. The Redemption (1463-1476)
The King's Peace - The Northern War - The Plague - Charles' Last Days

IV. Two Crowns for Two Kingdoms (1476-1491)
Two Crowns - The False War - Pirates and Privateers - Two Kingdoms

V. Ambitions (1491-1506)
York's Gambit - Encirclement - England's Rose - A New Game

VI. The Grey King (1506-1520)
The English Renaissance - "A few acres" - From Humble Beginnings - The Church of Great Britain

VII. In God's Name (1520-1528)
Crusade! - The Council of Schwaben - New England - Death of a Tyrant

VIII. The House of Tudor (1528-1543)
Lord Regent - The Indian War - The Parliament of 1532 - "Divine Retribution"

IX. The Restoration (1543-1560)
The Restoration - Raids and Reprisals- A Divine Mission - Burning Bridges

X. Wars of Religion (1560-1566)
Lord Brock's War - Day of Decision - The Third Rose - The Armada

XI. Frontier and Empire (1566-1583)
The Parliament of 1566 - Terra Incognita - The Catholic Question - The French and Indian War

XII. End of a Dynasty (1583-1599)
The Frontier - A World War - "A Leaden Crown" - End of the Lancaster Dynasty


LancasterFlag.png

The House of Lancaster
Henry IV Lancaster "the Great" 1399-1413 (14 years)
Henry V Lancaster 1413-1422 (9 years)
Henry VI Lancaster "the Mad" 1422-1456 (34 years)
Charles I Lancaster 1456-1476 (20 years)
Charles II Lancaster "the Great" 1476-1506 (30 years)
Frederick I Lancaster "the Grey King" 1506-1528 (22 years)
George I Tudor 1528-1542 (14 years)
George II Tudor 1542-1543 (2 years)

Regency Council 1543-1546 (3 years, regency)
George III Lancaster "the Bloody" 1546-1566 (20 years)
George IV Lancaster 1566-1581 (15 years)
Frederick II Lancaster 1581-1587 (6 years)
Anne I Lancaster "the Virgin Queen" 1587-1599 (13 years)​
 
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A AAR about the house of Lancaster? Sounds interesting. The period of the Wars of the Roses has always fascinated me, although where sympathy goes I am pretty much a Yorkist (wouldn't have guessed from my Avatar would you. :p :D).

Anyway I hope for an update soon.

~Lord Valentine~
 
I. The Madness of Henry VI

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." -Martin Luther King, Jr.

How can you measure a king? Henry VI was not a tyrant, nor incompetent. He genuinely cared about his people, and if he was prone to pride, he is by no means alone in the annals of kingship. Yet by the end of his reign England was plunged into ruin. Here was a king who had the rare talent to find genius in a man and then give it free reign; his court was said to have been one of the finest in all of Europe, and his generals some of the brightest of their generation. Yet by mid-century it became clear that, no matter how legitimate a claim England's Henry VI might have had on France, for all practical purposes the Hundred Years War was over. The French had won.

1453-Court.jpg

Henry VI's court
1453-Army.jpg

The generals of the Hundred Years War


The End of the Hundred Years War

By 1453 the situation on the continent was desperate: under the command of Jean Bureau, a French army of 28,000 was approaching the last English holdings in France. Gascony was a mere rump of the marriage dowry brought to England as Aquitaine, yet all of England's hopes depended on keeping it. As the season of war began again, Henry sent his ablest commander, John Neville, to take command of the English army of 11,000 stationed there. It was perhaps a self-serving move as well, for the Nevilles were the richest family in England and real rivals to the crown; if John perished there, why, so much the better!

A shrewd man, John quickly realized that the English had little hope if they fought the French in a pitched battle; outnumbered three to one, they would merely give the French a last triumph. Neville hoped to sow dissension among the French by marching north to Bretagne, whose king Pierre II was in league with the French but who had a much smaller army. If Brittany could be quickly defeated it would serve as an able base for the recovery of Normandy.

