That's a good approach, and I'm sure you can tell by your combined feedback that it's made for a good story.
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That's a good approach, and I'm sure you can tell by your combined feedback that it's made for a good story.
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It's all about telling a story.
@mayor: I am happy to hear that you found it believable. I had a "carnal desires" event and ran with it. Then I invented a love interest and a Jesuit. The story then sort of wrote itself And of course Felipe was intent on upstaging his mother. Luis ends up being quite a roaring lion himself, as you'll see.
@mayor: I am happy to hear that you found it believable. I had a "carnal desires" event and ran with it. Then I invented a love interest and a Jesuit. The story then sort of wrote itself
And of course Felipe was intent on upstaging his mother. Luis ends up being quite a roaring lion himself, as you'll see.
[OOC: Now for a long overdue update. I went through a few drafts of this one. Hope it was worth the wait.]
Diary of Isabel, Princess of Asturias, December 1, 1825
It has been a long time since I last had some time to write. So busy in the palace. My father has been lining up suitors for my "hand," though most want more than just a hand to hold. So tiresome. I am being given a lot of leeway in the process, but my father and Uncle Pelayo have been looking over those who reach me first. I had the opportunity to write to one of my early favorites, no less than George, the Prince of Wales, who is interested in forming a dynastic union no less. He is one of my distant Lancaster cousins, and we have been joining with that house since the fourteenth century, so maybe it is time to join the Spanish and British peoples together. Time will tell. Anyway, Cousin George, no doubt learned in my interest in history (spies are everywhere), asked me for my opinion on "Mary Hope," one of my most interesting ancestors, Maria Esperanza, who was regent of the empire after her husband Felipe IV died prematurely. The English business classes took up her cause, frankly to celebrate the decline of the Luxembourg dynasty, but the working poor of London, Bristol, and Glasgow remember her as a sort of carnival figure, celebrating the poor girl who became mother of a line of kings and defeated the German lioness. She is still celebrated in the London carnival every year, when a local girl dresses as a laundress to fight off a bearded man dressed like a queen. I fear poor Anne of Luxembourg did not fare well in memories of the peoples she touched. But here is my letter to George.
Chapter XII: The She-Bear and the Lioness
My dearest Prince George,
I am happy to answer your question, but pray forgive me for being so long in the response. I hope my words do not weary your royal eyes. I will tell you the history of Maria Esperanza, my ancestor and yours through a few lines in both our genealogies. And the story of her son Luis el Oso, Louis the Bear, who was no less interesting than his mother and grandmother, whom my history concerns most.
Felipe IV had been poisoned, it was rumored widely at the time, a victim of his own mother's vengeance. It was widely believed that Anne of Luxembourg had had some role in her first husband's death. Ballads were sung in backstreet wineshops telling of how Anne had hired assassins to kill Felipe III, how she had loved the king's brother Carlos as more than a brother, of her flight to Oviedo in Asturias, of the birth of Luis Felipe, and her flight to France with the infant prince in her arms. Whatever the truth to these popular beliefs about her, Anne had been a force of nature in Spanish and indeed European politics for a good half century. She had been a spurned woman who had found happiness in her second marriage. Felipe IV came of age in the mid-XVI century when the people of Spain felt isolated from the monarchy and the royal family, but the young king changed that, no less by marrying a poor woman whom he met on the streets of Madrid.
On their marriage, she had taken a modified form of the municipal arms of the capital city, which feature a brown bear, for her own. Her family had also been ennobled, and King Felipe's historians had linked her family on both sides with the ancient royal line of Pelayo, the founder of the Kingdom of Asturias that fought against the Muslims who invaded our peninsula in the VIII century. Felipe's premature death, during a drinking bout with his cousins and brothers-in-law, left Maria and their six-year-old son Luis without a strong protector. The young queen regent faced many enemies, among the old nobility notably, whose patron was none other than Anne of Luxembourg, her own mother-in-law.
She sought the counsel of Matias de Tolosa, the Jesuit priest who had officiated at her marriage and who had baptized Luis and who had done so many other things. Father Matias had since early in her late husband's reign been made his society's provincial over all Spain and her empire. He opened the church's resources to his young queen, and it was not long before the Holy Office of the Inquisition was put to task investigating Anne of Luxembourg and her many associates, proteges, and creatures.
Maria also sought the help of the royal army. The Ministers of War and the Navy Hernando de Aragón and Diego Ponce de León sat in council with Father Matias, and together they worked out a plan. Ponce made it clear that to control the country for such a long regency would require manpower, ships, and above all gold. When the queen looked backed in puzzlement, the old naval officer explained. The wealth of the Indies collects in Havana every summer. All the gold, silver, cacao, sugar, cotton, and tobacco, and a host of other products sits in the bottoms in that port, and together they cross the Atlantic to Seville, to be exchanged by trade in that city with all of Europe and places beyond. Whoever controlled the main ports of the Indies, Havana above all, and Seville controlled Spain. The revenue from this trans-Atlantic trade paid for the army, all quarter million men in uniform and the men besides who served aboard ship. Aragón added that there would be trouble ahead, but that the full funding of a well-trained army such as Spain had, with the proper number of men posted in strategic locations, would mean that rebellions would be crushed almost as soon as they began.
The locus of unrest was Brazil. During the 1570s and 1580s, Felipe had encouraged Spanish Calvinists to leave the motherland to settle throughout his American dominions. In South America in particular, these religious dissidents found peace and solitude, but some of the more ardent of their number preached a new Spain in Brazil that would be free of the taint of Roman idolatry. By 1596, the slow rumble of religious rebellion had caught fire the entire width of the continent, from the eastern slopes of the Andes to the South Atlantic. The Spanish colonies in that region had not been fortified, for there was no external enemy to fear, and the indigenous population had been subdued by the sword and cross a generation before. Unlike Peru, there was no organized native resistance, so the Calvinists had a rather free hand. Ten thousand Spanish regulars were charged with maintaining their young king's authority over such a wide expanse of land. But they marched on.
