Alrighty then, let's finish with Richard's reign today.
The last years of the First Emperor of Francia
In 1145, our daughter comes of age, thus we marry her to the king of Castille. Or we betroth her to start with, seems like those kings are always kids...
And in 1146, the lords accept a change in crown law... after having to bribe half of them
With so many dukes willing to piss us off every decade, I figured I'd be better off ensuring that I have their troops at my disposal instead of forever trying to bribe them. It also ensures that succession does not threaten the realm anymore, like a 100 years ago with Toulouse. I probably will not go for Absolute, I like having my strong dukes growing my realm by themselves, and if they grow too fat I can just Revoke their titles. However, the 80% could make me change my mind on the long run.
Back to England a bit...
Seriously... the Knights are sitting next door doing nothing. Sometimes those peasants really need to be slaughtered for being so dumb. Well, they are english afterall, can't ask for much.
There, not even a month of fighting...
Ok, when I said I want my vassals to fight their own wars, I didn't mean I wanted them to steal away half the realm for their own...
Luckily, he got sloppy in his race for glory...
That was a much better way to get rid of his claim for the HRE that I could have ever imagined. Thank you cousin...
Seriously, those religious squabbles are tiring me...
Every 20 years or so he will bother me with that, I think he doesn't know how to read. Between this, my occasional heretic bishop who finds their way to the gutter and the pathetic Hispanian kings who cant hold back the Muslims, Im starting to wonder why I stick to the pope.
And back to war shall we. The civil kind...
Don't remember anything about this guy. Doesn't matter, soon there will be 3 of these wars running at the same time...
Now this one I remember. Started a plot, he hated me, I tried to put him in jail, he revolted. Standard story really.
There goes the little count, real quick...
The revolt of Provence won't be that quick though, actually pretty slow, especially since Genoa will try to get a city during the revolt, so I'll have to fight their endless stream of mercenaries.
Now, one left up in England before we can go back to peace...
I don't have the surrender, but it came a few days later.
Then Venice sends us an offer for an embargo war on Pisa, who holds all the trade posts in our territories. Sure thing, I need a new
Didn't save all the Trade Post sieges, them having a garrison of 100 men, not even sure why they bother...
All that gold, both from the initial bribe from Venice and the reparations from Pisa, we built 2 new cities, in Rouen and Mortain. A third will follow within 10 years in Paris. We love cities, we love our money.
But whoever thought we were heading for peace, finally, didn't foresee how much shit would hit the fan...
You know, I really have a hard time picturing the two mightiest empires in the world fighting over a single county. But oh well, let's have some fun.
On a side note, all our allies were called, all of them cowered in their little corner. I guess we'll have to crush germans on our own. Meanwhile he gets to call his Denmark laptog who comes running with eagerness.
At this point things are not going very well. Warscore is at -47%, due to the HRE having sieged both Gent and Brugge. However, they have assaulted every single holding to do so this quickly and are now running out of troops. Also, due to their losses, the Italian lords have started a civil war and since he holds Gent and I haven't sent troops into the HRE for a while, he moves his troops away. I'm planning to let him move everything to Italy and then free up all the sieges in a quick sweep and let him meet me at the cross of a river somewhere.
The plan didn't work exactly as planned, but as a strike of fate in our favor, the Kaiser lost the claim war for the throne and he turns into a mere duke. Unfortunately, Gent is still de jure within his duchies, so the war goes on, though with much less men on his side.
The war will be settled, for the most part, at Nyon... afterward it will just be a question of waiting for him to give up.
During the war, yet another peasant revolt will eruptin Rosello, which will be easily crushed.
Lollards? ... I'll refrain from making any mocking pun about the name...
In 1168 I figured it would be time to make a fresh map of the empire, since it's exactly 100 years after William was sacred king of England...
Compared to everything William did in his lifetime, what his successors achieved within 100 years is rather small. Still, we managed to retake Toulouse that he had lost, and make advances within Burgundy, enough to merge the kingdoms into an Empire, capable of challenging the Holy Roman Empire. Our vassals even made their own advances, most notably into Flanders, which will eventually enable the Francian Emperor to rebuild the old Frisian crown. Some small advances into Hispania will have been made too, Rosello by the emperor and Navarra by the Duke of Gascogne. What will the next 100 years have in store for William's legacy?
Back to Richard, some dude with an odd name from the Slav lands claims he has a right to the imperial crown..and plans to bring his friends to invade soon...
The last 4 years of Richard's reign will be calm and without incident. Gold will be spent to upgrade the castles in Normandy and after living 82 years, all with their share of events, Richard was ready to meet the Lord
Without being the most notable of Francia's Emperor, Richard will have been the first and will have managed to hold back more than one attempt at either breaking or claiming the throne. Ricard II, his son, will face many more problems, and will perhaps be the worse ruler humankind will have known, but that shall wait for the next chapter...