Despite the orders of the king, John led his men in a desperate forced march north. Wavering between wanting to defeat the English army and wanting to capture Gascony, the French commander played into Neville's hands; he split his forces, sending the bulk of his infantry into Gascony and assigning de Xaintrailles to lead eight thousand horse and two thousand foot against the retreating English. Had the French sent their cavalry ahead, the battle might have been different; as it was, the slow-moving French caught up with a prepared army and were routed after a hard-fought battle in Saintonge. The pope himself praised Neville as "that brave saint of England, who e're had the cross in one hand and a sword in t'other." It was indeed a great victory; in Scotland, James II was said to have "trembl'd" when he heard the news, and shortly thereafter he worked to mend fences with his English neighbor by marrying off his niece to Charles of Cornwall, a cousin of Henry VI.

He need not have worried. At the same time as the armies clashed in Saintonge, General Bureau took the last English towns in Gascony, giving the English no safe harbor in France - had they even had the ships to do so. The battles of the Hundred Years war had left them with only traces of what once had been a mighty navy, unprotected from French piracy along the channel and as far north as Wales, where French pirates raided throughout the summer. In fact, with the channel controlled by the French, any hope of victory on the continent was a fantasy, which Neville astutely realized.

Neville's plan fell apart when the French armies, now joined by Bureau's victorious infantry, followed him north into Brittany. The Breton armies retreated rather than face the superior English enemy. Neville set men to lay siege to the Breton capital and marched on, hoping to capture Pierre and give him terms. As the French armies moved northwards, Neville vacilliated and finally marched his men south to shore up the besiegers against the invading French.

1453-Battle.jpg

The battle of Vendée

The Vendée turned out to be the last battle of the war. Neville's shock tactics managed to turn aside de Xaintraille's initial assault, leaving the enemy shaken. Over 3,000 French knights were slain against fewer than a thousand English, a latter-day Agincourt. But the exhausted English troops were now beset on three sides, with Pierre's Bretons finally moving south to be the hammer to Bureau's rock. Neville faced some 15,000 fresh French troops and 6,000 Bretons with only 9,000 troops, most fatigued.

The Madness of Henry VI

Hearing the news from France, Henry VI had the first of what would become repeated bouts of madness. Although the king had been prone to the occasional fit, easily disguised, nothing had prepared the court for the magnitude of the attack of August 27. Nearly catatonic, capable of little more than drooling, the king had to be secluded at a time when the kingdom needed a firm hand. Facing pressure from the court to appoint a regent, Queen Marguerite was torn.

1453-Madness.jpg

The Madness of Henry VI

There were only two real choices facing the court. Richard of York was a powerful and capable man who, as a Plantagenet cousin to the king, was first in line to become Lord Protector. However, Richard was also an ambitious man, only recently pardoned for a rebellion he had led in Ireland, and the court did not trust his intentions. The alternative was Edmund Beaufort, Lord Somerset, related to the king through his mother's family, the Beauforts, a later wife of John of Gaunt. Edmund was loyal to the throne and to the queen, yet he was also sadly incapable of rule and had a reputation for being effete. Hoping to wrest a generous peace from the French, the court went with Marguerite's choice of Somerset over Richard.

The first act of the Lord Protector was to end the Hundred Years War, giving up the Gascon towns in return for a few thousand men's freedom. Although he had won every battle he had fought, John Neville was sent to Ireland as punishment for his failure, where he became the commander of the guard in the Pale. This unpopular treaty was soon known as "Somerset's Treaty."

1453-Peace.jpg

The Peace of Calais

Henry VI recovered from his 'illness' a scant few weeks later in September and took command of the country again. He had much to do. Despite the protestations of his doctors, there was widespread belief that the king could be taken by an attack again. Long-simmering tensions exploded across the country as lords and ladies decided they could get away with murder with impunity. Trying to prove them wrong, the king reacted harshly to all offenders.

The first test of his strength was not slow to come. Long a source of sailors and ships for England, the channel harbors collectively known as the Cinque Ports were turning to piracy. The king sent his armies to enforce the peace and at the same time built new ships there for the English navy. The first was Christened the St. Matthew and was launched in July; the first flotilla was sent to Wales to deal with the remaining French pirates who had stubbornly refused to end the war.

1453-Piracy.jpg

The first of what would become many problems with the Cinque Ports

Around Christmas Day Henry had an unexpected gift - the duchy of Burgundy approached the king for an alliance! This alliance was quickly accepted, and in 1454 Henry was beginning to think of opening the Hundred Years War again in France. Alas, this was not to be. Sparked by the crackdown on piracy, a feud broke out in Wessex, and the king was forced again to send his armies. The feud ended in June when the Duke of Cornwall was assassinated by his rivals in Wessex. Henry was enraged and sent in troops to arrest all involved, but rather than seeming strong, this only made him seem tyrannical.