By the summer of the following year, the regency's legitimacy had come into serious question. Father Matias found a young man skilled in the political arts, one Sebastian Elcano, to spread good propaganda about Queen Maria and her son, now only seven years old. The Inquisition had by now concluded its investigation, and by their own designs the inquisitors had uncovered the apparent truth behind Felipe III's assassination and further rumors behind the death of Felipe IV. The officers of the Walloon Guards, the regiment to which Anne of Luxembourg had long given her personal protection, told many stories after a few days detained by the Holy Office. The surviving assassins of Felipe III did public penance of the most grisly kind for regicide, and those who had since died were hanged and burned in effigy. The Inquisition had long fallen out of disuse among the Visconti kings of Spain, but the inquisitors responded well, as did the high clergy in general, over the young queen's interest in their service to the realm. Anne herself was not found guilty of regicide or any other crimes, but Maria Esperanza decided that she deserved quiet retirement after so many years of service to the House of Visconti. In the middle of the night, her mother-in-law disappeared. It is said that the old lioness, as she was known, was taken out in her nightclothes from her apartments, brought to Barcelona, loaded on a ship, and sent to Alexandria. A cryptic letter in the royal archives from Maria to her late husband's relative Enrique, Duke of Alexandria, that she had sent him a present of his stepmother to do with as he will. Anne of Luxembourg was never seen again in Spain. Her fate in Alexandria, where Enrique served as viceroy of Africa, remains unknown.
The remainder of the regency passed rather quietly. The common folk of Spain venerated their queen for her piety, her beauty, and the very apparent love that she and her son bore one another. But in July 1601, Luis took the throne as Luis I. The education that he received from Matias de Tolosa and the other Jesuits prepared him for a long and fruitful reign. He was at the time of his coronation a great bear of a man, taking after his mother's family. The Visconti kings had all been slight men, slender and with fine features. Luis had black hair, dark eyes, an olive complexion, and broad shoulders. His military education had included service in the royal engineering corps, an atypical assignment for a man who would be king but to his liking, entirely. He sat upon his throne on that hot summer afternoon and felt himself lord of all he surveyed. At his right hand still sat his mother and to his left, his heir, his seven-year-old brother Fernando.
Diary of Isabel, Princess of Asturias, December 1, 1825
It has been a long time since I last had some time to write. So busy in the palace. My father has been lining up suitors for my "hand," though most want more than just a hand to hold. So tiresome. I am being given a lot of leeway in the process, but my father and Uncle Pelayo have been looking over those who reach me first. I had the opportunity to write to one of my early favorites, no less than George, the Prince of Wales, who is interested in forming a dynastic union no less. He is one of my distant Lancaster cousins, and we have been joining with that house since the fourteenth century, so maybe it is time to join the Spanish and British peoples together. Time will tell. Anyway, Cousin George, no doubt learned in my interest in history (spies are everywhere), asked me for my opinion on "Mary Hope," one of my most interesting ancestors, Maria Esperanza, who was regent of the empire after her husband Felipe IV died prematurely. The English business classes took up her cause, frankly to celebrate the decline of the Luxembourg dynasty, but the working poor of London, Bristol, and Glasgow remember her as a sort of carnival figure, celebrating the poor girl who became mother of a line of kings and defeated the German lioness. She is still celebrated in the London carnival every year, when a local girl dresses as a laundress to fight off a bearded man dressed like a queen. I fear poor Anne of Luxembourg did not fare well in memories of the peoples she touched. But here is my letter to George.
Chapter XII: The She-Bear and the Lioness
My dearest Prince George,
I am happy to answer your question, but pray forgive me for being so long in the response. I hope my words do not weary your royal eyes. I will tell you the history of Maria Esperanza, my ancestor and yours through a few lines in both our genealogies. And the story of her son Luis el Oso, Louis the Bear, who was no less interesting than his mother and grandmother, whom my history concerns most.
Felipe IV had been poisoned, it was rumored widely at the time, a victim of his own mother's vengeance. It was widely believed that Anne of Luxembourg had had some role in her first husband's death. Ballads were sung in backstreet wineshops telling of how Anne had hired assassins to kill Felipe III, how she had loved the king's brother Carlos as more than a brother, of her flight to Oviedo in Asturias, of the birth of Luis Felipe, and her flight to France with the infant prince in her arms. Whatever the truth to these popular beliefs about her, Anne had been a force of nature in Spanish and indeed European politics for a good half century. She had been a spurned woman who had found happiness in her second marriage. Felipe IV came of age in the mid-XVI century when the people of Spain felt isolated from the monarchy and the royal family, but the young king changed that, no less by marrying a poor woman whom he met on the streets of Madrid.
On their marriage, she had taken a modified form of the municipal arms of the capital city, which feature a brown bear, for her own. Her family had also been ennobled, and King Felipe's historians had linked her family on both sides with the ancient royal line of Pelayo, the founder of the Kingdom of Asturias that fought against the Muslims who invaded our peninsula in the VIII century. Felipe's premature death, during a drinking bout with his cousins and brothers-in-law, left Maria and their six-year-old son Luis without a strong protector. The young queen regent faced many enemies, among the old nobility notably, whose patron was none other than Anne of Luxembourg, her own mother-in-law.
She sought the counsel of Matias de Tolosa, the Jesuit priest who had officiated at her marriage and who had baptized Luis and who had done so many other things. Father Matias had since early in her late husband's reign been made his society's provincial over all Spain and her empire. He opened the church's resources to his young queen, and it was not long before the Holy Office of the Inquisition was put to task investigating Anne of Luxembourg and her many associates, proteges, and creatures.
Maria also sought the help of the royal army. The Ministers of War and the Navy Hernando de Aragón and Diego Ponce de León sat in council with Father Matias, and together they worked out a plan. Ponce made it clear that to control the country for such a long regency would require manpower, ships, and above all gold. When the queen looked backed in puzzlement, the old naval officer explained. The wealth of the Indies collects in Havana every summer. All the gold, silver, cacao, sugar, cotton, and tobacco, and a host of other products sits in the bottoms in that port, and together they cross the Atlantic to Seville, to be exchanged by trade in that city with all of Europe and places beyond. Whoever controlled the main ports of the Indies, Havana above all, and Seville controlled Spain. The revenue from this trans-Atlantic trade paid for the army, all quarter million men in uniform and the men besides who served aboard ship. Aragón added that there would be trouble ahead, but that the full funding of a well-trained army such as Spain had, with the proper number of men posted in strategic locations, would mean that rebellions would be crushed almost as soon as they began.
