Chapter One: King Andy I Scott of Eastmarch
As Written by King Luther of Winterhold
Primary Titles of King Andy I:
Thane of Coldwinter:
1 Morningstar, 3370 - 5 First Seed, 3376
Jarl of Eastmarch:
5 First Seed, 3376 - 22 Sun's Height, 3394
King of Eastmarch:
22 Sun's Height, 3394 - 3 Second Seed, 3399
The history of the Great Clan Scott begins with my grandfather, who was Thane Andy of the thanedom of Coldwinter, in the Hold of Eastmarch, within the larger Kingdom of Winterhold. As a child, he was raised by the old Thane, a benevolent man who has been lost to history, and taught him to fight and think as a true Nord warrior. When Andy reached the age of 16, his mentor passed away, and he took up the title of Thane under Jarl Torsten of Eastmarch. He was a highly trained warrior in all the arts of combat, and more importantly, we know he was Dragonborn. Though scholars are constantly debating what in fact a Dragonborn is, there is no doubt that Thane Andy possessed a power beyond any ordinary magic. His mastery of the Thu'um from the Greybeards continued to prove this as he aged and fought new battles against varied enemies all over the land.
The story of Thane Andy begins quietly, as he was wise enough to know that even with a vast inheritance, he could not hope to challenge the more powerful Jarl Torsten or King Ragnar of Winterhold. Over the first five years of his rule, he attempted to establish a claim upon the Hold of Eastmarch, hoping to undermine the Jarl and encourage King Ragnar to seize the hold from the Jarl and turn it over to the Clan Scott. Though King Ragnar went along willingly with this scheme from the beginning, he refused to act or support Thane Andy under other conspirators were acquired from across the Kingdom of Winterhold. Attempting to build support, Thane Andy attempted to marry into the Jarl's Clan Flame-Hair, also serving for a time as Marshal of Eastmarch.
Thane Andy first managed to marry the unwed third child of Jarl Thorsten, Alga Flame-Hair. The marriage was happy enough, but bore no children within the first two years between the two. This in itself was not too much of a problem, as the couple fell in love and were very happy, and for a short time it seemed that the Thane's dreams of power were waylaid by love. Unfortunately Alga passed away quite suddenly, at the all too young age of nineteen, leaving a void in the Thane's life. A bitter man, Andy turned his focus once more to gaining power from the Jarl. The Jarl had another, older, daughter who had been married to Duke Falgier of Falkreath, within the Colovian Estates. Anxious to marry into the family, the Thane employed that notorious group, the Dark Brotherhood for the first, but not the last time. The assassination of Duke Falgier opened the former Duchess Agnete Flame-hair up once more for marriage. This marriage was accepted by Jarl Thorsten, but it was a very unhappy one. Within a year, the couple hit a reef, as Thane Andy carried on a lively romance with several courtiers in Coldwinter. From one of these romances, a child was born out of wedlock, a son, named for his father, Andy.
Despite the happy birth of his first child, a son to boot, Thane Andy was still anxious to improve his relationship with his wife and her father. While he acknowledged his son, he did not legitimize him immediately, attempting to repair a severed relationship with his wife. To the joy of the Hold, Agnete soon became large with child. Unfortunately, she died giving birth to a girl, who died less than three days later, leaving the Thane without a legitimate heir. Once more, Thane Andy was without a wife, and his legacy and the fate of Clan Scott were both in doubt. In order to preserve his legacy, he legitimized his bastard son, Andy, and proclaimed him the heir to any of his holdings, having established primogeniture succession. He would marry a third and final time, to the second child of King Tacitan of the Colovian Estates, Marlena Tor, who continues to live to this very day. She gave him six new children, only one of which died before reaching adulthood.
With the marriage with Marlena Tor, a notable diplomat, Thane Andy was able to acquire the support he needed to begin a plot to create a claim upon the Hold of Eastmarch. Once more the Dark Brotherhood was summoned and the well-liked Jarl Torsten was assassinated, paving the way for a rapid succession of three more Jarls, each less popular the last. By 3376, only six years after gaining power in Coldwinter, Thane Andy was prepared to make his play for power. With the military support of both the larger kingdom of Winterhold and the King of the Colovian Estates, the armies of Coldwinter defeated Jarl Torsten, with Thane Andy at their head. At the battle of Shearstone, Jarl Torsten was captured by Thane Andy, and was forced to cede the title of Jarl to Clan Scott's leader.
As Jarl, the first ten years of his reign were uneventful, as Andy attempted to build up the infrastructure of his new holdings and consolidate power. Simultaneously he was raising his children, and preparing them for rule, across the land, sending them to the various guilds to be educated. There were a number of smaller wars in which the Jarl participated, mostly involving the centralization of power throughout Eastmarch. The various Thanes of the other holdings, not to mention the disgruntled Clan Flame-Hair, continued to resist rule, but eventually, all but the highly loyal Thane of Shearstone, who had been swayed by the mastery of the Thu'um, were stripped of their titles. The lands went to the direct control of the Jarl, now based in the ancient city of Windhelm, which had been chosen as the new capital, rather than the isolated holding of Coldwinter.
