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Help[Games] Re: Saphirdufeu's Royal Congrats - Round 6: Rival Claim & Civil War
in reply to a message by saphirdufeu
Yay, we're back!
1198 - Rival Claim (with a twist)
House of Wessex
H [d. 49]: King Philip Arthur Fulk
W [47]: Dowager Queen Edith Adeliza (formerly of Northumbria) / "Queen Mother"
D1 [28]: Princess Eleanor Agnes Berengaria
-Bethrothal [45]: Renard Humfrey Ayr, Grand Duke of Luxembourg
S1 [26]: King Geoffrey Fulk Edmund
-W [25]: Queen Aline Blanche Isabelle (formerly Rennes)
--S1 [6]: Prince Crispin Helias Isambard
--S2 [6]: Prince Faramond Jehan Balian / "Wryneck"
--D [4]: Princess Theophania Elizabeth Cecilia
--S3 [3]: Prince Teodoric Martin Edwin
D2 [24]: Princess Mathilde of France / Mathilde de Wessex (Maud Alice Emma)
-H [32]: Prince Charles Benoit of France (House Damours)
--S [4]: Prince Lionel Niall Damours
S2 [dec]: Prince James Christian Henrik
S3 [20]: Prince Percival Julian Richard
D3 [17]: Princess Maria Frances Avelina
S4 [8]: Prince David Lance Edward
Rival Claim
They say that you don't appreciate what you have until it is gone. They say being emotional about things is a peacetime luxury - that it is too painful in war. But emotions during wartime are nigh unavoidable.
No one was expecting war would follow when King Philip I and Queen Edith left Wessex & Mercia in Prince Geoffrey's capable hands to take their beloved Maud to France where she would marry the prince. After much cajoling, Princess Eleanor was brought down as well, though she did not deign to speak to the sister she had all but disowned. Prince Percival and Princess Maria were brought, too, as an investigation of prospects for the latter and a last peek at Court life for the former before he would embark for the priory. And there were numerous guests of note at the royal wedding, including Renard, Grand Duke of Luxembourg, recently widowed for a second time and with no children. (Prince David was left behind with his oldest brother.)
The festivities carried on without a hitch, and Maud was welcomed in France as Princess Mathilde upon her marriage. Everyone (aside from Nell) had a grand old time - even King Philip, though he only participated in the one dance. He went up into his room ahead of his wife... but it wasn't long before a servant's scream could be heard throughout the castle. The family rushed upstairs to find Philip hunched over the desk, dead in an apparent heart attack. Everyone was devastated - Nell threatened action against France, in another atypical breach of decorum, before Edith silenced her daughter and took her to a private room. But like Nell, she knew something was wrong. So when his body was laid out, prepared for transport back to Wessex, Edith summoned her courage and inspected the corpse of her valiant, funny, dependable, wonderful husband... and found a tiny puncture in the side of his neck. She showed this puncture to King Johannes & Queen Lucie of France and gauged their reactions. They were as aghast as she had been, and of course it made no sense for them to want his assassination. But it assured Edith she was not going mad in her grief.
The capital of Wessex entered a state of mourning. Philip had a grand funeral and was interred in the same abbey as the monarchs before him. After that was Geoff's coronation as King Geoffrey I, a solemn event. Immediately afterward, as Geoffrey held court in the throne room for the first time, with his wife Queen Aline by his side, his great uncle, Guy of Bath, approached with a concern for the new king. As he had advised his father well in life, Geoff had no reason to be suspicious... until Guy announced his recent marriage in Mercia, while Philip had been in France.
