In Flanders Fields
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CHAPTER 45 A TALE OF TWO CATHEDRALS
The house of de Dampierre had been rocked to its foundations by the events of 1414, but the year at least had a more positive end, as Yves and Margit had their first child, yet another female de Dampierre, and another Sophie, and in the same month of November, a bitter-sweet moment as Phillippa, Alderic’s widow, gave birth to a baby boy, Randolph (Randolph??? you’re having a larf).
Christmas came and went, hardly the most joyous festive season that Pierre had ever spent. 1415 was ticking by and preparations were well underway for Easter. Maundy Thursday was 24 March and for whatever reason – maybe it was to do with the loss of Alderic, or maybe it was a more cynical attempt to improve his piety – Pierre instigated a tradition that has persisted until modern times. The king was in Durham, visiting his northern defences, and he summoned forty poor peasants (one for each year of his life) to the impressive Norman cathedral where he presented each of them with thirteen silver pennies (one for each year of his reign). The ceremony took place within the Romanesque splendour of the massive fortress-cathedral that had been built by the prince bishops of Durham in the 11th century. It was one of those sights that simply took the breath away from ordinary mortals, and even kings panted slightly. It stood on a promontory high above a loop in the river Wear. The heavily wooded escarpment sloped precipitously down towards the gentle flowing river; in autumn the rich multicoloured mantle that the hillside wore was nothing short of spectacular. The cloisters, for the cathedral was also an abbey, occupied the southern side of the site, lying between the south transept and the edge of the ridge, whilst a wide open space known as the cathedral green lay on the north side of the great cathedral. Across the green from the cathedral lay the castle – another Norman creation, a classic motte and bailey affair, topped with a crenellated keep built in beautiful mellow sandstone that contrasted with the darker stonework of the cathedral. The whole site, cathedral and castle, dominated the small town of Durham that lay clustered below the ridge as it sloped gently downwards on the landward side of the promontory, down towards the river as it completed its loop of the town where it was crossed by old Elvet bridge.
The cathedral was said to be one of the architectural wonders of its age. Massive yet graceful, ornate yet simple, it stood as a symbol of man’s devotion to God and to the wealth of bishops and kings past and present. It was also a place of pilgrimage, and if it was not quite in the same league as Canterbury in the far away south of England, the monks still made a pretty penny from the cult of St Cuthbert whom they venerated. His bones lay under the high altar having been robbed from nearby Lindisfarne by the entrepreneurial monks of the time and installed at Durham under the pretext that the saint himself willed it so (by refusing to allow his coffin to be lifted any further once it had lain at Durham). A stone rood screen divided the choir, wherein worshipped and sang the monks, near to their sainted hero, from the nave of the cathedral, where the lay brethren and townsfolk worshipped. They had by no means the worse of the deal, for the nave was famous for its huge stone pillars, each pair on north and south side carved with matching chevrons or waves or diamonds, and each pillar as broad in circumference as it was tall (although it never looked it). At the western end of the nave stood the newest addition to the cathedral, a so-called Galilee chapel. It was here, where the famous Venerable Bede lay entombed, that King Pierre presided over the distribution of what was to become known as Maundy Money on Maundy Thursday, 1415. How the people marvelled at the king’s piety.
The king’s prestige also improved later that year when he appointed his youngest son, Yves, count of Laigin and duke of Leinster. How Ireland continued to interact with the house of de Dampierre since that long ago foray into its rocky north by the king’s great-grandfather, duke Louis II. In the north, the king’s grandson Fedelmid was now duke of Ulster, although a regency council ruled in his name after his father’s untimely murder. Away to the west, a lawless, wild country, lay the duchy of Connaught. An approach from Pierre to its duke, Colman, to become his vassal was rejected, belying Pierre’s claim to be king of ALL Ireland in practice as well as in name.
Another Beck, Adémar, was appointed to high office, king’s chaplain in this case. It was he in fact who brought the sad news of the death of baby Randolph to the king’s attention in October 1415. What had he done to deserve all this, pondered Pierre. A murdered son, a dead grandchild, his first wife dead in childbirth, his second ugly and incapable of providing him with a male heir to Schleswig. Adémar did not judge it the right time to suggest that the king should look inside his own heart for the answers that he sought.
By January 1416, Queen Kunigunde had descended into a deep depression. Doctors said this had been caused by her repeated inability to deliver Pierre with a male heir for Schleswig, coupled by her grief at the loss of her younger brother, and the inevitable barrier that had grown up between her and the king ever since.
In May 1416 Pierre was once again in the north, this time in the small town of Gateshead to witness the first steps in the building of a new grand shipyard. The king himself, symbolically, presented the keys to the dockyard to the architect and the master shipwright, Messrs Swann and Hunter.
Bishop Adémar had not been idle. He had bided his time and had broached the subject of the king’s misfortunes with him on more than one occasion. He raised it again on the long journey back south. The more Pierre thought about it the more the bishop might be right, he thought. At any rate, he knew he had nothing to lose an possibly much to gain by a public show of atonement and penance for his past sins. The royal party’s route took them south through Durham and Boroughbridge and onto York, the ancient capital of the north. The city was proud of its ancient traditions and of its status as the second city in the kingdom. Its inhabitants were proud folk, fiercely independent in many ways, no doubt in part due to the fact that many citizens could trace their ancestry back to the city’s Viking past when it had briefly been an independent Norse kingdom in the 10th century. Like most of England’s cities, it was walled, and the many houses crowded on top of one another in higgledy-piggledy fashion. The merchants’ fine houses on Stonegate and Petergate were in stark contrast to the hovels of the poorer townsfolk down towards the river front. The River Ouse was a great highway for international trade of all sorts, and each day vessels from throughout Europe docked to unload their precious cargoes of wine, spices, silks, jewels, pottery etc. and to take away with them wool and cloths, the principal products of the region. Ouse bridge was like a smaller version of London bridge, lined on either side with tall shops and tenements that had been forced upwards due to the obvious lack of space laterally. Across the southern side of the bridge lay the city’s notorious rough quarter where whores and pickpockets and cut-throats had their dens, nestled under the town walls as they swept round westwards towards Micklegate Bar.
