A Cornish AAR by a lousy Author.

[overthetop_G]

On 12 November in the year of Our Lord 1444, good Duke Massen II Gorfynydd of Cornwall, righteous servant of God and the Kingdom of England was challenged in his rule by the Pirates of Penzance, a group of rouge privateers, discontented military men, peasants, minor nobles, deserters from the army of His Royal Majesty of England’s army, etc., who by the means and justification of the force of their arms alone challenged the good Duke’s right to rule the Duchy of Cornwall, a land so greatly granted autonomy by the grace of the Good and Stupid King of England Henry the Sixth of the Royal House of Lancaster. The poor duke, put quite out of his element by the superior forces of the enemy rebels, who threatened him with 6000 rebels, decided to delay his decision on how to react to January 1st, as to allow him time to embezzle funds from the coffers of his Duchy. He did this as, being a mere nineteen years of age, he had not a grain of sand’s worth of wisdom. In his infinite rashness believed that the only recourse was to steal from the people he had been entrusted with, flee to London, lie about the number of rebels, and live as a rich courtier in London, perhaps purchasing a peerage from the infinitely incompetent, impotent, and paranoid King Henry. All this was of great shame, for Massen had been a promising child. However, despite his skill in military matters, his only skill as a general was at marching his men, for he knew nothing of firearms, cavalry charges, or siege warfare.

On the First of January, in the Year of our Lord 1445, the probably-not-so-good-in-light-of-recent-events Duke Massen II Gorfynydd of Cornwall, not-very-righteous servant of god and hopelessly corrupt servant of His Royal Majesty the also incompetent King of England, decided to abandon his title and people and flee to the city of London with the goal of becoming a merchant there. As he attempted to leave the city of Penzance, his servants Maban James and Myghal Weekes decided to turn him over to the crew of the terrifying pirate capitan Jory Arthur, former Grand Admiral of the Duke. Captain Arthur then turned the adolescent Duke to his superior, Grand Captain Ythel Carter of the Pirates of Penzance. Seeing that the Duke was in his hand, Grand Captain Ythel Carter decided to execute the Duke, and showing his head (The Duke’s, not the Captain’s) to the people of Penzance, declared himself the Grand Captain, Protector, Chief Admiral, Grand Justice, and Head of the Privateer’s Council of the Pirate’s Republic of Cornwall. Despite his ineptitude in matters of Administration, Diplomacy and the Military, he was embraced by the people of Cornwall.

The First Action undertaken by Good Ythel was the dissolution of all of the former governmental institutions of the Duchy of Cornwall, this being accomplished by the reduction of the Clergy from an estate to a body of pastors, the execution of the Bishop of Cornwall, the arrest of the entirety of the nobility and bourgeoisie of Cornwall, and the institution of rule of the Privateers. However, despite his not-very-great wisdom, Ythel knew that he should not declare independence from the Kingdom of England. Instead, he merely sent a polite letter to the secretary of His Most Idiotic Majesty King Henry the Sixth of England, which has been reproduced in whole below:

Dear Secretary of His Royal Majesty Henry the Sixth of England, Who has by the Grace of God and the Reluctance of the French to engage him in any kind of meaningful conflict retained the titles of King of England, Lord of Ireland, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, etc., etc., etc.,
If Henry the Sixth fell into the Thames, that would be a misfortune. But if someone were to drag him out again, that would be a calamity.

Due to the fact that the secretary was of French blood, he made copies of the letter and sent them to relatives in Burgundy, France, and Castille. The Secretary was then dragged out of the damp cavern that was his dwelling place and beheaded. It is thought that this sequence of events contributed to the later state of war between France and England.

In this way we end the events surrounding the creation of the Pirate’s Republic of Cornwall. The rest of this tale will be told in later chapters of this book (which has only been completed by the Grace of God and reluctance of the creditors, enemies, and state prosecutors of the author to engage him in legal proceedings), and I assure you that it is a tale that is true in all of its extent, at least to the extent that did not come to the author in periods of drunkenness.



With the first chapter of the book out of the way, I am proud to announce that I have decided to write another AAR, this time as the Pirate Republic of Cornwall. Those who have read my previous attempts at AARs know that my previous attempts have ended rather quickly and have been rather picture heavy. This time around, I have done the opposite, and have decided to create an AAR with NO pictures. As a result, it may be a little hard to guess what is going on in the text. If you, the reader, have any questions about gameplay, please direct them to me. Thank you for reading this, and I hope that this AAR will be played to completion. Thank you.

