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plagerizing... eh? 
first the Comfy Chair... next your gonna have someone named Bob... there's nothing like an original
first the Comfy Chair... next your gonna have someone named Bob... there's nothing like an original
Gosh! Do you mean it might belong to someone else? Well if he wants it, he knows where to find it. He'd better have a kick-ass army if he wants to take it home with him though.
First post coming very soon (later today with luck). I'm also thrilled to say that I managed to grind my way all the way to the 1520's which means...PIRATES!...so you'll be seening an update to that one too. Complete w/ screen shots.
Well if he wants it, he knows where to find it. He'd better have a kick-ass army if he wants to take it home with him though.First post coming very soon (later today with luck). I'm also thrilled to say that I managed to grind my way all the way to the 1520's which means...PIRATES!...so you'll be seening an update to that one too. Complete w/ screen shots.
Is the Pirate aar coming from the same game as this one, then? (If so, it'll be interesting to see how they react to France's taking over the world )
)
A conversation with King Charles VI
Ile de France – January 1st, 1419 – just after midnight.
Portrait of Charles VI
The servant had brought the mulled wine and departed, never aware of my presence for I chose to conceal myself from him at the time, and Charles was now seated in a chair by the fire with a warm woollen blanket wrapped around his gaunt frame. He seemed to be drooling slightly, but maybe it was just the flickering light or unexpected backwash from the unusually shaped goblet.
He was not a well man; I could tell by the way he moved, the deep circles under his haunted eyes (and no, it wasn’t me...he had that haunted look before my appearance), by the silvering in his hair, the stoop to the shoulders, the laboured breathing. I had also heard rumours that not only he was not altogether well, but that he was also not altogether sane; but he seemed, at least for the present, to be fairly lucid. I decided to take advantage of this while it lasted.
“Charles, let me be blunt. Your kingdom is a mess.”
“No, no,” he insisted. Actually, he said “Non, non,” but for the sake of clarity I will translate this for you into modern English - as I will throughout the course of our story, for that matter.
“Come on now; face the facts. You’re at war. Your country has been at war for, what, about ninety years now? You started out with great, huge tracts of land and now you’re reduced to a piddling little assortments of states scattered here and there to the wind, while your enemies have made huge gains – particularly that foul bastard Englishman Henry the fifth. He holds practically the length of the Channel, and his ally Brittany holds most of the rest. If you lose Picardie, you lose your pathway to the coast.”
“But...”
“Now come now. There’s no denying it. Pick up that map on the table beside you and have a look at it for a change.”
“See the light blue provinces? That’s you – or what’s left of you rather. The red stuff? That’s English now. The dark blue is Bourgogne – they don’t like you. In fact, they’re also involved in the war and before you ask, they’re on Henry’s side. The green on the left? Brittany. Guess what. They don’t like you either. If it weren’t for the support of your vassals – that’s the grey, mauve and brown-looking ones in the middle and the little orange one at the bottom – you’d be nothing but dust and ashes right now. I can tell you’re not getting it. Here, let me see if I can colour it for you. I haven’t tried this before, but it might work.”
“Oh.”
“And if you bothered to pay any attention to your scouting reports you’d know that Henry and…now what’s his name?...oh yes...Bedford, two of the better military minds of our generation, are camped out practically beside you with over thirty thousand men in Caux. What have you got? Do you even know?”
“Well. Um...”
“Of course you don’t! You’ve got some no-name wet-behind-the-ears upstart colonel running the show in the north. The whole show I might add. And what’s he got? Nineteen!”
“He must have more than that.”
“Thousand you dolt! Nineteen thousand. Outnumbered almost two-to-one, ‘protect the capital’ you told him. No, don’t bother to deny it, I heard you just as clear as day when you told him last Saturday. ‘Protect the capital,’ you said and then you give him a whole nine thousand men to do it with while half of bloody England is on your doorstep. Nice going.”
“Well he does have some cavalry. That ought to cou...”
“Cavalry won’t count for shit! Especially with only four thousand of them, which is what you gave Richemont.”
“Richemont?”
“Your colonel, fool. Now I’ll admit the guy shows promise – if he survives your stupidity long enough – but you can’t expect him to perform miracles against someone like the despicable Henry. And trust me, calling it the Armée du Roi won’t amount to a hill of beans either. I mean it’s not like they’re going to march down the Seine, see a pathetic little force drawn up outside the gates of Paris, start their massive charge and then stop half way because ‘we can’t fight them, that’s the King’s army.’ Not likely. They’d probably just pummel them all the harder, laughing all the way.”
“There’s the southern army...”
“The southern army? The Armée d’Italie? A bunch of conscripts with tattered uniforms that have a big ‘X’ painted on the chest with the words ‘stab me here’ embroidered above it? You must be joking! Even if they were here the combined force would be hard pressed, but that’s a moot point. Perhaps you’ve forgotten already but there’s a country between them and us. A large, angry country. A country that not only doesn’t like you very much, but also a country that has Jean de Pressy at the head of a bare-bones minimum of fifteen thousand. Of course you could always order their colonel Bouillon to leave Languedoc and march them up here - leave the south completely devoid of an army, and fight his way through de Pressy and his men. By the time they arrived, if ever, I’m sure they’d be able to put themselves to good use burying bodies; they’d be your bodies, but at least they’d have something to do while Henry rapes your women, pillages your castle and strings you up by the balls from the highest flagpole. Meanwhile I’m sure those sixteen thousand men under Gloucester’s command in Gascogne would be content to have a nice game of cricket or something and leave your territories alone. Honestly, it’s dick heads like you that got me killed in the first place! In point of fact is was you, but we can save that discussion for another time.”
“But...”
“Oh and another thing: your economy. Yes it’s all very nice to be palsy-walsy with the gentry and all that, but have you ever once given any serious thought to the plight of the peasants? To the outfitting of your army? To the benefits of centralizing your power base to provide more efficient taxation and less wastage? No. I thought not. And all that mumbo-jumbo that you let those priests go on about? It’s one thing to be devout, but it’s another thing to bury your head in the sand. Keep that up and you’ll go the way of the dodo (once you discover them and slaughter them all needlessly). Now I will concede that you haven’t botched up the trade situation – though you might consider actually sending some merchants out to do some business once in a while - and you’ve struck a nice balance between offensive and defensive training. And I suppose one could argue for the devoting equal attention to the army and the navy...”
“The navy!”
“Don’t get your hopes up. I’m sure commodore Crussol is a very talented man, but he isn’t going to go very far with ten warships and a single transport. Not against the entire English navy. Besides, have you already forgotten that he doesn’t have anyone to carry anywhere? No, as it is he’s holed up in the docks at Vendée and isn’t going anywhere so why you insist on paying for full maintenance of the fleet is beyond me. They could do with half that amount and be at least as effective.”
“What about our Sc...”
“You’re going to say Scotland aren’t you? Well, that’s about the first intelligent word to come out of your mouth all night. Of course they’re allied with us and involved in the war as well. It’s true that Buchan Douglas might be able to do something if he got all twenty-five thousand of his kilt-wearing bagpipe-blowing wonders together and made a concerted effort; but you don’t have any reliable intelligence about what kind of forces the English have up there other than the fourteen thousand men under Beauchamp in Northumberland. Not to mention the mouton distraction value, but we’ll save that for another time too.”
While we’re on the topic, you also haven’t the foggiest notion how many of those Bretons are lurking up in Bretagne either; though on the plus side you do know that Auvergne’s got ninety-five hundred in the capital, Provence can give you another eight – yes, thousand - and the Bourbonnais have thirteen thousand in Berri. There’s no knowing what they’re going to do, though, so I wouldn’t count my poulets before they hatch.”
“How about bu...”
“Buying your way out? Ha, ha, hardy ha. You got a secret stash somewhere that I don’t know about? No? Well I know that they say that a franc goes a long way these days but, hating to burst your delusional bubble, they lie. No, four hundred francs isn’t going to buy you squat...unless you plan to sit here forever and get kicked around every five years, regardless of your sterling reputation. Besides, that’s not why I’m here. I’m here to lead you to glory, not watch you slink off into the shrubbery. No, Charles. What you, what the country needs is a firm guiding hand.”
“Now just wait a blo...”
“And I am that hand.”
“But. Wha...”
“Call your scribe in here. Tell him to bring a lot of parchment with him. He’ll need it. Oh, and tell him not to scream when he sees me. It hurts my ears.”
All things considered, the scribe held himself together remarkably well in light of being called into the King’s chambers in the middle of the night to be confronted by his rather wretched sovereign and the ghost of a former soldier in his majesty’s army.
I dictated the orders while Charles slumped back down in his chair and got rather thoroughly drunk. He’d accepted the situation, I suppose, or perhaps he just didn’t have the energy any longer. Seventy francs to recruit ten thousand infantry – all we could muster - in the capital; send that idle merchant who’s passed out drunk in front of the tavern down the street to set up shop in Flandern; tell Richemont to quick-march his men to Artois and move Bouillon's army to Guyenne; send our only available diplomat to enquire where his majesty Alfonso V of Argon might be interested in joining our alliance (not very likely but worth the effort); cut the navy’s pay in half; and send a letter to the Cardinal to ask that the French clergy preach Catholicism fervently to the masses and to hell with the Orthodox and Moslem types. Oh, and pray.
“That wasn’t a joke, young man.”
“No sir.”
“You may go now.”
“Yes sir.” He barely glanced at the king as he scuttled out of the room. Charles was, by now, almost comatose and I realised that dawn approached. I considered all I had accomplished that night and whether there was anything I had forgotten.
“Charles.”
“Charles!”
“CHARLES!”
“Mmmmmrrrph.”
“There’s one last thing before I leave you for the night.”
“Wha...”
“The peasants. You need to issue a new directive that enforces a slightly higher degree of freedom for them. They need to feel a little bit empowered; slightly more in control of their lives. This will improve their morale – particularly those of them that serve in the army – and they’ll work a little harder. Mind you it’ll take a bit of getting used to and you’ll have to pay them more to get them to join the army and stay in it, but it will be all worthwhile in the end.”
The king was beyond denying me now. Hmm. Perhaps a little something positive to leave him with?
“You know there’s another thing I forgot to mention: your son. He’s really quite an astute young man. I think he’ll really do wonders for the nation once you’re dead.”
For some reason, that didn’t seem to cheer him up all that much.
_____________________
In case any of that was too obtuse...
Starting DP settings: A-8, C-3, I-2, M-6, O-5, L-5, Q-4, S-8 – DP adjusted Serf to 7 on Jan. 1, 1419.
Religious tolerance settings: Catholic +10, Orthodox and Moslem at ~ -4 or something.
Monarch: Charles VI with mediocre 4/5/4
Leaders: None (generic land and naval is 2/2/2). The opposition seems to be stacked with them (England: Henry, Bedford, Gloucester, Beauchamp; Burgundy: Jean de Pressy; our only ally with one is Scotland: Buchan Douglas)
War: France, Auvergne, Bourbonnais, Orleans, Provence and Scotland vs England, Brittany and Burgundy.
Allies: All of the above-mentioned countries on my side.
Vassals: All of the above except Scotland.
Other things I didn’t mention (directly)...
Tech: Land (1), Naval (1), Trade (1), Infrastructure (0)
Stability: +1 (but of course that dropped to 0 after the DP adjust)
Support limits: Naval limit: 17 ships; Land limit: 37,000.
Land Maintenance: Land starts with 37,000 men (30,000/7,000/0) costing 1.3d/mo at 100%
Naval Maintenance: Naval starts with 11 ships (10/0/1) costing 1.2d/mo when I dropped it to 50%
Also you don’t actually know that Henry V is with Bedford until they start moving, but I figured that someone would have been keeping track of his whereabouts.
According to what I have read, Charles VI was clearly insane throughout a good chunk of his reign and in fact would not have been involved in any way with the direct rule of France at the time (check this out)...but for the purposes of this AAR, please excuse this (and future) excessive liberties I’m going to take with historical accuracy. As you will soon see, history and I diverge rather rapidly and certainly by 1423 we bear little resemblance to one another other than the scripted events and the now-mysterious appearance and disappearance of certain monarchs and leaders.
I’ll continue using this colour for in-story OOC.
To be continued...
Ile de France – January 1st, 1419 – just after midnight.
