Chapter the third
Knights of Opportunity: In Hoc Signo Vinces, Chapter 3
The dream of L'Isle Adam
...In a chapel, he prostrates himself before the altar, again, and again. "Not my will, Lord, but yours", he repeats endlessly, yet the Christ looks down on him with sorrowful eyes.
...Amongst savages, he rallies his men for the charge that will break the heathens, once and for all. The sky is overcast, but the incessant rain that has brought so much sickness on his men has finally ended. It is a good day to fight, and his men, weary though they may be, will win the day. Suddenly, the sky is clouded by a hail of darts, plunging into the ranks. He calls the charge.
...In the capital, he teaches a generation of young men how to order their armies. They will win the fame and fortune that was denied him, but they will not forget their teacher.
...From one of the seven hills, he watches as the fate of nations is decided by the greed of an ally. "Does this have to be, Lord?" he pleads with the silent heavens. "Shall this mortal sin go unpunished?"
...He looks on the map of Europe, torn by religious schism, while the infidel muslims wax in power. "A sign!" he implores, "any sign!" Does the shadows flicker? Does the sound of the guard beyond the door signify anything? How is a man to to know what is made of his own fears and desires, and what is of God? He hits the table, frustrated, and a candle falls. Slowly, so slowly, it falls, taking an eternity while he watch, unable to intervene, but where it lands, it sets the map afire. And he has his sign.
"...The early years of the sixteenth century marked the rise of L'Isle Adam within the Hospitaller ranks. As has been shown, he was already at the time considered to be one of the foremost military commanders of the order and he was thus the natural choice for leading the armies against the heathens on the far shores of the new world. Following Emeric d'Amboise's brilliant negotiations with the dual monarchs of Spain, the Spanish maps of the new world were traded for the Knight's maps of the far east, and the road thus lay open for bringing the word of God to those in need of salvation. And thus a fleet was assembled and an army gathered and it was flung across the seas: A spear of God to plunge deep into the heart of the heathens. The Mayas were first in its path"
L'Isle Adam brings the word of God to the Mayas
"...Now, let no man think that Europe lay quiescent. The western alliance of France, Scotland, Spain, and the Knights Hospitaller was engaged in yet another ultimately fruitless war against Britanny, Venice, Aragon, Ragusa, and, which caused no small consternation in the top ranks of the Hospitallers, the Papal States themselves.
Emeric d'Amboise was always a cautious man, so the Knights were not greatly involved in this conflict, but then, he had plenty of worries on the home front. The first was, perhaps, the horrible wounding of L'Isle Adam in Guatemala in 1505. Though he survived the amputation of his left leg, he was no longer an able general. Embittered, he returned to Rhodes, and began teaching military tactics to the next generation of Hospitaller generals. But, as time showed, that was not the end of his tale. Second was perhaps the corruption scandal which rocked his early administration in '06 (cf. The Portuguese Protection Racket), which he tried to hush up at a great cost in gold, necessitating another expensive loan from the merchants. And third was the petition for redress from the people of Tago the following year, which he chose to deny.
In fact, d'Amboise would probably have gone down in the annals as one of the most unfortunate or incompetent of Grand Masters, as his later years saw a devastating fire burn down the Academy of Fine Arts in Napoli and the assassination of a prominent noble (viscount Flandern) as well as the reduction of Hospitaller influence by the restoration of certain ancient rights to the cities of France, were it not for his two signal successes: He planted the Hospitaller banner proudly in the New World with the conquest of Tehuacan, Guatemala, and Campeche from the Mayas, in which campaign the order also gained a great wealth of 1,800d in gold, and he began the setting up of trading posts in the Carribean. From such humble beginnings are empires made.
The short-lived Guy de Blanchefort (reigned 1512-1513) had no lasting impact, but he was succeeded as Grand Master by Fabrizio Di Caretto. Influenced by L'Isle Adam, he extended Hospitaller control over Saltillo, Jalisco, and Michoagan in the New World in the campaign of 1517-1518, crippling forever the heathen Aztec nation. Soon, gold in vast quantities was filling the coffers of the Knights Hospitaller, a flood of wealth that would come close to destroying the nation by the curse of inflation, a fact of which these medieval Hospitaller lords were blissfully unaware at the time.
Did the Hospitaller gold fund the fall of the Papacy? Many of my esteemed colleagues would say not, but they are misguided, blinded by the official version of events and a naive understanding of human nature. While it is true that the second alliance war of Western Europe vs. Central Europe did see the loss of Romagna and Marche to the Knights Hospitaller in 1520, leading, indirectly, to the annexation of the Papal States by France in 1524, this should not be seen as mere coincidence. Would France have dared take Rome itself without the precedence of the Hospitallers taking Papal lands? It seems unlikely. Then why did the Hospitallers dare - if not for the sure knowledge that France would follow? It is too much for coincidence. In fact, as I will conclusively demonstrate as soon as my research materials are returned by the Holy Inquisition Into Matters Historical, which is currently reviewing them, it all transpired in accordance with the plans of that shadowy figure, L'Isle Adam, who now returned to the world stage. Until then, you will have to take my word for it.
During the second decade of the sixteenth century, L'Isle Adam had been steadily positioning himself for the office of Grand Master, making friends both at home, in France, and in Rome. Thus, when Di Caretto died in 1523, L'Isle Adam was the natural choice, and François I knew that his path to the control of the Papacy lay open. Now, where had all the Hospitaller gold been spent in the five years since the influx began? On the advice of L'Isle Adam, it had mainly gone into the army. Whatever the desires of François I of France in his secret negotiations with L'Isle Adam, he most certainly was frustrated by the enigmatic manipulations of the Grand Master.