The locus of unrest was Brazil. During the 1570s and 1580s, Felipe had encouraged Spanish Calvinists to leave the motherland to settle throughout his American dominions. In South America in particular, these religious dissidents found peace and solitude, but some of the more ardent of their number preached a new Spain in Brazil that would be free of the taint of Roman idolatry. By 1596, the slow rumble of religious rebellion had caught fire the entire width of the continent, from the eastern slopes of the Andes to the South Atlantic. The Spanish colonies in that region had not been fortified, for there was no external enemy to fear, and the indigenous population had been subdued by the sword and cross a generation before. Unlike Peru, there was no organized native resistance, so the Calvinists had a rather free hand. Ten thousand Spanish regulars were charged with maintaining their young king's authority over such a wide expanse of land. But they marched on.
By the summer of the following year, the regency's legitimacy had come into serious question. Father Matias found a young man skilled in the political arts, one Sebastian Elcano, to spread good propaganda about Queen Maria and her son, now only seven years old. The Inquisition had by now concluded its investigation, and by their own designs the inquisitors had uncovered the apparent truth behind Felipe III's assassination and further rumors behind the death of Felipe IV. The officers of the Walloon Guards, the regiment to which Anne of Luxembourg had long given her personal protection, told many stories after a few days detained by the Holy Office. The surviving assassins of Felipe III did public penance of the most grisly kind for regicide, and those who had since died were hanged and burned in effigy. The Inquisition had long fallen out of disuse among the Visconti kings of Spain, but the inquisitors responded well, as did the high clergy in general, over the young queen's interest in their service to the realm. Anne herself was not found guilty of regicide or any other crimes, but Maria Esperanza decided that she deserved quiet retirement after so many years of service to the House of Visconti. In the middle of the night, her mother-in-law disappeared. It is said that the old lioness, as she was known, was taken out in her nightclothes from her apartments, brought to Barcelona, loaded on a ship, and sent to Alexandria. A cryptic letter in the royal archives from Maria to her late husband's relative Enrique, Duke of Alexandria, that she had sent him a present of his stepmother to do with as he will. Anne of Luxembourg was never seen again in Spain. Her fate in Alexandria, where Enrique served as viceroy of Africa, remains unknown.
The remainder of the regency passed rather quietly. The common folk of Spain venerated their queen for her piety, her beauty, and the very apparent love that she and her son bore one another. But in July 1601, Luis took the throne as Luis I. The education that he received from Matias de Tolosa and the other Jesuits prepared him for a long and fruitful reign. He was at the time of his coronation a great bear of a man, taking after his mother's family. The Visconti kings had all been slight men, slender and with fine features. Luis had black hair, dark eyes, an olive complexion, and broad shoulders. His military education had included service in the royal engineering corps, an atypical assignment for a man who would be king but to his liking, entirely. He sat upon his throne on that hot summer afternoon and felt himself lord of all he surveyed. At his right hand still sat his mother and to his left, his heir, his seven-year-old brother Fernando.
Chapter XIII: Luis I "the Bear" and the Turmoil of the Early XVII Century
The coronation of Luis I in July 1601 marked a new age for the Spanish monarchy. A popular king sat on the throne, the army and navy ranked among the greatest in the world, and Spain's empire extended across the Caribbean and throughout the Americas. Among the new king's first acts was accepting the integration of the Duchy of Provence into his realm. He insisted on having a defendable port in the northern Mediterranean in the midst of his Occitan vassals. This first act foreshadowed his great interest in French affairs and his close watch on his northern neighbors.
The new wall map that his minister of the navy presented in April 1602 showed Spain's physical dominance over the western Mediterranean. The balance of power throughout Europe was apparent. Spain's ally England dominated the British Isles entirely and had a firm grip on Brittany and the Atlantic coast of Gascony, Aquitaine, and Poitou. Denmark had conquered the entirety of Scandinavia, while Lithuania straddled eastern Europe, from the Baltic to the Crimea. Further east, the burghers of Novgorod profited from the northern trade routes, the only Russian principality to occupy a solid position, amid the Mongol hordes to its south and east.
The religious rebellion in Spanish South America continued. The recent report from the Jesuit missionaries there and the color-coded map that Father Matias had drawn up showed a rather even division between Calvinists and pagans.
The Calvinist migration to the South American colonies continued unabated. Reading the report, Luis wrinkled his brow. His Jesuit-directed education had led him to take a universal view of Christianity. He directed the Jesuit provincial in Brazil to encourage the conversion of his subjects there, beginning with the coastal provinces and then moving inland. Amazonia had become a haven for people of the reformed faith. Luis was willing to allow them their refuge so long as they did not rebel and paid their taxes. He accepted that they would not pay tithes and other religious taxes and told Father Matias that conversion would be a long-term process. He could not force it upon his people, heretics though they were. The last thing he noticed was the small strip of land in northeastern Brazil carefully inked in with red. England had a foothold on his continent, but he could do little about it. Spain's longest and most faithful ally left a smudge on his colonial map, but it would be tolerated, at least for now.
The rebellion in Brazil continued, and the ten regiments of the Royal Brazilian Corps did what they could to keep the wildfire down.
The Brazilian rebels inspired other seemingly loyal Spanish subjects to rise up, too. The spring of 1606 saw the people of Murcia rise up, where the Republic of Granada was declared, but the provincial capital never fell. Field Marshal Pedro Villarreal and the Royal Valencia Corps saw to that.
The simmering native rebellion in Peru continued, with local acts of resistance against tax collectors or overzealous priests. A few of the latter were crucified, a few of the former beaten and left for dead. Then on Christmas Day 1606, the people of Lima rose up in rebellion, declared the restoration of the Inca Empire and made war on Spain. One province against an empire, but neighboring provincial governments requested additional military support.
The rebellions in Peru and Brazil were squashed, although seemingly random uprisings continued on both sides of the Andes for the next several years. Then in October 1612, Toubkhal rose up, and threatened to drag all of the royal territory in North Africa with it. Like the others this rebellion was smashed quickly, but unlike the others this one shook King Luis personally, because it was so much closer, almost on his doorstep. The Republic of Granada had been a farce, but the kings of Spain had long counted on the loyalty of the Berber tribesmen to maintain its foothold in North Africa.