Portrait of Charles VI
The servant had brought the mulled wine and departed, never aware of my presence for I chose to conceal myself from him at the time, and Charles was now seated in a chair by the fire with a warm woollen blanket wrapped around his gaunt frame. He seemed to be drooling slightly, but maybe it was just the flickering light or unexpected backwash from the unusually shaped goblet.
He was not a well man; I could tell by the way he moved, the deep circles under his haunted eyes (and no, it wasn’t me...he had that haunted look before my appearance), by the silvering in his hair, the stoop to the shoulders, the laboured breathing. I had also heard rumours that not only he was not altogether well, but that he was also not altogether sane; but he seemed, at least for the present, to be fairly lucid. I decided to take advantage of this while it lasted.
“Charles, let me be blunt. Your kingdom is a mess.”
“No, no,” he insisted. Actually, he said “Non, non,” but for the sake of clarity I will translate this for you into modern English - as I will throughout the course of our story, for that matter.
“Come on now; face the facts. You’re at war. Your country has been at war for, what, about ninety years now? You started out with great, huge tracts of land and now you’re reduced to a piddling little assortments of states scattered here and there to the wind, while your enemies have made huge gains – particularly that foul bastard Englishman Henry the fifth. He holds practically the length of the Channel, and his ally Brittany holds most of the rest. If you lose Picardie, you lose your pathway to the coast.”
“But...”
“Now come now. There’s no denying it. Pick up that map on the table beside you and have a look at it for a change.”
“See the light blue provinces? That’s you – or what’s left of you rather. The red stuff? That’s English now. The dark blue is Bourgogne – they don’t like you. In fact, they’re also involved in the war and before you ask, they’re on Henry’s side. The green on the left? Brittany. Guess what. They don’t like you either. If it weren’t for the support of your vassals – that’s the grey, mauve and brown-looking ones in the middle and the little orange one at the bottom – you’d be nothing but dust and ashes right now. I can tell you’re not getting it. Here, let me see if I can colour it for you. I haven’t tried this before, but it might work.”
“Oh.”
“And if you bothered to pay any attention to your scouting reports you’d know that Henry and…now what’s his name?...oh yes...Bedford, two of the better military minds of our generation, are camped out practically beside you with over thirty thousand men in Caux. What have you got? Do you even know?”
“Well. Um...”
“Of course you don’t! You’ve got some no-name wet-behind-the-ears upstart colonel running the show in the north. The whole show I might add. And what’s he got? Nineteen!”
“He must have more than that.”
“Thousand you dolt! Nineteen thousand. Outnumbered almost two-to-one, ‘protect the capital’ you told him. No, don’t bother to deny it, I heard you just as clear as day when you told him last Saturday. ‘Protect the capital,’ you said and then you give him a whole nine thousand men to do it with while half of bloody England is on your doorstep. Nice going.”
“Well he does have some cavalry. That ought to cou...”
“Cavalry won’t count for shit! Especially with only four thousand of them, which is what you gave Richemont.”
“Richemont?”
“Your colonel, fool. Now I’ll admit the guy shows promise – if he survives your stupidity long enough – but you can’t expect him to perform miracles against someone like the despicable Henry. And trust me, calling it the Armée du Roi won’t amount to a hill of beans either. I mean it’s not like they’re going to march down the Seine, see a pathetic little force drawn up outside the gates of Paris, start their massive charge and then stop half way because ‘we can’t fight them, that’s the King’s army.’ Not likely. They’d probably just pummel them all the harder, laughing all the way.”
“There’s the southern army...”
“The southern army? The Armée d’Italie? A bunch of conscripts with tattered uniforms that have a big ‘X’ painted on the chest with the words ‘stab me here’ embroidered above it? You must be joking! Even if they were here the combined force would be hard pressed, but that’s a moot point. Perhaps you’ve forgotten already but there’s a country between them and us. A large, angry country. A country that not only doesn’t like you very much, but also a country that has Jean de Pressy at the head of a bare-bones minimum of fifteen thousand. Of course you could always order their colonel Bouillon to leave Languedoc and march them up here - leave the south completely devoid of an army, and fight his way through de Pressy and his men. By the time they arrived, if ever, I’m sure they’d be able to put themselves to good use burying bodies; they’d be your bodies, but at least they’d have something to do while Henry rapes your women, pillages your castle and strings you up by the balls from the highest flagpole. Meanwhile I’m sure those sixteen thousand men under Gloucester’s command in Gascogne would be content to have a nice game of cricket or something and leave your territories alone. Honestly, it’s dick heads like you that got me killed in the first place! In point of fact is was you, but we can save that discussion for another time.”
“But...”
“Oh and another thing: your economy. Yes it’s all very nice to be palsy-walsy with the gentry and all that, but have you ever once given any serious thought to the plight of the peasants? To the outfitting of your army? To the benefits of centralizing your power base to provide more efficient taxation and less wastage? No. I thought not. And all that mumbo-jumbo that you let those priests go on about? It’s one thing to be devout, but it’s another thing to bury your head in the sand. Keep that up and you’ll go the way of the dodo (once you discover them and slaughter them all needlessly). Now I will concede that you haven’t botched up the trade situation – though you might consider actually sending some merchants out to do some business once in a while - and you’ve struck a nice balance between offensive and defensive training. And I suppose one could argue for the devoting equal attention to the army and the navy...”
“The navy!”
“Don’t get your hopes up. I’m sure commodore Crussol is a very talented man, but he isn’t going to go very far with ten warships and a single transport. Not against the entire English navy. Besides, have you already forgotten that he doesn’t have anyone to carry anywhere? No, as it is he’s holed up in the docks at Vendée and isn’t going anywhere so why you insist on paying for full maintenance of the fleet is beyond me. They could do with half that amount and be at least as effective.”
“What about our Sc...”
“You’re going to say Scotland aren’t you? Well, that’s about the first intelligent word to come out of your mouth all night. Of course they’re allied with us and involved in the war as well. It’s true that Buchan Douglas might be able to do something if he got all twenty-five thousand of his kilt-wearing bagpipe-blowing wonders together and made a concerted effort; but you don’t have any reliable intelligence about what kind of forces the English have up there other than the fourteen thousand men under Beauchamp in Northumberland. Not to mention the mouton distraction value, but we’ll save that for another time too.”
While we’re on the topic, you also haven’t the foggiest notion how many of those Bretons are lurking up in Bretagne either; though on the plus side you do know that Auvergne’s got ninety-five hundred in the capital, Provence can give you another eight – yes, thousand - and the Bourbonnais have thirteen thousand in Berri. There’s no knowing what they’re going to do, though, so I wouldn’t count my poulets before they hatch.”
“How about bu...”
“Buying your way out? Ha, ha, hardy ha. You got a secret stash somewhere that I don’t know about? No? Well I know that they say that a franc goes a long way these days but, hating to burst your delusional bubble, they lie. No, four hundred francs isn’t going to buy you squat...unless you plan to sit here forever and get kicked around every five years, regardless of your sterling reputation. Besides, that’s not why I’m here. I’m here to lead you to glory, not watch you slink off into the shrubbery. No, Charles. What you, what the country needs is a firm guiding hand.”
“Now just wait a blo...”
“And I am that hand.”
“But. Wha...”
“Call your scribe in here. Tell him to bring a lot of parchment with him. He’ll need it. Oh, and tell him not to scream when he sees me. It hurts my ears.”
All things considered, the scribe held himself together remarkably well in light of being called into the King’s chambers in the middle of the night to be confronted by his rather wretched sovereign and the ghost of a former soldier in his majesty’s army.
I dictated the orders while Charles slumped back down in his chair and got rather thoroughly drunk. He’d accepted the situation, I suppose, or perhaps he just didn’t have the energy any longer. Seventy francs to recruit ten thousand infantry – all we could muster - in the capital; send that idle merchant who’s passed out drunk in front of the tavern down the street to set up shop in Flandern; tell Richemont to quick-march his men to Artois and move Bouillon's army to Guyenne; send our only available diplomat to enquire where his majesty Alfonso V of Argon might be interested in joining our alliance (not very likely but worth the effort); cut the navy’s pay in half; and send a letter to the Cardinal to ask that the French clergy preach Catholicism fervently to the masses and to hell with the Orthodox and Moslem types. Oh, and pray.
“That wasn’t a joke, young man.”
“No sir.”
“You may go now.”
“Yes sir.” He barely glanced at the king as he scuttled out of the room. Charles was, by now, almost comatose and I realised that dawn approached. I considered all I had accomplished that night and whether there was anything I had forgotten.
“Charles.”
“Charles!”
“CHARLES!”
“Mmmmmrrrph.”
“There’s one last thing before I leave you for the night.”
“Wha...”
“The peasants. You need to issue a new directive that enforces a slightly higher degree of freedom for them. They need to feel a little bit empowered; slightly more in control of their lives. This will improve their morale – particularly those of them that serve in the army – and they’ll work a little harder. Mind you it’ll take a bit of getting used to and you’ll have to pay them more to get them to join the army and stay in it, but it will be all worthwhile in the end.”
The king was beyond denying me now. Hmm. Perhaps a little something positive to leave him with?
“You know there’s another thing I forgot to mention: your son. He’s really quite an astute young man. I think he’ll really do wonders for the nation once you’re dead.”
For some reason, that didn’t seem to cheer him up all that much.
_____________________
In case any of that was too obtuse...
Starting DP settings: A-8, C-3, I-2, M-6, O-5, L-5, Q-4, S-8 – DP adjusted Serf to 7 on Jan. 1, 1419.
Religious tolerance settings: Catholic +10, Orthodox and Moslem at ~ -4 or something.
Monarch: Charles VI with mediocre 4/5/4
Leaders: None (generic land and naval is 2/2/2). The opposition seems to be stacked with them (England: Henry, Bedford, Gloucester, Beauchamp; Burgundy: Jean de Pressy; our only ally with one is Scotland: Buchan Douglas)
War: France, Auvergne, Bourbonnais, Orleans, Provence and Scotland vs England, Brittany and Burgundy.
Allies: All of the above-mentioned countries on my side.
Vassals: All of the above except Scotland.
Other things I didn’t mention (directly)...
Tech: Land (1), Naval (1), Trade (1), Infrastructure (0)
Stability: +1 (but of course that dropped to 0 after the DP adjust)
Support limits: Naval limit: 17 ships; Land limit: 37,000.
Land Maintenance: Land starts with 37,000 men (30,000/7,000/0) costing 1.3d/mo at 100%
Naval Maintenance: Naval starts with 11 ships (10/0/1) costing 1.2d/mo when I dropped it to 50%
Also you don’t actually know that Henry V is with Bedford until they start moving, but I figured that someone would have been keeping track of his whereabouts.
According to what I have read, Charles VI was clearly insane throughout a good chunk of his reign and in fact would not have been involved in any way with the direct rule of France at the time (check this out)...but for the purposes of this AAR, please excuse this (and future) excessive liberties I’m going to take with historical accuracy. As you will soon see, history and I diverge rather rapidly and certainly by 1423 we bear little resemblance to one another other than the scripted events and the now-mysterious appearance and disappearance of certain monarchs and leaders.
I’ll continue using this colour for in-story OOC.
To be continued...
Last edited:
Wow, this has started off well, if a little mean on the part of His Eminence , Jerome.
I just hope that the monarch isn't relegated to the background for the rest of the aar now that he's asserted control, I think it'd be more fun for him to interact with them (try having him maintain control over Mr. "I am the state" Louis XIV).
, Jerome.I just hope that the monarch isn't relegated to the background for the rest of the aar now that he's asserted control, I think it'd be more fun for him to interact with them (try having him maintain control over Mr. "I am the state" Louis XIV
).
Not to worry. Just trying to play a little historically with him. You'll notice he was completely out of it in both the intro and in this installment. Wait 'til Henry IV comes around! (9/9/9) Our friendly neighbourhood ghost will definitely be turning the tables on him.
Hey! My kind of army!
Nice flow there Mr - I'm Not really Sure Who the Other Mod is but if I Keep Naming Names I'll Get it Eventually - T.
As for Charles the Mad, hmmm. Reminds me of a certain event at a bridge in a place called Montereau that happened not so long ago...
Good work, sir!
What can i say MrT, you can't spell my name well but you write sure as the best of um. Mighty fine print to feast ones eyes on ill say. I dare not suggest these pages of brilliance are wlak induced Just a quality writer behind the pen, errr keyboard!
