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Maybe
Campeche, Jacques thought. It was over, nothing mattered any longer. They could shoot him or hang him or believe him but he was to weak and sick to care, He called feebly, but eventually it was his crawling shape that a patrol spotted over the glacis.
“Look here, it's a wounded Indian,”
“... careful....”
“... dangerous....”
“... wounded....”
“... not wounded....”
“... does'nt look dangerous....”
“... maybe....”
“... look he's....”
Voices buzzed over him, weird and distorted. It took him a long time to recognize Norman, although it did make sense. He'd come here with a hundred loyal fighters, but most of it had been killed by snakes and jaguars and each other, some of it had fled and some of it he could'nt remm
ember about.
“... just look at him he's not a....”
“... not an indian....”
“... an indian....”
“... from upstream....”
“... no it does'nt....”
“... from Burgund....”
“... not an indian....”
“... look at his hands he's....”
“... look at his hands....”
“... by a gun....”
“... soldier....”
“... I say shoot....”
“... deserter....”
“... then why....”
“... deserter... deserter... deserter....”
A kind blonde slodier crouched behind him, cleanly shaved. Clearly Campeche had changed.
“What are you, man? Are you a deserter?”
Jacques's mind was muddled with fever “I am... I was...” It was all confused now. Was he a soldier, a deserter, a conqueror ? “I would be a king. A god, too.”
“He's gone mad,” someone said. Aye, that much was true.
The Deserter
Kuipy (Normandy)
Campeche, Jacques thought. It was over, nothing mattered any longer. They could shoot him or hang him or believe him but he was to weak and sick to care, He called feebly, but eventually it was his crawling shape that a patrol spotted over the glacis.
“Look here, it's a wounded Indian,”
“... careful....”
“... dangerous....”
“... wounded....”
“... not wounded....”
“... does'nt look dangerous....”
“... maybe....”
“... look he's....”
Voices buzzed over him, weird and distorted. It took him a long time to recognize Norman, although it did make sense. He'd come here with a hundred loyal fighters, but most of it had been killed by snakes and jaguars and each other, some of it had fled and some of it he could'nt remm
ember about.
“... just look at him he's not a....”
“... not an indian....”
“... an indian....”
“... from upstream....”
“... no it does'nt....”
“... from Burgund....”
“... not an indian....”
“... look at his hands he's....”
“... look at his hands....”
“... by a gun....”
“... soldier....”
“... I say shoot....”
“... deserter....”
“... then why....”
“... deserter... deserter... deserter....”
A kind blonde slodier crouched behind him, cleanly shaved. Clearly Campeche had changed.
“What are you, man? Are you a deserter?”
Jacques's mind was muddled with fever “I am... I was...” It was all confused now. Was he a soldier, a deserter, a conqueror ? “I would be a king. A god, too.”
“He's gone mad,” someone said. Aye, that much was true.
From the catalogue of the L. Museum
Kuipy (Normandy)
Anonymous, Portrait of Geoffroy de Normandie (1484)
etching, in-quarto
Geoffroy de Normandie (1435-1490), duke of Vannes, is mostly known nowadays for the War of the four Geoffroys which opposed his descendants, and for his depiction as a lecherous, gullible antagonist in Amédée Gautier's The Blade of Kent. Yet Roger III's younger son deserves perhaps better fame as a generous and passionate patron of the arts and science.
Excluded from the government of the realm by his father, brother and nephew, Geoffroy shared his life between his luxurious hotel in London and the splendid Palais d'Octobre in Britanny where he entertained visitors from all Europe. His judicious investments in the budding Atlantic trade made him one of the wealthiest man of his time, allowing him to purchase for his illegitimate son Hercule (father of the future Geoffroy V) the title of count de la Bouque, and to finance the project of his life : an illustrated dictionary of all great men in Europe.
Twenty-eight authors and several dozen engravers collaborated to the five tomes of the Contemporains célèbres. The first edition was printed over the course of 1484 at an unprecedented eight hundred exemplars, sold in a few months throughout Europe was offered by Burgundian merchants to the Emperor of China. This success bears a strong testimony to the flowering of the publishing manufactures in European Normandy, as production of such an ambitious work and so vast a scale would have been unthinkable only a generation earlier.
This etching of duke Geoffroy, somewhat more unflattering than would be expected toward the project's principal funder, is typical of that first edition. The original seemed certainly to have been a master craftsman, but the reproduction is poor and hasty, with numerous defaults apparent.
