Day 6 - Richard 'the Blessed'
Day 6 - Richard 'the Blessed'
The first Richard de Cognac inherited his mother's titles of Negev and Al Jawf at the age of 14. Even at that young age, he already had little liking for his feudal overlords. He had grown up hearing the continuous slander and lies spread about his mother by the de Lusignan King and his vassals, including Richard's direct liege, Guilhem de Lusignan, Duke of Oultrejourdain. Guilhem, was actually even younger than Richard by a few years, but he also had reason to resent the de Cognac's as his family had been torn apart and his father had drunk himself to death soon after he was defeated and forced to abdicate by the Lady of Negev.
So, while the two young men never became out and out rivals, they had little willingness to work together. When Richard inherited his titles, the 19-year old King Gilles of Jerusalem, also new to his throne, was facing the first major threat to the Catholic Crusader state. The Ayyubid had launched a Holy war to claim the Duchy of Oultrejourdain. 20,000 desert warriors were descending upon Jerusalem, to reclaim the first piece of their stolen lands.
The young King, in either a flash of brilliance, or just outright stupidity, decided at that moment to try and revoke Beirut from his most powerful vassal, the Duke of Oultrejourdain. Whether genius or dumb luck, that move ended the Ayyubid Holy War. Duke Guilhem's regency council refused the revocation and raised their banners in revolt, denouncing their allegiance to the King. With Oultrejourdain, temporarily, no longer part of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Ayyubid lost their causas belli, and the war with Jerusalem ended, though the war against the tyranny of King Gilles continued. Richard did as little as possible in this war and let the cousins fight it out. In the end, Guilhelm was forced to surrender and King Gilles banished him, stripping him of all his titles. Guilhem's other cousin, Raoul de Lusignan, became the new Duke of Oultrejourdain and Richard's direct liege.
About this time, Richard would commission the creation of the fabled 'Blade of Negev'. The de Cognac's would own many other weapons over the years, finer weapons than the that first sword, but the 'Blade of Negev' is the ancestral sword of the de Cognac dynasty, carried into battle in half a dozen Crusades and Holy Wars.
Richard would marry the Countess Signe of Kerak, the only child of his mother's old friend and ally Johannes Hvide, based on a betrothal made by their parents when they were both children.
About this time, his neighbor, Countess Sança of Monreal, inherited the Duchy of Provence and became a vassal of her cousin, the King of Aragon. She packed up her household and moved back to Provence, abandoning Monreal. Richard took advantage of the situation, he formally declared war on the King of Aragon for the Monreal and quickly took possession of the Castle of Monreal, the Bishopric of Sela, and the City of Hurmniz. He soon usurped the title of Count of Monreal as no one from Aragon ever showed up to dispute his claim.
This was followed by the Crusade that made Richard's name and fortune. In 1239, Pope Benedictus XI called on all who pledged their aid to join him in the 5th Holy Crusade, this time against the Sultan of Rum, to reclaim Anatolia from the Muslims. Richard would lead 1,800 men north through hostile Abbasid territory to join the Crusade. He would fight in almost all the major battles of the war over the next three years.
His first battle was at Haruniye. Legend has it he fought the whole battle while suffering from the flu. His contingent had, ironically, joined up with 10,000 men lead by the King of Aragon, who Richard had fought a bloodless war against the year previously. They were preparing to siege Gâvur when the army was attacked by an army of 8,000 Rumites. Richard would first blood the Blade of Negev when he slew the Mayor Faraz of Khonj, one of the enemy commanders, in single combat.
The battle continued to grow as reinforcements poured in to support both sides of the conflict, by the time it ended after three weeks of continuous battle, 50,000 Crusaders had joined the fight against 25,000 Muslims. 30,000 men died in that battle, 20,000 of them Muslims. Richard had fought for the entire battle and his contributions were noted by the King of France and the Kaiser Rainald of the Holy Roman Empire, himself.
Four months later, after Haruniye and Perre fell to the Crusaders in sieges, Richard would find himself leading the center of the Polish army in the Battle of Tyana. A battle which grew to 33,000 Crusaders against 18,000 Muslims. It was another brutal victory for the Crusade. 18,000 men dead, 12,000 of those Muslims.
In the summer of 1242, the final battle of the Crusade would be fought at Sis. Richard would take part in that as well. Only 13,000 Crusaders against 3,600 Muslims. There would only be 3,500 casualties, but the it was the final straw for the Sultan of Rum.