The wave of rebellions that shook the empire for more than a decade came to an end by Christmas 1612. For the first time in his reign, Luis could relax somewhat. He had never married, never it is said kept a mistress. The palace gossips claimed that he was secretly a Jesuit. His long relationship with Father Matias elicited much idle talk, as did his preference for wearing black, amid more gaily dressed courtiers. The Comet of 1620 was seen as a bad omen for the king, as if his light was soon to burn out. His brother Fernando had grown into a man of a different temperament. By the age of seventeen, he had already fathered four recognized bastards, and his pious brother sought to arrange a proper marriage for his heir presumptive. On New Year's Eve, 1620, Fernando married Juana, the Countess of Molina, the mother of Fernando's eldest child, named after his father. The official report was that they had contracted a marriage privately two years previously, and the matter of Prince Fernando's marriage and his heir Fernando never became a scandal. The succession settled, Luis retired to a Jesuit retreat in Navarra, where he lived out the rest of his life in contemplation and in writing engineering texts that were widely read throughout Europe. If you were to visit the Colegio de San Luis today, you can still visit the gardens that he established there, a living classroom where he taught those who sought his wisdom. He was supposed to have said that a bear is comfortable among the trees, not in a house of stone and mortar. Fernando VII hoped to do his brother proud and set aside his youthful indiscretions. Every autumn, he visited his brother The Bear, and the Autumn Court became an annual tradition thereafter.
The coronation of Luis I in July 1601 marked a new age for the Spanish monarchy. A popular king sat on the throne, the army and navy ranked among the greatest in the world, and Spain's empire extended across the Caribbean and throughout the Americas. Among the new king's first acts was accepting the integration of the Duchy of Provence into his realm. He insisted on having a defendable port in the northern Mediterranean in the midst of his Occitan vassals. This first act foreshadowed his great interest in French affairs and his close watch on his northern neighbors.
The new wall map that his minister of the navy presented in April 1602 showed Spain's physical dominance over the western Mediterranean. The balance of power throughout Europe was apparent. Spain's ally England dominated the British Isles entirely and had a firm grip on Brittany and the Atlantic coast of Gascony, Aquitaine, and Poitou. Denmark had conquered the entirety of Scandinavia, while Lithuania straddled eastern Europe, from the Baltic to the Crimea. Further east, the burghers of Novgorod profited from the northern trade routes, the only Russian principality to occupy a solid position, amid the Mongol hordes to its south and east.
The religious rebellion in Spanish South America continued. The recent report from the Jesuit missionaries there and the color-coded map that Father Matias had drawn up showed a rather even division between Calvinists and pagans.
The Calvinist migration to the South American colonies continued unabated. Reading the report, Luis wrinkled his brow. His Jesuit-directed education had led him to take a universal view of Christianity. He directed the Jesuit provincial in Brazil to encourage the conversion of his subjects there, beginning with the coastal provinces and then moving inland. Amazonia had become a haven for people of the reformed faith. Luis was willing to allow them their refuge so long as they did not rebel and paid their taxes. He accepted that they would not pay tithes and other religious taxes and told Father Matias that conversion would be a long-term process. He could not force it upon his people, heretics though they were. The last thing he noticed was the small strip of land in northeastern Brazil carefully inked in with red. England had a foothold on his continent, but he could do little about it. Spain's longest and most faithful ally left a smudge on his colonial map, but it would be tolerated, at least for now.
The rebellion in Brazil continued, and the ten regiments of the Royal Brazilian Corps did what they could to keep the wildfire down.
The Brazilian rebels inspired other seemingly loyal Spanish subjects to rise up, too. The spring of 1606 saw the people of Murcia rise up, where the Republic of Granada was declared, but the provincial capital never fell. Field Marshal Pedro Villarreal and the Royal Valencia Corps saw to that.
The simmering native rebellion in Peru continued, with local acts of resistance against tax collectors or overzealous priests. A few of the latter were crucified, a few of the former beaten and left for dead. Then on Christmas Day 1606, the people of Lima rose up in rebellion, declared the restoration of the Inca Empire and made war on Spain. One province against an empire, but neighboring provincial governments requested additional military support.
The rebellions in Peru and Brazil were squashed, although seemingly random uprisings continued on both sides of the Andes for the next several years. Then in October 1612, Toubkhal rose up, and threatened to drag all of the royal territory in North Africa with it. Like the others this rebellion was smashed quickly, but unlike the others this one shook King Luis personally, because it was so much closer, almost on his doorstep. The Republic of Granada had been a farce, but the kings of Spain had long counted on the loyalty of the Berber tribesmen to maintain its foothold in North Africa.
The wave of rebellions that shook the empire for more than a decade came to an end by Christmas 1612. For the first time in his reign, Luis could relax somewhat. He had never married, never it is said kept a mistress. The palace gossips claimed that he was secretly a Jesuit. His long relationship with Father Matias elicited much idle talk, as did his preference for wearing black, amid more gaily dressed courtiers. The Comet of 1620 was seen as a bad omen for the king, as if his light was soon to burn out. His brother Fernando had grown into a man of a different temperament. By the age of seventeen, he had already fathered four recognized bastards, and his pious brother sought to arrange a proper marriage for his heir presumptive. On New Year's Eve, 1620, Fernando married Juana, the Countess of Molina, the mother of Fernando's eldest child, named after his father. The official report was that they had contracted a marriage privately two years previously, and the matter of Prince Fernando's marriage and his heir Fernando never became a scandal. The succession settled, Luis retired to a Jesuit retreat in Navarra, where he lived out the rest of his life in contemplation and in writing engineering texts that were widely read throughout Europe. If you were to visit the Colegio de San Luis today, you can still visit the gardens that he established there, a living classroom where he taught those who sought his wisdom. He was supposed to have said that a bear is comfortable among the trees, not in a house of stone and mortar. Fernando VII hoped to do his brother proud and set aside his youthful indiscretions. Every autumn, he visited his brother The Bear, and the Autumn Court became an annual tradition thereafter.