None of this prevented the work from being one of the most circulated during the early 16th century, after the Bible but before René de Melun's Commentary of the Scriptures.
Thanks Albrecht
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Inca's are Blackmist's, to do with them as he pleases.
In other news : I have a connection again !
There was something in Geoffroy V which reminded Jacques of his friend Gonzague. Both men had the same bushy, wild beard, though the King's blond locks contrasted with the soldier's dark red ones. Both had the same big, stout frame, both the same blue fire in their Nordic eyes, violent and indomitable. Like Gonzague's, Geoffroy's face was coarse, brutish and scarred, and clearly their tempers would have matched as well, short, incapable of backing down.
Yet something subtle and unsettling set them apart, and Jacques knew at once he could not trust the king as his old brother-in-arms. Everything in him told of noble upbringing, of having never been refused. His beard was tangled but clean, his eyes commanding where Gonzague's were inspiring, the haughtiness was more contempt than pride. There was a rich, contended fat on him that Jacques had never seen except on officers. Geoffroy was different.
A warrior that man may be, like his ancestors ; but he was no soldier, and knew nothing of the grit and pain of a soldier's life. He had never suffered under the pack, never known the pang of hunger and the fatigue of the march, never had his festered toes cut with red-hot pliers. He had never been ordered to stand and die, never slept in the mud, never been flogged for something he had not done.
He would not even know what it meant, and it was no use explaining.
"I do not know, your Grace."
"Most soldiers desert out of fear, I found out. But it can not be your case. You are brave, are you not ?"
"Gonzague is, at any rate. Me... I don't know."
"You speak of him much," the king remarked, his eyes ablaze and his lips pinched.
"It's something in him, makes him hard not to follow. Wherever."
"So are you telling me it's his fault?"
"No ! I mean..."
The king's counselors were looking at him from the dais, fat robins and dashing officers and somber priests, and the court looked on as well. It intimated him, but not near as much as the King.
"They tell me you were found a feverish, broken wretch, that it took weeks of nursing to bring you back to health. Was it in that state you reached that silver city of yours, then ?"
"Yes." As a matter of fact they had carried him for the last miles.
"So what was your role in the taking of the city?"
In other news : I have a connection again !
The Ambassador
Kuipy (Normandy)
"You were soldiers. Norman soldiers, with a pledge to honor. I will ask it once more : why desert ?"There was something in Geoffroy V which reminded Jacques of his friend Gonzague. Both men had the same bushy, wild beard, though the King's blond locks contrasted with the soldier's dark red ones. Both had the same big, stout frame, both the same blue fire in their Nordic eyes, violent and indomitable. Like Gonzague's, Geoffroy's face was coarse, brutish and scarred, and clearly their tempers would have matched as well, short, incapable of backing down.
Yet something subtle and unsettling set them apart, and Jacques knew at once he could not trust the king as his old brother-in-arms. Everything in him told of noble upbringing, of having never been refused. His beard was tangled but clean, his eyes commanding where Gonzague's were inspiring, the haughtiness was more contempt than pride. There was a rich, contended fat on him that Jacques had never seen except on officers. Geoffroy was different.
A warrior that man may be, like his ancestors ; but he was no soldier, and knew nothing of the grit and pain of a soldier's life. He had never suffered under the pack, never known the pang of hunger and the fatigue of the march, never had his festered toes cut with red-hot pliers. He had never been ordered to stand and die, never slept in the mud, never been flogged for something he had not done.
He would not even know what it meant, and it was no use explaining.
"I do not know, your Grace."
"Most soldiers desert out of fear, I found out. But it can not be your case. You are brave, are you not ?"
"Gonzague is, at any rate. Me... I don't know."
"You speak of him much," the king remarked, his eyes ablaze and his lips pinched.
"It's something in him, makes him hard not to follow. Wherever."
"So are you telling me it's his fault?"
"No ! I mean..."
The king's counselors were looking at him from the dais, fat robins and dashing officers and somber priests, and the court looked on as well. It intimated him, but not near as much as the King.
"They tell me you were found a feverish, broken wretch, that it took weeks of nursing to bring you back to health. Was it in that state you reached that silver city of yours, then ?"
"Yes." As a matter of fact they had carried him for the last miles.
