Henri, The Sublime
Lived: 1427-1475
Head of House of D’Albon: 1441-1475
Roman Emperor: 1441-1475
King of Jerusalem, Egypt, Germany, Italy, Sicily, Syria, Bulgaria, Araby, Babylon, Croatia, Serbia, Africa and the Armenians: 1441-1475
King of England, Scotland, Poland, Wales and Mauretania: 1444-1475
King of Ireland: 1448-1475
King of France and Burgundy: 1451-1475
King of All Spain: 1458-1475
Henri was the last Medieval D’Albon. He was also the last great conquering Emperor – a 15th Century Trajan who brought the Empire to its greatest extent and ushered in a second Pax Romana. Also during his reign the Atlantic Ocean was traversed and a whole new world opened up for Rome, indeed the first Roman colony in the New World (Cuba) was founded in his last years. The last great Roman conqueror he lived by the motto ‘’Rome est Imperare orbi Universo’’ until his end, and with this claim to sovereignty of the globe thousands of explorers and colonists would go forth from Europe and in the following Centuries assert Rome’s right to dominion over the entire world.
In 1444 the 17 year old Emperor sailed from Constantinople at the head of a large army. Their destination was the Emirate of Granada – the last Muslim state in Spain and the last remnant of Al-Andalus.
It took Henri just 3 months to crush the armies of Granada and seize all its fortresses. On September 29th the Emir of Granada handed over the key to Granada itself (his last city and capital) and with that 6 Centuries of Muslim rule in Spain came to an end. Although the Muslims had been crushed in Spain the Moors would continue to rule the Iberian Peninsula as in the Empire of Spain (Zenata) the only recently converted Moorish nobility remained in power and even after the eventual Roman conquest of Spain they retained their role as the region’s aristocrats.
The momentous victory in Spain was overshadowed almost immediately as during the banquet celebrating the final victory over Granada Henri was informed that he had just inherited the most powerful of the Catholic Kingdoms – England. Henri inherited the crowns of England, Scotland Wales and Poland and through the virtue of England’s holdings in Morocco he also seized the throne of Mauretania.
Henri’s inheritance was somewhat fortuitous and was a result of one of Gauthier’s many marriages. King Edward of England (who died aged 71 after 64 years on the throne) had had 4 children. Geoffrey had died aged 13 from a nasty bout of illness. Godfrey was executed in 1416 following a failed attempt to murder the King. This left Thomas as the King’s last hope for another Fitzgerald King. However Thomas was killed in battle with the rebellious Duke of Cornwall in 1418. Luckily though Thomas has one child (William) before dying yet during his teen years William went insane and in 1432 he drowned after throwing himself into the Thames. This left the line of succession to pass through King Edward’s daughter Joanna who married Gauthier, The Magnificent Lech. Gauthier’s potent loins produced Raymond who was to die even before his Fitzgerald grandfather. Then in 1444 Edward finally succumbed to his years and the English Empire passed into Henri’s hands.
The loss of the English realms to the Latins was an effective death blow to the Roman Catholic Church. Through the 1430s the long lingering discontent within the Catholic world finally exploded into the Reformation. In Scandinavia a German immigrant monk, Martin Luther, managed to convert the Scandinavian Emperor in 1437 and with that secure the position of the Reformation. Meanwhile in Hungary the Hussite movement threw out the Catholics and established a national Hungarian Church. Following the conversion of the English Churches to Latin Christianity the last Catholic state – Prussia – joined the Scandinavian Lutherans in 1446. In 1448 Henri bowed to immense pressure from both the Patriarchs of the Latin Church and representatives of both the Hussite and Lutheran Churches and invaded the Papacy. After a lightning quick conflict the Papacy was forced to surrender both Aachen and the Western portion of Ireland although his Holiness was allowed to retain control of the Faroes and Iceland. This situation was not to last long as in the Winter of 1448 the people of Iceland (a large portion of whom had converted to Lutheranism) rebelled against the Pope’s rule. A ragtag band of Papal mercenaries were able to crush the rebels in early 1449 but the Icelandic people were able to send out a cry for help to their Norse and Lutheran brethren in Scandinavia. In the Summer a large Scandinavian fleet sailed across to Iceland from Norway (seizing the Faroes on route) and crushed the Papal forces thus liberating the jubilant Icelandic public. Pope Pius IV would be the last Pope in history. The Catholic faith was no more.