Perhaps it was for this reason that Lollardy arose again, preached by the bishop of York. Lollardy was a heresy that suggested it was proper for a man to follow his conscience rather than the Bible, which supported the rule of kings. Henry had the popular bishop arrested by Lord Somerset. This proved to be the last straw; in late July the Yorkist Plantagenets raised an army and attacked Somerset, slaying him in the battle of Saint Albans. Having killed him, they returned to their homes rather than march on London, but the realm was destabilized even further.

The Nevilles

Shaken by the battle and now without his prime confidant, Henry gave John Neville permission to wage war in Ireland. John hoped that by forcing the Emerald Isle to terms, he could regain his lost honor; some historians believe he may also have been driven mad by the death of his father, Richard, in June. The repercussions of this invasion were to drive the nation close to civil war. In Ireland, it led to Neville and his brother Richard becoming heroes to their men as they won battle after battle with few losses.

1454-Ireland.jpg

The Irish War

Although the Nevilles were happy, the war took some time to turn a profit. Meanwhile, paying for the army was draining the resources of Parliament, already exhausted from the long war against France. As revolts broke out in the east, Neville came under increasing pressure to send plunder back to London. The first shipments arrived in July, just in time to avert bankruptcy. However, further rebellions in Wales increased the pressure on Neville to win the war and bring his troops home, where they could help keep the peace. It was too late for that.

Civil War in England

In September a civil war broke out, as the lords of the southwest rebelled against the king's recent tyranny. Led by Duke Northumberland, they elected to depose Henry and install Richard of York as their king. In desperate need of funds, Henry raised taxes, which only made things worse; the merchants of Wessex rioted in what became known as Mercer's Riot.

1455-CivilWar.jpg

The Civil War in 1455

By summer's end the royal guard had put down several revolts and begun laying siege to rebel towns, but 24,000 rebellious troops still lay siege to the palace in London. A victorious John Neville returned with his Irish force, but it was not enough to relieve the siege of London. In January 1456 Henry had to ask Portugal and Burgundy to protect him from the mob, paying half the treasury to get their help.

1456-CivilWar.jpg

The Civil War in 1456

As he escaped, Henry is said to have died of shock, although tales of the time credit an assassin's dagger. Whatever the case, with the country in flames, the court quickly chose a new king from what they had available. Fighting rebels in Cumbria, Richard of York was infuriated to have been skipped over in favor of Charles of Lancaster, who became Charles I of England and perhaps the most unenvied man in all of Europe.

1456-CharlesI.jpg

The new monarch, blessed of a silver tongue

England at a Glance in 1456

Treasury: 56 million ducats
Estimated GDP: 171.6 million ducats
Standing Army: estimated at around 10,000
Reserves: estimated at around 1,000
Royal Navy: 3 small ships and 6 transports
Prestige: 10th highest (24.6)
Reputation: Honorable (0)
 
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Lord Valentine said:
A AAR about the house of Lancaster? Sounds interesting. The period of the Wars of the Roses has always fascinated me, although where sympathy goes I am pretty much a Yorkist (wouldn't have guessed from my Avatar would you. :p :D).
Nooooo...really? :eek: :p

Anyway I hope for an update soon.
Your wish is my command! ...This time. Chances are good this AAR will be written slowly...and most won't be nearly as long as the first one.

I'm using Magna Mundi, so there are a number of events relating to the War of the Roses, but as you might already have guessed, it hasn't always gone according to history!
 
A nice start! I love the way you have fitted in historic events like the battle of St. Albans. Well at least in your game Henry died early enough to perhaps save the throne for his dynasty. ;)

And don't worry about the frequency of the updates. I am away on a classtrip to Berlin for three days so you have lots of time to come up with a update that satisfies my exquisite tastes. :p :D

~Lord Valentine~
 
*Subscribes*
 
II. The Crucible

Surmounting difficulty is the crucible that forms character.
-Tony Robbins


The Unlikely King

Crowned in Westminister Abbey with only a scattered crowd around him, Charles I ascended the throne of England in January 1456 with no pomp or ceremony. Outside the snowy walls Lord Carleton's army was camped, and there seemed no hope of relief from the royal guard. To many Londoners, Charles was a temporary monarch, his reign to last until the walls fell.

