XI. Jane Lancaster - 1449-1456: Defense of Holstein ~ Constantine XIII ~ Provençal Miscalculation
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Capitulum XI.
I will not cease from Mental Fight
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Capitulum XI.
I will not cease from Mental Fight
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In Copenhagen, the mood of the King's Council darkens as grim messages flow in from ambassadors and agents abroad. A great host of tiny German states is opposing the Reconquest of Holstein—as expected—but these can be easily swept aside by the combined Danish, Swedish and Norwegian armies. The truly terrible news is that the initial invasion has been repulsed by the Count of Holstein's forces, and that the count and his troops are marching north into Danish Jutland.
Worse, an English fleet bearing 12,000 troops is crossing the North Sea on a easterly heading, and it doesn't take a genius to imagine where they might end up.
The House of Griffins does not intend to live through a repeat of the infuriating English invasion of fourteen years ago. A Danish-Norwegian fleet assembles in the Helgoland Bight; its sole mission to sink the English transports before they can enter the Skagerrak.
The transports, however, are not alone; the escorting squadron manages to shepherd its charges through the Danish blockade.
Half of the English troops land in Jutland, under the command of Edgar, Baron Byron of Rochdale. Like the more famous Edmund Davis and George Saunders, Byron is one of many English and Irish noblemen who have honed their combat leadership skills at the Royal Military College. By sheer good fortune, Byron has managed to arrive exactly as the retreating Danish invasion force is entering the province for rest and reinforcement.
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Medieval agriculture had to operate without benefit of machines, hybrid seed or chemical fertilizer. A horse or an ox (or sometimes, a wife) was used to pull the plow, and harvesting was done by hand. The surplus crop that the farming family and staff didn't consume or store was sold; export crops generally traveled a short distance by ox cart, thence by river barge or sea-going ship to market. There were also numerous subsidiary crops the farmer could gather, such as fruit (often turned into cider for export or winter consumption), berries, nuts and honey. The subsidiary crops kept the farmers busy through much of the year, as the main crops only required a few weeks of intense labor at planting and harvesting time.
In the early Middle Ages, a basic sort of crop rotation existed; in the two-field system, half the land was sown to crop and half left fallow each season. The later Middle Ages saw the resurrection of the old Roman three-field system, in which only one-third of the land lay fallow each season. In the autumn one third was planted to wheat, barley, or rye, and in the spring another third of the land was planted to oats, barley, and legumes to be harvested in late summer. The legumes (peas and beans) strengthened the soil by their nitrogen-fixing ability and at the same time improved the human diet.
Around London, an important innovation slowly crept into the old, reliable methods of manorial farming. It involved planting soil-depleting grains for a few years, then planting soil-restoring legumes, then using the field for grazing, and gaining the effects of the soil-enriching manure. This system would come to be known as convertible husbandry, and over the next century it would eventually replace the longstanding three-field system in northern Europe (London gets Agricultural Revolution, +1 base tax, gain 19.91 ducats).
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In the summer of 1449, the bulk of the Navy Royal arrives in the Øresund for tedious but necessary blockade duty. The Kalmar navies manage one last-ditch attempt to break the blockade, but while they are mustering in the southern Baltic, English scouts spot the assembly and quickly draw in several squadrons of reinforcements.
Swedish galleys are ambushed in the southern Baltic, leading to a decisive defeat.
With the Jutland peninsula under siege by German and English armies, Baron of Newtown George Saunders stages an ill-fated attempt to take the Danish capital. In August, his 6,000-man Army of Ireland lands on the western coast of Zealand (Sjælland) and begins an overland march to Copenhagen. Though the 9,000 Danish defenders outnumber the invaders, Saunders is confident that he can force a capitulation. It is a costly miscalculation.
In early September the two armies meet outside the Danish capital; both sides each lose about 3,000 men in the vicious fighting. For the Danes, the losses are dear but not critical; Saunders' Army of Ireland, on the other hand, has lost nearly half of its fighting strength.
The Army of Ireland suffers a serious setback in Zealand. The Baron of Newtown is forced to retreat to Jutland, lest his fractured army be annihilated in a Danish counterattack.
After a year under siege, the key cities of Aarhus and Schleswig surrender to Anglo-German armies. Saunders is able to leverage these gains into concessions at the negotiating table; Christian II agrees to give up his claims on the County of Holstein, and Denmark pays a small indemnity.
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The conspicuous failure of the Holy Roman Emperor to intervene on behalf of his subjects in both Danish-German wars creates a considerable backlash amongst the electors. When the current Emperor (Fridrich I von Luxemburg, King of Bohemia) dies in July of 1450, the electors choose the Archduke of Austria, Ferdinand I von Askanien, to replace him.
Sadly, Ferdinand's rule lasted all of three months. He was replaced in October 1450 by his younger brother, Joseph I von Askanien.