Guy was sixty-six years old. What was he doing getting married - and without the consent of the King of Wessex, no less? King Geoffrey brought up this transgression - more than transgression, it was illegal - and Guy helpfully gestured to his new wife: Lady Grainne, nee Thibault, the first cousin of Queen Aline (their mothers, Juliana Rennes and Adela Thibault, were Courtenay sisters), and obviously pregnant. Geoff had known his uncle kept a mistress, but not that he was expecting a child at his age. Geoff gave his congratulations on the child, while his wife was stone-faced at the antics of her estranged cousin, but he mentioned that there would have to be some sort of repercussion for this action. That was when Guy, after decades of presumed loyalty, finally dropped his mask. He produced a piece of parchment from the lining of his tunic and held it before the Court, proclaiming it to be a confession of previous Archbishop William* of Canterbury that recognized that King Fulk III had not been the child of his father, King Hugo, but presumably of his treasurer. Guy went on telling the scandalized Court that this therefore rendered Fulk III illegitimate, and negated his entire line for the throne... leaving Guy of Bath as the true king.
And that was when Geoff realized just what he'd forgotten. He'd forgotten that some dragons were real, and when he was a man they would need slaying. When faced with the evidence of a coup from within his own house - the House of Wessex - it took all his strength not to burst in a fit of rage. But he had other people to consider: his wife, his little boys, his little brothers and sisters, his still unmarried sister Nell. Then there were the common people of Wessex and Mercia, and the last thing they would want is a war that would claim their sons, fathers, daughters, mothers, cousins...
King Geoffrey I calmly ordered the guards to apprehend his "senile" uncle, but as they moved to do so they were halted by Mercian, and some Wessex, nobles who stood united with Guy, who must have promised them sweeter deals than what they currently had. Then nobles loyal to the previous king and his family stood in their defense, and a battle broke out in the throne room. The women were led to safety as blood was spilled - their longtime friend the Earl of Arundel among the victims. In the chaos, Guy of Bath lost the parchment with the Archbishop's confession, and Queen Mother Edith retrieved it before fleeing the throne room. Once she and her children and grandsons were safely ensconced in her apartments, Nell urged her mother to destroy the vicious lie. But Edith told her absolutely not, that its destruction would only serve to legitimize the claims of Fulk III's illegitimacy. She had an idea for how to prove this was a forgery - but it required passage to Northumbria.
The royal family was kept in the castle for over a year, not able to venture outside due to the constant threat of assassins. Raiding and pillaging was interfering with harvests. The vestiges of peacetime faded away. It took so long for a raven to be sent safely that Edith feared her plan would fail. But at nearly the second year of what amounted to imprisonment, a raven was received. From Mother Arilda of the Beauchief Abbey, the woman who had done much to make Edith's childhood miserable. Nevertheless, this was their only lifeline. So Edith absconded from the castle in the middle of the night with Nell, Percy, Maria, and young David, and fled to Beauchief Abbey.
The road to the abbey was fraught with danger. At least two guards were felled - civil wars are always the most brutal. But the family remained safe, and reached Beauchief Abbey in one month. To Edith's surprise, Mother Arilda was perfectly pleasant, mentioning that she had spoken to the Prior of Durham about Percy's upcoming post; Edith said rather wryly that she hoped Northumbrian priories were safe from Bathian forces. She then asked about the rumors of her adherence to the "Pelagian Heresy" so many years ago - the rumors that threatened to disavow her position as Queen of Wessex & Mercia. It was then that Mother Arilda confessed that Guy of Bath had written to her, asking about Edith's time at the abbey when she was preparing to take vows. Mother Arilda said that she was ever truthful, and mentioned that Edith had entertained Pelagianism briefly, and that she was surprised at the rumors and propaganda that had sprung up within a year. "Sadly," she told the Queen Mother, "my affirmations that you did not sincerely hold such beliefs were deemed uninteresting compared to the idea that a queen could be worshiping the devil."
And there it was. A confirmation that Edith had been wrong about Mother Arilda trying to ruin her life after the abbey, and that it really had been Guy all along. She realized he had still been trying to get Philip to marry his daughter, Margaret, and that if he had done so, Guy's descendants would have been kings and none of this would be happening. As it was, the Comte and Comtesse Aubert had been two of Guy's strongest supporters.