Just a quality writer behind the pen, errr keyboard!
Mad as a hatter
As long as you don't let Chuck get in the way, France should flourish under your ghostly hand
As long as you don't let Chuck get in the way, France should flourish under your ghostly hand
Just wait until 1422. Then your gibbering loony of a king will at least have a fighting chance against his own infant grandson (Henry VI), who will himself grow up to have bouts of gibbering lunacy.
See, this is why I love history.
Except, as far as we know, H6 won't have any disembodied spirits to guide him through the clutter of his own mind.
Oh yeah, good AAR by the way.
EF1
See, this is why I love history.
Except, as far as we know, H6 won't have any disembodied spirits to guide him through the clutter of his own mind.
Oh yeah, good AAR by the way.
EF1
1419
I spent the next few days hovering here and there around the country in nervous contemplation of what our enemies and allies might be up to. I had been disappointed by Aragon’s refusal to become embroiled in our war, but not surprised as their interests lay more in a pact of some sort with their Iberian neighbours, though they did not fully enter into an alliance with either of them as of yet.
Their various intents soon became apparent however. The English southern army made a B-line for Poitou, presumably intending to continue on to Vendée with the goal of capturing the city and forcing the ships out to sea where, no doubt, the English navy would make short work of them. For some unknown reason, a general by the name of Clarence had assumed command of the force instead of Gloucester. Henry V and Bedford began independent marches towards Normandy, though what there plans were after that remained a mystery. Jean de Pressy advanced on Orléanais.
Our allies, meanwhile, seemed to be working in concert as both the Bourbonnais and Orleans forces directed their attentions on Bourgogne. Buchan Douglas seemed to be marshalling his two armies in the Scottish capital in preparation for a push southwards into Northumberland. Everywhere there were rumours of massive recruitment projects.
News from the world at large also began to filter in. Aragon and Castile had both declared war on Granada, who was supported by Fez and Algiers – though it was unlikely that they would be a much assistance against the combined Iberian forces. Portugal, as well, was already involved in the conflict. To the east, Poland and Lithuania decided to test their mettle against the stalwart coalition of Prussia, the Teutonic Order, Mecklenburg, Pommern and Holstein; and Muscowy decided to have a go at Novgorod. The heathens of the Ottoman Empire decided to flex their muscles against the much smaller Candar in a blatantly opportunistic land-grab attempt.
On January 16th, Richemont’s Armée du Roi arrived in undefended Artois and, after detaching a suitable siege force, moved on with the balance of his army towards Flandern in the hopes that his allies would be able to preoccupy Burgundy in the south.
On the 18th, de Pressy was surprised to find himself fighting the combined armies of Orleans and Bourbonnais in Bourgogne. While he was now badly outnumbered, his enemy lacked the cohesion to rout him and after nearly two weeks of heavy fighting he prevailed and continued his march – though with a considerably smaller army than he had started with.
Bouillon arrived in Guyenne a day after the battle of Bourgogne began and was ordered to continue marching with all due haste towards Poitou to see of he could the English who were still marching from the south, having taken some additional time to cross the river in their march. With any luck he hope to catch them before they could press on to Vendée.
I began to find the whole dispatch-and-messenger system too slow as a means of communicating with the army and, in a series of night-time appearances, I made myself known to each of the commanders of the various French forces so that I might give them their orders directly. This, and a rather memorable performance in front of the nobility who were currently in charge of the budgetary concerns of the nation, would have a lasting impact on the viability of the country and its future success in the war effort.
On February 1st, Richemont rolled into Flandern and invested the city. Having yet to meet a single foe on the field, he once again left a portion of his force to maintain the siege and marched with the balance of the Armée du Roi towards Calais.
Henry V and Bedford had not been idle, though, and were now marching from Normandy to Orléanais which was essentially undefended – not that any army in the area could hope to stand against the two. The main army of Brittany had also been spotted in Morbihan, comprised of some 10,000 men.
The first major battle of the year involving a French army began on February 10th, where colonel Bouillon’s Armée d’Italie with 15,000 foot and 3,000 horse met and engaged a well-prepared English force of 14,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry commanded by general Clarence. The fields of Poitou would run red with blood for three weeks before it was all over.
Don’t ask me where the English got those canons or why they’re sporting a Brabant (?) pennent. Perhaps it was a cunning ruse to foil the French? It didn't work.
The final battle, on March 3rd, saw both armies on the brink of exhaustion and suffering from sagging morale. Perhaps it was the news filtering in about Charles VI’s recently announced domestic policy of increased freedom for peasants that gave the French infantry the extra incentive for the final push. Whatever the cause, Clarence’s men could not withstand their intensity and was forced to retreat back to Gascogne with about 11,430 survivors, while the still largely intact Armée d’Italie employed its 12,100 foot and 2,420 horse to lay siege to Poitou. Scouts were sent out to patrol the borders of the province and to give Bouillon advance notice of any enemy armies moving his way.
Nor had Richemont been idle. On the 15th of February he had halted his march upon arrival in Calais and already had the city under siege with his remaining 6,000 or so men. On the 1st of March, the newly recruited army of 10,000 infantry - which was named the Armée Royale - was immediately ordered to march from l’Ile de France to invest Caux. Their nominal leader, Gribeauval, seemed a bit nervous about the assignment but assured him that the path was clear and that Caux had no defences other than a small garrison in the provincial capital.
I heard news on the same day that the recruits were sent forth that Buchan Douglas had defeated Beauchamp in Northumberland and had the city encircled with his remaining 15,000 or so men. It had been a gory few weeks in the mountains and hills of the province.
On the same day as Bouillon’s victory over Clarence, Henry V’s army was already putting fire to the walls of Orleans.
I was, perhaps, overly confident at thes early stage of my involvement on behalf of France. Before my death I had been merely a noble under the dauphin’s command, and I was not used to battles on such a grand scale or in so many diverse parts of the realm. I was, therefore, unduly buoyed by the stunning victory in Piotou and the fact that we had no less than four – and soon to be five as the Armée Royale was due to arrive in Caux on March 16th – enemy cities under siege.
That was to change on March 10th as Burgandy reinforcements from Holland arrived to engage the siege force in Artois. They fielded some 10,000 men, of which 2,000 were cavalry, against the French contingent only slightly more than half their size. After the third day of battle I ordered them to make an orderly retreat to join the force at Flandern. There would be time, later, for Artois.
It was truly a shock when on March 23rd the wily Henry managed to convince Aragon to enter into an alliance with England and declare war on France and her vassals. This would drastically change the complexion of the war as Aragon fielded a rather impressive army in spite of the fact that, presumably, a portion of its attention was devoted to its war with Granada. There was nothing to be done about it, though, as all available forces would be needed in the north to confront the English monarch once he was done with Orleans.
In early April a small corps of 2,000 English recruits mustered from the city of Caux and engaged the much larger Armée Royale. Similarly, 2,000 English cavalry recruits made a daring gambit against Bouillon’s force in Poitou. Neither was successful, fortunately, and were summarily dispatched. For my part, I ordered 3,000 infantry to be recruited in Picardie to bolster our spread-out northern forces.
On April 8th, word came that Clarence had abandoned his idea of relieving Poitou and was marching on Rousillon instead. A few days later, Burgandy laid siege to Nivernais. This war, I decided, was a very long way from being over. It was time to sit back and watch; hoping that our sieges would progress with all due haste and that an army could be assembled in time to stop Henry. In some respects, this was my greatest blunder of the war. In others, it was the smartest thing I could have done under the circumstances. Adding to my worries, a contingent of some 35,000 Aragonese were now marching through the mountains towards our southern holdings.
On May 2nd. A thousand English horse that had been recruiting in Calais were immediately beset by our men. None survived, and a month later our own recruits in Picardie were sent to join the siege. In the dry heat of mid July the citizens of Calais had finally had enough and raised a white standard over the crumbling crenulations of the castle. Richemont called for them to immediately surrender the city and promised, in return, that none of the remaining inhabitants would be harmed. The terms were deemed acceptable and Richemont arranged for a small detachment to garrison the city while he assimilated the various smaller components of the army into a new, revitalized Armée du Roi. That night I ordered him to make all haste to Artois. I also ordered that 3,000 cavalry be recruited in Picardie as they would, I reasoned, be sorely needed when it came time to engage Henry.
News of the fall of Calais spread like wildfire throughout the realm, bolstering the stability of the newly reinvigorated regime and shaking the confidence of Henry’s allies. Within days both Aragon and Brittany had dispatched diplomats to the court of Charles VI and requested an immediate cessation of hostilities with no reparations or penalties to either side. The King was enjoying one of his more lucid days so I was able to let him greet the ambassadors personally and agree to their proposals.
Towards the end of July I noted that things were going well for Henry in Orleans, The city was probably only days from falling but he was suffering horribly from starvation and disease as both his own massive army as well as the forces from Burgundy were preoccupied with the siege – a full 51,000 men were reportedly involved as of July 20th, though that number would surely decline rapidly. Thus attrition was accomplishing something that the French armies dared not attempt.
In mid August Richemont arrived in Artois with the Armée du Roi and invested the city for the second time in the war. Even then, though, Orleans still held out against the English king; and Burgundy’s second army was still having trouble taking Nivernais. This was to continue for almost another month.
On September 11th, an ambassador from Burgundy arrived to deliver his country’s demand that Charles pay 25 francs in indemnities to secure peace. It was a reasonable proposal, I suppose, but the King was definitely having none of it and flew into a rage and slew the young noble. I don’t remember his name, now, but I do recall remarking to Charles that evening that Burgundy would likely take that as a “No”.
Perhaps in retribution for Charles’ act, the Burgundy force renewed its efforts against Nivernais and finally breached the walls on September 13th. The very few reports that filtered in were grim with the details of the subsequent atrocities visited upon the few surviving garrison and public. After sating their greed and lust, the Burgandy army marched southwards towards an as yet uncertain destination.
Five days later, Henry stormed the walls of Orleans, turned the city to flame, and put the ruling monarchy to the sword. By day’s end, Orleans had been annexed by England. The only positive note to come with the annihilation of one of our vassals was that the joint Burgundy and English armies tallied only 38,000, having lost over 16,000 to disease and starvation in the past two months alone. Strangely, Henry did not immediately order his troops to quit the troubled province and elected to sit there for the better part of a month while planning his next encounter.
The only remaining of our allies’ armies (other than Douglas’ army that was still reportedly besieging Northumberland in northern England) was a rather decent 20,000 or so Bourbonnais who were presently engaged in a siege of their own on Burgundy’s capital of Bourgogne.
The cooler and rainier days of October soon arrived and all eyes were on the unpredictable Henry. Would he advance on the French capital or would he do something else altogether. In a tent outside the walls of Artois, I spent several morbidly entertaining evenings with Richemont, of whom I was daily growing fonder as he had an astute mind and an instinctive knack for combat. The subject of our conversation varied from speculations about the English monarch’s plans to the chances of saving Paris from his massive army and the lunacy of our own King. I was certain he would advance on l’Ile de France. Richemont wasn’t so sure.
The mystery was resolved on October 16th as Henry pulled up his stakes and began marching towards Maine. Of all the...
The newly recruited horse in Picardie were sent to assist in Flandern on October 28th, and I settled back into a wait-and-see attitude as I considered how to best deal with the English ruler. As I was doing so, news filtered down through diplomatic channels that Brittany had cancelled its vassalization under England. I immediately sent our own diplomats to arrange a royal marriage with the feisty little nation, even though I knew that my long term goals would include bringing them under French rule. Perhaps with the right words, a sufficient amount of bribery, and a great deal of patience I could convince them to do so without going through the unnecessary bloodshed of war.
Good news arrived on December 1st in the form of a messenger from Flandern who announced to everyone he could find that the city had fallen and that unless the army received further orders it was their intention to move on to Zeeland. I saw no objection to their commander’s plan and gave it my whole-hearted support. I also congratulated him on a job well done.
A day later Henry V sent a messenger of his own. This time the man stayed out of bowshot, just beyond the city walls, and delivered the hated king’s message in a loud voice.
“Be it known that his Majesty, Henry the Fifth, King of England, Prince of...”
“What’s your bloody message, dog," Edwards screamed back out over the walls. Definitely not one of his better days.