Kaiser Rainald would be granted the victory by Pope Benedictus XI and the Kaiser would raise up Guiges von Hohenstaufen as King of Anatolia. But Richard's efforts had been recognized by the other Crusaders and his value as the lowly Count of Negev to the Crusade was ranked up there with the Kings and Emperor of Europe, Kaiser Rainald of the Holy Roman Empire, King Gelasio of Italy, Serene Doge Omero of Venice, King Ulrich of Aragon, King Boleslaw V of Poland, and even his kinsman King Ragnvald of Denmark.
Richard and his surviving 250 men would return home loaded with loot from Anatolia valued at over 3,500 gold and he would also return with the English Lance of the Cross, blessed and given him by Pope Benedictus XI, himself. Tragically, the Pope would soon die on his way home to Rome, called to his heavenly reward after his earthly task was completed.
As part of the spoils of the Crusade, Richard would also be granted the lands of Cappadocia in Anatolia. As his immediate family had no adult male relatives, just his baby son, he was forced to put these new lands into the hands of his oldest sister, Mahaut. This forced his shy, harelipped, stuttering sister out into the world on her own to become the Beylerbayan of Cappadocia and vassal to King Guiges and ultimately leading to the tragic tale of the Lady of Cappadocia.
Richard returned from the Crusade to find Jerusalem under attack from a Sunni Jihad, his county of Al Jawf already captured by the enemy. He would spend the next 5 years fighting for Jerusalem, first against the Sunni Caliph's Jihad, and then after that was won, against the Doge of Venice who was trying to claim the City of Nikarios on Cyprus. He would finally get a break from fighting when he was captured in battle by the Doge. He would spend the next 2 years in a cell in Venice, as the Doge was not willing to ransom one of Jerusalem's best commanders while the war continued.
Finally, the war ended and the Doge accepted Richard's ransom and sent him home. Richard's joy at returning home immediately turned to ashes. He found his young daughter, Elizabeth, pregnant. She had been seduced and raped by his liege, the young Duke Raoul II of Oultrejourdain, who had not expected Richard to survive his imprisonment.
The King Guy 'the Holy', son of the late King Gilles, refused to punish his kinsman, so Richard appealed to Pope Urbanus IV for justice. Count Richard's reputation as a Crusader aided him in this. Pope Urbanus IV would not excommunicate Raoul and risk angering King Guy III of Jerusalem, but instead he granted Richard claims on the Duchy of Oultrejourdain and the County of Madaba and bade him take his own justice.
Count Richard declared war on his liege, and the seasoned Crusader made short work of the young Duke, and soon won the war and claimed the Duchy and Madaba, leaving Raoul as his vassal, the Count of Beirut. Duke Richard would move his capitol to Madaba and take his place as the most powerful Duke in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, especially after King Guy soon lost the Duchy of Galilee to the Athanasiosid Empire in a Holy War, including Richard's vassal, Count Raoul of Beirut.
Following his ascension to Duke of Oultrejourdain, Richard would spend the next twenty years helping the de Lusignan Kings defend Jerusalem from an almost constant assault by its Muslims neighbors. Jerusalem would face five Holy Wars and one Jihad from various Emirs and the Sultan during this period, many overlapping each other, and Richard, working with the various Holy Orders, led the charge in throwing back these invaders. He also found time to join his son-in-law, Friedrich, the King of Sicily, in his attempt to capture Alexandria. For his constant and successful defense of the Holy land against the infidel, Richard earned the epithet, ‘the Blessed’.
However, it all began to go wrong in Friedrich ‘the Evil’’s war for Alexandria. Richard was captured a second time, this time by Emir Ghazi of Alexandria and held for six months. He was released for a sizable ransom when his son-in-law finally achieved victory. He returned home to find Jerusalem embroiled in two new Holy Wars lead by the Emirs of Haninid and Nabilid. Richard ‘the Blessed’ once again rallied his forces and proceeded to throw the infidel back. The wars had been going badly for Jerusalem before Richard’s return, but in series of swift battles and assaults he turned the tide, ending both wars. Then disaster. The Athanasiosid Sultan had launched a third Holy War against Jerusalem.