Forty-six years of age, the new king was a bit of an enigma. Having little claim to the throne, he was a perfect example of being in the right place at the right time. Having arrived in London from his native Cornwall in autumn, Charles was one of only a handful of Lancasters in London when the gates were shut. His silver tongue and his connections with the Southron lords helped sway not only his fellow lords but also Parliament, ambivalent about a coronation until his rousing speech on St. Wulfstan's Day moved them to enact a special bill to allow it. Although the words of the speech are lost to history, Shakespeare suggests some of his own in his history, Charles II:

"Charles: Shall we, o noble heirs to Priam Rex
Stand by unthinkingly while time corrects
That divine mistake, that most fair prince most foul?
For faring well, to muster Artemis' howl
Must heatedly bring this house to ruins.
For like to like Carleton will sing paeans
And give a chill welcome, yea, in Hades
For those boys who dare only watch levees
In storm! I shall not wait at Tartarus
For him; nor you, lest God struck with dumbness
Raise from suckling pups England's mastiff hound
And roar heat'dly south news that Britain's crowned.
This is the crucible that makes pure gold!

Malvolio: Whether 'tis fool's is still yet to be told."

Charles II, Act I, Scene I, 122-35

Cole's Notes says: In this scene Charles is addressing Parliament. He first reminds them of the myth that Britain was settled by fleeing refugees from the fall of Troy to suggest honor and courage in the face of a siege, then places the blame for the siege on mad Henry VI ("that most fair prince most foul"). To answer their fears of an angry Carleton's wrath, Charles suggests that Carleton would have them arrested regardless of their actions, and that by crowning a king in Westminster they could at least make their mark on history. The addition of Malvolio to end the last couplet with a pun (fool's gold = iron pyrite) takes away from an otherwise stirring speech, helping to remind the audience that Charles is, in fact, a villain in this play. Key point: This is the first allusion to precious metal in the play, a theme that Shakespeare comes back to throughout the play.

Whatever the case, Charles became the unlikely king of England. Even at the time there were rumors that the new king had arranged the civil war, but this seems unlikely. It is suspicious timing, however, that he arrived in London mere days before the rebels, and more suspicious that he was a Southron lord himself. It is for perhaps this reason that he is rarely portrayed in a sympathetic light in plays or literature despite having shepherded England through one of its darkest times; in Charles II, for example, he is portrayed as a scheming villain. Certainly there were more likely candidates for the throne!

Richard Plantagenet, who was at that time in Cumbria fighting Northumberland, was probably the most likely, having already proven his skill at arms, but although he rushed his horse back to London through the snows, he was unable to reach the city before Parliament crowned Charles. It is to his credit that he chose to continue fighting the rebellion, but perhaps also his greatest mistake.

The Siege of London

It was a bitter winter that year and Carleton's Southron lords did little campaigning, but as spring grew nearer so too did London's fate - and with it, Parliament. His support dwindling as the siege wore on, Charles desperately smuggled out messages and hired Scottish mercenaries, placing them under the command of Henry Percy. Percy's four thousand and Richard Neville's four thousand arrived in London to face Carleton's twenty-three thousand on February 6.

The Battle of London was a desperate one from the beginning, but things became much worse before they began. A scant three days before the battle, Richard Neville died from an infected wound. This left the advancing royalist armies without their best leader, but they still performed ably.

1456-Neville.jpg

Richard Neville's death concentrated the Neville fortunes in the hand of his brother John

The mercenaries formed the center, having arrived early, while Richard's forces took up the flanks against a superior Oxfordshire force. Losing only 500 in the fighting, Percy's men dispersed some 4,000 rebels before losing the field. Lord Carleton was a savvy campaigner; he knew his own limitations and realized that he could not hope to match the tactics of either Lancastrian general, so he relied on attrition to defeat them, a strategy that worked again and again against the desperate royalists.

1456-London2.jpg

Forces align at London
1456-London1.jpg

The battle rages

A furious Charles put John Neville in charge of the combined forces and ordered them to try again. Meanwhile, Lord Northumberland pressed the defenders in Cumbria and the five Irish regiments were being overwhelmed in Ireland by earls who swore fealty to Northumberland.