“Er...I bear eighty-four pieces of gold and an offer of peace.”
“Sod off you bastard. You’re going to lose a lot more than a handful of gold! Guards, send a detachment of horse to decapitate that man. Immediately!”
The English emissary turned tail and fled.
I spent the next few days hovering here and there around the country in nervous contemplation of what our enemies and allies might be up to. I had been disappointed by Aragon’s refusal to become embroiled in our war, but not surprised as their interests lay more in a pact of some sort with their Iberian neighbours, though they did not fully enter into an alliance with either of them as of yet.
Their various intents soon became apparent however. The English southern army made a B-line for Poitou, presumably intending to continue on to Vendée with the goal of capturing the city and forcing the ships out to sea where, no doubt, the English navy would make short work of them. For some unknown reason, a general by the name of Clarence had assumed command of the force instead of Gloucester. Henry V and Bedford began independent marches towards Normandy, though what there plans were after that remained a mystery. Jean de Pressy advanced on Orléanais.
Our allies, meanwhile, seemed to be working in concert as both the Bourbonnais and Orleans forces directed their attentions on Bourgogne. Buchan Douglas seemed to be marshalling his two armies in the Scottish capital in preparation for a push southwards into Northumberland. Everywhere there were rumours of massive recruitment projects.
News from the world at large also began to filter in. Aragon and Castile had both declared war on Granada, who was supported by Fez and Algiers – though it was unlikely that they would be a much assistance against the combined Iberian forces. Portugal, as well, was already involved in the conflict. To the east, Poland and Lithuania decided to test their mettle against the stalwart coalition of Prussia, the Teutonic Order, Mecklenburg, Pommern and Holstein; and Muscowy decided to have a go at Novgorod. The heathens of the Ottoman Empire decided to flex their muscles against the much smaller Candar in a blatantly opportunistic land-grab attempt.
On January 16th, Richemont’s Armée du Roi arrived in undefended Artois and, after detaching a suitable siege force, moved on with the balance of his army towards Flandern in the hopes that his allies would be able to preoccupy Burgundy in the south.
On the 18th, de Pressy was surprised to find himself fighting the combined armies of Orleans and Bourbonnais in Bourgogne. While he was now badly outnumbered, his enemy lacked the cohesion to rout him and after nearly two weeks of heavy fighting he prevailed and continued his march – though with a considerably smaller army than he had started with.
Bouillon arrived in Guyenne a day after the battle of Bourgogne began and was ordered to continue marching with all due haste towards Poitou to see of he could the English who were still marching from the south, having taken some additional time to cross the river in their march. With any luck he hope to catch them before they could press on to Vendée.
I began to find the whole dispatch-and-messenger system too slow as a means of communicating with the army and, in a series of night-time appearances, I made myself known to each of the commanders of the various French forces so that I might give them their orders directly. This, and a rather memorable performance in front of the nobility who were currently in charge of the budgetary concerns of the nation, would have a lasting impact on the viability of the country and its future success in the war effort.
On February 1st, Richemont rolled into Flandern and invested the city. Having yet to meet a single foe on the field, he once again left a portion of his force to maintain the siege and marched with the balance of the Armée du Roi towards Calais.
Henry V and Bedford had not been idle, though, and were now marching from Normandy to Orléanais which was essentially undefended – not that any army in the area could hope to stand against the two. The main army of Brittany had also been spotted in Morbihan, comprised of some 10,000 men.
The first major battle of the year involving a French army began on February 10th, where colonel Bouillon’s Armée d’Italie with 15,000 foot and 3,000 horse met and engaged a well-prepared English force of 14,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry commanded by general Clarence. The fields of Poitou would run red with blood for three weeks before it was all over.
Don’t ask me where the English got those canons or why they’re sporting a Brabant (?) pennent. Perhaps it was a cunning ruse to foil the French?
It didn't work.The final battle, on March 3rd, saw both armies on the brink of exhaustion and suffering from sagging morale. Perhaps it was the news filtering in about Charles VI’s recently announced domestic policy of increased freedom for peasants that gave the French infantry the extra incentive for the final push. Whatever the cause, Clarence’s men could not withstand their intensity and was forced to retreat back to Gascogne with about 11,430 survivors, while the still largely intact Armée d’Italie employed its 12,100 foot and 2,420 horse to lay siege to Poitou. Scouts were sent out to patrol the borders of the province and to give Bouillon advance notice of any enemy armies moving his way.
Nor had Richemont been idle. On the 15th of February he had halted his march upon arrival in Calais and already had the city under siege with his remaining 6,000 or so men. On the 1st of March, the newly recruited army of 10,000 infantry - which was named the Armée Royale - was immediately ordered to march from l’Ile de France to invest Caux. Their nominal leader, Gribeauval, seemed a bit nervous about the assignment but assured him that the path was clear and that Caux had no defences other than a small garrison in the provincial capital.
I heard news on the same day that the recruits were sent forth that Buchan Douglas had defeated Beauchamp in Northumberland and had the city encircled with his remaining 15,000 or so men. It had been a gory few weeks in the mountains and hills of the province.
On the same day as Bouillon’s victory over Clarence, Henry V’s army was already putting fire to the walls of Orleans.
I was, perhaps, overly confident at thes early stage of my involvement on behalf of France. Before my death I had been merely a noble under the dauphin’s command, and I was not used to battles on such a grand scale or in so many diverse parts of the realm. I was, therefore, unduly buoyed by the stunning victory in Piotou and the fact that we had no less than four – and soon to be five as the Armée Royale was due to arrive in Caux on March 16th – enemy cities under siege.
That was to change on March 10th as Burgandy reinforcements from Holland arrived to engage the siege force in Artois. They fielded some 10,000 men, of which 2,000 were cavalry, against the French contingent only slightly more than half their size. After the third day of battle I ordered them to make an orderly retreat to join the force at Flandern. There would be time, later, for Artois.
It was truly a shock when on March 23rd the wily Henry managed to convince Aragon to enter into an alliance with England and declare war on France and her vassals. This would drastically change the complexion of the war as Aragon fielded a rather impressive army in spite of the fact that, presumably, a portion of its attention was devoted to its war with Granada. There was nothing to be done about it, though, as all available forces would be needed in the north to confront the English monarch once he was done with Orleans.
In early April a small corps of 2,000 English recruits mustered from the city of Caux and engaged the much larger Armée Royale. Similarly, 2,000 English cavalry recruits made a daring gambit against Bouillon’s force in Poitou. Neither was successful, fortunately, and were summarily dispatched. For my part, I ordered 3,000 infantry to be recruited in Picardie to bolster our spread-out northern forces.
On April 8th, word came that Clarence had abandoned his idea of relieving Poitou and was marching on Rousillon instead. A few days later, Burgandy laid siege to Nivernais. This war, I decided, was a very long way from being over. It was time to sit back and watch; hoping that our sieges would progress with all due haste and that an army could be assembled in time to stop Henry. In some respects, this was my greatest blunder of the war. In others, it was the smartest thing I could have done under the circumstances. Adding to my worries, a contingent of some 35,000 Aragonese were now marching through the mountains towards our southern holdings.
On May 2nd. A thousand English horse that had been recruiting in Calais were immediately beset by our men. None survived, and a month later our own recruits in Picardie were sent to join the siege. In the dry heat of mid July the citizens of Calais had finally had enough and raised a white standard over the crumbling crenulations of the castle. Richemont called for them to immediately surrender the city and promised, in return, that none of the remaining inhabitants would be harmed. The terms were deemed acceptable and Richemont arranged for a small detachment to garrison the city while he assimilated the various smaller components of the army into a new, revitalized Armée du Roi. That night I ordered him to make all haste to Artois. I also ordered that 3,000 cavalry be recruited in Picardie as they would, I reasoned, be sorely needed when it came time to engage Henry.
News of the fall of Calais spread like wildfire throughout the realm, bolstering the stability of the newly reinvigorated regime and shaking the confidence of Henry’s allies. Within days both Aragon and Brittany had dispatched diplomats to the court of Charles VI and requested an immediate cessation of hostilities with no reparations or penalties to either side. The King was enjoying one of his more lucid days so I was able to let him greet the ambassadors personally and agree to their proposals.
Towards the end of July I noted that things were going well for Henry in Orleans, The city was probably only days from falling but he was suffering horribly from starvation and disease as both his own massive army as well as the forces from Burgundy were preoccupied with the siege – a full 51,000 men were reportedly involved as of July 20th, though that number would surely decline rapidly. Thus attrition was accomplishing something that the French armies dared not attempt.
In mid August Richemont arrived in Artois with the Armée du Roi and invested the city for the second time in the war. Even then, though, Orleans still held out against the English king; and Burgundy’s second army was still having trouble taking Nivernais. This was to continue for almost another month.
On September 11th, an ambassador from Burgundy arrived to deliver his country’s demand that Charles pay 25 francs in indemnities to secure peace. It was a reasonable proposal, I suppose, but the King was definitely having none of it and flew into a rage and slew the young noble. I don’t remember his name, now, but I do recall remarking to Charles that evening that Burgundy would likely take that as a “No”.
Perhaps in retribution for Charles’ act, the Burgundy force renewed its efforts against Nivernais and finally breached the walls on September 13th. The very few reports that filtered in were grim with the details of the subsequent atrocities visited upon the few surviving garrison and public. After sating their greed and lust, the Burgandy army marched southwards towards an as yet uncertain destination.
Five days later, Henry stormed the walls of Orleans, turned the city to flame, and put the ruling monarchy to the sword. By day’s end, Orleans had been annexed by England. The only positive note to come with the annihilation of one of our vassals was that the joint Burgundy and English armies tallied only 38,000, having lost over 16,000 to disease and starvation in the past two months alone. Strangely, Henry did not immediately order his troops to quit the troubled province and elected to sit there for the better part of a month while planning his next encounter.
The only remaining of our allies’ armies (other than Douglas’ army that was still reportedly besieging Northumberland in northern England) was a rather decent 20,000 or so Bourbonnais who were presently engaged in a siege of their own on Burgundy’s capital of Bourgogne.
The cooler and rainier days of October soon arrived and all eyes were on the unpredictable Henry. Would he advance on the French capital or would he do something else altogether. In a tent outside the walls of Artois, I spent several morbidly entertaining evenings with Richemont, of whom I was daily growing fonder as he had an astute mind and an instinctive knack for combat. The subject of our conversation varied from speculations about the English monarch’s plans to the chances of saving Paris from his massive army and the lunacy of our own King. I was certain he would advance on l’Ile de France. Richemont wasn’t so sure.
The mystery was resolved on October 16th as Henry pulled up his stakes and began marching towards Maine. Of all the...
The newly recruited horse in Picardie were sent to assist in Flandern on October 28th, and I settled back into a wait-and-see attitude as I considered how to best deal with the English ruler. As I was doing so, news filtered down through diplomatic channels that Brittany had cancelled its vassalization under England. I immediately sent our own diplomats to arrange a royal marriage with the feisty little nation, even though I knew that my long term goals would include bringing them under French rule. Perhaps with the right words, a sufficient amount of bribery, and a great deal of patience I could convince them to do so without going through the unnecessary bloodshed of war.
Good news arrived on December 1st in the form of a messenger from Flandern who announced to everyone he could find that the city had fallen and that unless the army received further orders it was their intention to move on to Zeeland. I saw no objection to their commander’s plan and gave it my whole-hearted support. I also congratulated him on a job well done.
A day later Henry V sent a messenger of his own. This time the man stayed out of bowshot, just beyond the city walls, and delivered the hated king’s message in a loud voice.
“Be it known that his Majesty, Henry the Fifth, King of England, Prince of...”
“What’s your bloody message, dog," Edwards screamed back out over the walls. Definitely not one of his better days.
“Er...I bear eighty-four pieces of gold and an offer of peace.”
“Sod off you bastard. You’re going to lose a lot more than a handful of gold! Guards, send a detachment of horse to decapitate that man. Immediately!”
The English emissary turned tail and fled.
1420 - 1421
As New Year’s day dawned in 1420, the army had finished its month-long march from the still smoking ruins of Flandern and arrived in Zeeland to be greeted by the sight of some 2,000 enemy cavalry recruits. It took two days to track them down and put them to the sword, but after that the experienced army rapidly invested the provincial capital. By now they numbered some 7,650 foot and 5135 horse and had every expectation that they could hold out against almost nay force that Burgundy might send their way. The city was well-fortified and well-supplied so they began to lay bets as to just how long it would take before the city surrendered.