Nope. You can't be. I just wonder about all these EU3 monarchs who have heirs that are almost their age. I had to make up something, thus a lot of bachelor kings, since in this case Luis came to the throne at age 15 or 16, and had a seven-year-old heir. Strange.
This AAR is a great read, RedRooster81; very engaging. I loved the way you portrayed the love triangle between Felipe III, Anne and Maria. I was kind of rooting for "bad girl" Anne over "Cinderella story" Maria, but c'est la vie.
Please tell me this is an actual tradition somewhere in the world, because it's hilarious. It has just the right elements of early modern popular satire / completely fabricated regime propaganda.
Sort of like how we think of Richard III as an egomaniacal hunchback, thanks to Shakespeare, but the actual king had no deformity and wasn't such a horrible ruler after all.
Or Catherine of Aragon is invariably portrayed (in our time) as a woman with classic "Spanish" features—dark hair, olive skin, etc—when every contemporary portrait of her ever painted emphasised her fair hair and light complexion. Once these things get stuck in the cultural memory, they are all but impossible to unseat.
The story of Felipe IV and Maria Esperanza is charming, too. Well done. Too bad Anne the Schemer had to be shuffled offstage.
Regarding that British blemish in the Viceroyalty of Brazil, could it be dealt with via judicious use of spies? Forge a core on it, then fund nationalist rebels, and hopefully Britain will be too preoccupied to send a couple thousand guys way down there to suppress it.
Thus avoiding the unpleasantness of dumping such a valuable ally in order to DoW them and take it.
Please tell me this is an actual tradition somewhere in the world, because it's hilarious.
It has just the right elements of early modern popular satire / completely fabricated regime propaganda.Sort of like how we think of Richard III as an egomaniacal hunchback, thanks to Shakespeare, but the actual king had no deformity and wasn't such a horrible ruler after all.
Or Catherine of Aragon is invariably portrayed (in our time) as a woman with classic "Spanish" features—dark hair, olive skin, etc—when every contemporary portrait of her ever painted emphasised her fair hair and light complexion. Once these things get stuck in the cultural memory, they are all but impossible to unseat.
The story of Felipe IV and Maria Esperanza is charming, too. Well done. Too bad Anne the Schemer had to be shuffled offstage.
Regarding that British blemish in the Viceroyalty of Brazil, could it be dealt with via judicious use of spies? Forge a core on it, then fund nationalist rebels, and hopefully Britain will be too preoccupied to send a couple thousand guys way down there to suppress it.
Thus avoiding the unpleasantness of dumping such a valuable ally in order to DoW them and take it.
Dear Chris,
Sorry, total fabrication, the whole "Mary Hope" thing. There could be something similar in early modern London Shrove Tuesday celebrations. You typically had crossdressing as well as people dressed up like kings, queens, and bishops doing most un-regal things.
In my scenario, the English stay Catholic, and the House of Lancaster stays on the throne--so what Fernando of Aragon wanted came to pass, Spain allying with foreign powers to beat up France. I do pity poor Catherine. She was descended from two of John of Gaunt's daughters and thus, unlike the Tudors, on legitimate lines to the House of Lancaster. I'll let my allies have Pernambuco, for now. It is just into the XVI century, so no Brazilian cores, and the original settlers were English, so no nationalist rebels. They are more interested in colonizing North America, but they are good allies so far.
Happy to see that you are enjoying the AAR. I'll be updating again soon.
Sorry, total fabrication, the whole "Mary Hope" thing. There could be something similar in early modern London Shrove Tuesday celebrations. You typically had crossdressing as well as people dressed up like kings, queens, and bishops doing most un-regal things.
In my scenario, the English stay Catholic, and the House of Lancaster stays on the throne--so what Fernando of Aragon wanted came to pass, Spain allying with foreign powers to beat up France. I do pity poor Catherine. She was descended from two of John of Gaunt's daughters and thus, unlike the Tudors, on legitimate lines to the House of Lancaster. I'll let my allies have Pernambuco, for now. It is just into the XVI century, so no Brazilian cores, and the original settlers were English, so no nationalist rebels.
They are more interested in colonizing North America, but they are good allies so far.Happy to see that you are enjoying the AAR. I'll be updating again soon.
Chapter XIV: The Long Reign of Fernando VII
The last time I wrote in this diary I penned some interesting words on Luis I Visconti, the "Bear" King who established peace and then retired to his own hermitage in the Pyrenees. His brother's reign was quite contrary to his, in that it was long and bloody. Fernando VII was like his father a short, wiry man. He had inherited the ambitious nature that many of the Visconti had demonstrated, and with his queen Juana de Molina, brought into this world a new generation of Visconti who were determined to stake a greater place for their dynasty. The fact that many of them were conceived in the royal campaign tent then birthed in the same tent a thousand miles distant gave Fernando and Juana's seven sons and daughters an overall robust character. Fernando found himself entirely justified in saying just what he meant at any one moment, but you will learn about that in due course.
In July 1622, Fernando was crowned in Madrid, with Juana at his side. He then journeyed over the following months to visit the different principalities in the Peninsula, making oaths and accepting the regalia of each in turn, in rituals as old as Spain itself. In turn, the royal party visited Navarra, where his brother Luis joined them, then Girona, Barcelona, Zaragoza, Valencia, Murcia, Granada, Corboda, Seville, Algarve, Lisbon, Oporto, Galicia, Asturias, Leon, and home again to Madrid. He would in time visit his Italian and Occitan vassals, and be crowned Duke of Milan (but not King of Italy) in the cathedral that St. Ambrose established there. Little Prince Fernando made this a memorable event as he ran up and down the nave of the church singing one of his father's drinking songs about wenching and pillaging at the top of his little lungs.
The following year produced a good summer harvest throughout the Iberian Peninsula, and 1624 was looked forward to as a coming time of plenty. Another good crop was harvested during the fall. The king decided to fill the royal granaries while spreading Spain's good fortune to his vassal states. The Emirs of Morocco, Tlemcen, Tunisia, and Tripoli each sent him substantial gifts in return. Ibrahim IV of Tunisia presented him with a gilded presentation cross, embellished with amethysts and emeralds, and Omar II of Morocco presented in turn a damascus steel scimitar encrusted with diamonds and other gems, with the inscription in Arabic marking it as a gift to "the Emperor of Africa."