But the jewel in York’s crown was its glorious Minster. This was a far more modern affair than its counterpart in Durham, having been rebuilt in the flamboyant Decorated style throughout the 14th century. Newly completed, its nave soared high above, decorated with richly painted roof bosses adorning the intersections of its beautiful stone vaulting. The central tower stood at over 200 feet and afforded a view over the Plain of York and away to the North Yorkshire Moors – a more than adequate compensation for the unfortunate guards and lookouts whose duty it was daily to mount the 275 steps to the top. As implied by its name, the Minster was originally a Saxon foundation, and although little trace of this old building remained, elements of it had been incorporated into the foundations of the Norman foundation which succeeded it. This had been built by the new Norman lord towards the end of the 11th century and was intended to stand as a symbol of the power of the city’s new Norman masters. This was a classic Norman simple, solid design with small rounded windows that admitted precious little light to the body of the building, of cruciform design, with a squat central tower with pointed apex at the junction of nave, chancel and transepts. Never as spectacular as its Norman cousin up Watling Street at Durham, it eventually suffered the same fate as its Saxon predecessor being dismantled and having its foundations in turn reused to support the nave pillars of the new Gothic Minster that was to replace it. Only completed in the 1390s, it was the largest cathedral in England and the widest in western Europe, a feat made possible by the new building techniques that allowed the masons and builders to span huge widths with their elegant stone vaulting. The whole building was light and graceful. If Durham was masculine in its brooding magnificence, York was feminine – delicate, graceful, beautiful. The weight of its high walls was borne by the new nave pillars, slimmer, colonnaded, and far more decorative than their functional Norman forerunners, and by a series of spectacular flying buttresses that helped to spread the weight of the upper walls around the clerestory outwards and downwards, over the aisles and onto the outside walls of the complex.
The whole interior was light and airy, and when the sun shone, it was illuminated in a riot of rich colour as light poured in through the Minster’s spectacular stained glass. The magnificent east window showed Christ’s genealogy and ancestry back to Jesse and David. The superb Rose window high above the Minster’s south transept was a glorious fusion of vivid reds and blues set in graceful symmetrical stone tracery. The window of the north transept by contrast was a series of five narrow pointed gothic arches, containing grey-green glass depicting simple geometric designs only detectable upon close scrutiny of the window. The locals referred to it as the Five Sisters, emphasising the feminine quality of the Minster. And finally, high above the great west door was the Heart of Yorkshire. So-called because the tracery depicted a large heart shape in the upper centre of the window, and in the setting sun, the golden light shone through the window, its colours and the shifting angles seeming to make it beat with some form of mysterious life-force that sustained England’s largest and greatest county.
Thus it was that on 22 June 1416, dressed in a hair shirt, bereft of all signs of the royal dignity, walked barefoot down the nave of the cathedral, through the rood screen and up towards the high altar where bishop Adémar and the Archbishop of York stood to receive him. The rood screen was not yet complete; it contained statues depicting the kings of England since the Conquest, starting on the left with the Conqueror himself, then the rest of the Norman kings followed by the Plantagenets, the last statue in place being the king’s grandfather and predecessor, Edward IV. There were yet 3 niches left, the first of which would eventually contain an image of Pierre himself, looking westwards down the nave for all eternity. There was a more poignant reminder of the king’s ancestry in the small tomb of his grandfather’s younger brother, Prince William of Hatfield who had died in childhood and was buried in the church in which his parents, Edward III and Phillippa of Hainault had been married.
The king prostrated himself face down on the floor, his arms spread-eagled in submission, and he prayed for forgiveness for all his sins. He remained in this most unregal of postures for over two hours whilst the bishops read psalm 119 antiphonally and heard the king’s confession of his many misdeeds.
From that day onward, those closest to the king detected a new zeal about his religious observance.
The house of de Dampierre had been rocked to its foundations by the events of 1414, but the year at least had a more positive end, as Yves and Margit had their first child, yet another female de Dampierre, and another Sophie, and in the same month of November, a bitter-sweet moment as Phillippa, Alderic’s widow, gave birth to a baby boy, Randolph (Randolph??? you’re having a larf).
Christmas came and went, hardly the most joyous festive season that Pierre had ever spent. 1415 was ticking by and preparations were well underway for Easter. Maundy Thursday was 24 March and for whatever reason – maybe it was to do with the loss of Alderic, or maybe it was a more cynical attempt to improve his piety – Pierre instigated a tradition that has persisted until modern times. The king was in Durham, visiting his northern defences, and he summoned forty poor peasants (one for each year of his life) to the impressive Norman cathedral where he presented each of them with thirteen silver pennies (one for each year of his reign). The ceremony took place within the Romanesque splendour of the massive fortress-cathedral that had been built by the prince bishops of Durham in the 11th century. It was one of those sights that simply took the breath away from ordinary mortals, and even kings panted slightly. It stood on a promontory high above a loop in the river Wear. The heavily wooded escarpment sloped precipitously down towards the gentle flowing river; in autumn the rich multicoloured mantle that the hillside wore was nothing short of spectacular. The cloisters, for the cathedral was also an abbey, occupied the southern side of the site, lying between the south transept and the edge of the ridge, whilst a wide open space known as the cathedral green lay on the north side of the great cathedral. Across the green from the cathedral lay the castle – another Norman creation, a classic motte and bailey affair, topped with a crenellated keep built in beautiful mellow sandstone that contrasted with the darker stonework of the cathedral. The whole site, cathedral and castle, dominated the small town of Durham that lay clustered below the ridge as it sloped gently downwards on the landward side of the promontory, down towards the river as it completed its loop of the town where it was crossed by old Elvet bridge.
The cathedral was said to be one of the architectural wonders of its age. Massive yet graceful, ornate yet simple, it stood as a symbol of man’s devotion to God and to the wealth of bishops and kings past and present. It was also a place of pilgrimage, and if it was not quite in the same league as Canterbury in the far away south of England, the monks still made a pretty penny from the cult of St Cuthbert whom they venerated. His bones lay under the high altar having been robbed from nearby Lindisfarne by the entrepreneurial monks of the time and installed at Durham under the pretext that the saint himself willed it so (by refusing to allow his coffin to be lifted any further once it had lain at Durham). A stone rood screen divided the choir, wherein worshipped and sang the monks, near to their sainted hero, from the nave of the cathedral, where the lay brethren and townsfolk worshipped. They had by no means the worse of the deal, for the nave was famous for its huge stone pillars, each pair on north and south side carved with matching chevrons or waves or diamonds, and each pillar as broad in circumference as it was tall (although it never looked it). At the western end of the nave stood the newest addition to the cathedral, a so-called Galilee chapel. It was here, where the famous Venerable Bede lay entombed, that King Pierre presided over the distribution of what was to become known as Maundy Money on Maundy Thursday, 1415. How the people marvelled at the king’s piety.