The Armée Royale managed to wrest Caux from English hands on February 15th and immediately departed for Nivernais to test the will of the few Englishmen that Henry V had left there in garrison. A few days later, an unarmed and very lightly dressed messenger arrived at the gates of Paris mounted on a gorgeous black thoroughbred. He waived a bag that contained, so he purported, 115 in gold; received about as welcome a reception as his predecessor; then disappeared on the magnificent beast at a full gallop that none of the king’s guards’ mounts could hope to match. Thus he avoided the fate of the previous messenger who’s rotting head was still skewered on a pike near the gate.
On February 19th, Burgundy carelessly threw 1,000 infantry against the siege force in Zeeland. They didn’t last a day. Realising, though, that I had enough men to maintain this siege and advance the balance on Holland, I ordered this shift in our northern strategy on February 22nd. These would arrive one month hence.
In Ile de France, I issued recruitment orders for another 8,000 infantry, and returned to my preoccupation with the various sieges. On my birthday (March 26th) as it happened, Henry V took Maine and I was again seized with a certain dread as to where he might march next; though his force had now been whittled down to a much more manageable size and he would have a great deal of difficulty in obtaining more since virtually all of his continental possessions were either captured or under siege.
On April 1st, a young administrative assistant came to see Charles VI. As it happened, I was also there to hear his words. It appeared that he had been giving a great deal of thought to the King’s current methods of collecting the annual census tax and had devised a scheme whereby the local bailiffs might perform the task far more efficiently. The up-front cost would be in the order of 50 francs to get the bailiff up to speed, but after that he would be able to milk the tax revenues from the province much more efficiently.
Charles was in an unpredictable mood – perhaps he thought it was a joke - and I could see him beginning to muster up the energy to draw his sword and hack the lad to pieces. At that moment I determined to mace an appearance and the terrified youth fled screaming from the study. The next day I decided to try out this administrator’s idea by commissioning the bailiff of Ile de France to become the nation’s first tax collector. What do you know? It worked!
About two weeks later, Artois fell to Richemont’s army (I was really beginning to like that guy). I gave him instructions to go and help with Nivernais since I had concerns about allowing Burgundy to control too much territory. On May 1st, the 8,000 new infantry recruits were also sent to join Richemont.
I felt that we were still on the defensive and that we couldn’t contend with both the English and the two armies of Burgundy, so when the latter sent a rather daring diplomat to brave King Charles’ wrath on May 4th, he was met by the French senior foreign secretary who explained (lying through his teeth) that the king was indisposed today and had authorized him to conduct all negotiations in his stead. The Burgundy emissary was clearly surprised that an underling would be given such an undertaking but presented his terms nonetheless: Burgundy would offer to pay indemnities of 143 gold to France and her allies, in whatever denomination was deemed appropriate, and that would be the end of it.
We accepted the terms and agreed to the peace. Suddenly, Henry was all alone in the war.
Immediately all of our armies that had been involved with the various sieges of Burgundian (or Burgundy-held) cities were ordered to converge on Ile de France to reassemble into a cohesive fighting force. Henry V had disappeared and none of the scouts knew precisely where he was, though Bedford was reported to strike camp and begin marching on Poitou with some 21,000 that remained to him. Speculation ran rampant that Henry was with him but there remained no confirmation. Our siege force numbered some 16,500 and were ordered to hold fast, maintain the siege, and then test the enemy’s resolve. If hard pressed or in danger of taking substantial losses, they were to withdraw.
It appeared that the enemy force was split, since the first component of it arrived (under Bedford) on May 26th. This small corps was the vanguard of the main army and Bouillon stood fast to try to inflict some damage on the general’s force. For three days his 12,080 foot and 2420 horse inflicted punishing attacks against the much smaller force and sustained only light casualties; but on May 23rd the main force joined the battle and all of a sudden Bouillon was outnumbered by the 17,250 English infantry and nearly 4,100 cavalry. Hoping that the morale of the joint force would cause them to break in spite of their numerical superiority, Bouillon held out for another ten days before finally admitting that he could not hold back the enemy and ordered his troops to withdraw under cover of darkness. Only 5,800 infantry and 1,160 cavalry made it back to Vendée, and there were reliable reports that Bedford had begun to chase him only a day or so after the disengagement.
The mystery remained. Where was Henry? The answer came as a surprise when the English monarch was sighted in Orleanais on June 13th. Better yet, the report suggested that he had only 2050 men remaining under his command. Immediately I sent the young ingénue Richemont - who had been waiting for all of the armies returning from Zeeland, Holland and so on – to take every available man currently assembled at l’Ile de France and march with all haste to engage the vulnerable monarch.
On June 24th, Bouillon arrived with his badly mauled force in Vendée and I urged him to make all possible haste to continue on to Maine. Only a day or two later, however, he was engaged once again by Bedford but managed to execute an immediate withdrawal from the field without sustaining more than one or two hundred casualties – his rear guard who had all volunteered for the mission knowing that their certain death would give their comrades a chance to escape. Bedford, after wiping out the rearguard, seemed disinclined to pursue them into Maine, though why the general showed such reluctance will forever remain a mystery. Bouillon, upon arriving in Maine on July 18th, decided to lay siege to the enemy-held city and keep a watchful eye on Bedford’s next move. The English general, it appeared, was content to lay siege to the French city.
On the very same day Richemont was having difficulty catching up to the fast-moving Henry. Arriving only a day or two too late in Orleanais, he detached a force sufficiently large to besiege the city and the balance moved on the Henry’s current position in Berri. August 10th sees Richemont again miss Henry in Berri and press on to Poitou where the monarch seemed to be attempting to board unseen transport vessels lying off the coast. While this chase was going on, de Valois arrived back from Holland and was dispatched to lay siege to Normandie.
Finally, on September 2nd, 1420, Richemont caught Henry V on the shores of Poitou. The English monarch had 2032 exhausted cavalry – all that remained of his once great army (though, of course, Bedford was not all that far away with a decent-sized army). By comparison, Richemont was at the head of 18,723 foot and 3,219 horse. Unable to restrain his men from their retributive zeal, the battle was an utter rout and by day’s end, the English monarch is dead.
Sadly, Richemont sent word to the capital, left a siege force in Poitou and marched with the balance of the men back to Berri. Within days, Normandie was also under de Valois’ siege, and word came from Scotland that Buchan Douglas had finally taken Northumberland and had retired back to Strathclyde to assemble a new force. He had perhaps 31,000 men at his disposal all told, but seemed curiously reluctant to use them to press deeper into the English heartland. England, however, had already initiated a siege to retake their northern city with some 12,500 men. Douglas just stood by and watched.
On October 3rd, Richemont split his force in half and sent half to Maine and the other half to Orleans to assist with the sieges. A month later, 6,000 infantry recruits who had been conscripted in Guyenne in September were ordered to march to Gascogne to besiege that city.
As the year gradually came to a close, I had our diplomats arrange a couple of royal marriages – one with the price of Savoy, and the other with the princess of Aragon. With any luck this would deter them from any possible hostility once this war drew to a close. There was still Bedford to contend with, though reports suggested that Vendée could still hold out for at least another nine months. Maine and Orleans, though, should soon be in our grasp.
***
1421
I discovered that the folks in England had pulled a rather surprising domestic move. Rather than admit to the public that their monarch had been hacked to death by the French army on the field of Poitou, it appeared that a fraud was being perpetrated on the masses by setting up a puppet “Henry V” on the throne. I was not certain who the pretender was, but I had seen conclusive evidence that the real Henry V was, indeed, dead. Nevertheless, they clung to their misconception (though the puppet never dared show his face on the field of battle) and a messenger dutifully offered their latest bribery attempt on January 10th, 1421. This time the sack of gold he carried was larger – some 170 gold coins, he said – but he met with an icy foreign minister who declined his pathetic attempt at peace.
In early February I received news that Orleans had been captured by our forces and these worthies were ordered to Berri to await further orders. Six thousand new cavalry were recruited in Guyenne a few weeks later in preparation for taking care of the only remaining thorn in our continental sides – General Bedford at the siege of Vendée.
As this recruitment process was going on, I discovered that a certain corrupt minor functionary had been embezzling funds from the state treasury to the tune of some 100 francs. I exposed the individual and Charles had him skinned alive in a public square before being drawn and quartered. This, I felt, was a bit overboard and certainly the public sentiment echoed my evaluation as the stability of the country took a noticeable dip. On the other hand the only alternative would have been to quietly let the bastard go on about his affairs and this would have resulted in a minimum of about a 10% hike in inflation. Given the choices, it was an easy decision to make.
By May 2nd, Vendée was looking the worse for wear and I feared that it would soon fall to Bedford’s men. As this would result in the French fleet being forced out to sea, I ordered that full maintenance be paid from now on to the navy. They might see some action in this war after all. Meanwhile I would see what I could do to arrange to dislodge the English army.
The French compliment besieging Maine was reduced to minimum levels and the balance were ordered to Berri. A week later, we received some welcomed assistance in the siege of Poitou as a large number of Bourbonnais infantry arrived to join in the fun. Still another ten days later, Maine fell to a concerted effort from our army and is returned to its rightful owner: Provence. The French army was ordered to Berri as well. By May 20th, the newly recruited cavalry was also riding as quickly as possible to the rallying point.
On June 19th, Richemont assembled the various small corps into the latest edition of the Armée du Roi. He now counted 24,227 foot and 9,563 horse and we conferred as to how best to engage the enemy general. A straight-on approach seemed best, and off he marched to meet his foe.
The two armies clashed in the forests in the First Battle Vendée on July 7th. Richemont had lost a handful of men in the forced march but he still had more than 32,000 in comparison to Bedford’s 15,968 infantry and 3,816 cavalry. The general lived up to his reputation, though, breaking Richemont’s army after nine days of vicious hand-to-hand combat. Richmont’s army eventually fled the field and retreated to Berri to nurse its wounds.
His shame at being defeated was manifest on his expression when I visited in late July. I consoled him with the knowledge that, thought the battle was lost, the war was not. He could still field over 25,000 and would enjoy reinforcements if required. Bedford only had 10,500 and no hope of supply or reinforcement. By August 19th, Richemont felt prepared to have another go at the Englishman.
The Second Battle Vendée began on September 7th, with Richemont trying to press his numerical advantage over Bedford. Over the course of two weeks the French slew almost half the English army, but were again forced back to Berri to regroup. Happily, Richemont’s losses numbered less than 2,500.
Even as Richemont’s army retreated, Bedford’s men breached the walls of Poitou and forced the fleet out to sea. His force seemed exhausted at the effort, though, and he appeared content to sit there and regroup for a while. The
In the north the Armée Royale was busy with a siege of its own, finally capturing Normandie on the 16th of October. After securing the city with a garrison of Frenchmen, the balance of the army returned to l’Ile de France to the wild adulation of the public.
Richemont felt ready to once again test the resolve of the English army and marched back into the province to begin the Third Battle Vendée. The first skirmishes were on November 4th, but the real battle lasted only a single day, the 7th, when Richemont finally managed to outflank the general’s weakened army and after that it was a forgone conclusion. By nightfall, the General was dead and the English army annihilated.
Richemont laid siege to the city and sent signals to Commodore Crussol to stand to for as long as he could while his men would try to recapture the city and the docks.
Poitou finally fell to the combined French and Bourbonnais siege force on December 3rd, with the French claiming the city by virtue of having been involved with the siege for much longer. The had little chance to rest on their laurels, though, as they were ordered to leave the next day to assist in the efforts being directed against Gascogne.
The last action seen in the year was the attack made by a squadron of nine English warships and six English transports against Crussol’s ten warships and one transport in Quiberon Bay just off Vendée. They were still in close engagement as a new page was turned on the calendar to welcome in the year 1422.
As New Year’s day dawned in 1420, the army had finished its month-long march from the still smoking ruins of Flandern and arrived in Zeeland to be greeted by the sight of some 2,000 enemy cavalry recruits. It took two days to track them down and put them to the sword, but after that the experienced army rapidly invested the provincial capital. By now they numbered some 7,650 foot and 5135 horse and had every expectation that they could hold out against almost nay force that Burgundy might send their way. The city was well-fortified and well-supplied so they began to lay bets as to just how long it would take before the city surrendered.