In December 1623, while holding winter court in Barcelona, Fernando VII announced the creation of a new company of players, and the entire Christmas season was taken up with dramatic presentations. The leading playwright for the new Royal Iberian Company of Performers, one Juan de Dios Espada y Ojeda, wrote suitably patronizing historical dramas, some suitably bawdy comedies, and a piece in two parts called "Anne of Luxembourg, the Twice Queen of Spain."
Louis XVIII grows old on his throne. And no children fill his halls with their laughter.
The war begins. The French cause seems lost before it began. With only Prussia, Brabant, and Liege to defend French independence.
The year 1624 was a year of plenty, but signs began to appear that peace would not hold. Fernando's third cousin, Louis XVIII of France, was aging and lacked a legal heir. The French estates rejected a number of bastards, and so the King of Spain established his own claim on his cousin's throne. Louis himself rejected the claim in a royal order that was released to the public. Fernando then began talks with his Occitan vassals and with the British over his war. In October 1625, Spain declared war on France, her vassals all followed suit, and the British began to march from Brittany.
The noose tightens.
By the following May, only Paris still declared its allegiance to King Louis. Late in July, the French Viscontis had freed the Orleanais from Spanish control, but it was not to last. In October, Spanish forces retook Orleans, and Fernando's long siege of Paris continued unabated.
Paris is ours at long last!
Long Live the King!
After 380 days, Paris fell to Fernando's forces. A heavily pregnant Queen Juana celebrated with her husband in their usual way, and three days later she delivered yet another little prince. This one became known as Luis the Frank.
Spain was now clearly the dominant power in western Europe and North Africa. Fernando's conquest of France also added to his personal empire a large section of southwestern Africa, which maintained a continuous wave of rebellion for the next century. Fernando tried to organize an overseas monopoly company to take over this region, but in the end no one stepped forward. The hardy French pioneers who had created colonies in southern Africa balked at their new Spanish overlords and, abandoning the coastal cities, moved into the hinterland where they combined forces with the indigenous princes there to wage endless war on Spain. Like backcountry Brazil, this region would remain a thorn in Spain's side, but Fernando, blunt as always, declared that they could have their autonomy, but even this did not quell the rebellion. He instructed the viceroy appointed for that southern Africa to protect European shipping in the region from pirates, to tax it accordingly, and to keep to the coastal settlements and fortresses.
In the Americas, Fernando maintained a firm hold, with the exception of Pernambuco (which to his secret pleasure was also up in revolt). The British had established themselves strongly in North America, which by treaty they could readily exploit north of the 31st parallel, that is north of Florida. The British established themselves in what they called Greater Virginia, named after Jane I Lancaster, the "Virgin Queen," and also New Brittany, north of the Kingdom of Holland, where the Dutch had established themselves following the partition of their European homeland between Austria and Burgundy a generation before. Around Hudson Bay, the Burgundians had established their own overseas empire, and the English had colonized the habitable parts of Greenland. Fernando grumbled to himself as he glanced over the latest maps, let the northern Europeans have their frozen north. I have the riches of Mexico, Peru, and the entire Caribbean.
Fernando's subjects in both halves of the globe enjoyed increasing prosperity and the fruits of peace and easy commercial gains. Spain's mercantilism created a strong and large domestic market, and the king encouraged innovations in industry and production. In the mid-1630s, however, Fernando's life was threatened by a series of respiratory ailments that pushed him to allow local magnates more control over their own affairs. It helped that the overseas dominions of the Crown were administered by viceroys, many of whom were scions of the Visconti dynasty. Bureaucracy, centralized government, and effective and equitable commercial regulations bore good fruit, and it showed most of all when the king began to show signs of decline. Spain nearly ran itself.
Fernando's recovery from his long illness in 1639 drove the aging monarch to establish a legacy for himself. The conquest of France was not enough. He granted a charter to a group of intellectuals in Naples to found the Royal University of Fernando VII in Reggio Calabria to train men of the Kingdom of Sicily to think daring thoughts and prepare themselves for careers in royal service. On seeing the first buildings of the university completed personally, Fernando had a good likeness of himself erected in the center of the campus. True to his nature it was true to life, complete with the limp that a battle wound in France had given him (a memento from my dear cousin Louis he called it) and hunched back that he had developed from years of bad health.
His concern with Italian affairs had attracted the ire of the Papacy, however. A man who ruled Spain and much of Africa and the Americas and who was personally King of the Two Sicilies and Duke of Milan was too much of a limit on papal power. So Pope Alexander III pushed Fernando VII to recognize the independence of Urbino under papal protection and to recognize himself as suzerain of Naples. Fernando in a public audience with the pope refused. The pope threatened excommunication, but the king reminded him that he could not excommunicate the Defender of the Faith. So it came to war. The War of Spanish Aggression, as the papal diplomats termed the conflict, lasted over two years. Naples was twice sacked by papal forces, but the Milanese troops captured Romagna in a matter of weeks, and Fernando moved on Rome. After Rome fell, Pope Alexander accepted Fernando's demands for his submission. The King of Spain was now undisputed master of Italy.
The years that followed allowed Fernando VII to rest on his laurels (well, not literally. The citizens of Rome had presented him with a nice gold foil pair and he dared not rest his growing posterior on them, lest they bend beyond repair). His merchants presented him with an enormous gift in thanks for protecting their business, and the entirety of the empire enjoyed peace, except for a few agitated Calvinists in the upper Amazon who predicted that the world would end and of course those French South Africans who waited for Louis XVIII to appear any moment from beyond the grave. Fernando died in April 1651, having reigned nearly thirty years. His heir, now nearly fifty years old himself, was proclaimed king without much incident, as Fernando VIII. The estates of France and the Senate of Milan both petitioned to join Spain as full members of the realm. But what happens next must wait until later. It grows late, and my inkwell finally runs dry.