Because of Richard’s imprisonment, King Guy ‘the Holy’ had been forced to personally take the field to defend Jerusalem at the beginning of the wars. Unfortunately, even after Duke Richard’s return, he did not retire to Jerusalem, but continued to lead an army in the field. And so, at the Battle of Ascalon, the King was captured by the Athanasiosid Sultan.
King Guy ‘the Holy’ in an act of betrayal and cowardice, in exchange for his personal safety and freedom, surrendered half his Kingdom to the Sultan. Richard de Cognac’s half. In one stroke, Duke Richard was stripped of all the de jure land and vassals within Oultrejourdain. All the people of the Negev, Madaba, Monreal, and even his wife, Countess Signe of Kerak, became subjects to the Athanasiosid Sultanate. Richard was left with the County of Al Jawf, an island in the middle of an Athanasiosid sea, and the empty title of Duke of Oultrejourdain.
Duke Richard had poured most of the wealth he brought back from Anatolia in improving and strengthening all his Oultrejourdainian holdings and then spent a large chunk of the remaining wealth to pay his ransom from Alexandria. But now all he had worked for was stolen, all the improvements he had made with his Crusader money now belonged to another.
Duke Richard of Oultrejourdain had joined King Guy of Jerusalem repeatedly in the defense of Jerusalem from the many attacks by the various Islamic lords trying to tear apart the Kingdom piece by piece, while the rest of Catholic world barely lifted a finger. He had continued to fight for the King even after the King bartered away the bulk of Duke Richard’s estates for his own freedom after the King had allowed himself to be captured by the infidel, leaving the once powerful Duke with just the Sheikdom of Al Jawf.
But the King refused to try and help Richard reclaim his land, so Richard launched a war against the Sultan on his own to try and win his land and wife back before the Sultan could establish his control over Oultrejourdain. Richard began throwing away the last of his coin on hiring mercenaries and Holy orders to fight against the Muslims in desperation, but his initial victories were overturned when a slow fever epidemic spread through the land and decimated his army. Two years later, broke and with no men left, Richard was forced to concede defeat, his home and lands were truly gone.
Within a year, word reached Richard that his wife was dying of cancer. Alone, broke, and horribly depressed, Duke Richard 'the Blessed' died in Al Jawf, the land his parents had captured together.
The first Richard de Cognac inherited his mother's titles of Negev and Al Jawf at the age of 14. Even at that young age, he already had little liking for his feudal overlords. He had grown up hearing the continuous slander and lies spread about his mother by the de Lusignan King and his vassals, including Richard's direct liege, Guilhem de Lusignan, Duke of Oultrejourdain. Guilhem, was actually even younger than Richard by a few years, but he also had reason to resent the de Cognac's as his family had been torn apart and his father had drunk himself to death soon after he was defeated and forced to abdicate by the Lady of Negev.
So, while the two young men never became out and out rivals, they had little willingness to work together. When Richard inherited his titles, the 19-year old King Gilles of Jerusalem, also new to his throne, was facing the first major threat to the Catholic Crusader state. The Ayyubid had launched a Holy war to claim the Duchy of Oultrejourdain. 20,000 desert warriors were descending upon Jerusalem, to reclaim the first piece of their stolen lands.
The young King, in either a flash of brilliance, or just outright stupidity, decided at that moment to try and revoke Beirut from his most powerful vassal, the Duke of Oultrejourdain. Whether genius or dumb luck, that move ended the Ayyubid Holy War. Duke Guilhem's regency council refused the revocation and raised their banners in revolt, denouncing their allegiance to the King. With Oultrejourdain, temporarily, no longer part of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Ayyubid lost their causas belli, and the war with Jerusalem ended, though the war against the tyranny of King Gilles continued. Richard did as little as possible in this war and let the cousins fight it out. In the end, Guilhelm was forced to surrender and King Gilles banished him, stripping him of all his titles. Guilhem's other cousin, Raoul de Lusignan, became the new Duke of Oultrejourdain and Richard's direct liege.
About this time, Richard would commission the creation of the fabled 'Blade of Negev'. The de Cognac's would own many other weapons over the years, finer weapons than the that first sword, but the 'Blade of Negev' is the ancestral sword of the de Cognac dynasty, carried into battle in half a dozen Crusades and Holy Wars.
Richard would marry the Countess Signe of Kerak, the only child of his mother's old friend and ally Johannes Hvide, based on a betrothal made by their parents when they were both children.