The Armée Royale managed to wrest Caux from English hands on February 15th and immediately departed for Nivernais to test the will of the few Englishmen that Henry V had left there in garrison. A few days later, an unarmed and very lightly dressed messenger arrived at the gates of Paris mounted on a gorgeous black thoroughbred. He waived a bag that contained, so he purported, 115 in gold; received about as welcome a reception as his predecessor; then disappeared on the magnificent beast at a full gallop that none of the king’s guards’ mounts could hope to match. Thus he avoided the fate of the previous messenger who’s rotting head was still skewered on a pike near the gate.
On February 19th, Burgundy carelessly threw 1,000 infantry against the siege force in Zeeland. They didn’t last a day. Realising, though, that I had enough men to maintain this siege and advance the balance on Holland, I ordered this shift in our northern strategy on February 22nd. These would arrive one month hence.
In Ile de France, I issued recruitment orders for another 8,000 infantry, and returned to my preoccupation with the various sieges. On my birthday (March 26th) as it happened, Henry V took Maine and I was again seized with a certain dread as to where he might march next; though his force had now been whittled down to a much more manageable size and he would have a great deal of difficulty in obtaining more since virtually all of his continental possessions were either captured or under siege.
On April 1st, a young administrative assistant came to see Charles VI. As it happened, I was also there to hear his words. It appeared that he had been giving a great deal of thought to the King’s current methods of collecting the annual census tax and had devised a scheme whereby the local bailiffs might perform the task far more efficiently. The up-front cost would be in the order of 50 francs to get the bailiff up to speed, but after that he would be able to milk the tax revenues from the province much more efficiently.
Charles was in an unpredictable mood – perhaps he thought it was a joke - and I could see him beginning to muster up the energy to draw his sword and hack the lad to pieces. At that moment I determined to mace an appearance and the terrified youth fled screaming from the study. The next day I decided to try out this administrator’s idea by commissioning the bailiff of Ile de France to become the nation’s first tax collector. What do you know? It worked!
About two weeks later, Artois fell to Richemont’s army (I was really beginning to like that guy). I gave him instructions to go and help with Nivernais since I had concerns about allowing Burgundy to control too much territory. On May 1st, the 8,000 new infantry recruits were also sent to join Richemont.
I felt that we were still on the defensive and that we couldn’t contend with both the English and the two armies of Burgundy, so when the latter sent a rather daring diplomat to brave King Charles’ wrath on May 4th, he was met by the French senior foreign secretary who explained (lying through his teeth) that the king was indisposed today and had authorized him to conduct all negotiations in his stead. The Burgundy emissary was clearly surprised that an underling would be given such an undertaking but presented his terms nonetheless: Burgundy would offer to pay indemnities of 143 gold to France and her allies, in whatever denomination was deemed appropriate, and that would be the end of it.
We accepted the terms and agreed to the peace. Suddenly, Henry was all alone in the war.
Immediately all of our armies that had been involved with the various sieges of Burgundian (or Burgundy-held) cities were ordered to converge on Ile de France to reassemble into a cohesive fighting force. Henry V had disappeared and none of the scouts knew precisely where he was, though Bedford was reported to strike camp and begin marching on Poitou with some 21,000 that remained to him. Speculation ran rampant that Henry was with him but there remained no confirmation. Our siege force numbered some 16,500 and were ordered to hold fast, maintain the siege, and then test the enemy’s resolve. If hard pressed or in danger of taking substantial losses, they were to withdraw.
It appeared that the enemy force was split, since the first component of it arrived (under Bedford) on May 26th. This small corps was the vanguard of the main army and Bouillon stood fast to try to inflict some damage on the general’s force. For three days his 12,080 foot and 2420 horse inflicted punishing attacks against the much smaller force and sustained only light casualties; but on May 23rd the main force joined the battle and all of a sudden Bouillon was outnumbered by the 17,250 English infantry and nearly 4,100 cavalry. Hoping that the morale of the joint force would cause them to break in spite of their numerical superiority, Bouillon held out for another ten days before finally admitting that he could not hold back the enemy and ordered his troops to withdraw under cover of darkness. Only 5,800 infantry and 1,160 cavalry made it back to Vendée, and there were reliable reports that Bedford had begun to chase him only a day or so after the disengagement.
The mystery remained. Where was Henry? The answer came as a surprise when the English monarch was sighted in Orleanais on June 13th. Better yet, the report suggested that he had only 2050 men remaining under his command. Immediately I sent the young ingénue Richemont - who had been waiting for all of the armies returning from Zeeland, Holland and so on – to take every available man currently assembled at l’Ile de France and march with all haste to engage the vulnerable monarch.
On June 24th, Bouillon arrived with his badly mauled force in Vendée and I urged him to make all possible haste to continue on to Maine. Only a day or two later, however, he was engaged once again by Bedford but managed to execute an immediate withdrawal from the field without sustaining more than one or two hundred casualties – his rear guard who had all volunteered for the mission knowing that their certain death would give their comrades a chance to escape. Bedford, after wiping out the rearguard, seemed disinclined to pursue them into Maine, though why the general showed such reluctance will forever remain a mystery. Bouillon, upon arriving in Maine on July 18th, decided to lay siege to the enemy-held city and keep a watchful eye on Bedford’s next move. The English general, it appeared, was content to lay siege to the French city.
On the very same day Richemont was having difficulty catching up to the fast-moving Henry. Arriving only a day or two too late in Orleanais, he detached a force sufficiently large to besiege the city and the balance moved on the Henry’s current position in Berri. August 10th sees Richemont again miss Henry in Berri and press on to Poitou where the monarch seemed to be attempting to board unseen transport vessels lying off the coast. While this chase was going on, de Valois arrived back from Holland and was dispatched to lay siege to Normandie.
Finally, on September 2nd, 1420, Richemont caught Henry V on the shores of Poitou. The English monarch had 2032 exhausted cavalry – all that remained of his once great army (though, of course, Bedford was not all that far away with a decent-sized army). By comparison, Richemont was at the head of 18,723 foot and 3,219 horse. Unable to restrain his men from their retributive zeal, the battle was an utter rout and by day’s end, the English monarch is dead.
Sadly, Richemont sent word to the capital, left a siege force in Poitou and marched with the balance of the men back to Berri. Within days, Normandie was also under de Valois’ siege, and word came from Scotland that Buchan Douglas had finally taken Northumberland and had retired back to Strathclyde to assemble a new force. He had perhaps 31,000 men at his disposal all told, but seemed curiously reluctant to use them to press deeper into the English heartland. England, however, had already initiated a siege to retake their northern city with some 12,500 men. Douglas just stood by and watched.
On October 3rd, Richemont split his force in half and sent half to Maine and the other half to Orleans to assist with the sieges. A month later, 6,000 infantry recruits who had been conscripted in Guyenne in September were ordered to march to Gascogne to besiege that city.
As the year gradually came to a close, I had our diplomats arrange a couple of royal marriages – one with the price of Savoy, and the other with the princess of Aragon. With any luck this would deter them from any possible hostility once this war drew to a close. There was still Bedford to contend with, though reports suggested that Vendée could still hold out for at least another nine months. Maine and Orleans, though, should soon be in our grasp.
***
1421
I discovered that the folks in England had pulled a rather surprising domestic move. Rather than admit to the public that their monarch had been hacked to death by the French army on the field of Poitou, it appeared that a fraud was being perpetrated on the masses by setting up a puppet “Henry V” on the throne. I was not certain who the pretender was, but I had seen conclusive evidence that the real Henry V was, indeed, dead. Nevertheless, they clung to their misconception (though the puppet never dared show his face on the field of battle) and a messenger dutifully offered their latest bribery attempt on January 10th, 1421. This time the sack of gold he carried was larger – some 170 gold coins, he said – but he met with an icy foreign minister who declined his pathetic attempt at peace.
In early February I received news that Orleans had been captured by our forces and these worthies were ordered to Berri to await further orders. Six thousand new cavalry were recruited in Guyenne a few weeks later in preparation for taking care of the only remaining thorn in our continental sides – General Bedford at the siege of Vendée.
As this recruitment process was going on, I discovered that a certain corrupt minor functionary had been embezzling funds from the state treasury to the tune of some 100 francs. I exposed the individual and Charles had him skinned alive in a public square before being drawn and quartered. This, I felt, was a bit overboard and certainly the public sentiment echoed my evaluation as the stability of the country took a noticeable dip. On the other hand the only alternative would have been to quietly let the bastard go on about his affairs and this would have resulted in a minimum of about a 10% hike in inflation. Given the choices, it was an easy decision to make.
By May 2nd, Vendée was looking the worse for wear and I feared that it would soon fall to Bedford’s men. As this would result in the French fleet being forced out to sea, I ordered that full maintenance be paid from now on to the navy. They might see some action in this war after all. Meanwhile I would see what I could do to arrange to dislodge the English army.
The French compliment besieging Maine was reduced to minimum levels and the balance were ordered to Berri. A week later, we received some welcomed assistance in the siege of Poitou as a large number of Bourbonnais infantry arrived to join in the fun. Still another ten days later, Maine fell to a concerted effort from our army and is returned to its rightful owner: Provence. The French army was ordered to Berri as well. By May 20th, the newly recruited cavalry was also riding as quickly as possible to the rallying point.
On June 19th, Richemont assembled the various small corps into the latest edition of the Armée du Roi. He now counted 24,227 foot and 9,563 horse and we conferred as to how best to engage the enemy general. A straight-on approach seemed best, and off he marched to meet his foe.
The two armies clashed in the forests in the First Battle Vendée on July 7th. Richemont had lost a handful of men in the forced march but he still had more than 32,000 in comparison to Bedford’s 15,968 infantry and 3,816 cavalry. The general lived up to his reputation, though, breaking Richemont’s army after nine days of vicious hand-to-hand combat. Richmont’s army eventually fled the field and retreated to Berri to nurse its wounds.
His shame at being defeated was manifest on his expression when I visited in late July. I consoled him with the knowledge that, thought the battle was lost, the war was not. He could still field over 25,000 and would enjoy reinforcements if required. Bedford only had 10,500 and no hope of supply or reinforcement. By August 19th, Richemont felt prepared to have another go at the Englishman.
The Second Battle Vendée began on September 7th, with Richemont trying to press his numerical advantage over Bedford. Over the course of two weeks the French slew almost half the English army, but were again forced back to Berri to regroup. Happily, Richemont’s losses numbered less than 2,500.
Even as Richemont’s army retreated, Bedford’s men breached the walls of Poitou and forced the fleet out to sea. His force seemed exhausted at the effort, though, and he appeared content to sit there and regroup for a while. The
In the north the Armée Royale was busy with a siege of its own, finally capturing Normandie on the 16th of October. After securing the city with a garrison of Frenchmen, the balance of the army returned to l’Ile de France to the wild adulation of the public.
Richemont felt ready to once again test the resolve of the English army and marched back into the province to begin the Third Battle Vendée. The first skirmishes were on November 4th, but the real battle lasted only a single day, the 7th, when Richemont finally managed to outflank the general’s weakened army and after that it was a forgone conclusion. By nightfall, the General was dead and the English army annihilated.
Richemont laid siege to the city and sent signals to Commodore Crussol to stand to for as long as he could while his men would try to recapture the city and the docks.
Poitou finally fell to the combined French and Bourbonnais siege force on December 3rd, with the French claiming the city by virtue of having been involved with the siege for much longer. The had little chance to rest on their laurels, though, as they were ordered to leave the next day to assist in the efforts being directed against Gascogne.
The last action seen in the year was the attack made by a squadron of nine English warships and six English transports against Crussol’s ten warships and one transport in Quiberon Bay just off Vendée. They were still in close engagement as a new page was turned on the calendar to welcome in the year 1422.
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Wow, MrT, it'll only take you 400 posts to finish
I like the way you've kept the personal touch and not abandoned your background story once you used it to set up the first person narrative. The way that you report from his point of view is very nice
I like the way you've kept the personal touch and not abandoned your background story once you used it to set up the first person narrative. The way that you report from his point of view is very nice
A marathon
Like Sharur said, if you keep up with the details, this AAR should last for hundreds of posts. And I'll be waiting eagerly for every one of them! Excellent work!