They discussed the parchment supposedly from Archbishop William. Mother Arilda looked at it for approximately five seconds before dismissing it as a forgery. She told Edith that while the handwriting was an almost impeccable copy, she had known William de Corbeil well, and he had been paranoid about forgeries - so he always included a special innocuous symbol somewhere on his manuscripts, cleverly written so as not to appear out of place. There was no such symbol on this parchment, therefore he didn't write it, and Mother Arilda would happily testify for the Northumbrian king and queen so the message could more quickly reach Wessex. Edith looked at the stern older woman who she'd always thought hated her, and suddenly felt as though she had understood absolutely nothing of life.
From there, Percy was taken to Durham Priory to begin his instruction, and induction, into the priesthood. He was perfectly content not to take any part in politicking, and to renounce his claim to the throne of Wessex & Mercia. After Percy's tearful departure, Edith took Nell, Maria, and young David with her to her the castle where she grew up - where her brother Reginald II was now king. Reginald convinced them all to wait out the war with him, in relative safety. At this point, Nell felt as though she had spent more of her life in Northumbria than Wessex. Maria and David were just happy to play outside again. During their time in Northumbria, the Grand Duke of Luxembourg decided to approach the family for a betrothal - specifically, to Princess Eleanor, who he declared without any pomp or leeriness to be perhaps the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Grand Duke Renard did admit to being rather desperate for an heir, to keep the Duchy out of his wastrel brother's hands, but offered great incentive for Nell's hand. There was no reason to reject the offer, and like that, Nell was on her way to being a Grand Duchess. She wasn't repulsed by Renard, but neither was she necessarily attracted to him, particularly considering that he was 17 years her senior. She supposed they could grow to be friends, but she had no illusions. Maria thought the whole thing was just gross. Young Prince David regularly had night terrors.
Meanwhile, in France, King Johannes and Queen Lucie were initially reluctant to help Maud's family fight Guy of Bath, despite the entreaties of Maud and their own son Charles. This lasted until Maud birthed Charles' heir, Lionel, fewer than nine months after the wedding (which, of course, set French tongues wagging). It would appear that Johannes & Lucie were simply waiting for insurance for their investment, and afterward they supplied monies and troops to the effort. Maud miscarried twice in the intervening years - one at six months - and sunk, for a while, into a depression from which Charles had difficulty rescuing her.
Back in Wessex, King Geoffrey ruled as best he could amidst the chaos. He began to appreciate the peacetime in which he had been reared, so to speak, while realizing that his children had no memory of such a time. That so far, they could only clearly recall war. Queen Aline was his rock. Sometimes paranoia would creep in, telling him she was a Mercian and she would betray him just as Uncle Guy had, despite the fact that she really had no reason to. But her loyalty and affection were able to silence the thoughts. He had never dreamed of having the relationship his parents had, and now that his father was gone he appreciated his wife all the more. Prince Crispin was a healthy little boy full of energy, who people in the castle always remarked would make an excellent king. Prince Faramond had energy, sure, but his neck had not improved: he could not turn his head fully to the right, and his right eye had a tendency to "float" instead of focusing. Geoff was not pleased to hear that some people had taken to nicknaming his son "Wryneck" for his condition. During the war, Queen Aline gave birth to two more children: Princess Theophania, who everyone had taken to calling "Phannie," and Prince Teodoric, who everyone had taken to calling "Teddy."
As for Guy of Bath and Lady Grainne - who their supporters called King Guy II and Queen Grainne - they had a son not long after the war began, called Arthur of Brittany for where he was born. A couple years later a daughter, Mary of Brittany, joined him.
It's 1198 now, and King Geoffrey and his allies are mobilizing to face Guy the Pretender and his allies in a final confrontation.
*William de Corbeil was the Archbishop of Canterbury around the time King Fulk III would have been born, so like before I decided to use the real one.
I also hope you don't mind that I have Arthur of Brittany as significantly younger than 11, but I've had this idea for a while now.