The king’s prestige also improved later that year when he appointed his youngest son, Yves, count of Laigin and duke of Leinster. How Ireland continued to interact with the house of de Dampierre since that long ago foray into its rocky north by the king’s great-grandfather, duke Louis II. In the north, the king’s grandson Fedelmid was now duke of Ulster, although a regency council ruled in his name after his father’s untimely murder. Away to the west, a lawless, wild country, lay the duchy of Connaught. An approach from Pierre to its duke, Colman, to become his vassal was rejected, belying Pierre’s claim to be king of ALL Ireland in practice as well as in name.
Another Beck, Adémar, was appointed to high office, king’s chaplain in this case. It was he in fact who brought the sad news of the death of baby Randolph to the king’s attention in October 1415. What had he done to deserve all this, pondered Pierre. A murdered son, a dead grandchild, his first wife dead in childbirth, his second ugly and incapable of providing him with a male heir to Schleswig. Adémar did not judge it the right time to suggest that the king should look inside his own heart for the answers that he sought.
By January 1416, Queen Kunigunde had descended into a deep depression. Doctors said this had been caused by her repeated inability to deliver Pierre with a male heir for Schleswig, coupled by her grief at the loss of her younger brother, and the inevitable barrier that had grown up between her and the king ever since.
In May 1416 Pierre was once again in the north, this time in the small town of Gateshead to witness the first steps in the building of a new grand shipyard. The king himself, symbolically, presented the keys to the dockyard to the architect and the master shipwright, Messrs Swann and Hunter.
Bishop Adémar had not been idle. He had bided his time and had broached the subject of the king’s misfortunes with him on more than one occasion. He raised it again on the long journey back south. The more Pierre thought about it the more the bishop might be right, he thought. At any rate, he knew he had nothing to lose an possibly much to gain by a public show of atonement and penance for his past sins. The royal party’s route took them south through Durham and Boroughbridge and onto York, the ancient capital of the north. The city was proud of its ancient traditions and of its status as the second city in the kingdom. Its inhabitants were proud folk, fiercely independent in many ways, no doubt in part due to the fact that many citizens could trace their ancestry back to the city’s Viking past when it had briefly been an independent Norse kingdom in the 10th century. Like most of England’s cities, it was walled, and the many houses crowded on top of one another in higgledy-piggledy fashion. The merchants’ fine houses on Stonegate and Petergate were in stark contrast to the hovels of the poorer townsfolk down towards the river front. The River Ouse was a great highway for international trade of all sorts, and each day vessels from throughout Europe docked to unload their precious cargoes of wine, spices, silks, jewels, pottery etc. and to take away with them wool and cloths, the principal products of the region. Ouse bridge was like a smaller version of London bridge, lined on either side with tall shops and tenements that had been forced upwards due to the obvious lack of space laterally. Across the southern side of the bridge lay the city’s notorious rough quarter where whores and pickpockets and cut-throats had their dens, nestled under the town walls as they swept round westwards towards Micklegate Bar.
But the jewel in York’s crown was its glorious Minster. This was a far more modern affair than its counterpart in Durham, having been rebuilt in the flamboyant Decorated style throughout the 14th century. Newly completed, its nave soared high above, decorated with richly painted roof bosses adorning the intersections of its beautiful stone vaulting. The central tower stood at over 200 feet and afforded a view over the Plain of York and away to the North Yorkshire Moors – a more than adequate compensation for the unfortunate guards and lookouts whose duty it was daily to mount the 275 steps to the top. As implied by its name, the Minster was originally a Saxon foundation, and although little trace of this old building remained, elements of it had been incorporated into the foundations of the Norman foundation which succeeded it. This had been built by the new Norman lord towards the end of the 11th century and was intended to stand as a symbol of the power of the city’s new Norman masters. This was a classic Norman simple, solid design with small rounded windows that admitted precious little light to the body of the building, of cruciform design, with a squat central tower with pointed apex at the junction of nave, chancel and transepts. Never as spectacular as its Norman cousin up Watling Street at Durham, it eventually suffered the same fate as its Saxon predecessor being dismantled and having its foundations in turn reused to support the nave pillars of the new Gothic Minster that was to replace it. Only completed in the 1390s, it was the largest cathedral in England and the widest in western Europe, a feat made possible by the new building techniques that allowed the masons and builders to span huge widths with their elegant stone vaulting. The whole building was light and graceful. If Durham was masculine in its brooding magnificence, York was feminine – delicate, graceful, beautiful. The weight of its high walls was borne by the new nave pillars, slimmer, colonnaded, and far more decorative than their functional Norman forerunners, and by a series of spectacular flying buttresses that helped to spread the weight of the upper walls around the clerestory outwards and downwards, over the aisles and onto the outside walls of the complex.
The whole interior was light and airy, and when the sun shone, it was illuminated in a riot of rich colour as light poured in through the Minster’s spectacular stained glass. The magnificent east window showed Christ’s genealogy and ancestry back to Jesse and David. The superb Rose window high above the Minster’s south transept was a glorious fusion of vivid reds and blues set in graceful symmetrical stone tracery. The window of the north transept by contrast was a series of five narrow pointed gothic arches, containing grey-green glass depicting simple geometric designs only detectable upon close scrutiny of the window. The locals referred to it as the Five Sisters, emphasising the feminine quality of the Minster. And finally, high above the great west door was the Heart of Yorkshire. So-called because the tracery depicted a large heart shape in the upper centre of the window, and in the setting sun, the golden light shone through the window, its colours and the shifting angles seeming to make it beat with some form of mysterious life-force that sustained England’s largest and greatest county.
Thus it was that on 22 June 1416, dressed in a hair shirt, bereft of all signs of the royal dignity, walked barefoot down the nave of the cathedral, through the rood screen and up towards the high altar where bishop Adémar and the Archbishop of York stood to receive him. The rood screen was not yet complete; it contained statues depicting the kings of England since the Conquest, starting on the left with the Conqueror himself, then the rest of the Norman kings followed by the Plantagenets, the last statue in place being the king’s grandfather and predecessor, Edward IV. There were yet 3 niches left, the first of which would eventually contain an image of Pierre himself, looking westwards down the nave for all eternity. There was a more poignant reminder of the king’s ancestry in the small tomb of his grandfather’s younger brother, Prince William of Hatfield who had died in childhood and was buried in the church in which his parents, Edward III and Phillippa of Hainault had been married.