Like Sharur said, if you keep up with the details, this AAR should last for hundreds of posts. And I'll be waiting eagerly for every one of them! Excellent work!
'Divide and Conquer' at it's best! Very well done (and written).You are a very capable ghost, MrT .
.
why did you have to kill poor king harry? wasn't it better to offer him a lovely room in the bastille and wait for ransom? i believe that's how the english treated charles' grandfather after poiters.
Laur
Laur
It wasn't me. Honest. It was Richemont's men who we pissed off at the treatment Orleans recieved at the king's hand...there just wasn't any way to restrain them. Same goes for Bedford...after two losses in the forests of Vendee, there's no way Richemont's men were going to let him go gracefully after that.
I should point out that at this point Richemont is still just a generic leader 2/2/2...but I'm thinking he's due for a promotion in a few years
Thanks for the kind words all.
Sharur: Thanks. I think you'll find it will speed up a bit in a few years, but I've decided to really take my time with this one if I can maintain the level of interest (both mine and everyone else's). It could very easily get up over a hundred posts or more of text.
Mimir: See above.
Sorcerer: Yeah. I was particularly impressed that my strategy worked on this one. That's a nasty starting position for France and I thought that if Henry had turned to Ile de France instead of Orleans I would have been a dead duck. I was shocked that England annexed Orleans though. Yikes!
You should see another post (or even two) later today.
1422
The winter of 1422 was a cold and wet one, and the continual damp and gloom did nothing whatsoever to help either King Charles’ mood or his health. By the spring, he was bedridden and other than a steady daytime stream of messengers and well-wishers, his only company in those long hours was me, l’Eminence Grise. Strangely, he seemed to be able to see me much better as time went on and could almost detect my presence even before I had begun to concentrate on pulling myself together to make an appearance.
On January 6th, I told him that I’d had our foreign minister meet with yet another one of the puppet Henry’s dignitaries. They were willing to come back into the city now to conduct their parlays once the news had gotten out that they would not be confronted by Mad King Charles, as they’d come to call him. At any rate, England’s offer was starting to finally come around to my way of thinking and I though perhaps the news might cheer up the king.
“They offered us Orleannais and Normandy this time. No mention of money, but at least they’re starting to talk turkey.”
“Ah. Turkey. The Ottoman Empire. I never knew that England controlled such vast and distant lands.”
“Oh my god you’re pathetic. What I meant was that they’re beginning to offer us land instead of gold. That’s a positive sign, Charles. It means that they’re weak and they know it, and now they’re willing to give up something of real value.”
“Oh. So you accepted?”
I restrained myself. Barely. I was trying to humour him because he was sick and I could tell he would not last the year.
“No. I had him killed. But at least it was a decent offer.”
“Ah. That’s what I would have done. Got to keep ‘em guessing, eh?”
“Precisely!”
***
I was, I’m ashamed to admit, quite pleasantly surprised when good old Commodore Crussol (you remember him don’t you? When we last left off he had just been engaged by an English fleet of nine warships and six transports after he had been forced out to sea when Bedford briefly took Vendée.) good old Commodore Crussol reported a stunning victory over the English fleet in Quiberon Bay. Not only that, but he had sunk an English warship and sustained no losses whatsoever himself. Better yet, he had stolen their rutters! Unfortunately these didn’t add to our knowledge of the world at all, but I was mightily impressed with his feat.
I ordered him to send his one transport vessel to Poitou but to keep his ten warships in the Bay since the English fleet had withdrawn into Vendée and he might get another crack at them when Richemont recaptured the city. Mid March saw Crussol engaging in another naval exchange, this time against three English warships, in-bound from the north. In a week-long battle he managed to sink one of their ships and defeat them, again without losing a single vessel himself. A few days later, the English tried to run his blockade of the port and he engaged them. Then, all of a sudden, another fleet started bearing down on him. Now it was Crussol who was outnumbered and out-gunned, for a full eighteen warships laid down a constant barrage of fire. Nevertheless, the brave Crussol fought on and, although he lost one of his warships in the process, he was again successful in out-manoeuvring the English and defeated them – but only barely.
Knowing that it was only a matter of time before the massed fleets of the English would be brought to bear on our small fleet, I finally relented and ordered Crussol to set sail for Poitou. When he retired, I decided, he would be given some sort of honorary title and a modest pension from the state. He had exceeded all expectations and had defeated the English navy in three consecutive naval engagements.
As the pile of English diplomatic corps(es) grew in the city trash heap, the French land forces were busy at work on the walls of Gascogne and Vendée, the last two places on the continent that harboured Englishmen. The first of these finally fell on July 30th and the small army was sent to assist Richemont. I decided to take the plunge and asked one of our diplomats to make the long trek up to London to visit the puppet Henry V. Of course I didn’t send my favourite diplomat on such an important but likely suicidal mission. But the man was competent. In fact, I’m sure he screamed out our terms to the English quite nicely as they flayed him alive. What did we want? Hardly anything. Merely Orleannais, Caux and Normandie. [30% of a 36% peace at that point]
I suppose tit for tat was only fair. Oh well, I hadn’t really liked the man anyway. I went up to the king’s chamber to give him the news. Well, actually I took my time about it and went to check on the process of the siege and to make sure that Richemont had all of the troops he required. Then I went and had a quick look in on a newly-wed couple in the other wing of the castle who were both frequent and creative in their...err...where was I? Oh yes.
I went up to Charles’ bedchamber to give him the news about England’s rejection of our first offer of peace. As I materialised I instantly knew that something was wrong. Humans, to me, have a sort of glow to them. I think of it as “the spark of life”. In some it is very strong, like a searing flame of dazzling ray of light. In most, it sort of flickers in the background and looks a bit like the thing that grabs your attention in your peripheral vision but when you turn to look at it, it’s gone. But in the dying it gradually dims; and in the dead, it is extinguished.
I had been watching for the better part of the year as Charles’ had grown fainter and fainter and fainter – mind you his was never all that strong to begin with, but at least it was there – and fainter. When I appeared in his chamber on October 21st, 1422, it was gone.
For any art historians here, please don’t flame me for pretending that this is Charles VII instead of Charles VI’s coronation. I couldn’t find one for him so I’m cheating. Okay?
A coronation was hastily prepared by the clergy for the new monarch, the dead king’s son, Charles VII. I must say that seeing as they only had a day to throw the whole thing together, they did a really bang-up job. I suppose, come to think of it, that they probably had the ceremony in the works for months, considering the former king’s health, but it was quite an impressive display.
I think, earlier, I mentioned that the son was every bit the monarch that his father wasn’t. Years of careful tutelage had taught the lad much. He was more than competent in all aspects of statecraft: he had an excellent grasp on trade and economics, he knew how the power base and infrastructure of the country worked, and the was quite adept at both hand-to-hand combat as well as overall military strategy. Pretty much the complete package.
He was also - I discovered later that evening - a head-strong, boorish, crass, ungrateful, snotty little bastard who wouldn’t know a bit of good advice if it ran up and bit him in the ass.
I had watched the coronation ceremony in a rather visceral sense, not materializing – as that would have frightened the attendees – but rather keeping my incorporeal “eye” on it so to speak. That night, however, I waited until all the servants had left and then made my appearance in his bedchamber.
We had met before, as he did used to pop in to see how his dad was doing, but I had never said so much as “boo” to him and he had never bothered to speak to me. I had kept tabs on him though, as I knew he was destined to become the next king.
“Don’t even bother,” he said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I know why you’re here, and don’t even bother to try to subjugate me like you did my finally-departed lunatic of a father.”
“I’m quite sure I don’t know what you mean!” I said, offended at the lad’s audacity – and perspicacity.
“You’re a meddler, a trouble-maker, and I won’t have it. I am the king now, and my word is law.”
“Ah,” I said. “Asserting yourself I see. Very good. Very good. Well. Now that we’ve got that out of the way I think it’s time to issue orders for the army to...”
“I issue the orders around here. We will continue the siege as is. I will also secure a bride for myself as it is my duty to beget at least one heir for the throne as soon as possible.”
“With all due respect my lo...”
“Yes. Due respect is what you will show me. Respect, and humble service. You will obey my orders and perhaps I will choose to avail myself of your rather unique abilities. If you fail me, or if you ever once issue an order without my direct, expressed consent, I will have you exorcised.”
“My liege!” I protested.
“Don’t ‘My liege’ me, ghost. I’ve seen you operate and it all ends right here and right now. Return to me when you’ve decided to be useful. Until then; be gone!”
And that was my first interview with the new king. Charles VII, it appeared, was not going to be the push-over that his father was. I’ll admit I was pissed and I sulked around in the dungeons for a day or two, terrifying the prisoners by making spooky noises at all hours of the night, but eventually I got over it and returned to his chamber – this time at a far more reasonable hour.
“My lord. How may I serve you?”
“Much better, ghost. Much better. First off, what is your name?”
I saw no harm in telling him.
“Ah. I had wondered. Well perhaps, all things considered, I’ll just call you ‘ghost’ after all.”
“As you wish, sire.”
“Indeed. Now. I need to beget a few heirs, and to do this I need to be married. Or, at least, to do so legally I would need to be married. I can get myself a son any day. But an heir is an altogether different matter. You’ve been around. Is there anyone you would suggest I consider? Remember, she had to be a princess, she’d better be pretty, and you’d better be damned sure she puts out. Oh, and I suppose if she was some foreign type it wouldn’t hurt since I find them far more exotic and flexible.”
“It would probably also reduce the likelihood of that foreign power declaring war on you anytime in the future too, sire.”
“I suppose it would. Any suggestions?”
“Well, Marie d’Anjou would fit the bill. You know her. Her dad’s Louis II, the Duke of Anjou, and I think her mother is the queen of Sicily or something. For some absolutely confounding reason, however, it appears that she is currently residing in Spain and has achieved the status of ‘princess’ there; though I’m not absolutely positive that the term is being applied to her in a complimentary way.”
“Is she pretty?”
“Gorgeous!”
“Is she inhibited?”
“I can tell you with the greatest certainty that she is not.”
“Excellent. From Spain, you say.”
“Not technically. She’s from Anjou, but the Spanish are all treating her as their own princess (in more ways than one) so I’m sure it would be considered a blood tie as far as they are concerned.”
“Very well, then. Send a message to her and tell her to get a move on. I need to start begetting as soon as possible. I've been out of the saddle for far too long.”
“As you wish, my lord.”
The marriage of Charles VII and Marie d’Anjou (or "Mary the Go-er", as the courtesans all called her behind her back) was a glorious affair on November 12th, 1422, marred only slightly by the absence of a court painter to capture the affair. He was later discovered in a seedy little inn on the lower west side of the city where he was painting prostitutes for a lark. I’m not sure what became of him after his hands were both cut off. One of the hazards of the trade, I suppose.
There were only two other things of note to occur in that turbulent year. The first was a visit from a man by the name of Maurice of Orange who claimed to be a drill instructor of indeterminate but definitely foreign origin. Apparently he thought himself quite the tutor and claimed that in a single day he could improve the offensive capability of our army as well as its overall quality. Charles VII was intrigued and hired the man on the spot for a rather hefty but worthwhile 250 francs. Amazingly enough he was true to his word. This, I felt, was a good idea as France would need the best army it could possibly field if it sought to make territorial acquisition its primary goal – something that certainly seemed to be extremely high on young Charles’ agenda.
The other event of note wasn’t actually anything directly to do with France. Rather it was the news that our Scottish ally had successfully captured Meath from the English.
I’d be tempted to stop right here and give you a break from listening to me, but I really feel that another moment or two won’t strain your attention too badly. And, of course, there’s a reason.
1423
After four full years of war, the strain was starting to make itself felt on the country. There were no open revolts, but only barely. Charles VII, it appeared, was largely unconcerned and, instead, chose to secure some advances for the future. To that end, on January 12th, 1423, he sent a trio of diplomats to request military access to Provence, Bourbonnais and Auvergne. As these vassals held France in very high regard, and perhaps also influenced by Charles’ innate charm, they agreed to his request.
Knowing that the navy was unlikely to see any action in the near future, Charles once more cut their maintenance payments in half and sent a dispatch urging Richemont to make all haste with the siege of Vendée. The colonel hastened to meet his new master’s request and his men managed to breach the walls on the 7th of March and sack the city. Now every Englishman on the continent was dead.