 

[HistoryDude]

This is hilarious. Subbed. We need more comedy.

Will the Pirate Republic of Cornwall seek independence from England when such a possibility isn't an act of suicide?

 

[Asbjoern52]

Ha! I quite like what I am seeing here! Seriously, I am absolutely hyped for more of this masterwork of a aar

 

[overthetop_G]

Thank you, current commenters for your kind words! For future reference, I am playing this game with the Beyond the Cape mod. For some reason Cornwall is a subject of England at game start; while I don't know the historicity of this, is it quite fun to play as.

 

[overthetop_G]

On 23 May in the Year of Our Lord 1445, the series of events triggered by the execution of the French secretary reached a head, with the Kings of The Land of Poor Food and The Land of Dumb Kings now trading insults at increased rates and sending the occasional arrow at one another. The Pirates of Cornwall chose to aid the war effort by sending the following message to the French King:
Dear Poor Cook;
I’d like a refund. My last visit to your dining hall was most disappointing, for the musicians could only play the percussion instruments of the sword and the cannon, and the food itself was a wholly inedible mess of gunpowder and profanity.

Following the refusal of all literate persons in Cornwall to write this message due to an unfortunate addiction to French food, the following one was sent:
Dear King:
Despite your enjoyment of our insults of the King of England, we deeply regret that we must cancel your subscription to our insult service. As a final parting gift, we have directed this insult to you: Please stop drinking so much liquor. We pirates need some too, and we would hate to see such a cuckolded source of amusement such as yourself perish. We have also been enjoying the letters that your besieged liver and adulterous wife have been sending us, and it would be a shame if such illustrious personages were to lose their free source of postage.

The French King was reportedly miffed by these statements, and the rage into which they sent French soldiers is thought to have contributed to the great French successes in the war.

On January Second of the Year of our Lord 1446, Ythel Carter authorized Captain Jory Arthur to sail with the light ships Kernow, Chough, Guinevere, and Excalibur, and make them heavy with plunder. This was accepted by Captain Arthur. Ythel also requested the support of the King of Castile, the Zealous Juan II, to aid him in his quest for independence from England. This accepted, Captain Arthur, set off on his war against all people’s not Cornish.

On the First of February, the Provinces of Bordeaux and Saintounge were plundered from the French, delivering 51 ducats and 559 captured sailors. On the Fifth, the southern coast of Brittany and western coast of France were also plundered, yielding 40 ducats and 624 sailors. On the Eleventh, the North Coast of Brittany provided 180 sailors and 12 ducats, and on the Second of March French-occupied English Normandy provided 362 sailors and 34 ducats. Following this, the plunder of the lowlands on 19 March provided 2236 sailors and 158 ducats. The plundering missions to Scotland and Ireland in the spring then provided 90 ducats and 1302 sailors. All of these missions greatly increased the coffers of the Cornish State.

In September, the Captain of three cogs briefly lost his sanity and sailed to the Mediterranean, where he was defeated by a provencal fleet and executed on his return home. This may or may not have been repeated multiple times during the course of the following years, much to the confusion of the English. It is thought that the bored Cornish Privateers wanted something to do while holed up in port, thus necessitating the ‘raids’.

On January First of the Year of Our Lord 1449, the liberator Ythel Carter Proclaimed his re-election as Captain of the Pirate’s Republic of Cornwall. While some claimed that the election was rigged, they soon found that they had misplaced their tongues, and that their arms had miraculously shrunk to a quarter of their previous size. Despite this, the celebrations were long, and culminated in the repeated insulting of the French and the English, as well as the arrest of all English tax-collectors in the town. Ythel then declared the Policy of Expansion, which ordered the fabrication of claims upon the land of England, as to expand the state of Cornwall. On 29 May of that same year, Ythel confiscated the lands and wealth of several ‘Gentrymen’ who were conspiring to return autocracy to the land of Cornwall. Whether or not these were actual Gentry has long since been debated, and they were probably one of the few groups of dim-witted Englishmen who thought that it was a good idea to visit Cornwall for means of entertainment, to laugh at the “uncivilized” pirates. Of course, tourists have a great tendency to lose things, and these “things” often include their keys, wallets, and heads. The frequency in which Englishmen lost the aforementioned items of their luggage in Cornwall is thought to have been the main contributing factor in the demise of the Cornish tourist industry. However, this source of income was wonderful while it lasted, and it is the source of a good many fine heads now mounted in the halls of Cornish pirate families.