Isabel, Princess of Asturias, May 1, 1826
The last time I wrote in this diary I penned some interesting words on Luis I Visconti, the "Bear" King who established peace and then retired to his own hermitage in the Pyrenees. His brother's reign was quite contrary to his, in that it was long and bloody. Fernando VII was like his father a short, wiry man. He had inherited the ambitious nature that many of the Visconti had demonstrated, and with his queen Juana de Molina, brought into this world a new generation of Visconti who were determined to stake a greater place for their dynasty. The fact that many of them were conceived in the royal campaign tent then birthed in the same tent a thousand miles distant gave Fernando and Juana's seven sons and daughters an overall robust character. Fernando found himself entirely justified in saying just what he meant at any one moment, but you will learn about that in due course.
In July 1622, Fernando was crowned in Madrid, with Juana at his side. He then journeyed over the following months to visit the different principalities in the Peninsula, making oaths and accepting the regalia of each in turn, in rituals as old as Spain itself. In turn, the royal party visited Navarra, where his brother Luis joined them, then Girona, Barcelona, Zaragoza, Valencia, Murcia, Granada, Corboda, Seville, Algarve, Lisbon, Oporto, Galicia, Asturias, Leon, and home again to Madrid. He would in time visit his Italian and Occitan vassals, and be crowned Duke of Milan (but not King of Italy) in the cathedral that St. Ambrose established there. Little Prince Fernando made this a memorable event as he ran up and down the nave of the church singing one of his father's drinking songs about wenching and pillaging at the top of his little lungs.
The following year produced a good summer harvest throughout the Iberian Peninsula, and 1624 was looked forward to as a coming time of plenty. Another good crop was harvested during the fall. The king decided to fill the royal granaries while spreading Spain's good fortune to his vassal states. The Emirs of Morocco, Tlemcen, Tunisia, and Tripoli each sent him substantial gifts in return. Ibrahim IV of Tunisia presented him with a gilded presentation cross, embellished with amethysts and emeralds, and Omar II of Morocco presented in turn a damascus steel scimitar encrusted with diamonds and other gems, with the inscription in Arabic marking it as a gift to "the Emperor of Africa."
In December 1623, while holding winter court in Barcelona, Fernando VII announced the creation of a new company of players, and the entire Christmas season was taken up with dramatic presentations. The leading playwright for the new Royal Iberian Company of Performers, one Juan de Dios Espada y Ojeda, wrote suitably patronizing historical dramas, some suitably bawdy comedies, and a piece in two parts called "Anne of Luxembourg, the Twice Queen of Spain."
Louis XVIII grows old on his throne. And no children fill his halls with their laughter.
The war begins. The French cause seems lost before it began. With only Prussia, Brabant, and Liege to defend French independence.
The year 1624 was a year of plenty, but signs began to appear that peace would not hold. Fernando's third cousin, Louis XVIII of France, was aging and lacked a legal heir. The French estates rejected a number of bastards, and so the King of Spain established his own claim on his cousin's throne. Louis himself rejected the claim in a royal order that was released to the public. Fernando then began talks with his Occitan vassals and with the British over his war. In October 1625, Spain declared war on France, her vassals all followed suit, and the British began to march from Brittany.
The noose tightens.
By the following May, only Paris still declared its allegiance to King Louis. Late in July, the French Viscontis had freed the Orleanais from Spanish control, but it was not to last. In October, Spanish forces retook Orleans, and Fernando's long siege of Paris continued unabated.
Paris is ours at long last!
Long Live the King!
After 380 days, Paris fell to Fernando's forces. A heavily pregnant Queen Juana celebrated with her husband in their usual way, and three days later she delivered yet another little prince. This one became known as Luis the Frank.
Spain was now clearly the dominant power in western Europe and North Africa. Fernando's conquest of France also added to his personal empire a large section of southwestern Africa, which maintained a continuous wave of rebellion for the next century. Fernando tried to organize an overseas monopoly company to take over this region, but in the end no one stepped forward. The hardy French pioneers who had created colonies in southern Africa balked at their new Spanish overlords and, abandoning the coastal cities, moved into the hinterland where they combined forces with the indigenous princes there to wage endless war on Spain. Like backcountry Brazil, this region would remain a thorn in Spain's side, but Fernando, blunt as always, declared that they could have their autonomy, but even this did not quell the rebellion. He instructed the viceroy appointed for that southern Africa to protect European shipping in the region from pirates, to tax it accordingly, and to keep to the coastal settlements and fortresses.
In the Americas, Fernando maintained a firm hold, with the exception of Pernambuco (which to his secret pleasure was also up in revolt). The British had established themselves strongly in North America, which by treaty they could readily exploit north of the 31st parallel, that is north of Florida. The British established themselves in what they called Greater Virginia, named after Jane I Lancaster, the "Virgin Queen," and also New Brittany, north of the Kingdom of Holland, where the Dutch had established themselves following the partition of their European homeland between Austria and Burgundy a generation before. Around Hudson Bay, the Burgundians had established their own overseas empire, and the English had colonized the habitable parts of Greenland. Fernando grumbled to himself as he glanced over the latest maps, let the northern Europeans have their frozen north. I have the riches of Mexico, Peru, and the entire Caribbean.
Fernando's subjects in both halves of the globe enjoyed increasing prosperity and the fruits of peace and easy commercial gains. Spain's mercantilism created a strong and large domestic market, and the king encouraged innovations in industry and production. In the mid-1630s, however, Fernando's life was threatened by a series of respiratory ailments that pushed him to allow local magnates more control over their own affairs. It helped that the overseas dominions of the Crown were administered by viceroys, many of whom were scions of the Visconti dynasty. Bureaucracy, centralized government, and effective and equitable commercial regulations bore good fruit, and it showed most of all when the king began to show signs of decline. Spain nearly ran itself.
Fernando's recovery from his long illness in 1639 drove the aging monarch to establish a legacy for himself. The conquest of France was not enough. He granted a charter to a group of intellectuals in Naples to found the Royal University of Fernando VII in Reggio Calabria to train men of the Kingdom of Sicily to think daring thoughts and prepare themselves for careers in royal service. On seeing the first buildings of the university completed personally, Fernando had a good likeness of himself erected in the center of the campus. True to his nature it was true to life, complete with the limp that a battle wound in France had given him (a memento from my dear cousin Louis he called it) and hunched back that he had developed from years of bad health.