About this time, his neighbor, Countess Sança of Monreal, inherited the Duchy of Provence and became a vassal of her cousin, the King of Aragon. She packed up her household and moved back to Provence, abandoning Monreal. Richard took advantage of the situation, he formally declared war on the King of Aragon for the Monreal and quickly took possession of the Castle of Monreal, the Bishopric of Sela, and the City of Hurmniz. He soon usurped the title of Count of Monreal as no one from Aragon ever showed up to dispute his claim.
This was followed by the Crusade that made Richard's name and fortune. In 1239, Pope Benedictus XI called on all who pledged their aid to join him in the 5th Holy Crusade, this time against the Sultan of Rum, to reclaim Anatolia from the Muslims. Richard would lead 1,800 men north through hostile Abbasid territory to join the Crusade. He would fight in almost all the major battles of the war over the next three years.
His first battle was at Haruniye. Legend has it he fought the whole battle while suffering from the flu. His contingent had, ironically, joined up with 10,000 men lead by the King of Aragon, who Richard had fought a bloodless war against the year previously. They were preparing to siege Gâvur when the army was attacked by an army of 8,000 Rumites. Richard would first blood the Blade of Negev when he slew the Mayor Faraz of Khonj, one of the enemy commanders, in single combat.
The battle continued to grow as reinforcements poured in to support both sides of the conflict, by the time it ended after three weeks of continuous battle, 50,000 Crusaders had joined the fight against 25,000 Muslims. 30,000 men died in that battle, 20,000 of them Muslims. Richard had fought for the entire battle and his contributions were noted by the King of France and the Kaiser Rainald of the Holy Roman Empire, himself.
Four months later, after Haruniye and Perre fell to the Crusaders in sieges, Richard would find himself leading the center of the Polish army in the Battle of Tyana. A battle which grew to 33,000 Crusaders against 18,000 Muslims. It was another brutal victory for the Crusade. 18,000 men dead, 12,000 of those Muslims.
In the summer of 1242, the final battle of the Crusade would be fought at Sis. Richard would take part in that as well. Only 13,000 Crusaders against 3,600 Muslims. There would only be 3,500 casualties, but the it was the final straw for the Sultan of Rum.
Kaiser Rainald would be granted the victory by Pope Benedictus XI and the Kaiser would raise up Guiges von Hohenstaufen as King of Anatolia. But Richard's efforts had been recognized by the other Crusaders and his value as the lowly Count of Negev to the Crusade was ranked up there with the Kings and Emperor of Europe, Kaiser Rainald of the Holy Roman Empire, King Gelasio of Italy, Serene Doge Omero of Venice, King Ulrich of Aragon, King Boleslaw V of Poland, and even his kinsman King Ragnvald of Denmark.
Richard and his surviving 250 men would return home loaded with loot from Anatolia valued at over 3,500 gold and he would also return with the English Lance of the Cross, blessed and given him by Pope Benedictus XI, himself. Tragically, the Pope would soon die on his way home to Rome, called to his heavenly reward after his earthly task was completed.
As part of the spoils of the Crusade, Richard would also be granted the lands of Cappadocia in Anatolia. As his immediate family had no adult male relatives, just his baby son, he was forced to put these new lands into the hands of his oldest sister, Mahaut. This forced his shy, harelipped, stuttering sister out into the world on her own to become the Beylerbayan of Cappadocia and vassal to King Guiges and ultimately leading to the tragic tale of the Lady of Cappadocia.
Richard returned from the Crusade to find Jerusalem under attack from a Sunni Jihad, his county of Al Jawf already captured by the enemy. He would spend the next 5 years fighting for Jerusalem, first against the Sunni Caliph's Jihad, and then after that was won, against the Doge of Venice who was trying to claim the City of Nikarios on Cyprus. He would finally get a break from fighting when he was captured in battle by the Doge. He would spend the next 2 years in a cell in Venice, as the Doge was not willing to ransom one of Jerusalem's best commanders while the war continued.
Finally, the war ended and the Doge accepted Richard's ransom and sent him home. Richard's joy at returning home immediately turned to ashes. He found his young daughter, Elizabeth, pregnant. She had been seduced and raped by his liege, the young Duke Raoul II of Oultrejourdain, who had not expected Richard to survive his imprisonment.