The king prostrated himself face down on the floor, his arms spread-eagled in submission, and he prayed for forgiveness for all his sins. He remained in this most unregal of postures for over two hours whilst the bishops read psalm 119 antiphonally and heard the king’s confession of his many misdeeds.
From that day onward, those closest to the king detected a new zeal about his religious observance.
I sure hope so. Poor Pierre the Spare has become Pierre the Despair with all the terrible things happening around him recently.
Great to see another update, RA! I always look forward to seeing another one is up!
Great to see another update, RA! I always look forward to seeing another one is up!
CHAPTER 46 TOWARDS THE DUAL MONARCHY
Having paid due regard to his spiritual needs, Pierre’s attention turned towards temporal matters in the second half of 1416. A civil war was raging in France. King Manasses was at war with the Il Khanate and several of his vassals had taken the opportunity to rebel. It had always irked Pierre that the county of Glamorgan in south Wales lay outside his domain, being as it was a part of the county of Perigord. Having a claim on that French title, Pierre decided that the confusion within France should be his catalyst to make good that claim, and so in January 1417 the king declared war on Perigord and sent his troops over the Severn and towards Glamorgan. Immediately, King Manasses declared war on England in support of his vassal. Pierre’s troops were soon in theatre however, and on 20 February, Swansea castle fell into English hands.
Meanwhile, Pierre was busy mobilising his French and other English forces. The Bordeaux regiment was sent northwards to Lusignan to besiege its large castle, and the Northumberland regiment, newly recruited via the new war academy, set sail for Avranches on the north coast of France. Back in France, the king summoned a vassal, Tello de la Cerda, Count of Angouleme, to assist in the siege of Perigord. Tello sent 1111 men.
The war was prosecuted throughout the summer, but it was not until the autumn that tangible benefits accrued. First, on 5 October 1417, Avranches was captured. The Northumbrians headed on into Maine, which was captured on 11 December. A brief Christmas truce was observed by both sides, marked by a curious event in the ongoing siege of Perigord. Under a white flag, the attackers proposed a match of the newly popular game of football. This involved as many men as possible chasing an inflated pig’s bladder cross country, the object of the game being to force the pig’s bladder between a small opening, maybe a gap between some trees, or between buildings if played in a town, or maybe even marked by clothes in two piles, said opening being stoutly defended by those not in possession of the bladder. Injuries were commonplace, and fatalities not unheard of. So concerned had Edward III been that he outlawed the game, demanding that Englishmen spent time practising archery and not indulging themselves in a frivolous pastime that obviously would never catch on. (For the record, the English won, 2-0)
The serious business of prosecuting the siege of Perigord soon recommenced, and the castle eventually fell on 1 February 1418. A week later the English won a battle in Anjou and placed the castle under siege. Two days later, Aimery de Valois, Count of Perigord sued for peace with Pierre. He ceded his title in Perigord and his claim on Biskra to Pierre, but retained the county of Glamorgan. Pierre was satisfied with this for he had gained French territory, consolidating his holdings there, and he knew he could pick off Glamorgan again in the future. For the time being however, Aimery refused to become Pierre’s vassal.
Anjou fell on 21 February, and Lusignan on 23 June. Pierre’s forces invaded Poitiers.
In late September 1418, king Pierre was at Anjou, preparing for the feast of Michaelmas. This feast had a particular poignancy this year, for in the midst of a war, which better saint to venerate
than Michael, archangel and leader of the heavenly host. A herald from the court of King Manasses had arrived, seeking a meeting between the two monarchs. Pierre had agreed, but had insisted that Manasses came to him in his new castle of Anjou. Thus it was that on Michaelmas Eve, king Manasses, attended by his significant courtiers, rode through the gatehouse of Anjou castle on a milk white steed. He was of average height and build, with wavy brown hair, and a full rusty brown beard. He was dressed smartly but not over elaborately, with a blue woollen cloak to keep out the autumnal chill, and on his head he wore a velvet cap of maintenance, blue to match the cloak, but trimmed with costly ermine.
The castellan greeted the king politely, bowing before him as his office required. He led Manasses across the bailey and into the great hall of the castle. Here, seated on a large gilded throne, sat king Pierre, under a heraldic canopy with the leopard arms of England quartered with the fleur-de-lys of France. He was wearing a rich red tunic, belted at the waist, and on his head he wore a gold circlet, not the full crown of St Edward – that was reserved for the ceremonial crown wearing at Christmas, Easter and Whitsuntide – but one which nonetheless emphasised the king’s royal status. Manasses approached the throne and bowed. Pierre remained seated in his throne, his face impassive. Protocol required that Pierre offer Manasses a seat, for they were social equals, but the English king made no such offer but left his adversary standing. A brief period of silence ensued, and then Manasses spoke.
“Cher cousin, je vous souhaite dans le nom de Christ. Je suis venu ici en amité. C’est necessaire que nous terminons la guerre entre nos royaumes. Vous etes le roi d’Angleterre, et je suis le roi de France. Mais je cederai toutes les conquetes que vous avez gagné – les comtés d’Avranches et Perigord, Maine et Anjou et Lusignan.”
Pierre sat unmoved in his throne, pondering Manasses’s offer. After a while he spoke, softly.
“Non! Vous desirez la paix? Ecoutez-bien a ce que je dis. Je sera roi de France; tu seras mon vassal.”
Manasses looked into the cold blue eyes of king Pierre, and bowed to the inevitable. At least this way he got to keep some dignity and some lands. He could not possibly sustain an ongoing war against both the Il Khanate and England. He gave his assent to Pierre’s demands, just as the Flemish king of England knew that he would. Shortly, Manasses knelt before Pierre, doffed his cap, and did homage for his remaining French lands to Pierre, king of England, France, Wales, and Ireland. Two days later the megalomaniac king added the kingdom of Mallorca to his collection of regal titles.