Some time later, on the Twenty-Fourth of September, Ythel ordered that several tracts criticizing his rule be allowed to be published, as to show the outside world that he was not the raiding, looting, town-burning, insult-loving, English-hating pirate they thought he was, even though he was. This greatly increased the power of the opposition who had lost so much in May, and it took several executions to regain order in the Republic.

On the 25th of January 1450, the Articles of Agreement were drafted in the Pirates’ Republic. This near-holy document had to be signed by all pirates and captains, and stated the rights and obligations of the sailors of the Pirate Republic, also specifying the treasure shares of all crew members. However, at the bottom, a statement was made stating that the position of Captain of the Pirate’s republic would rotate between the Buccaneers, Captains, and Smugglers every election as to create a balance of power, unless, of course, the pirate was a legendary one, in which case all making such a nonsensical statement such as “Shouldn’t Ythel Carter retire?” would quickly find themselves unable to state much else.

Then, on the ninth of February 1451, the French finally overran all English continental lands but Calais, and secured the Freedom of the Kingdom of Mann, the Duchy of Wales, and the City of Dublin. The English King around this time was now a member of the house of Avis. It is unknown how this happened, but it was a cause of celebration in Cornwall. Afterall, if you can’t understand the tax collectors, who's to say that they were not insulting His Supreme Excellence the Legendary Pirate Ythel?

On the 4th of April 1452, the Burgundians agreed to support the independence of Cornwall. This was also greeted with much celebration, and marked the transformation of Cornwall from an obedient, easily taxed land into a completely untamable land of pirates, dead tourists, insults, and smugglers. This was well approved by the Cornish Captains, who intended to stay under English rule as long as was necessary in order to enjoy the benefits of English protection, all while happening to eat from the inside of the English state like a tumor, which is a delicacy among the French people.


End of the Second Chapter.

 

[HistoryDude]

Does England have an alliance with Portugal now due to an Avis holding the throne?

Is Ythel asking for aid from any other European nation in the eventual struggle for independence, or is it just Burgundy?

Did the French occupy any land on the British Isles, or did France refuse to annex all of England's continental territory outside of Calais in favor of making them grant Mann, Wales, and Dublin independence?

 

[overthetop_G]

Does England have an alliance with Portugal now due to an Avis holding the throne?

Is Ythel asking for aid from any other European nation in the eventual struggle for independence, or is it just Burgundy?

Did the French occupy any land on the British Isles, or did France refuse to annex all of England's continental territory outside of Calais in favor of making them grant Mann, Wales, and Dublin independence?

1. England has an alliance with them from the start.
2. As previously stated, Castile was aiding them first.
3. The English retained Calais but lost all the other lands: Wales, Meath, Mann...

 

[Asbjoern52]

You have an amazing way with words Overthetop_G, seriously, I am amused and awed in equal amounts at what you have written

 

[overthetop_G]

On One May Day, Day One of May (also known as May Day), to be precise and to say it in One phrase: May Day, a Day in May, actually the First Day in May, the Glorious Ythel Carter, pirate captain and looter extraordinaire decided to delay any attempt to war with England for independence. The once dim-witted, dull-skulled, blood-lust-filled man had matured into a shining example of Piratical Practicality, and he knew that raiding under the protection of the English was the only way he could protect his large stacks of treasure the welfare of the Cornish people. However, these demands kept on coming, “like the song of a songbird that won’t shut up until its lungs are forcibly removed from its body by means of employment of a large brass hook,” to quote the old pirate proverb. This was, of course, remedied by the application of said proverb, much to the simultaneous disgust and thankfulness of His-Royal-Majesty The Infertile and brain-poor Henry de Avis, who decided to tell the good news to his 2-year-old probably-illegitimate son, who had about as much brains as his father did.

It was around the time of the re-elections in 1453 and 1457 that the English King Henry de Avis, the most gloriously inept, declared war on the people of Ireland, starting with the land of Munster. It was not known to the Cornish why the King was so focused on conquering a land of celtic-speaking, english-hating pains in the rear like the Irish when such a role was already fulfilled by the Cornish. As their privileged role as pesky parasites to the English monarch was now under threat, the Cornish disagreed with the wars, and refused to send troops or ships to aid the conflicts. In addition to this, there was great fear of economic depression caused by the destruction of the Irish cash cows minor nations.