Charles immediately sent his finest diplomat with a message to the English monarch – the puppet Henry. In it he clearly spelt out his demands: Poitou, Orleanais and Normandie would be handed back to the French. In exchange, he would return the additional territories he currently controlled back to the English. To my rather great astonishment, the diplomat survived the encounter. To Chalres' rather great astonishment, the English acceded to his demands.
France had pulled off a serious coup. Completely at peace now, and in possession of three of its lost provinces. Considering the mess we’d been in four years earlier, it was amazing. I tried, but did not succeed very well, not to look too smug when I next visited the King. After all, it had been me who had orchestrated the entire damned war. Charles VI, though, was the one who got to bask in the public limelight.
The winter of 1422 was a cold and wet one, and the continual damp and gloom did nothing whatsoever to help either King Charles’ mood or his health. By the spring, he was bedridden and other than a steady daytime stream of messengers and well-wishers, his only company in those long hours was me, l’Eminence Grise. Strangely, he seemed to be able to see me much better as time went on and could almost detect my presence even before I had begun to concentrate on pulling myself together to make an appearance.
On January 6th, I told him that I’d had our foreign minister meet with yet another one of the puppet Henry’s dignitaries. They were willing to come back into the city now to conduct their parlays once the news had gotten out that they would not be confronted by Mad King Charles, as they’d come to call him. At any rate, England’s offer was starting to finally come around to my way of thinking and I though perhaps the news might cheer up the king.
“They offered us Orleannais and Normandy this time. No mention of money, but at least they’re starting to talk turkey.”
“Ah. Turkey. The Ottoman Empire. I never knew that England controlled such vast and distant lands.”
“Oh my god you’re pathetic. What I meant was that they’re beginning to offer us land instead of gold. That’s a positive sign, Charles. It means that they’re weak and they know it, and now they’re willing to give up something of real value.”
“Oh. So you accepted?”
I restrained myself. Barely. I was trying to humour him because he was sick and I could tell he would not last the year.
“No. I had him killed. But at least it was a decent offer.”
“Ah. That’s what I would have done. Got to keep ‘em guessing, eh?”
“Precisely!”
***
I was, I’m ashamed to admit, quite pleasantly surprised when good old Commodore Crussol (you remember him don’t you? When we last left off he had just been engaged by an English fleet of nine warships and six transports after he had been forced out to sea when Bedford briefly took Vendée.) good old Commodore Crussol reported a stunning victory over the English fleet in Quiberon Bay. Not only that, but he had sunk an English warship and sustained no losses whatsoever himself. Better yet, he had stolen their rutters! Unfortunately these didn’t add to our knowledge of the world at all, but I was mightily impressed with his feat.
I ordered him to send his one transport vessel to Poitou but to keep his ten warships in the Bay since the English fleet had withdrawn into Vendée and he might get another crack at them when Richemont recaptured the city. Mid March saw Crussol engaging in another naval exchange, this time against three English warships, in-bound from the north. In a week-long battle he managed to sink one of their ships and defeat them, again without losing a single vessel himself. A few days later, the English tried to run his blockade of the port and he engaged them. Then, all of a sudden, another fleet started bearing down on him. Now it was Crussol who was outnumbered and out-gunned, for a full eighteen warships laid down a constant barrage of fire. Nevertheless, the brave Crussol fought on and, although he lost one of his warships in the process, he was again successful in out-manoeuvring the English and defeated them – but only barely.
Knowing that it was only a matter of time before the massed fleets of the English would be brought to bear on our small fleet, I finally relented and ordered Crussol to set sail for Poitou. When he retired, I decided, he would be given some sort of honorary title and a modest pension from the state. He had exceeded all expectations and had defeated the English navy in three consecutive naval engagements.
As the pile of English diplomatic corps(es) grew in the city trash heap, the French land forces were busy at work on the walls of Gascogne and Vendée, the last two places on the continent that harboured Englishmen. The first of these finally fell on July 30th and the small army was sent to assist Richemont. I decided to take the plunge and asked one of our diplomats to make the long trek up to London to visit the puppet Henry V. Of course I didn’t send my favourite diplomat on such an important but likely suicidal mission. But the man was competent. In fact, I’m sure he screamed out our terms to the English quite nicely as they flayed him alive. What did we want? Hardly anything. Merely Orleannais, Caux and Normandie. [30% of a 36% peace at that point]
I suppose tit for tat was only fair. Oh well, I hadn’t really liked the man anyway. I went up to the king’s chamber to give him the news. Well, actually I took my time about it and went to check on the process of the siege and to make sure that Richemont had all of the troops he required. Then I went and had a quick look in on a newly-wed couple in the other wing of the castle who were both frequent and creative in their...err...where was I? Oh yes.
I went up to Charles’ bedchamber to give him the news about England’s rejection of our first offer of peace. As I materialised I instantly knew that something was wrong. Humans, to me, have a sort of glow to them. I think of it as “the spark of life”. In some it is very strong, like a searing flame of dazzling ray of light. In most, it sort of flickers in the background and looks a bit like the thing that grabs your attention in your peripheral vision but when you turn to look at it, it’s gone. But in the dying it gradually dims; and in the dead, it is extinguished.
I had been watching for the better part of the year as Charles’ had grown fainter and fainter and fainter – mind you his was never all that strong to begin with, but at least it was there – and fainter. When I appeared in his chamber on October 21st, 1422, it was gone.
For any art historians here, please don’t flame me for pretending that this is Charles VII instead of Charles VI’s coronation. I couldn’t find one for him so I’m cheating. Okay?
A coronation was hastily prepared by the clergy for the new monarch, the dead king’s son, Charles VII. I must say that seeing as they only had a day to throw the whole thing together, they did a really bang-up job. I suppose, come to think of it, that they probably had the ceremony in the works for months, considering the former king’s health, but it was quite an impressive display.
I think, earlier, I mentioned that the son was every bit the monarch that his father wasn’t. Years of careful tutelage had taught the lad much. He was more than competent in all aspects of statecraft: he had an excellent grasp on trade and economics, he knew how the power base and infrastructure of the country worked, and the was quite adept at both hand-to-hand combat as well as overall military strategy. Pretty much the complete package.
He was also - I discovered later that evening - a head-strong, boorish, crass, ungrateful, snotty little bastard who wouldn’t know a bit of good advice if it ran up and bit him in the ass.
I had watched the coronation ceremony in a rather visceral sense, not materializing – as that would have frightened the attendees – but rather keeping my incorporeal “eye” on it so to speak. That night, however, I waited until all the servants had left and then made my appearance in his bedchamber.
We had met before, as he did used to pop in to see how his dad was doing, but I had never said so much as “boo” to him and he had never bothered to speak to me. I had kept tabs on him though, as I knew he was destined to become the next king.
“Don’t even bother,” he said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I know why you’re here, and don’t even bother to try to subjugate me like you did my finally-departed lunatic of a father.”
“I’m quite sure I don’t know what you mean!” I said, offended at the lad’s audacity – and perspicacity.
“You’re a meddler, a trouble-maker, and I won’t have it. I am the king now, and my word is law.”
“Ah,” I said. “Asserting yourself I see. Very good. Very good. Well. Now that we’ve got that out of the way I think it’s time to issue orders for the army to...”
“I issue the orders around here. We will continue the siege as is. I will also secure a bride for myself as it is my duty to beget at least one heir for the throne as soon as possible.”
“With all due respect my lo...”
“Yes. Due respect is what you will show me. Respect, and humble service. You will obey my orders and perhaps I will choose to avail myself of your rather unique abilities. If you fail me, or if you ever once issue an order without my direct, expressed consent, I will have you exorcised.”
“My liege!” I protested.
“Don’t ‘My liege’ me, ghost. I’ve seen you operate and it all ends right here and right now. Return to me when you’ve decided to be useful. Until then; be gone!”
And that was my first interview with the new king. Charles VII, it appeared, was not going to be the push-over that his father was. I’ll admit I was pissed and I sulked around in the dungeons for a day or two, terrifying the prisoners by making spooky noises at all hours of the night, but eventually I got over it and returned to his chamber – this time at a far more reasonable hour.
“My lord. How may I serve you?”
“Much better, ghost. Much better. First off, what is your name?”
I saw no harm in telling him.
“Ah. I had wondered. Well perhaps, all things considered, I’ll just call you ‘ghost’ after all.”
“As you wish, sire.”
“Indeed. Now. I need to beget a few heirs, and to do this I need to be married. Or, at least, to do so legally I would need to be married. I can get myself a son any day. But an heir is an altogether different matter. You’ve been around. Is there anyone you would suggest I consider? Remember, she had to be a princess, she’d better be pretty, and you’d better be damned sure she puts out. Oh, and I suppose if she was some foreign type it wouldn’t hurt since I find them far more exotic and flexible.”
“It would probably also reduce the likelihood of that foreign power declaring war on you anytime in the future too, sire.”
“I suppose it would. Any suggestions?”
“Well, Marie d’Anjou would fit the bill. You know her. Her dad’s Louis II, the Duke of Anjou, and I think her mother is the queen of Sicily or something. For some absolutely confounding reason, however, it appears that she is currently residing in Spain and has achieved the status of ‘princess’ there; though I’m not absolutely positive that the term is being applied to her in a complimentary way.”
“Is she pretty?”
“Gorgeous!”
“Is she inhibited?”
“I can tell you with the greatest certainty that she is not.”
“Excellent. From Spain, you say.”
“Not technically. She’s from Anjou, but the Spanish are all treating her as their own princess (in more ways than one) so I’m sure it would be considered a blood tie as far as they are concerned.”
“Very well, then. Send a message to her and tell her to get a move on. I need to start begetting as soon as possible. I've been out of the saddle for far too long.”
“As you wish, my lord.”
The marriage of Charles VII and Marie d’Anjou (or "Mary the Go-er", as the courtesans all called her behind her back) was a glorious affair on November 12th, 1422, marred only slightly by the absence of a court painter to capture the affair. He was later discovered in a seedy little inn on the lower west side of the city where he was painting prostitutes for a lark. I’m not sure what became of him after his hands were both cut off. One of the hazards of the trade, I suppose.
There were only two other things of note to occur in that turbulent year. The first was a visit from a man by the name of Maurice of Orange who claimed to be a drill instructor of indeterminate but definitely foreign origin. Apparently he thought himself quite the tutor and claimed that in a single day he could improve the offensive capability of our army as well as its overall quality. Charles VII was intrigued and hired the man on the spot for a rather hefty but worthwhile 250 francs. Amazingly enough he was true to his word. This, I felt, was a good idea as France would need the best army it could possibly field if it sought to make territorial acquisition its primary goal – something that certainly seemed to be extremely high on young Charles’ agenda.
The other event of note wasn’t actually anything directly to do with France. Rather it was the news that our Scottish ally had successfully captured Meath from the English.
I’d be tempted to stop right here and give you a break from listening to me, but I really feel that another moment or two won’t strain your attention too badly. And, of course, there’s a reason.
1423
After four full years of war, the strain was starting to make itself felt on the country. There were no open revolts, but only barely. Charles VII, it appeared, was largely unconcerned and, instead, chose to secure some advances for the future. To that end, on January 12th, 1423, he sent a trio of diplomats to request military access to Provence, Bourbonnais and Auvergne. As these vassals held France in very high regard, and perhaps also influenced by Charles’ innate charm, they agreed to his request.
Knowing that the navy was unlikely to see any action in the near future, Charles once more cut their maintenance payments in half and sent a dispatch urging Richemont to make all haste with the siege of Vendée. The colonel hastened to meet his new master’s request and his men managed to breach the walls on the 7th of March and sack the city. Now every Englishman on the continent was dead.
Charles immediately sent his finest diplomat with a message to the English monarch – the puppet Henry. In it he clearly spelt out his demands: Poitou, Orleanais and Normandie would be handed back to the French. In exchange, he would return the additional territories he currently controlled back to the English. To my rather great astonishment, the diplomat survived the encounter. To Chalres' rather great astonishment, the English acceded to his demands.
France had pulled off a serious coup. Completely at peace now, and in possession of three of its lost provinces. Considering the mess we’d been in four years earlier, it was amazing. I tried, but did not succeed very well, not to look too smug when I next visited the King. After all, it had been me who had orchestrated the entire damned war. Charles VI, though, was the one who got to bask in the public limelight.