The King Guy 'the Holy', son of the late King Gilles, refused to punish his kinsman, so Richard appealed to Pope Urbanus IV for justice. Count Richard's reputation as a Crusader aided him in this. Pope Urbanus IV would not excommunicate Raoul and risk angering King Guy III of Jerusalem, but instead he granted Richard claims on the Duchy of Oultrejourdain and the County of Madaba and bade him take his own justice.
Count Richard declared war on his liege, and the seasoned Crusader made short work of the young Duke, and soon won the war and claimed the Duchy and Madaba, leaving Raoul as his vassal, the Count of Beirut. Duke Richard would move his capitol to Madaba and take his place as the most powerful Duke in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, especially after King Guy soon lost the Duchy of Galilee to the Athanasiosid Empire in a Holy War, including Richard's vassal, Count Raoul of Beirut.
Following his ascension to Duke of Oultrejourdain, Richard would spend the next twenty years helping the de Lusignan Kings defend Jerusalem from an almost constant assault by its Muslims neighbors. Jerusalem would face five Holy Wars and one Jihad from various Emirs and the Sultan during this period, many overlapping each other, and Richard, working with the various Holy Orders, led the charge in throwing back these invaders. He also found time to join his son-in-law, Friedrich, the King of Sicily, in his attempt to capture Alexandria. For his constant and successful defense of the Holy land against the infidel, Richard earned the epithet, ‘the Blessed’.
However, it all began to go wrong in Friedrich ‘the Evil’’s war for Alexandria. Richard was captured a second time, this time by Emir Ghazi of Alexandria and held for six months. He was released for a sizable ransom when his son-in-law finally achieved victory. He returned home to find Jerusalem embroiled in two new Holy Wars lead by the Emirs of Haninid and Nabilid. Richard ‘the Blessed’ once again rallied his forces and proceeded to throw the infidel back. The wars had been going badly for Jerusalem before Richard’s return, but in series of swift battles and assaults he turned the tide, ending both wars. Then disaster. The Athanasiosid Sultan had launched a third Holy War against Jerusalem.
Because of Richard’s imprisonment, King Guy ‘the Holy’ had been forced to personally take the field to defend Jerusalem at the beginning of the wars. Unfortunately, even after Duke Richard’s return, he did not retire to Jerusalem, but continued to lead an army in the field. And so, at the Battle of Ascalon, the King was captured by the Athanasiosid Sultan.
King Guy ‘the Holy’ in an act of betrayal and cowardice, in exchange for his personal safety and freedom, surrendered half his Kingdom to the Sultan. Richard de Cognac’s half. In one stroke, Duke Richard was stripped of all the de jure land and vassals within Oultrejourdain. All the people of the Negev, Madaba, Monreal, and even his wife, Countess Signe of Kerak, became subjects to the Athanasiosid Sultanate. Richard was left with the County of Al Jawf, an island in the middle of an Athanasiosid sea, and the empty title of Duke of Oultrejourdain.
Duke Richard had poured most of the wealth he brought back from Anatolia in improving and strengthening all his Oultrejourdainian holdings and then spent a large chunk of the remaining wealth to pay his ransom from Alexandria. But now all he had worked for was stolen, all the improvements he had made with his Crusader money now belonged to another.
Duke Richard of Oultrejourdain had joined King Guy of Jerusalem repeatedly in the defense of Jerusalem from the many attacks by the various Islamic lords trying to tear apart the Kingdom piece by piece, while the rest of Catholic world barely lifted a finger. He had continued to fight for the King even after the King bartered away the bulk of Duke Richard’s estates for his own freedom after the King had allowed himself to be captured by the infidel, leaving the once powerful Duke with just the Sheikdom of Al Jawf.
But the King refused to try and help Richard reclaim his land, so Richard launched a war against the Sultan on his own to try and win his land and wife back before the Sultan could establish his control over Oultrejourdain. Richard began throwing away the last of his coin on hiring mercenaries and Holy orders to fight against the Muslims in desperation, but his initial victories were overturned when a slow fever epidemic spread through the land and decimated his army. Two years later, broke and with no men left, Richard was forced to concede defeat, his home and lands were truly gone.
Within a year, word reached Richard that his wife was dying of cancer. Alone, broke, and horribly depressed, Duke Richard 'the Blessed' died in Al Jawf, the land his parents had captured together.
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