It must, undoubtedly, have come as a shock to the French monarch, when Grand Master of the Hopital of St. John of Jerusalem, L'Isle Adam, publicly denounced the aggression against the Papal Seat, and called on all true Catholics to rally to his banner to save the Pope. Within two months, France was banned from its alliance with Spain, Scotland, and the Knights, and within three months, war had been declared, despite the waves of obscuratism sweeping the lands.
Thus, while Northern Europe was being torn apart by religious schism as Protestantism spread like wildfire, the strongest Catholic nations were warring amongst themselves over the fate of the Papacy. It was to prove a bitter struggle. For six long years, battles ravaged France. With Spain invading from the South and Hospitaller armies besieging the North and landing reinforcements from Italy, François I rallied the might of France and struck back fiercely at the invaders. Meanwhile, in the New World, long established trading posts went up in flames, as enthusiasts from both sides in the war got a bit out of hand. But while François I had been caught unprepared by these developments, L'Isle Adam had not, and by April 1528, after four years of war, Paris fell to the victorious hospitaller armies."
The Fall of Paris, 1528
"...And with the Fall of Paris, the Fall of France was sure to follow. Though two more years of dreadful battles lay ahead, the outcome was never really in doubt."
The Fall of France, 1530
"...And thus France became a Hospitaller vassal and Rome passed into the hands of the Hospital. But the Papal States were not reinstated, and, though the Pope praised his liberation from the French, it soon became obvious that he was, for all practical purposes, a Hospitaller puppet, answering to the Grand Master of the Knights of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem. Trouble was sure to follow - and it struck in the worst way possible. June 2nd, 1532, marked the outbreak of civil war in the lands of the Hospital. From the shores of the English channel to the mediterranean, in the New World, and in the Azores, French armies began a coordinated mutiny, funded clandestinely, no doubt, by François I. Fully two thirds of the armies of the Hospital rose against the Grand Master, and most of France with them.
But they were doomed to failure. Though warweary and weakened, L'Isle Adam struck back, and he struct back hard. Not all the French armies had mutinied. A very few, commanded by his pupils of years past, had held loyal, as had two of the American armies. With these armies as a core, and with mercenaries from Italy recruited at ruinous expense, the proceded to rout out the rebels, cleaning France province by province. The fighting went well, but the land remained wracked in turmoil, which did not go unnoticed by Grand Master L'Isle Adam. In pure economic terms, the commisioning of the Hospitaller Cathedral in Rome, begun in the midst of a civil war and for loaned money, must surely be seen as a great folly. But in spiritual terms, it was the grandest gesture of them all, and succeeded in rallying large parts of the population, that had stood undecided, to his cause.
By the end of 1533, the Civil War was won. While a few rebels managed to hold out until November the following year, desperately pleading for the intercession of François I of France, they were no threat to the Knights Hospitaller. Thus his world was again at peace, by and large, when L'Isle Adam left his mortal body behind in August 1534."
- Excerpt from : Knights of Doom, chapter 9, "L'Isle Adam, Man of Destiny"
Code:
[font=courier new][color=white][color=yellow]Domestic Policy 1419 1500 1534[/color]
[color=skyblue]Aristocracy [/color] 10 10 9-1
[color=skyblue]Centralization [/color] 4 6+2 5-1
[color=skyblue]Innovativeness [/color] 3 5+2 3-2
[color=skyblue]Mercantilism [/color] 7 5-2 4-1
[color=skyblue]Offensive [/color] 3 6+3 6
[color=skyblue]Land [/color] 4 2-2 1-1
[color=skyblue]Quality [/color] 10 10 8-2
[color=skyblue]Serfdom [/color] 8 8 9+1
[color=yellow]Economy 1419 1500 1534[/color]
[color=skyblue]Monthly income [/color] 0.3d 49d 100d
[color=skyblue]Census taxes [/color] 2d 133d 260d
[color=skyblue]Inflation [/color] 0 23% 48%
[color=skyblue]Badboy [/color] 0 18 19
[color=yellow]Tech 1419 1500 1534[/color]
[color=skyblue]Land [/color] 1 6+5 10+4
[color=skyblue]Naval [/color] 1 3+2 4+1
[color=skyblue]Trade [/color] 1 2+1 2
[color=skyblue]Infrastructure [/color] 1 3+2 3
[color=yellow]Military 1419 1500 1534[/color]
[color=skyblue]Army support limit [/color] 9K 66K 111K
[color=skyblue]Navy support limit [/color] -- 91 104
[color=yellow]Provinces 1419 1500 1534[/color]
[color=skyblue]Total countrysize [/color] 1 90
[color=skyblue]European cities [/color] 1 23
[color=skyblue]Non-European cities [/color] - 11
[color=skyblue]Colonies [/color] - 8
[color=skyblue]Trading posts [/color] - 48
[/color][/font]
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The increased serfdom and decreased quality is because of the "Rhodians accepted into the order" event, that also granted Greek culture.
What with the serfdom slider not having any effect on stability, my stability raising cost is a real worry. Every single stability hit wipes out more than a year's income. A very good reason not to go trigger happy amongst the natives. -2 stab to dow, and the main gain will be increased stability costs. Ouch. That will have to wait just a wee bit longer.