"So what was your role in the taking of the city?"
Memories rushed back to him, dramatic and foggy.
"I was my fault, you see. I was to weak to speak and stand, so Gonzague decided to walk toward the city in all haste, convinced he could threaten them into nursing me once we found them. Then they found us.
It was night when tell fell upon us, a hundred screaming red men, with spears and glass cudgels glistening in the moonlight. He jerked me from the stretcher where I was dozing, shove a gun in my hands. Even in the best of times I am no great fighter, you see, and obviously I was in no condition to fight with a sword ; but I have been in enough gunfights to know just when to fire, which is most of what there is to it. So while Gonzague's shot was lost in the night mine got their leader square in the chest, a lean, tall captain of a sort dressed up as some jaguar-man. It was not enough, though, and soon they overwhelmed and capture us.
One of the warriors had taken up the jaguar disguise, and presently he was trying out our guns with extreme interest. Some smart fellows he was, too, because he managed to load one of them just right, and to lit the wick, but try as he might he could not move the matchlock. So they pushed us around for a bit, trying to get us to talk, and when they saw it was no use they grudgingly herded us into the city, to a wizened, black-avised priest in a feathered gown.
I could not speak proper Aztec at that time, you see, but still it was pretty clear that the jaguar man wanted to keep us alive and the feathered priest would have none of it. Eventually he prevailed, too, and they dragged us struggling to the top of of slanted tower, a few ours before sunrise, to be executed in pittoresque fashion, with hymns, pump and a knife of the sharpest stone I'd seen.
I was too weak to do much, you see, but Gonzague would kick and roar over that convent's chanting, and our prother beg and wail to no avail. They killed them all, one after the other, spread them over a stone altar and tore their hearts out before our eyes. Their screams I cannot describe, your Grace. But I remember all twenty-nine of them just fine, to this day. Keep me awake at night, they still do, when I'm too drunk and not enough, but to those painted witches it seems the most natural of things. The bodies they threw over a flight of stairs, bleeding like pigs.
Then it was Gonzague's turn and the strangest thing happened, because it took a whole score of them to maintain him, and by the time they laid him on the bloody stone and ripped his shirt the first light of dawn happened to break over the mountaintops, and what should it shine upon but that old medallion of his, which he'd always had, mind you ? Well, truth is it shows a chicken, if you ask me, but them savages called it a feathered snake and cried out and start to bicker over some prophecy, saying we were capital fellows and not to be slaughtered after all, except for the old bast..."
"I was my fault, you see. I was to weak to speak and stand, so Gonzague decided to walk toward the city in all haste, convinced he could threaten them into nursing me once we found them. Then they found us.
It was night when tell fell upon us, a hundred screaming red men, with spears and glass cudgels glistening in the moonlight. He jerked me from the stretcher where I was dozing, shove a gun in my hands. Even in the best of times I am no great fighter, you see, and obviously I was in no condition to fight with a sword ; but I have been in enough gunfights to know just when to fire, which is most of what there is to it. So while Gonzague's shot was lost in the night mine got their leader square in the chest, a lean, tall captain of a sort dressed up as some jaguar-man. It was not enough, though, and soon they overwhelmed and capture us.
One of the warriors had taken up the jaguar disguise, and presently he was trying out our guns with extreme interest. Some smart fellows he was, too, because he managed to load one of them just right, and to lit the wick, but try as he might he could not move the matchlock. So they pushed us around for a bit, trying to get us to talk, and when they saw it was no use they grudgingly herded us into the city, to a wizened, black-avised priest in a feathered gown.
I could not speak proper Aztec at that time, you see, but still it was pretty clear that the jaguar man wanted to keep us alive and the feathered priest would have none of it. Eventually he prevailed, too, and they dragged us struggling to the top of of slanted tower, a few ours before sunrise, to be executed in pittoresque fashion, with hymns, pump and a knife of the sharpest stone I'd seen.
I was too weak to do much, you see, but Gonzague would kick and roar over that convent's chanting, and our prother beg and wail to no avail. They killed them all, one after the other, spread them over a stone altar and tore their hearts out before our eyes. Their screams I cannot describe, your Grace. But I remember all twenty-nine of them just fine, to this day. Keep me awake at night, they still do, when I'm too drunk and not enough, but to those painted witches it seems the most natural of things. The bodies they threw over a flight of stairs, bleeding like pigs.