With the spring rains, a second desperate assault on London was scheduled for May 1st. Arriving from the north, Richard of York led his 1,800 horse while Neville led 3,000 foot and 4,600 horse against the 16,000 Southron troops besieging London. The battle was short and painful. Carleton's numbers proved unstoppable and the disorganized royal guard scattered. On May 12, the city of London surrendered to Carleton. The newly crowned Charles I was allowed to leave the city only by paying a king's ransom - literally - that dragged England's name through the muck. Formerly respected in international circles, the Lancastrian dynasty had lost much of its lustre in a single defeat.

As soon as Carleton moved on to Anglia, Neville swept in and reconquered London. By the end of June 1456 it was back in royalist hands, but the damage had been done.

By midsummer things were turning around: most Irish earls had pledged fealty to Charles and the Irish troops were brought home. In the meantime, rebel strongholds in the Cinque Ports were retaken by royal forces; Northumberland was slain in battle in Cumbria and his estates under siege, while Blake, Lord Cornwall, was arrested and executed after his troops lost to the royal guard. This left only the indominitable Carleton leading the rebellion.

The war had been costly, however. With so much of the country under rebel control, Parliament was unable to pay its own armies. Rather than risk a mutiny, Parliament borrowed heavily to pay for the war. This sudden cash allowed the king to hire mercenaries, but only at the cost of his patrimony! Timely Irish plunder helped stave off a second loan and gave the king some respite. For the first time since the war began, victory seemed assured.

Carleton's defeat was slow but certain. With his support crumbling, he won victory after victory, losing men but always keeping his ground. His final stand was on Boxing Day, when he was slain along with all his remaining men. The Scottish mercenaries were sent home and despite a strong resurgence of piracy in the Cinque Ports, Charles returned to London in triumph to begin the trials of captured rebels. Tensions still simmered just under the surface, but the immediate threat was gone.

In August 1456 came a sign from God. The pope canonized St. Jasper, an 11th-century monk from Yorkshire. This happy news was celebrated, thought to be a sign of peace for years to come. It would be closer to months.

The War of the Roses

General Percy was the last casualty of the civil war, having caught pneumonia in the last battles of the war. His death left England with only two able generals, Richard of York, the ambitious cousin to Henry VI, and John Neville, the richest man in England. Both men were capable, both were ambitious, and both had greviances against Charles.

On October 6, 1457 Richard acted. Calling Parliament's coronation of Charles rash and illegal, he declared himself the true king of England. His house, the Plantagenets of Yorkshire, rallied to his side along with many of the defeated lords of the south and calling on his old friends in Ireland to once again heed his call. In total he raised some 20,000 men for his armies against the king's 11,000, a miracle of logistics in the exhausted nation and a testament to his martial ability. At the same time, mercenaries from the civil war began to take advantage of the realm's instability to pillage the countryside. What hope there was for peace dissappeared along with the green in the trees.

1457-Roses.jpg

The War of the Roses begins

The Lancastrians under Charles achieved some early successes, for the king had maintained heavy garrisons in the south after successive problems with the Cinque Ports. The Yorkists failed to achieve surprise, but despite this, managed to defeat the initial royalist attacks.

In the war between Richard Plantagenet and John Neville, Neville proved the more able strategist, for his forces returned to rout the Yorkist heir again and again in England. By spring, the Yorkists were on the retreat in England and Charles decided to allow them to run, hoping to avert a full-scale war.

1458-CivilWar.jpg

Not persecuting the rebels brought much-needed relief to many, but it also allowed the rebels to regroup

Richard regrouped his forces and laid siege to Lancashire in late 1458 for mostly symbolic reasons; he had already lost the true battlefields in the south. While Ireland again proved the hardest to pacify, Richard slipped away from England, seeking aid from his old friends in Burgundy. It would soon become apparent that he had been successful.

The Auld Alliance

The summer of 1459 was cool, but it failed to do much to cool down tempers in Europe. Hoping to take advantage of the chaos in England, France once again took up arms against England, bringing their many vassals and allies with them. Orleans, Provence, Armagnac, Auvergne, Foix, Bourbonnais, Scotland and Norway joined the war against England. England's Irish allies pledged their aid, as did the king of Portugal. Burgundy's duke, however, broke his promises and washed his hands of the war. Though Richard could not convince Burgundy to side against England, he could keep them from coming to their aid! There were even rumors that he had been behind the sudden declaration of war.