News of Austria's election to the imperial seat is greeted with jubilation in the English court. Austria already possesses one of Europe's most powerful armies; now backed by the resources of the Empire, they will be virtually unstoppable. And best of all, Queen Jane can count them amongst her allies.
Jane's other notable ally soon requests her assistance in the winter of 1451, when King Filipe I de Avis launches the highly successful Portuguese Crusade against Algiers. England joins the alliance, but her aid is mostly limited to logistical support from Gibraltar; selling the food and equipment to keep the Portuguese armies fighting in northern Africa. The large and capable Portuguese navy has no need of English reinforcements; their carracks are easily able to keep the Algerian galleys helplessly bottled up in port.
Sending English troops to Africa is never a serious consideration; lingering unease over the ill-fated Tangiers raid some 13 years ago dooms any such proposal. Portugal, however, is undeterred, and racks up an impressive number of successes over the Algerians. In a little over a year, the Portuguese are able to capture the important and valuable seaport of Oran, and manage to keep it as the spoils of war.
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In domestic affairs, the English assimilation of Guyenne and Gascony is surprisingly rapid. Sixteen years after the province was ceded by France, Béarn is universally acknowledged to be a lawful possession in right of the English crown. Legal scholars across Europe affirm that the province is an integral part of the Duchy of Aquitaine; a ducal title inherited by every Duke of Lancaster since John of Gaunt.
Byzantium's miraculous revival has led to increasing dissemination and study of classical Greek and Roman texts, and universities in England are no exception to the trend. Throughout the remainder of 1451, Renaissance scholarship continues to grow and spread through England's institutions of higher learning.
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Within the Empire of the Greeks, there is a significant changing of the guard. Emperor Manuel III Laskaris has no surviving heirs, and in order to keep his Palaiologan rivals from claiming the imperial purple, Manuel names his deceased daughter's husband as co-emperor and successor. By the end of the year, the final Laskarid ruler of Constantinople will be entombed with his fathers.
In December of 1451, Constantine XIII Doukas succeeds Manuel III Laskaris as Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire.
Congratulations are quick to arrive from London, but once again Parliament prevents the Queen from proceeding to Constantinople herself; as before, the Duke of Norfolk will represent England and Ireland at the imperial accession. Jane's protestations set off a lengthy series of debates on the question of her own succession; she has already reviewed and rejected proposals from Aragon, Scotland, Brabant, and Navarre. Parliament feels (with some justification) that Jane's stubborn insistence on an as-yet-unnamed candidate of her own choosing is mere self-indulgence, and not in the national interest. Jane replies that everything she has done since coronation—the reclamation of Guyenne and Aquitaine, the expansion of the Pays de Calais, the unification of Ireland—has been done with single-minded focus on the nation's interest; can the Queen not pursue her own desires in this one, narrow endeavour?
Unfortunately this is not a fight the Queen can win, for she lacks significant leverage. Parliament can delay and wait out her child-bearing years, at which point any marriage becomes moot: there will be no offspring. And with the birth of her sister's son William in 1445, England is already assured an alternate line of succession. Princess Mary's accession to the throne—which seemed such an unlikely prospect two decades ago—is virtually assured as long as Parliament and the Queen remain obstinately deadlocked. To the relief of the lords, Jane seems to concede defeat in the winter of 1452 when, at age thirty-six, she confirms sister Mary as not merely heiress presumptive, but heiress apparent (+1 stability).
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Further east, the Grand Duchy of Moscow's long crusade against the Muslim Khanate of the Golden Horde comes to a successful conclusion. The Horde yields up four provinces to the Muscovites, and their apparent weakness causes the Genoese to launch a crusade of their own—hoping to expand their colonies in Gazaria. Unfortunately, Genoa's war is really a contest of Christian lightweights versus Muslim heavyweights, and it ends badly. Allied Georgia is reduced to a rump (cedes Alania to Ottomans) and Genoa narrowly avoids the loss of Chios and Lesbos by agreeing to a massive restitution payment.
The Osmanic Empire of the Turks manages to score another coup in July of 1453, when its Sultan forms a personal union with the Khanate of Kazan.
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In the spring of 1453, Queen Jane is surprised to receive news of yet another Aragonese invasion of Navarre. England's guarantee of military assistance has quietly expired, and neglectful ambassadors have failed to remind London. This untimely lapse thus signals apparent quiescence to Aragonese ambitions. The Navarrans can still count upon the sovereign of Castile and Leon, however, and in just three years, Aragon's war of conquest results in serious reversals.
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The Papal States' many wars of unification on the Italian peninsula have, for the most part, been remarkably successful. But in 1454, the Lord of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio is able to repulse Pope Paul II's invasion and significantly weaken the papal army.
This event—while beneficial enough for Ferrara—sets off a series of small wars in southeast France.