Then it was Gonzague's turn and the strangest thing happened, because it took a whole score of them to maintain him, and by the time they laid him on the bloody stone and ripped his shirt the first light of dawn happened to break over the mountaintops, and what should it shine upon but that old medallion of his, which he'd always had, mind you ? Well, truth is it shows a chicken, if you ask me, but them savages called it a feathered snake and cried out and start to bicker over some prophecy, saying we were capital fellows and not to be slaughtered after all, except for the old bast..."
In a heartbeat he remembered what contention exactly had opposed Geoffroy and his cousins over the throne of Normandy, and decided a change of insult was in order.
"I mean, the feathery priest, he would have none of it and lifted his glass dagger overhead to finish the job. But the thing is, in the commotion they had let go of me, and just at my elbow was the jaguar boy, completely bewildered, with my loaded gun in his paws and the wick still aflame, bless him. So I snatched it before he could react and, as I told you, I'm quite the good shot especially when my mind's into it, and I shot the priest cold just as he was about to lay his hand on my prophetic compère. So you can guess after that there was no more talk of ripping people's hearts out, Gonzague took over, and soon we were kings in our own right, and gods to, in their eyes of course. I know better and so does Gonzague... Probably. He fixed us just right, too, got us palaces, servants and 365 wives each, one for every..."
His voice trailed as he caught sight of René de Melun. The lean, lantern-jawed, seventy-year old reformer would still have looked more like a postmaster than the archbishop of Eu, but for his austere, dark purple robes and the plain wooden cross over his chest. For all his contempt of and preaches against the Burgundian puppet church his physiognomy was that of a catholic inquisitor, all sternness and unflinching resolution. It was easy to believe the rumors when you looked at him. And when he looked at you...
"Kings ?" he asked. "But surely not anointed by a Christian priest, were you ?"
"No, as a matter of fact indeed no, your..." Back in Jacques's youth the archbishop of Eu would have been an excellence (a jovial, rotund one, to crown new kings and pat their hands with pious reminders of a Catholic prince's duty), but René de Melun sounded like something else altogether. Whatever he was exchanged a meaningful look with his long-standing ally.
"It is for the best, then," Geoffroy said. "You are no roys [1] in God's eyes, and thus have not rebelled against us, your lawful sovereign. So we are willing to disregard your desertion, and name you dukes and viceroys of the land you conquered, in our stead."
Now those were terms Gonzague would not accept if there ever had been one, but of course it would not do to mention it to a man who had had one of his cousins stabbed, another poisoned and the third drowned so he could reign.
"I... would gladly accept, your Grace, but as for Gonzague I can't speak to him."
"Aren't you his ambassador ?"
"Of a sort, yes, but still... On a matter of this importance..." Jacques wriggled.
"All for the best, as we said." The king raised a small iron fork, which made the old soldier tremble, but as it turned out it was just the new way things were eaten at the English court, since some clever cutler had spread the word that it was a filthy and gross things to eat with one's fingers. "I offered worse deals to better men and, believe me, they all came to regret their refusal. Convince your friend. I will send you back to him as an ambassador of my own, with lavish gifts, a noble bride..."
Without a wince he snapped the fork between his fingers.
"And an army."
[1]pronounce "rwa" : kings.
That would be around 1530 ; I have a lot of catching-up to do.
"I mean, the feathery priest, he would have none of it and lifted his glass dagger overhead to finish the job. But the thing is, in the commotion they had let go of me, and just at my elbow was the jaguar boy, completely bewildered, with my loaded gun in his paws and the wick still aflame, bless him. So I snatched it before he could react and, as I told you, I'm quite the good shot especially when my mind's into it, and I shot the priest cold just as he was about to lay his hand on my prophetic compère. So you can guess after that there was no more talk of ripping people's hearts out, Gonzague took over, and soon we were kings in our own right, and gods to, in their eyes of course. I know better and so does Gonzague... Probably. He fixed us just right, too, got us palaces, servants and 365 wives each, one for every..."
His voice trailed as he caught sight of René de Melun. The lean, lantern-jawed, seventy-year old reformer would still have looked more like a postmaster than the archbishop of Eu, but for his austere, dark purple robes and the plain wooden cross over his chest. For all his contempt of and preaches against the Burgundian puppet church his physiognomy was that of a catholic inquisitor, all sternness and unflinching resolution. It was easy to believe the rumors when you looked at him. And when he looked at you...