His concern with Italian affairs had attracted the ire of the Papacy, however. A man who ruled Spain and much of Africa and the Americas and who was personally King of the Two Sicilies and Duke of Milan was too much of a limit on papal power. So Pope Alexander III pushed Fernando VII to recognize the independence of Urbino under papal protection and to recognize himself as suzerain of Naples. Fernando in a public audience with the pope refused. The pope threatened excommunication, but the king reminded him that he could not excommunicate the Defender of the Faith. So it came to war. The War of Spanish Aggression, as the papal diplomats termed the conflict, lasted over two years. Naples was twice sacked by papal forces, but the Milanese troops captured Romagna in a matter of weeks, and Fernando moved on Rome. After Rome fell, Pope Alexander accepted Fernando's demands for his submission. The King of Spain was now undisputed master of Italy.
The years that followed allowed Fernando VII to rest on his laurels (well, not literally. The citizens of Rome had presented him with a nice gold foil pair and he dared not rest his growing posterior on them, lest they bend beyond repair). His merchants presented him with an enormous gift in thanks for protecting their business, and the entirety of the empire enjoyed peace, except for a few agitated Calvinists in the upper Amazon who predicted that the world would end and of course those French South Africans who waited for Louis XVIII to appear any moment from beyond the grave. Fernando died in April 1651, having reigned nearly thirty years. His heir, now nearly fifty years old himself, was proclaimed king without much incident, as Fernando VIII. The estates of France and the Senate of Milan both petitioned to join Spain as full members of the realm. But what happens next must wait until later. It grows late, and my inkwell finally runs dry.
Isabel, Princess of Asturias, May 1, 1826
Chapter XV: The Short Reign of Fernando VIII
Spain and Her Old World Empire, 1640
Fernando VIII rose to the throne of Spain and the Indies at the tender age of 54, having been born in 1597. After such a long, patient wait to inherit the kingdom, he did not last terribly long on the throne. In 1620, the then-young Prince of Asturias married Francesca, the eldest daughter and second child of Gian III, Duke of Ferrara. The large brood that the Prince and Princess of Asturias brought into this world matched his parent's in size and ambition. Their paternal grandfather, Fernando VII, joked on the birth of his thirtieth grandson, the third of his own seventh son, that the House of Visconti need fear no lack of heirs.
Fernando VII's longevity meant that all his sons were well past middle age by the time he "went into glory," as the phrase went at the time. The coronation ceremony on 7 April 1651 featured so many Visconti family members that there was difficulty seating all of them and the requisite national and foreign dignitaries in the cathedral in Toledo. According to the primogeniture laws then in place, the heir to the throne was declared on that occasion to be Francisco Maria de la Paz, age 13, the new king's grandson, the eldest surviving son of His Catholic Majesty's son Luis Maria Octavio. The newly created Prince of Asturias was already betrothed to Hedwig of Masovia, the niece of the King of Poland-Lithuania, one of Fernando VII's grand diplomatic schemes. His influence had been so great that the early arrangements were made prior to the birth of either child, with a desire for a Lithuanian alliance to counterbalance the influence of the House of Luxembourg in Bohemia and in the Holy Roman Empire. The Polish princess arrived in November 1652, and the two were married a week later in Toledo. I will come back to their story later.
The integration of both France and Milan proved to be a more difficult task than the new king had imagined. The French in particular proved to be especially difficult to manage. Revolters cropped up in France and across what had been French South Africa. The success of the African French patriots inspired rebellions in other parts of the empire. Calabria rose up in arms against him, and the people of that duchy claimed the right to name their own duke from among the noble Sicilians who supported the rebellion.
The stress of ruling over such a difficult political situation proved too much for Fernando VIII. He passed out during a meeting of the royal council and never recovered. The throne then passed to his grandson, who became King Francisco II. The story of his rule will be the subject of my next chapter.
Spain and Her Old World Empire, 1640
Fernando VIII rose to the throne of Spain and the Indies at the tender age of 54, having been born in 1597. After such a long, patient wait to inherit the kingdom, he did not last terribly long on the throne. In 1620, the then-young Prince of Asturias married Francesca, the eldest daughter and second child of Gian III, Duke of Ferrara. The large brood that the Prince and Princess of Asturias brought into this world matched his parent's in size and ambition. Their paternal grandfather, Fernando VII, joked on the birth of his thirtieth grandson, the third of his own seventh son, that the House of Visconti need fear no lack of heirs.
Fernando VII's longevity meant that all his sons were well past middle age by the time he "went into glory," as the phrase went at the time. The coronation ceremony on 7 April 1651 featured so many Visconti family members that there was difficulty seating all of them and the requisite national and foreign dignitaries in the cathedral in Toledo. According to the primogeniture laws then in place, the heir to the throne was declared on that occasion to be Francisco Maria de la Paz, age 13, the new king's grandson, the eldest surviving son of His Catholic Majesty's son Luis Maria Octavio. The newly created Prince of Asturias was already betrothed to Hedwig of Masovia, the niece of the King of Poland-Lithuania, one of Fernando VII's grand diplomatic schemes. His influence had been so great that the early arrangements were made prior to the birth of either child, with a desire for a Lithuanian alliance to counterbalance the influence of the House of Luxembourg in Bohemia and in the Holy Roman Empire. The Polish princess arrived in November 1652, and the two were married a week later in Toledo. I will come back to their story later.
The integration of both France and Milan proved to be a more difficult task than the new king had imagined. The French in particular proved to be especially difficult to manage. Revolters cropped up in France and across what had been French South Africa. The success of the African French patriots inspired rebellions in other parts of the empire. Calabria rose up in arms against him, and the people of that duchy claimed the right to name their own duke from among the noble Sicilians who supported the rebellion.
The stress of ruling over such a difficult political situation proved too much for Fernando VIII. He passed out during a meeting of the royal council and never recovered. The throne then passed to his grandson, who became King Francisco II. The story of his rule will be the subject of my next chapter.
Dear old dad lived too long. He was eighty when he was storming the walls of Rome and at 83 was still commanding the army in Naples. Fernando VIII had not a chance to do much. The next reign is going to be more interesting, I promise.