***
Please rate my personal name lists:
www.behindthename.com/pnl/69381
www.behindthename.com/pnl/69381/109399
www.behindthename.com/pnl/69381/91835
http://greens-end.myminicity.com/
1198 - Rival Claim (with a twist)
House of Wessex
H [d. 49]: King Philip Arthur Fulk
W [47]: Dowager Queen Edith Adeliza (formerly of Northumbria) / "Queen Mother"
D1 [28]: Princess Eleanor Agnes Berengaria
-Bethrothal [45]: Renard Humfrey Ayr, Grand Duke of Luxembourg
S1 [26]: King Geoffrey Fulk Edmund
-W [25]: Queen Aline Blanche Isabelle (formerly Rennes)
--S1 [6]: Prince Crispin Helias Isambard
--S2 [6]: Prince Faramond Jehan Balian / "Wryneck"
--D [4]: Princess Theophania Elizabeth Cecilia
--S3 [3]: Prince Teodoric Martin Edwin
D2 [24]: Princess Mathilde of France / Mathilde de Wessex (Maud Alice Emma)
-H [32]: Prince Charles Benoit of France (House Damours)
--S [4]: Prince Lionel Niall Damours
S2 [dec]: Prince James Christian Henrik
S3 [20]: Prince Percival Julian Richard
D3 [17]: Princess Maria Frances Avelina
S4 [8]: Prince David Lance Edward
Rival Claim
They say that you don't appreciate what you have until it is gone. They say being emotional about things is a peacetime luxury - that it is too painful in war. But emotions during wartime are nigh unavoidable.
No one was expecting war would follow when King Philip I and Queen Edith left Wessex & Mercia in Prince Geoffrey's capable hands to take their beloved Maud to France where she would marry the prince. After much cajoling, Princess Eleanor was brought down as well, though she did not deign to speak to the sister she had all but disowned. Prince Percival and Princess Maria were brought, too, as an investigation of prospects for the latter and a last peek at Court life for the former before he would embark for the priory. And there were numerous guests of note at the royal wedding, including Renard, Grand Duke of Luxembourg, recently widowed for a second time and with no children. (Prince David was left behind with his oldest brother.)
The festivities carried on without a hitch, and Maud was welcomed in France as Princess Mathilde upon her marriage. Everyone (aside from Nell) had a grand old time - even King Philip, though he only participated in the one dance. He went up into his room ahead of his wife... but it wasn't long before a servant's scream could be heard throughout the castle. The family rushed upstairs to find Philip hunched over the desk, dead in an apparent heart attack. Everyone was devastated - Nell threatened action against France, in another atypical breach of decorum, before Edith silenced her daughter and took her to a private room. But like Nell, she knew something was wrong. So when his body was laid out, prepared for transport back to Wessex, Edith summoned her courage and inspected the corpse of her valiant, funny, dependable, wonderful husband... and found a tiny puncture in the side of his neck. She showed this puncture to King Johannes & Queen Lucie of France and gauged their reactions. They were as aghast as she had been, and of course it made no sense for them to want his assassination. But it assured Edith she was not going mad in her grief.
The capital of Wessex entered a state of mourning. Philip had a grand funeral and was interred in the same abbey as the monarchs before him. After that was Geoff's coronation as King Geoffrey I, a solemn event. Immediately afterward, as Geoffrey held court in the throne room for the first time, with his wife Queen Aline by his side, his great uncle, Guy of Bath, approached with a concern for the new king. As he had advised his father well in life, Geoff had no reason to be suspicious... until Guy announced his recent marriage in Mercia, while Philip had been in France.
Guy was sixty-six years old. What was he doing getting married - and without the consent of the King of Wessex, no less? King Geoffrey brought up this transgression - more than transgression, it was illegal - and Guy helpfully gestured to his new wife: Lady Grainne, nee Thibault, the first cousin of Queen Aline (their mothers, Juliana Rennes and Adela Thibault, were Courtenay sisters), and obviously pregnant. Geoff had known his uncle kept a mistress, but not that he was expecting a child at his age. Geoff gave his congratulations on the child, while his wife was stone-faced at the antics of her estranged cousin, but he mentioned that there would have to be some sort of repercussion for this action. That was when Guy, after decades of presumed loyalty, finally dropped his mask. He produced a piece of parchment from the lining of his tunic and held it before the Court, proclaiming it to be a confession of previous Archbishop William* of Canterbury that recognized that King Fulk III had not been the child of his father, King Hugo, but presumably of his treasurer. Guy went on telling the scandalized Court that this therefore rendered Fulk III illegitimate, and negated his entire line for the throne... leaving Guy of Bath as the true king.