"Kings ?" he asked. "But surely not anointed by a Christian priest, were you ?"
"No, as a matter of fact indeed no, your..." Back in Jacques's youth the archbishop of Eu would have been an excellence (a jovial, rotund one, to crown new kings and pat their hands with pious reminders of a Catholic prince's duty), but René de Melun sounded like something else altogether. Whatever he was exchanged a meaningful look with his long-standing ally.
"It is for the best, then," Geoffroy said. "You are no roys [1] in God's eyes, and thus have not rebelled against us, your lawful sovereign. So we are willing to disregard your desertion, and name you dukes and viceroys of the land you conquered, in our stead."
Now those were terms Gonzague would not accept if there ever had been one, but of course it would not do to mention it to a man who had had one of his cousins stabbed, another poisoned and the third drowned so he could reign.
"I... would gladly accept, your Grace, but as for Gonzague I can't speak to him."
"Aren't you his ambassador ?"
"Of a sort, yes, but still... On a matter of this importance..." Jacques wriggled.
"All for the best, as we said." The king raised a small iron fork, which made the old soldier tremble, but as it turned out it was just the new way things were eaten at the English court, since some clever cutler had spread the word that it was a filthy and gross things to eat with one's fingers. "I offered worse deals to better men and, believe me, they all came to regret their refusal. Convince your friend. I will send you back to him as an ambassador of my own, with lavish gifts, a noble bride..."
Without a wince he snapped the fork between his fingers.
"And an army."
[1]pronounce "rwa" : kings.
That would be around 1530 ; I have a lot of catching-up to do.
Heh. It's always hard to bring the Old/New World storylines together.
The Blount Codex (1549)
ink on bleached bark
A gift from Duke of Mexico Gonzague II Altavila to his cousin Geoffroy Blount, this is one of the most beautiful and complete extant Aztec codices. Though it officially reproved their reading as heathen works, the Norman Church, increasingly decentralized after René de Melun's death, was powerless to prevent their wide circulation, often at the hands of its very legates.
In the course of the 16th century, thousands of such Aztec treaties, many of them fakes, were read, commented and catalogued by erudites and rekindled an interest in mathematics and astronomy which in turn led to the re-discovery of antique and medieval Jewish literature. Their influence, combined with the fifty-year-long peace which marked Roger V's reign can therefore be credited with the flourishing of Norman economy over this period, ever as the Channel ports ineluctably declined.
As pre-Altavilan Aztec rulers and Norman nobility intermarried and in some case traveled to the London court, "le doux Mexique" became something of a fad, with both sexes wearing Indian costumes and jewellery, rarely à propos. For the new generation Burgundian-dominated Europe was eagerly forgotten in a splendid isolation ; it appeared certain, for a time, that the future of Normandy lied entirely overseas.
Well Google says it's one
From the catalogue of the L. Museum
Kuipy (Normandy)
The Blount Codex (1549)
ink on bleached bark
A gift from Duke of Mexico Gonzague II Altavila to his cousin Geoffroy Blount, this is one of the most beautiful and complete extant Aztec codices. Though it officially reproved their reading as heathen works, the Norman Church, increasingly decentralized after René de Melun's death, was powerless to prevent their wide circulation, often at the hands of its very legates.
In the course of the 16th century, thousands of such Aztec treaties, many of them fakes, were read, commented and catalogued by erudites and rekindled an interest in mathematics and astronomy which in turn led to the re-discovery of antique and medieval Jewish literature. Their influence, combined with the fifty-year-long peace which marked Roger V's reign can therefore be credited with the flourishing of Norman economy over this period, ever as the Channel ports ineluctably declined.
As pre-Altavilan Aztec rulers and Norman nobility intermarried and in some case traveled to the London court, "le doux Mexique" became something of a fad, with both sexes wearing Indian costumes and jewellery, rarely à propos. For the new generation Burgundian-dominated Europe was eagerly forgotten in a splendid isolation ; it appeared certain, for a time, that the future of Normandy lied entirely overseas.
Well Google says it's one
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I can't see the map.
So, Norman blood is yet again getting mixed well with Mexican hotties?
So, Norman blood is yet again getting mixed well with Mexican hotties?