Having paid due regard to his spiritual needs, Pierre’s attention turned towards temporal matters in the second half of 1416. A civil war was raging in France. King Manasses was at war with the Il Khanate and several of his vassals had taken the opportunity to rebel. It had always irked Pierre that the county of Glamorgan in south Wales lay outside his domain, being as it was a part of the county of Perigord. Having a claim on that French title, Pierre decided that the confusion within France should be his catalyst to make good that claim, and so in January 1417 the king declared war on Perigord and sent his troops over the Severn and towards Glamorgan. Immediately, King Manasses declared war on England in support of his vassal. Pierre’s troops were soon in theatre however, and on 20 February, Swansea castle fell into English hands.
Meanwhile, Pierre was busy mobilising his French and other English forces. The Bordeaux regiment was sent northwards to Lusignan to besiege its large castle, and the Northumberland regiment, newly recruited via the new war academy, set sail for Avranches on the north coast of France. Back in France, the king summoned a vassal, Tello de la Cerda, Count of Angouleme, to assist in the siege of Perigord. Tello sent 1111 men.
The war was prosecuted throughout the summer, but it was not until the autumn that tangible benefits accrued. First, on 5 October 1417, Avranches was captured. The Northumbrians headed on into Maine, which was captured on 11 December. A brief Christmas truce was observed by both sides, marked by a curious event in the ongoing siege of Perigord. Under a white flag, the attackers proposed a match of the newly popular game of football. This involved as many men as possible chasing an inflated pig’s bladder cross country, the object of the game being to force the pig’s bladder between a small opening, maybe a gap between some trees, or between buildings if played in a town, or maybe even marked by clothes in two piles, said opening being stoutly defended by those not in possession of the bladder. Injuries were commonplace, and fatalities not unheard of. So concerned had Edward III been that he outlawed the game, demanding that Englishmen spent time practising archery and not indulging themselves in a frivolous pastime that obviously would never catch on. (For the record, the English won, 2-0)
The serious business of prosecuting the siege of Perigord soon recommenced, and the castle eventually fell on 1 February 1418. A week later the English won a battle in Anjou and placed the castle under siege. Two days later, Aimery de Valois, Count of Perigord sued for peace with Pierre. He ceded his title in Perigord and his claim on Biskra to Pierre, but retained the county of Glamorgan. Pierre was satisfied with this for he had gained French territory, consolidating his holdings there, and he knew he could pick off Glamorgan again in the future. For the time being however, Aimery refused to become Pierre’s vassal.
Anjou fell on 21 February, and Lusignan on 23 June. Pierre’s forces invaded Poitiers.
In late September 1418, king Pierre was at Anjou, preparing for the feast of Michaelmas. This feast had a particular poignancy this year, for in the midst of a war, which better saint to venerate
than Michael, archangel and leader of the heavenly host. A herald from the court of King Manasses had arrived, seeking a meeting between the two monarchs. Pierre had agreed, but had insisted that Manasses came to him in his new castle of Anjou. Thus it was that on Michaelmas Eve, king Manasses, attended by his significant courtiers, rode through the gatehouse of Anjou castle on a milk white steed. He was of average height and build, with wavy brown hair, and a full rusty brown beard. He was dressed smartly but not over elaborately, with a blue woollen cloak to keep out the autumnal chill, and on his head he wore a velvet cap of maintenance, blue to match the cloak, but trimmed with costly ermine.
The castellan greeted the king politely, bowing before him as his office required. He led Manasses across the bailey and into the great hall of the castle. Here, seated on a large gilded throne, sat king Pierre, under a heraldic canopy with the leopard arms of England quartered with the fleur-de-lys of France. He was wearing a rich red tunic, belted at the waist, and on his head he wore a gold circlet, not the full crown of St Edward – that was reserved for the ceremonial crown wearing at Christmas, Easter and Whitsuntide – but one which nonetheless emphasised the king’s royal status. Manasses approached the throne and bowed. Pierre remained seated in his throne, his face impassive. Protocol required that Pierre offer Manasses a seat, for they were social equals, but the English king made no such offer but left his adversary standing. A brief period of silence ensued, and then Manasses spoke.
“Cher cousin, je vous souhaite dans le nom de Christ. Je suis venu ici en amité. C’est necessaire que nous terminons la guerre entre nos royaumes. Vous etes le roi d’Angleterre, et je suis le roi de France. Mais je cederai toutes les conquetes que vous avez gagné – les comtés d’Avranches et Perigord, Maine et Anjou et Lusignan.”
Pierre sat unmoved in his throne, pondering Manasses’s offer. After a while he spoke, softly.
“Non! Vous desirez la paix? Ecoutez-bien a ce que je dis. Je sera roi de France; tu seras mon vassal.”
Manasses looked into the cold blue eyes of king Pierre, and bowed to the inevitable. At least this way he got to keep some dignity and some lands. He could not possibly sustain an ongoing war against both the Il Khanate and England. He gave his assent to Pierre’s demands, just as the Flemish king of England knew that he would. Shortly, Manasses knelt before Pierre, doffed his cap, and did homage for his remaining French lands to Pierre, king of England, France, Wales, and Ireland. Two days later the megalomaniac king added the kingdom of Mallorca to his collection of regal titles.
“Cher cousin, je vous souhaite dans le nom de Christ. Je suis venu ici en amité. C’est necessaire que nous terminons la guerre entre nos royaumes. Vous etes le roi d’Angleterre, et je suis le roi de France. Mais je cederai toutes les conquetes que vous avez gagné – les comtés d’Avranches et Perigord, Maine et Anjou et Lusignan.”
“Non! Vous desirez la paix? Ecoutez-bien a ce que je dis. Je sera roi de France; tu seras mon vassal.”
im sorry but could someone please translate i dont speak french
“Non! Vous desirez la paix? Ecoutez-bien a ce que je dis. Je sera roi de France; tu seras mon vassal.”
im sorry but could someone please translate i dont speak french
Maccavelli,
I wrote this in French to be authentic (if a bit posey) as this is the language the two monarchs would surely have conversed in. This is what it means in English.
"Dear cousin. I greet you in the name of Christ. I have come here in friendship. It is necessary that we end the warfare between our two kingdoms. You are king of England and I am king of France. But I will cede all the conquests that you have won. The counties of Avranches and Perigord, Maine and Anjou and Lusignan."
"No! You want peace? Then listen well to what I have to say. I shall be king of France. You will be my vassal."
Hope this makes sense for you now, and apologies to any native French out there if my French is not quite accurate (I know I missed some accents off - English keyboard obviously).
I wrote this in French to be authentic (if a bit posey) as this is the language the two monarchs would surely have conversed in. This is what it means in English.