And that was when Geoff realized just what he'd forgotten. He'd forgotten that some dragons were real, and when he was a man they would need slaying. When faced with the evidence of a coup from within his own house - the House of Wessex - it took all his strength not to burst in a fit of rage. But he had other people to consider: his wife, his little boys, his little brothers and sisters, his still unmarried sister Nell. Then there were the common people of Wessex and Mercia, and the last thing they would want is a war that would claim their sons, fathers, daughters, mothers, cousins...
King Geoffrey I calmly ordered the guards to apprehend his "senile" uncle, but as they moved to do so they were halted by Mercian, and some Wessex, nobles who stood united with Guy, who must have promised them sweeter deals than what they currently had. Then nobles loyal to the previous king and his family stood in their defense, and a battle broke out in the throne room. The women were led to safety as blood was spilled - their longtime friend the Earl of Arundel among the victims. In the chaos, Guy of Bath lost the parchment with the Archbishop's confession, and Queen Mother Edith retrieved it before fleeing the throne room. Once she and her children and grandsons were safely ensconced in her apartments, Nell urged her mother to destroy the vicious lie. But Edith told her absolutely not, that its destruction would only serve to legitimize the claims of Fulk III's illegitimacy. She had an idea for how to prove this was a forgery - but it required passage to Northumbria.
The royal family was kept in the castle for over a year, not able to venture outside due to the constant threat of assassins. Raiding and pillaging was interfering with harvests. The vestiges of peacetime faded away. It took so long for a raven to be sent safely that Edith feared her plan would fail. But at nearly the second year of what amounted to imprisonment, a raven was received. From Mother Arilda of the Beauchief Abbey, the woman who had done much to make Edith's childhood miserable. Nevertheless, this was their only lifeline. So Edith absconded from the castle in the middle of the night with Nell, Percy, Maria, and young David, and fled to Beauchief Abbey.
The road to the abbey was fraught with danger. At least two guards were felled - civil wars are always the most brutal. But the family remained safe, and reached Beauchief Abbey in one month. To Edith's surprise, Mother Arilda was perfectly pleasant, mentioning that she had spoken to the Prior of Durham about Percy's upcoming post; Edith said rather wryly that she hoped Northumbrian priories were safe from Bathian forces. She then asked about the rumors of her adherence to the "Pelagian Heresy" so many years ago - the rumors that threatened to disavow her position as Queen of Wessex & Mercia. It was then that Mother Arilda confessed that Guy of Bath had written to her, asking about Edith's time at the abbey when she was preparing to take vows. Mother Arilda said that she was ever truthful, and mentioned that Edith had entertained Pelagianism briefly, and that she was surprised at the rumors and propaganda that had sprung up within a year. "Sadly," she told the Queen Mother, "my affirmations that you did not sincerely hold such beliefs were deemed uninteresting compared to the idea that a queen could be worshiping the devil."
And there it was. A confirmation that Edith had been wrong about Mother Arilda trying to ruin her life after the abbey, and that it really had been Guy all along. She realized he had still been trying to get Philip to marry his daughter, Margaret, and that if he had done so, Guy's descendants would have been kings and none of this would be happening. As it was, the Comte and Comtesse Aubert had been two of Guy's strongest supporters.
They discussed the parchment supposedly from Archbishop William. Mother Arilda looked at it for approximately five seconds before dismissing it as a forgery. She told Edith that while the handwriting was an almost impeccable copy, she had known William de Corbeil well, and he had been paranoid about forgeries - so he always included a special innocuous symbol somewhere on his manuscripts, cleverly written so as not to appear out of place. There was no such symbol on this parchment, therefore he didn't write it, and Mother Arilda would happily testify for the Northumbrian king and queen so the message could more quickly reach Wessex. Edith looked at the stern older woman who she'd always thought hated her, and suddenly felt as though she had understood absolutely nothing of life.