Two blood-thirsty, fanatical, barbarian people, it was bound to happen. :rofl:
Overall the relations between Madeleine and Ingmar left much to be desired. He would give her a squeeze at every opportunity, and she spat in each jug she brought him. Still, she forced herself to remain close to his table. Like it or not the Swedes had won this war, Halland was theirs, and she had gone from being the wealthy, courted girl of a Norman échevin to serving the inebriated victors. Besides, Robert would want to know what the Duke of Bergen had to say when in his cups, especially to the plenipotentiary of Russia. Count Ignatieff sat with his back to the chimneyplace, arms folded, his lean, swarthy Tatar face an impenetrable mask. Obviously he was a man of few words, content to let Ingmar of Bergen do most of the talking.
"Maybe you could have Cracow. Later," he said, sweating with wine and lies." But for now what matters is the recognition of Sweden as a major power in Europe. You saw the blow we gave Normandy. The world saw it. Their navy sunk, their armies killed in the field or drowned in the Öresund, and Halland ours again. Enough of a victory to consecrate our power, after the Bohemian Union. Yet we want more, still more."
"Dangerous."
"What? No. Just support us, I tell you. The Normandies will have no choice but to kiss our foot. Without foul play, this time. I tell you, there are rich times ahead for the kings of Sweden and their loyal dukes."
"How about the son ?"
"A boy of fifteen. By the time he gets his own nobles in line, we will have consolidated our position."
"And Burgundy ?"
"Charolles is a pudgy, effete courtesan, a harmless fool. The only time he gets his hands dirty is when using lace as a kerchief. I don't see him taking action."
"So."
"Trust me."
Ingmar smiled and reached out for Madeleine.
"Trust us. And it may be the last you hear of Normandy for your whole life."
A Norman woman in Sweden
Kuipy (Normandy)
Overall the relations between Madeleine and Ingmar left much to be desired. He would give her a squeeze at every opportunity, and she spat in each jug she brought him. Still, she forced herself to remain close to his table. Like it or not the Swedes had won this war, Halland was theirs, and she had gone from being the wealthy, courted girl of a Norman échevin to serving the inebriated victors. Besides, Robert would want to know what the Duke of Bergen had to say when in his cups, especially to the plenipotentiary of Russia. Count Ignatieff sat with his back to the chimneyplace, arms folded, his lean, swarthy Tatar face an impenetrable mask. Obviously he was a man of few words, content to let Ingmar of Bergen do most of the talking.
"Maybe you could have Cracow. Later," he said, sweating with wine and lies." But for now what matters is the recognition of Sweden as a major power in Europe. You saw the blow we gave Normandy. The world saw it. Their navy sunk, their armies killed in the field or drowned in the Öresund, and Halland ours again. Enough of a victory to consecrate our power, after the Bohemian Union. Yet we want more, still more."
"Dangerous."
"What? No. Just support us, I tell you. The Normandies will have no choice but to kiss our foot. Without foul play, this time. I tell you, there are rich times ahead for the kings of Sweden and their loyal dukes."
"How about the son ?"
"A boy of fifteen. By the time he gets his own nobles in line, we will have consolidated our position."
"And Burgundy ?"
"Charolles is a pudgy, effete courtesan, a harmless fool. The only time he gets his hands dirty is when using lace as a kerchief. I don't see him taking action."
"So."
"Trust me."
Ingmar smiled and reached out for Madeleine.
"Trust us. And it may be the last you hear of Normandy for your whole life."
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From the catalogue of the L. Museum
Kuipy (Normandy)
Roger VI's Act of Abdication (1595)
Few dates in Norman history matter as much as the 11th September 1595, when King Roger VI was forced to resign in the wake of the disastrous Swedish war. "Les petits cats foulés par une botte infâme"[1], as Maurice Richard would later put it, was a momentous event which was commented throughout Europe.
Although remembered as a period of blessed peace and prosperity, Roger V's forty-three year long reign saw a sharp decline in the military power of Normandy. Unchallenged in Europe, unrivaled in the New World, corruption, complacency and a general disdain for military matters undermined the grand army that had put and maintained Geoffroy V on the throne. By Roger VI's advenement the Norman military might was but the shadow of his former self, less an army in the traditional sense of the term than a collection of small ill-equipped local militias scattered throughout the empire.
my forces as developped by the AI : 1,000 man armies scattered over the Carribeans are fun.