The war itself is an interesting one for historians; had France invaded earlier, they would have found an England helpless to resist; had Burgundy sided with Richard, he could have fought his way to the throne. But neither happened, and Charles was given some breathing space.

The first battle of the war was fought in the Channel, appropriately enough. It was an English victory, winning a prize ship from the French, l'Alexandre. It was a great victory, but not a decisive one. French fleets pounded away at the English until finally the remaining English warships were forced into port to avoid their complete annihilation. Once again, and not for the last time, England had lost the battle for the waves. The French seized this opportunity to attack Calais while the English looked on haplessly.

On land, things looked even grimmer. Scottish troops had begun pouring across the border into Cumbria and Northumberland, led by James II himself and the able General Gilchrist. It soon became apparent that the royal guard were outnumbered by the Scots. 24,000 Scotsmen invaded against 11,000 English troops. Charles used what monies Parliament allowed him to raise troops in the heartland while Neville bought time. He immediately split his forces, sending a few regiments of cavalry to harass the enemy in Cumbria while his main force pushed into Scotland. In two spring campaigns he fought James II repeatedly, all while holding the Scots to Cumbria. Like Carleton, James won pyrrhic victories - winning the battle, losing his troops.

By Lammas Day 1460, Neville pushed James back and laid siege to Edinburgh. Miraculously, mysteriously, the Scots were losing.

With fresh troops at his command, Neville pushed further north into Scotland. Around him Scottish resistance dissolved. Many of the captured prisoners were mercenaries. By the time English armies reached the highlands, the Scottish defenders were mainly boys and old men. Scotland had been bled white, unable to maintain its initial push.

To add to the excitement, the Army of the Pale won a decisive victory over the Yorkists in Ireland. Large parts of Eire would remain in Yorkist hands until 1461, but the last battle of the War of the Roses was over.

These great victories did little to lighten the king's spirits. Charles was under increasing pressure from Parliament to find a way to end the war. England's debts were coming due, and with the war raging Charles had no way to make ends meet, let alone save money for the debts. It was then that the church intervened.

England had always had a special relationship with the church, having been favored by the pope since 1453. Just when it seemed there was no choice but to take out more loans, the Archbishop of Canterbury offered Charles a deal. The church would pay the full loan in return for a special tithe for the next generation. Charles happily accepted.

1459-Church.jpg

The Pragmatic Sanction of Canterbury

The year ended with the death of James II, succeeded by Stuart I. Stuart was said to be a fine general, yet he was left with too few men to come back without French aid. Using their control of the sealanes, the French had managed to land several thousand troops in Scotland and Ireland, but they preferred to aid their Scottish allies rather than fighting themselves. By early winter that year the war in the north was assured, and Charles wanted to reopen the war for the waves.

Parliament refused to see things this way. They were infuriated with Charles for having made a deal with the church behind their backs, even though it paid off England's debts. His repeated demands for taxes to build a fleet was galling to them, and by this time some were convinced of his inability to rule. Finally, Charles had had enough; he dissolved parliament, taking its authority away and investing it in himself.

1460-Parliament.jpg

In the winter of 1461, a starving, freezing Scottish army surrendered to John Neville's men. It was a one-sided treaty where Scotland surrendered most of its territory to England and paid a massive reparation for the war. They would not soon forget it, but not in the way Charles intended. The treaty was roundly condemned by the pope, who was siding with the French. Charles had lost the services of Cardinal Somerset, a cousin to the late Lord Somerset who had been so close to his family, and the Roman curia was now aligned with England's enemies.

1461-Peace.jpg

With the end of the war in the north, the front shifted to the channel again. In the spring, England's newly Christened navy sailed into the channel to contest it from the French. They attacked a small flotilla, but it turned out to be a trap! Admiral de Vibien was personally commanding a fleet of Carracks rather than the undefended cogs expected. The brave English sunk two enemy warships, but lost nearly the entire English fleet as a consequence. The English retreat of 1459 had saved the fleet, but the disaster of 1462 destroyed it.

With this last defeat, it became apparent the war would end in a stalemate. France could not conquer England, but it could and did control the sea lanes, sponsor piracy and harass English troops as well as occupy Calais. In the spring of 1463 a peace was finally brokered by Norway in which Charles gave up his ancestral claim to Armagnac in return for an end to hostilities.