From there, Percy was taken to Durham Priory to begin his instruction, and induction, into the priesthood. He was perfectly content not to take any part in politicking, and to renounce his claim to the throne of Wessex & Mercia. After Percy's tearful departure, Edith took Nell, Maria, and young David with her to her the castle where she grew up - where her brother Reginald II was now king. Reginald convinced them all to wait out the war with him, in relative safety. At this point, Nell felt as though she had spent more of her life in Northumbria than Wessex. Maria and David were just happy to play outside again. During their time in Northumbria, the Grand Duke of Luxembourg decided to approach the family for a betrothal - specifically, to Princess Eleanor, who he declared without any pomp or leeriness to be perhaps the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Grand Duke Renard did admit to being rather desperate for an heir, to keep the Duchy out of his wastrel brother's hands, but offered great incentive for Nell's hand. There was no reason to reject the offer, and like that, Nell was on her way to being a Grand Duchess. She wasn't repulsed by Renard, but neither was she necessarily attracted to him, particularly considering that he was 17 years her senior. She supposed they could grow to be friends, but she had no illusions. Maria thought the whole thing was just gross. Young Prince David regularly had night terrors.
Meanwhile, in France, King Johannes and Queen Lucie were initially reluctant to help Maud's family fight Guy of Bath, despite the entreaties of Maud and their own son Charles. This lasted until Maud birthed Charles' heir, Lionel, fewer than nine months after the wedding (which, of course, set French tongues wagging). It would appear that Johannes & Lucie were simply waiting for insurance for their investment, and afterward they supplied monies and troops to the effort. Maud miscarried twice in the intervening years - one at six months - and sunk, for a while, into a depression from which Charles had difficulty rescuing her.
Back in Wessex, King Geoffrey ruled as best he could amidst the chaos. He began to appreciate the peacetime in which he had been reared, so to speak, while realizing that his children had no memory of such a time. That so far, they could only clearly recall war. Queen Aline was his rock. Sometimes paranoia would creep in, telling him she was a Mercian and she would betray him just as Uncle Guy had, despite the fact that she really had no reason to. But her loyalty and affection were able to silence the thoughts. He had never dreamed of having the relationship his parents had, and now that his father was gone he appreciated his wife all the more. Prince Crispin was a healthy little boy full of energy, who people in the castle always remarked would make an excellent king. Prince Faramond had energy, sure, but his neck had not improved: he could not turn his head fully to the right, and his right eye had a tendency to "float" instead of focusing. Geoff was not pleased to hear that some people had taken to nicknaming his son "Wryneck" for his condition. During the war, Queen Aline gave birth to two more children: Princess Theophania, who everyone had taken to calling "Phannie," and Prince Teodoric, who everyone had taken to calling "Teddy."
As for Guy of Bath and Lady Grainne - who their supporters called King Guy II and Queen Grainne - they had a son not long after the war began, called Arthur of Brittany for where he was born. A couple years later a daughter, Mary of Brittany, joined him.
It's 1198 now, and King Geoffrey and his allies are mobilizing to face Guy the Pretender and his allies in a final confrontation.
*William de Corbeil was the Archbishop of Canterbury around the time King Fulk III would have been born, so like before I decided to use the real one.
I also hope you don't mind that I have Arthur of Brittany as significantly younger than 11, but I've had this idea for a while now.
***
Please rate my personal name lists:
www.behindthename.com/pnl/69381
www.behindthename.com/pnl/69381/109399
www.behindthename.com/pnl/69381/91835
http://greens-end.myminicity.com/
This message was edited 7/25/2018, 8:04 PM
Archived Thread - replies disabled
1
Replies
*applause*
You've truly outdone yourself this time. I raise my hat to you, dear Sir/Madam/Title of Choice.
You've truly outdone yourself this time. I raise my hat to you, dear Sir/Madam/Title of Choice.
1
Thank you so much!
I've been planning Guy of Bath's betrayal for a while!
I've been planning Guy of Bath's betrayal for a while!
1