King Roger's attitude toward this problem remains controversial. Some historians, such as Joseph de Mandeville, have presented him as weak, irresolute and largely passive. Some have stressed out his doubling of the Norman navy and his thorough reorganization of the Atlantic fleets as signs of his desire for change. Whatever efforts he undertook to reform his forces, however, were too little and too late. The Norman empire, unprotected and overextended, had become an easy pry which the Swedes were all too keen to take upon.
The previous decades had seen a dramatic improvement in the fortune of the Romer kings. After their inheritance of Greater Bohemia and Northern Sicily, the former Norman feals had become one of the Great powers in Europe, though they remained unrecognized as such. In 1588 Norman ingerrence in Southern Scandinavia, where the Cat Kingdom had taken over many former Icelandic holdings, provided them with a pretext to humiliate the Empire with a crushing victory.
For the onset Normandy was condemned, if not by its dramatic unpreparedness, then by its poor leadership and overconfidence ; numerous anecdotes illustrate that the conflict with Sweden, in its early stage, was not considered by the court in London as more than a small expedition against some uppity, second-tier state. Preparations for the imminent victory included fireworks, a grand ball and poetry pageants.
Reality, of course, was different ; by the middle of 1594 the Swedish losses amounted no more than 2,000, versus 37,000 Norman deaths, including 12,000 drowned in the disastrous sinking of the First Royal Fleet. Completely overwhelmed by the situation, Roger V could only offer to renounce all Norman claim to Halland and Scania, but the Swedes pushed for stronger and more humiliating terms, and in an unprecedented humiliation he had to sign this act, by which he ceded the throne to his underage son Robert IV. Tellingly, that last decree is signed, as witnesses, not only by the Norman peers but also by Henri de Charolles and Ignmar Romer, the French and Swedish legates.
If the Swedish-Norman war marked the high tide of Sweden hegemony, Roger's abdication, unpredictably, marks the beginning of its decline. Its harsh terms spread outrage throughout Europe, and the Romers found Halland and Scania less easy to rule than they had thought. In the merchant ports pro-Norman feelings ran strong, and when five years later Robert IV crushed the Swedes at Malmö and delivered them, he was hailed as a true liberator.
[1] The small cats trodden under a vile boot.
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Formation of France
(1541 – 1572)
After the death of Emperor Philippe II, Louis-Joseph II rose to power in Burgundy. His reign would mark a turning point for the nation of Burgundy as he was uninterested in formalities and tradition and intent on advancing the interests of the French people both at home and abroad.(1541 – 1572)
Louis-Joseph II`s first act was to refuse the title of Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. The title had lost its power and meaning hundreds of years before and Louis wanted Burgundy to focus on the future. He then poured his efforts into solidifying relations with the Duke of Orleans and in the year 1549, after the marriage of the crown prince Francois to the Duke`s daughter (as well as an important position in government for the Duke) the last of the great French Dukes agreed to annexation into Burgundy.
After years of preparation on March 15 1553 King Louis-Joseph II declared the nation of Burgundy was no more and the nation of France was reborn after centuries of being just another trophy title held by the de Provence family.
This change did not happen without some issues arising of course. The colonies in South America took the news poorly and there were several small rebellions in protest. The local garrisons were easily able to suppress the dissenters though and the change in name was quickly accepted when money from the state came pouring in to help build courthouses and constabularies.
With France’s internal problems coming to a close the nation started to look towards stabilizing the Austrian region. Mainz, Salzburg and Bavaria were all warned that should one attack the other France would intervene and their independence lost.
Bavaria decided to ignore the threat in 1554, declaring war on Salzburg. Both France and Holland declared war to support Salzburg and after less than a year Bavaria was defeated and divided equally amongst the three, with France receiving the province of Schwaben. The decisive response and punishment of Bavaria would ensure peace in the region for another quarter century.
Austrian Region after the war
Louis-Joseph II remaining eighteen years of rule would be spent encouraging colonization efforts in South America as well as establishing provincial constabularies to reduce crime. He would pass away Jan 16 1572.
Boo!
Becoming French after destroying the last remnants of the old West Frank Empire... quite silly.
It's more like that Hitlers Germany would have renamed the state Soviet Union would they have defeated them.
Becoming French after destroying the last remnants of the old West Frank Empire... quite silly.
It's more like that Hitlers Germany would have renamed the state Soviet Union would they have defeated them.