"Dear cousin. I greet you in the name of Christ. I have come here in friendship. It is necessary that we end the warfare between our two kingdoms. You are king of England and I am king of France. But I will cede all the conquests that you have won. The counties of Avranches and Perigord, Maine and Anjou and Lusignan."
"No! You want peace? Then listen well to what I have to say. I shall be king of France. You will be my vassal."
Hope this makes sense for you now, and apologies to any native French out there if my French is not quite accurate (I know I missed some accents off - English keyboard obviously).
And now finally the Kingdom of France is yours. Who would of thunk it all those years ago?
thanks for the translation rex i knew the jist of what was being said and i recognised a few words but i wanted to understand the whole thing
CHAPTER 47 EPILOGUE
Pierre’s new French territories, and his position as Manasses new overlord made renewed war with the Il Khanate inevitable. Breda was lost and won, Chartres was invaded, and the ancestral heartlands of the kings of France, the Ile de France was captured from the Il Khanate.
At this stage in the game, my PC crashed, and I lost the save game! What follows is what might have happened. Rather a sad way to end my epic tale. I hope that you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it. Do let me know your thoughts and in particular if you want me to start another AAR in due course. Suggestions for counties/duchies to play that would suit my style of writing welcomed.[/I]
The war dragged on throughout 1419 and 1420 with both sides winning battles and territories and then just as soon losing them. The map of northern France and Flanders flickered between the gold of the Il Khanate and the red of England. And then suddenly in June 1421 King Hamza died leaving his throne to his teenage son. Pierre pressed home his advantage, pushing the Il Khanate back across the Rhine before suing for peace, a mission gratefully accepted by the young infidel king’s council. Pierre was secure as king of France. He held the title to 5 kingdoms. His hegemony covered north western Europe from Normandy across to Flanders and as far south as the Loire. In the British Isles he was undisputed king of England, Wales and most or Ireland. The king of Scots was his ally. He was king of the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean, and overlord of provinces along the north African coast. Not for nothing did he sometimes conceive of himself as a latter-day western Alexander.
However, as with Alexander, his achievements effectively died with him. Pierre died peacefully in November 1422. His grandson, Fedelmid was declared king of England, France, Wales, Ireland and Mallorca. However, he was a weak vessel, hardly known outside of his Irish duchy, and in France Manasses seized the opportunity to re-open war with England and to regain his French throne. Mallorca was soon lost to the kingdom of Spain, and one by one, English-Flemish possessions in north Africa fell to the Moslems. By the end of 1423, Fedelmid was titular king of England, Wales and Ireland. However, discontent was rampant, and the barons and lords of the realm of England cast about for an alternative king to the hapless Fedelmid. How they wished he had inherited his grandfather’s abilities. Some remained loyal to the embattled monarch, whilst others, many others aligned themselves behind the claim of young Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York. He was distantly related to Fedelmid, being a direct descendant through the female line from the second son of king Edward III. Throughout the 1420s a feud simmered between the supporters of the king and those of the man who would be king. The contrast between the two men could not be more extreme. Fedelmid was gaunt and haunted by uncertainty and had little kingly aura. Richard was well built and infused with the certainty of his destiny. At 19, he had the unmistakable bearing of a king. A year later, in 1431, the feud erupted into open hostility – civil war. Taking personal charge, the young duke shattered the royal forces first at St Albans, and then, pursuing the fleeing royal army, once again at Northampton. Here Fedelmid was captured. He was treated with suitable dignity by duke Richard, who escorted him to London.
A parliament was hastily convened, packed with supporters of duke Richard, to consider who should be king. Richard claimed it by right of conquest, and by blood descent. Fedelmid was the crowned and anointed king. A compromise was reached. Fedelmid would remain king during his lifetime, but Richard and the heirs of his body would succeed him. In the meantime, Richard would rule as Lord Protector. This fell short of what the duke had hoped for, but the English were a conservative lot and were wary of deposing the Lord’s anointed.
Duke Richard prosecuted the war with France with vigour. Normandy was secured and the French king forced back on to the Ile de France. At home, he encouraged trade, sponsored the arts, and, most importantly, lived off his own estate, barely taxing his king’s subjects. When two years later, in July 1433, king Fedelmid was found mysteriously dead in his bed one morning, the succession of the duke of York as King Richard II was assured.
King Richard and Queen Cecily ruled England wisely for 50 years. The economy flourished, bolstered by the close ties with Flanders whose dukes remained vassals of the English king, despite the demise of the Flemish dynasty on the island throne. Peace was at last secured with France. King Richard ruled all Normandy, Maine, Anjou, Poitou, Picardy, Aquitaine – a French inheritance greater than even that of his ancestor Henry II. The king of France also paid him homage for his French lands around the Ile de France.
King Richard had many sons, four of whom survived into adulthood. The eldest Edward, Prince of Wales was a giant of a man, with a zest for life, for fighting and for womanising. Anxious to succeed his father, and more and more frustrated as the years passed, his once fine physique gave out in his 42nd year and he pre-deceased his father. He left two bastard sons and five daughters. The second son, Edmund, was already dead, killed in a fall from his horse near Wakefield in 1460. The third son, George, was another wastrel. In another age he would have been diagnosed for the alcoholic he was. Drink was his undoing; he died from cirrhosis of the liver in 1476. That left as the king’s rightful heir his youngest son, Richard duke of Gloucester.
Young Richard had been born prematurely at Fotheringhay in Northamptonshire. During his infancy and childhood no-one had really paid him much attention – he had three older brothers after all, and it would have been a brave or mad man who would have predicted that one day this small boy would become England’s greatest king. Always a small child, Richard was determined to prove himself his brothers’ equal. How it used to amuse them to see him struggling with the heavy wooden swords, strapped into his boy’s suit of armour, fighting squires twice his age and size. But the training was to pay off. Richard became incredibly strong and well-muscled, with such strangely broad shoulders that those who met him for the first time might easily mistake for a hunch-back. Richard married Anne, the co-heiress to the mightiest landholder in the country, the Earl of Warwick, a kinsman of the queen. Assigned by his father to rule the unruly northern marches of England, young Richard, now the duke of Gloucester, became much loved by his northern retainers.