Jarl Andy remained active politically, providing substantial amounts of soldiers to King Ragnar's endless border conflicts with the Jarl of the Pale. Though the king did achieve some political victories of his own, such as convincing the Jarl of Korvanjund to peacefully join the kingdom, most of his wars were failures. Jarl Andy wisely kept the bulk of Eastmarch's armies out of the conflicts, providing only a pittance to the ongoing battles in the west. With this considerable military might, the jarl waited for King Ragnar's ceaseless warmongering to slowly wear his forces down. He did not have to wait very long.
When King Ragnar died from the loss of his leg in battle against the Pale in 3383, Jarl Andy was more than prepared to put pressure on his young heir. To make matters even more promising, he was appointed Regent for the young King Honthjolf the Young, the sixth child of King Ragnar. With his position, Jarl Andy did away with the Winterhold succession laws of tanistry, choosing instead to replace them with primogeniture succession. While some wondered about this, as it seemed to only strengthen the Kingdom of Winterhold and Clan Wulfarth, Jarl Andy was playing the long game. He had made sure to marry his bastard firstborn to Runa Wulfarth, the fifth child of the late King Ragnar. Still, he was not quite yet ready to play that particular hand.
In 3393, shortly after King Honthjolf came of age, Jarl Andy declared independence from the Kingdom of Winterhold, leading to a short year-long war. The king rallied forces to fight him, an army of nearly two thousand men. The jarl managed to assemble a force of even greater size, without even having the need to call upon foreign mercenaries. Despite having no other political supporters within the realm, he was still able to triumph, defeating the army of King Honthjolf at the Battle of Winterhold and taking the young king prisoner. This success marked the end of Clan Scott owing allegiance to anyone, at last allowing them to truly plot their own fate and destiny.
During the time that Jarl Andy was a vassal of the kings of Winterhold, he had been preparing the way for further victories. The Jarl of Ansilvund had lost control of his realm in a series of civil wars among sons of the first jarl of the region. With the help of the Jarl's chancellor, a wandering Khajiit known as Khav'sara, claims were fabricated throughout both Ansilvund and Bleakwall. With these claims, the jarl was able to launch a series of wars to establish control over the Hold of Ansilvund, which he achieved in 3395. With control of two holds, and a position of uncontested power in the easternmost mountains of Skyrim, the jarl proclaimed himself the new King of Eastmarch.
As King of Eastmarch, the newly crowned King Andy was prepared to take another step in paving the road for the success of Clan Scott. As mentioned earlier, his bastard son Andy was married to the youngest daughter of the late King Ragnar. As King Honthjolf continued his father's policies of unmitigated warfare against the Pale and Whiterun, an opportunity was taken. King Andy declared support for the young Princess Runa to be the new Queen of Winterhold, launching an invasion of his old liege's realm. As much of Winterhold's army had already been lost in a number of disastrous battles against the kingdom's western enemies, the war was more of a long series of sieges, rather than any major set-piece battles. Still, King Andy continued to prove his skills, using the Thu'um to literally shout people off the walls of Winterhold's forts. In 3398, Princess Runa became Queen Runa, and King Andy's son became the Prince Consort of Winterhold, while still being the heir to Eastmarch.
A year of peace would follow the victory over Winterhold, and King Andy ruled fairly and justly across the land, securing territories damaged by wars, and building diplomatic alliances with the newly formed Kingdom of Falkreath as well as with Solitude and the Rift. Still death comes for us all, even one as great as the Dragonborn himself. On the third day of Second Seed, 3399, King Andy succumbed to an unknown illness, passing the throne of Eastmarch to his first son, who was acknowledged as King Andy II of Eastmarch.
King Andy I at the time of his passing
Issue:
With Fruki, a courtier of unknown lineage:
-King Andy II: To be discussed in Chapter Two.
With Princess Marlena Tor, of House Tor in the Colovian Estates:
-King Owain "the Iron Hand" of Falkreath: Assumed power with the support of the Jarls of Falkreath in 3404, establishing Clan Scott in that Kingdom.
-Jarl Patrick of Ansilvund: Granted control of the Hold of Ansilvund by his father after its conquest from local rulers.
-Fiona Scott: Married to Jarl Sigaar of the Pale in Winterhold.
-Prince Tiber Scott: Married to the Duchess of Blackwood in the Kingdom of Nibenay.
-Queen Juliet of Solitude: Married to the King of Solitude.
-Olga Scott: Married to the Duke of Daenia in Daggerfall.
OOC
For those not aware, the Ruler Designer is rather overpowered with the Elder Kings mod, as none of the various traits cause your character to age. As far as I can tell, it is possible to make a superpower behemoth of a man, though I tried to restrain it a bit here. If you look at the traits of King Andy in the screenshot above, the only ones I added by the Ruler Designer are Dragonborn, Genius, and the Trained Warrior background. Everything else was accumulated as I played the game from random events and whatnot. I got really lucky with this guy all around.
@Amauri: I most certainly will.
@KadetLuka: Indeed, a Khajiit was one of my most valuable council members during King Andy I's rule, as he apparently journeyed far out of the south to offer me his services as a Chancellor. Fabricated about a half dozen claims for me over the course of a decade. I like him a lot as chancellors go, and thus the Khajiit will be spared from the sword.