A few days later, Richard Platagenet was dead, England was in the pope's favor again, and an era was at an end.

England at a Glance in 1463

Treasury: 105 million ducats
Estimated GDP: 218.4 million ducats
Standing Army: 12,000 infantry and 5,000 knights
Reserves: None
Royal Navy: 2 small ships and 2 transports
Prestige: 17th highest (22.6)
Reputation: Slightly Tarnished (3.98)
 
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Those armies are massive! I recall reading that the largest force ever assembled by either side during the War of the Roses was ~6,000-8,000 strong, and only by God providing mana heavens would the Scots be able to support 24,000 men.

Oh, and what’s your BB after all this?
 
Fulcrumvale said:
Those armies are massive! I recall reading that the largest force ever assembled by either side during the War of the Roses was ~6,000-8,000 strong, and only by God providing mana heavens would the Scots be able to support 24,000 men.
They couldn't maintain them...:D

Cast away any of your ideas about how many men should be in armies - EU1.3 shatters them all. What's that? Gelre maintains 5,000 troops by itself? :eek: I have to admit I'm still getting used to it - my England is woefully understrength because I'm used to 1.21. In 1480, for example, I have a force limit of 49 regiments...

Oh, and what’s your BB after all this?
Surprisingly close to 0. I vassalized three of the four Irish minors (the last was in a separate alliance and would have been a much harder war, and my stability hit -3, so I didn't invade them), only declared war once and didn't annex Scotland, so it would only have been 5 at its height. With a great DIP that went down rapidly.

EDIT: I went and checked. The day peace was signed with France, my BB was 3.98 ("slightly tarnished"). Prestige was 22.6, a real low for England. It was 40 when I began but that blasted siege of London dropped it like a rock. :(
 
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This is a fantastic read, David! Well done :D

Scotland was certainly destroyed in short order, wasn't it?

I think the War of the Roses event chain creates one of the best openings for any state. Action from the beginning. And a context, too! (I'll take flavour over open-ended dynamics any day.)

BTW, in your Battle of London, you've zoomed in close enough that I can almost see my little Kentish house. Of course, my house was built in 1907... but maybe there was a different house there in 1470. Dunno. Hmmmm.
 
isca said:
This is a fantastic read, David! Well done :D
Thanks, but I still prefer yours. :D
Scotland was certainly destroyed in short order, wasn't it?
It was! I was hoping to conquer them, but when I saw all those troops I had to scale down my dreams to "white peace". I was as surprised as anyone to take so much!
I think the War of the Roses event chain creates one of the best openings for any state. Action from the beginning. And a context, too! (I'll take flavour over open-ended dynamics any day.)
Same here; England was never one of my favorite countries in EU2, but it has more flavor now than any other country. Pierreluc did a fantastic job with it. :)
 
Gigalocus said:
God save the king! love Engalnd or Magna Mundi AARs, and you've done them both! nice one, ill be following, oh, and when will we see the true king of France sit on his rightful throne? ;)
That's a good question! France is a real juggernaut and I'm not sure I have the resources needed, but I'm willing to give it a try. It will depend how much time I have before I begin to colonize the New World or the Reformation begins in force.

I still haven't decided to stay Catholic or turn Protestant. Both have some good and bad points. Any suggestions?
ubik said:
Excellent read! We have another gifted writer in our ranks... but I bet you don't know how to sing?
Um...no?
 
dharper said:
That's a good question! France is a real juggernaut and I'm not sure I have the resources needed, but I'm willing to give it a try. It will depend how much time I have before I begin to colonize the New World or the Reformation begins in force.

I still haven't decided to stay Catholic or turn Protestant. Both have some good and bad points. Any suggestions?
Um...no?


Rumour has it that Isca sings at weddings! Shhhhhh!
 
Question! The teaser sections in the first post: good or bad? Do they build interest or suspense in future chapters, or do they give too much away?
 
ubik said:
Enjoyed the teaser sections thoroughly!

You are not giving too much away...

Agreed, now continue for the good of the crown.

Also, i generally go for protestant, meens more rebels!

Also, if you're low on manpower, you could always use the 'F.U.C.K' policy (Fornicate under the command of the king) and thats were it comes from. ;)
Still waiting for some mass expansion across the ocean!