King Richard II died in April 1483, and his only surviving son, Richard, duke of Gloucester, was acclaimed as his successor by the assembled Lords and Commons of England. King Richard III was crowned alongside Anne his queen in the splendour of Westminster Abbey in July 1483. He set off on a tour of his kingdom that delighted his subjects wherever he went. A revolt by a close kinsman, the duke of Buckingham, was put down, and when in 1485, an unknown Welsh upstart, Henry Tydder invaded via Wales, Richard won a crushing victory at Badsworth. The Welshman was rescued from his soiled armour after the battle and allowed to live out his days as constable of Pembroke castle. Here, later on, his son, a rather fat boy also called Henry was to achieve notoriety for marrying 6 times in a vain bid to perpetuate the Tydder line.
Secure on his throne, Richard III reigned over the English for many years, as good a lord and master as anyone could remember. He died peacefully aged 95 after a reign of 65 years on 22 August 1548. During his reign the printing revolution took off, and literacy started to increase, especially amongst the merchant classes who could afford the costly books, and had the time and money to pay for tutors to teach their children how to read and write. The New World was discovered, thanks in part to Richard’s generous sponsorship of the sailor-explorers who pressed the courts of Europe. The Cabot brothers, Frobisher, even Christopher Columbus all benefited from Richard’s generosity. Always a pious and zealous man, King Richard was horrified at the teachings of the German firebrand Martin Luther, and the humanists like Erasmus. He wrote a determined defence of the Catholic church and was rewarded by the Pope with the title Fidelis Defensor – defender of the faith, a title preserved within the British monarchy to this date, and found in abbreviated format on the British currency today.
Thus there was no Reformation in England, no religious bigotry or sectarianism to claim the lives of countless innocent victims. There was no arbitrary rule or tyrannical executions by fat, insane kings. There was still a union of the crowns of England and Scotland through inter-marriage in the years to come, but there was no Civil War and no Hanoverian succession – the Stuart kings who eventually replaced the Plantagenet line ruled throughout the 18th and early 19th centuries until the death of King Henry IX in 1821. He was succeeded by King Victor, ushering in the Victorian age. A series of non-entities followed him, but now once again greatness has been restored to the throne of England in the guise of its current ruler – Rex Angliae!!
Pierre’s new French territories, and his position as Manasses new overlord made renewed war with the Il Khanate inevitable. Breda was lost and won, Chartres was invaded, and the ancestral heartlands of the kings of France, the Ile de France was captured from the Il Khanate.
At this stage in the game, my PC crashed, and I lost the save game! What follows is what might have happened. Rather a sad way to end my epic tale. I hope that you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it. Do let me know your thoughts and in particular if you want me to start another AAR in due course. Suggestions for counties/duchies to play that would suit my style of writing welcomed.[/I]
The war dragged on throughout 1419 and 1420 with both sides winning battles and territories and then just as soon losing them. The map of northern France and Flanders flickered between the gold of the Il Khanate and the red of England. And then suddenly in June 1421 King Hamza died leaving his throne to his teenage son. Pierre pressed home his advantage, pushing the Il Khanate back across the Rhine before suing for peace, a mission gratefully accepted by the young infidel king’s council. Pierre was secure as king of France. He held the title to 5 kingdoms. His hegemony covered north western Europe from Normandy across to Flanders and as far south as the Loire. In the British Isles he was undisputed king of England, Wales and most or Ireland. The king of Scots was his ally. He was king of the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean, and overlord of provinces along the north African coast. Not for nothing did he sometimes conceive of himself as a latter-day western Alexander.
However, as with Alexander, his achievements effectively died with him. Pierre died peacefully in November 1422. His grandson, Fedelmid was declared king of England, France, Wales, Ireland and Mallorca. However, he was a weak vessel, hardly known outside of his Irish duchy, and in France Manasses seized the opportunity to re-open war with England and to regain his French throne. Mallorca was soon lost to the kingdom of Spain, and one by one, English-Flemish possessions in north Africa fell to the Moslems. By the end of 1423, Fedelmid was titular king of England, Wales and Ireland. However, discontent was rampant, and the barons and lords of the realm of England cast about for an alternative king to the hapless Fedelmid. How they wished he had inherited his grandfather’s abilities. Some remained loyal to the embattled monarch, whilst others, many others aligned themselves behind the claim of young Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York. He was distantly related to Fedelmid, being a direct descendant through the female line from the second son of king Edward III. Throughout the 1420s a feud simmered between the supporters of the king and those of the man who would be king. The contrast between the two men could not be more extreme. Fedelmid was gaunt and haunted by uncertainty and had little kingly aura. Richard was well built and infused with the certainty of his destiny. At 19, he had the unmistakable bearing of a king. A year later, in 1431, the feud erupted into open hostility – civil war. Taking personal charge, the young duke shattered the royal forces first at St Albans, and then, pursuing the fleeing royal army, once again at Northampton. Here Fedelmid was captured. He was treated with suitable dignity by duke Richard, who escorted him to London.
A parliament was hastily convened, packed with supporters of duke Richard, to consider who should be king. Richard claimed it by right of conquest, and by blood descent. Fedelmid was the crowned and anointed king. A compromise was reached. Fedelmid would remain king during his lifetime, but Richard and the heirs of his body would succeed him. In the meantime, Richard would rule as Lord Protector. This fell short of what the duke had hoped for, but the English were a conservative lot and were wary of deposing the Lord’s anointed.
Duke Richard prosecuted the war with France with vigour. Normandy was secured and the French king forced back on to the Ile de France. At home, he encouraged trade, sponsored the arts, and, most importantly, lived off his own estate, barely taxing his king’s subjects. When two years later, in July 1433, king Fedelmid was found mysteriously dead in his bed one morning, the succession of the duke of York as King Richard II was assured.
King Richard and Queen Cecily ruled England wisely for 50 years. The economy flourished, bolstered by the close ties with Flanders whose dukes remained vassals of the English king, despite the demise of the Flemish dynasty on the island throne. Peace was at last secured with France. King Richard ruled all Normandy, Maine, Anjou, Poitou, Picardy, Aquitaine – a French inheritance greater than even that of his ancestor Henry II. The king of France also paid him homage for his French lands around the Ile de France.