The Count of Provence decides to take advantage of the Pope's recent defeat and reasserts his claim to the Dauphiny; it should be an easy, relatively bloodless contest. Unfortunately for the count, the Pope is able to summon the assistance of a rather fearsome ally—the King of France.
Over the next year, the Count comes to realise that the supposedly easy Conquest of the Dauphiny has become an unmitigated disaster. His army has been decimated and driven from the field; and in short order the count is compelled to part with not just his territories, but also his title and his life. But he will not be the only temporal ruler to regret his part in the wars. Exactly three weeks after the capture of Provence, the perfidious Valois king turns on his former ally.
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In the early Middle Ages, the Holy Roman Empire’s supreme court had been the Hofgericht, in which the emperor presided and a body of assessors sat in judgment. This court had some critical limitations, however: the Hofgericht ceased to act when the emperor was abroad, and it was dissolved upon his death. Each Emperor had to constitute his own supreme court anew. When the Bohemian Emperor Friedrich I ceased to command the respect of his lords and subjects, his Hofgericht gave up in despair and heard no further cases.
Succeeding emperor Ferdinand I recognised the need for a new and more efficient court; one that was not the personal court of the emperor, but the empire’s official court. He proposed a Reichskammergericht (Imperial Chamber Court) that would be paid for by the empire, and thus was not dependent on the will or money of the emperor. The emperor would appoint the chief justice (who had to be a very senior nobleman) and two presidents of court senates, but the majority of the judges were nominated by the many states that comprised the empire. Initially half the members were to be doctors of Roman law and half were to be knights, but in later years it would become a requirement for all members to have formal legal training.
Ferdinand I would die before the Imperial Diet approved the court's creation, but his brother and successor Joseph I would see the Reichskammergericht established in Frankfurt.
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In the mid-1450s, the Royal Military College and Royal Naval College founded by Jane's father start producing increasingly skilled graduates. Sometimes, young noblemen who have graduated from one of the service academies will—after some seasoning in England's many Continental wars—elect to return as an instructor, sharing the benefit of their experience with the next generation.
Sometimes, though, England's focus on naval supremacy carries a significant cost for the development of her army (Event: Land research technology useless; lose -351 ducats invested in Land Technology).
In other domestic developments, England's conversion of her Moorish population in Gibraltar is eventually mirrored in Castile's former Granadan provinces. As popular memories of a Muslim al-Andalus fade, so do hopes of its restoration (Gibraltar gets End of the Reconquista, Granada loses core on Gibraltar).
But if Islam's fortunes are on the wane in the West, they remain ascendant in the East. Despite the Pope's best efforts, he cannot convince any other power in western Europe to ally itself with the Eastern Roman Empire. England boosts its army slightly (3,000 foot soldiers recruited for the Guyenne Garrison), but there is no force in all of Europe that can hope to match the superior tactics and technology of the Turks. Indeed, everywhere the Turks have marched, they have succeeded; and in the summer of 1456 they set out to reclaim Greece.
This is the war that Parliament has dreaded ever since Jane and Constantine's first meeting. Only the unanimous backing of the Privy Council convinces the lords and commons to support intervention; while the Council's remarkable consent is rumoured to have been coerced through threats of attainder or exile to Gibraltar (2-star Theologian Jean Charlier de Gerson is replaced by 3-star Treasurer Henry Frederick Clarence).
Whatever the machinations, the Queen is, however, limited to her previous agreement with the legislature: England can spare only 18,000 men to defend Greece—the remainder must stay garrisoned in France.
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ENGLAND c. 1456
Jane I Lancaster (ADM 7/DIP 7/MIL 8)
By the Grace of God, Queen of England and France and Lady of Ireland
Duchess of Aquitaine, Countess of Artois, Cambray and Picardy
Dynastic Links:
~ Burgundy (Duke Philippe IV Lancaster-Valois-Bourgogne)
~ Cyprus (Basileus Jacques II Lancaster-Lusignan)
~ Lüneburg (Duke August I Lancaster-Brunswick-Lüneburg)
Treasury: £16.2 million (162m ducats)
GDP (estimated): £99.68 million (996.8m ducats)
Domestic CoTs: London £43.03 million (430.31m ducats)
Army: 10,000 Knights (Chevauchée), 23,000 Footsoldiers
Reserves (potential levies): 24,490
Navy: 18 Carracks, 19 Pinnaces, 21 Cogs
Discipline: 123.00%
Tradition: Army 35.50% Navy 39.00%
Prestige: Second (70.30)
Reputation: Honourable (0.00/23.50)
Legitimacy: 100
Nota auctoris: For some unknown reason, right around 1453 the economy took off like a rocket. I don't have any special modifiers (i.e. contented economic faction), the bulk of my provinces lack even basic economic buildings (workshops etc.), and I haven't expanded beyond the 6 markets I've dominated for the past 5-10 years, so I'm not sure what caused it, but it was like the economy growing by 1/3rd overnight. War exhaustion effects burning off, maybe?
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