Speaking of the re-elections, the re-elections of 1453 and 1457 were of great importance to Ythel, because they guaranteed the endless stream of money, prestige, cheap breakfast cereal, severed english tourist heads, more prestige, English distrust, cheap postage for insults, and prestige(did I repeat that? Sorry. It seemed important). The elections were often secured by the granting of free insult postage to members of the Pirate Societes of Cornwall at the rate of three free letters per vote. Objections to this practice are said to have existed, but I cannot confirm this, due to the objectors, their friends and family, and all of their relatives drawing in a flood of insult-postage. It is these events that inspired a genre of paintings centering around houses with postage pouring out of all of the doors, windows, gutters, drainage pipes, rain pipes, portholes, gateways made by cannonfire, etc. etc. etc.

Sadly, a new election had to be called too soon, due to the unfortunate death of Ythel Carter at the age of 54 on February 6th, 1460. It is rumored that he died after choking on a culinary experiment, namely the doubloon sandwich. The man who takes his place is the famed smuggler Ricatus Sweet, who sent free postage to 5,453 pirates the day before the election. Sweet was 51 years of age, and was an indulgent drunkard whose election resulted in the Smugglers gaining power over the state. His election brings a new chapter in Cornish history, one of great times. I hope. I haven’t played that far yet.

 

[HistoryDude]

The fact that Cornwall is threatened by the Irish because they fear that they'll steal their role is hilarious.

RIP Ythel. May Ricatus have a prosperous reign of piracy!

How stupid is Henry de Avis of England? Can Cornwall use that idiocy somehow?

 

[overthetop_G]

On January 1st, 1462, the Buccaneer faction took over the Government of the state of Cornwall, much to the dismay of smugglers and captains, who had long viewed themselves as an elite superior to other factions in Penzance.

The English wars against the Irish, fellow thorns in the English side, resulted in the English reconquest of Wales. This was a period of sadness for the Cornish nationalists, who belated the fall of their Brythonic brethren. This resulted in yet another wave of insults against the English, mocking the Portuguese dynasty of their King and declaring the Cornish were more English than the English, even though the Cornish hated the English.


Talek Hale, Buccaneer was soon elected on 23 February 1464, as a result of Nationalistic Cornish sentiment. At 29 years old, he is an architectural visionary, who built many great structures across the realm. Alas, he would die on Christmas eve, 1466, as a result of the ingestion of several gold coins by accident while he was eating cakes to celebrate the eve of Christ’s birth. He was replaced by the Grand-And-Definitely-Not-Corrupt Duncan Jolly of the Captains on 1 January 1467. He was 38 years of age and righteous, much loved by his subjects.
His first rule of law was the beginning of research of exploration technology, hoping that this would allow for the Cornish to expand outside of England. He also began the raising of troops to protect his nation against English tourists, who continued to gawk at the Cornish Pirates and provide a reason for the Grand Cornish Tradition (GCT, license to be called GCT approved by the Cornish Traditional Group) of insult-sending.

Due to the English tourist problem, an Independence war was declared on January 1st, 1468. The people of Cornwall had decreed this necessary due to the fact that the majority of the English troops were in Calais, and thus would be easily destroyed by Burgundian allies. The war was started with the usual barrage of provocative insults, which I have decided not to reproduce here for the sake of not angering the Gods above by violating forum policy. Needless to say, this was a watershed moment for the Cornish identity, finally breaking itself apart from the chains of English rule. The final letters to “His Royal Highness the Oft-Humiliated King of the English (whose name we have forgotten, by virtue of the illiterate state of his court),” were signed, the last English Tourists were sent back, and the nation of Cornwall prepared for battle.

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It has been a bit since I last posted (two months!), and I hope you all will forgive me for any decline in the quality of my work following my, er, disappearance. Another entry on the rest of the war will be coming, and I would like some feedback on the quality of my work. Thank you, and have a very good day.

 

[HistoryDude]

Let's hope that achieving independence is as easy as the Cornish captains say it will be.

Will a newly independent Cornwall colonize anywhere? If so, what areas of the world do they have in mind?