Only a short time after the final defeat of the Papacy word reached Constantinople of a succession crisis in France. King Richard II of France had died without a suitable heir. Hoping to gain control of the last separate D’Albon Kingdom Henri declared his claim to the throne based on his position as the most senior member of the King’s House. However the French nobility were fiercely against the proposed absorption of their Kingdom into the Roman Empire and instead elevated Richard’s wife, Joan Angevin, to the throne as Queen of France. Henri was outraged that a woman had been chosen instead of him and quickly marshalled the armies of Rome for war.
Joan is famous for having marched to war alongside her men and in 1451 she led the armies of France into battle against a vastly superior Roman force. At first it seemed that the French would score a stunning victory as the infamous Roman pike formations were crushed thanks to the skilled manoeuvring of the French heavily cavalry (led personally by Joan). Indeed even the Roman artillery and gunmen proved ineffective. However just as it appeared that the vast Roman horde might break the Emperor rode out at the head of a massive cavalry charge (it is estimated that between 20 and 30 thousand knights charged) directly at the French army. Joan was killed trying to fight of this immense attacks (in personal combat with Henri according to legend) and shortly after her death the French army started to collapse. Just as Alderic, The Conqueror had been given the French throne after a crushing victory in which the previous French Monarch was killed, the French nobility offered Henri the crowns of France and Burgundy following the death of Joan and the defeat of the French army.
But Henri was not satisfied with his victory in France and quickly began to aggravate the Spanish Emperor as he frequently slighted Spain’s diplomatic overtures, he had the Patriarchs accuse the Spanish Emperor of heresy and had groups of mercenaries launch periodic raids into Spanish territory. By 1454 the Spanish could take it no more and Henri got the war he wanted. Yet Spain would be a far sterner test for the Roman Emperor than France, the Peninsula war would rage for 4 years.
In the early part of the war the Spanish, under the leadership of the young warrior Emperor Carlos II, went on the offensive in Roman controlled Southern Spain. Despite Henri sending his best Generals and tens of thousands of men to retain the valuable fortresses of Andalusia the Romans were crushed. Carlos marched from victory to victory and by the Autumn of 1455 all of Southern Spain was in Spanish hands whilst the city of Barcelona in the North was under siege. In 1456 the war would take a dramatic turn as Henri (who had been suffering from illness in the previous two years of war) entered the fray with a large army from areas as diverse as Germany, Egypt and Croatia. Henri landed his army near Valencia whilst at the same time he ordered several large armies across the Pyrenees form France. Carlos realised that he would be unable to hold back the cross-Pyrenees invasion and contain Henri himself and so sought a decisive engagement with the Roman Emperor. The two Emperors would meet at the Battle of Valencia on May 3rd 1456.
The Battle of Valencia was, at that time, one of the largest single engagements in the history of warfare. It dwarfed Yarmouk and everything after with estmates putting the Roman army at up to 300,000 strong and the Spanish force around 200,000. In truth the battle line stretched out for many miles around the city of Valencia. There could be little to no organisation with such colossal forces and the conflict quickly degenerated into an immense but uncontrollable melee. Few primary sources speak of how the battle proceeded but they all emphasise the chaotic nature of the battle. But, ultimately, the battle itself is unimportant. What is important is that Carlos’s army was utterly mauled. Whilst the Romans could easily call up more men from their vast Empire Spain simply could not replace its losses. Over the course of the next 2 years Henri’s hordes would slowly proceed across Spain as Carlos fought a desperate defence of his realm. However the irresistible force of the Romans was too much and by the Summer of 1558 all he had left was his capital – Lisbon – along with several miles of fortifications around it. By this stage Henri had become tired of this long and extremely costly war and offered Carlos a deal he could not refuse. Carlos was allowed to retain much of his ancestral land in Portugal, along with the title Duke of Portugal however he was forced to accept Henri as the King of All Spain and his liege. With that the age of Roman expansionism in the Old World came to an end and the second Pax Romana began.
The Empire's borders in the Old World would remain largely the same for Centuries.
Following victory in Spain Henri moved his focus to exploration and the establishment of an overseas Empire. During the reign of Henri’s father the Azores (1439) and Goa (1440) had been taken. This Empire was expanded by the annexation of Cape Verde (1459), Sao Tome (1461), the establishment of several trading ports along the West African and Gulf of Guinea shoreline and the purchase of an island from the King of Pahang (1467) upon which the port of Singapore was built. However all these achievements were made to seem utterly insignificant in 1470 by the voyage of one Christopher Columbus.
Columbus sailed across the Atlantic and into a New World. After returning to Europe he requested funding to set up a Roman colony in the New World and in 1473 the Romans firmly established themselves on the island of Cuba. The Roman Empire now stretched from the Caribbean in the West to the South China Sea in the East.
In 1475 Henri passed away and with him went the Medieval era which had been so kind to his family. The eras that followed would be even kinder.
The End