King Richard had many sons, four of whom survived into adulthood. The eldest Edward, Prince of Wales was a giant of a man, with a zest for life, for fighting and for womanising. Anxious to succeed his father, and more and more frustrated as the years passed, his once fine physique gave out in his 42nd year and he pre-deceased his father. He left two bastard sons and five daughters. The second son, Edmund, was already dead, killed in a fall from his horse near Wakefield in 1460. The third son, George, was another wastrel. In another age he would have been diagnosed for the alcoholic he was. Drink was his undoing; he died from cirrhosis of the liver in 1476. That left as the king’s rightful heir his youngest son, Richard duke of Gloucester.
Young Richard had been born prematurely at Fotheringhay in Northamptonshire. During his infancy and childhood no-one had really paid him much attention – he had three older brothers after all, and it would have been a brave or mad man who would have predicted that one day this small boy would become England’s greatest king. Always a small child, Richard was determined to prove himself his brothers’ equal. How it used to amuse them to see him struggling with the heavy wooden swords, strapped into his boy’s suit of armour, fighting squires twice his age and size. But the training was to pay off. Richard became incredibly strong and well-muscled, with such strangely broad shoulders that those who met him for the first time might easily mistake for a hunch-back. Richard married Anne, the co-heiress to the mightiest landholder in the country, the Earl of Warwick, a kinsman of the queen. Assigned by his father to rule the unruly northern marches of England, young Richard, now the duke of Gloucester, became much loved by his northern retainers.
King Richard II died in April 1483, and his only surviving son, Richard, duke of Gloucester, was acclaimed as his successor by the assembled Lords and Commons of England. King Richard III was crowned alongside Anne his queen in the splendour of Westminster Abbey in July 1483. He set off on a tour of his kingdom that delighted his subjects wherever he went. A revolt by a close kinsman, the duke of Buckingham, was put down, and when in 1485, an unknown Welsh upstart, Henry Tydder invaded via Wales, Richard won a crushing victory at Badsworth. The Welshman was rescued from his soiled armour after the battle and allowed to live out his days as constable of Pembroke castle. Here, later on, his son, a rather fat boy also called Henry was to achieve notoriety for marrying 6 times in a vain bid to perpetuate the Tydder line.
Secure on his throne, Richard III reigned over the English for many years, as good a lord and master as anyone could remember. He died peacefully aged 95 after a reign of 65 years on 22 August 1548. During his reign the printing revolution took off, and literacy started to increase, especially amongst the merchant classes who could afford the costly books, and had the time and money to pay for tutors to teach their children how to read and write. The New World was discovered, thanks in part to Richard’s generous sponsorship of the sailor-explorers who pressed the courts of Europe. The Cabot brothers, Frobisher, even Christopher Columbus all benefited from Richard’s generosity. Always a pious and zealous man, King Richard was horrified at the teachings of the German firebrand Martin Luther, and the humanists like Erasmus. He wrote a determined defence of the Catholic church and was rewarded by the Pope with the title Fidelis Defensor – defender of the faith, a title preserved within the British monarchy to this date, and found in abbreviated format on the British currency today.
Thus there was no Reformation in England, no religious bigotry or sectarianism to claim the lives of countless innocent victims. There was no arbitrary rule or tyrannical executions by fat, insane kings. There was still a union of the crowns of England and Scotland through inter-marriage in the years to come, but there was no Civil War and no Hanoverian succession – the Stuart kings who eventually replaced the Plantagenet line ruled throughout the 18th and early 19th centuries until the death of King Henry IX in 1821. He was succeeded by King Victor, ushering in the Victorian age. A series of non-entities followed him, but now once again greatness has been restored to the throne of England in the guise of its current ruler – Rex Angliae!!
Stnylan, Yes it was, but it was great fun while it lasted. Thank you for all your comments and support - it makes writing so much more rewarding and enjoyable to receive feedback such as yours. I must get around to reading your Somerset AAR now that I've nothing to write myself, and then it will be time to start up a new CK game, and who knows, start another AAR.
Please do. Admittedly I've not update it for a week because my attention has been elsewhere, and there is a hell of a lot of catching up on the forums I've noticed.
Any possibilities of your donig another AAR?
Any possibilities of your donig another AAR?
Ah, what sorrow. I finally get around to your latest update and find that this wonderful tale is now over. 'Tis a shame, but you must be applauded for writing a terrific piece and I do hope you attempt another.
I found the round up well done also. Richard III a glorious king, indeed. Strange to think it, but a believable end to this tale of a young Flemish Duke who's family made good as King of England (among other things.)
Congrats on finishing, even with the crash. I really enjoyed it!!
I found the round up well done also. Richard III a glorious king, indeed. Strange to think it, but a believable end to this tale of a young Flemish Duke who's family made good as King of England (among other things.)
Congrats on finishing, even with the crash. I really enjoyed it!!
Coz1, Thank you for your kind words. I am so glad you enjoyed the tale. I was always pleased to see a post from you as I knew it would be supportive and positive, and as you know, we all derive much encouragement and pleasure in feedback from other writers out there. Once I have finished my current CivIII game I shall be firing up CK again and hopefully writing another AAR, maybe in a different style. I'd like to try an epic poem style maybe, like Beowulf, or maybe a more simple rhyming tale. Who knows. Once it's up and running I'll announce it in the Central BAAR and CK LibrAARy. Cheers.
CivIII? Infidel!
Seriously, this has got to be one of the best AARs I've read (and damn you, for I should have been working on my thesis today). I'll subscribe for your next one for sure.
Seriously, this has got to be one of the best AARs I've read (and damn you, for I should have been working on my thesis today). I'll subscribe for your next one for sure.
sad about the crash but your AAR is great please write another i dunno but i think a duchy in scotland would be quite interesting
Kristian, Thanks and hope I'm not responsible for a failed academic career!
Maccavelli, You and others will be pleased to know that I've started a new AAR, Arthur's Tale. It's a Duchy of Brittany 1187 AAR as there seemed to be few of these around. Just follow the link in my sig. A massive thanks to you and my other regular correspondents who appear to have enjoyed In Flanders Fields. My new AAR is slightly different in style but hopefully just as enjoyable.
Maccavelli, You and others will be pleased to know that I've started a new AAR, Arthur's Tale. It's a Duchy of Brittany 1187 AAR as there seemed to be few of these around. Just follow the link in my sig. A massive thanks to you and my other regular correspondents who appear to have enjoyed In Flanders Fields. My new AAR is slightly different in style but hopefully just as enjoyable.
Rex Angliae said:
If it fails this close to completion, it wasn't due to spending some hours reading your very enjoyable prose
Rex Angliae said:
* clicks "subscribe" *