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I've finally caught up from your jump from CK, Judas, and I have to say, DAMN! Awesome work with the mod over to EU.
I am impressed with the... energetic grasp Maelgwn made in his opening gambit. It seems that he did indeed bite off more than he could chew and swallow. I only hope that when the next campaign season opens Ioan II and his Regents will be able to hold the English gains against Etienne and is allies from the south, 'cause I'd love to see an English monarchy controlling a good deal of France as well as the Isles themselves. (Aye, I'm a greedy bastard, but at least I admit it freely, eh?
)
I am impressed with the... energetic grasp Maelgwn made in his opening gambit. It seems that he did indeed bite off more than he could chew and swallow. I only hope that when the next campaign season opens Ioan II and his Regents will be able to hold the English gains against Etienne and is allies from the south, 'cause I'd love to see an English monarchy controlling a good deal of France as well as the Isles themselves. (Aye, I'm a greedy bastard, but at least I admit it freely, eh?
)
Are Ioan II and his regents' goals the total conquest of France or something else?
I do hope Ioan II's stats are much better than henry VI.
I do hope Ioan II's stats are much better than henry VI.
Sorry for the delay, but my sig has the reason. There will be an update tomorrow, and from then on I'll likely be updating once per week as I originally intended.
Maximilliano: Hopefully. I'm not perfectly good at this game, though...
RGB: Good. Glad I'm not confusing everybody.
Tskb18: I prefer Christopher Marlowe myself: "Is this the face that launched a thousand ships/And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?"
(Or should I say:
Is þis þe nebb þat wurpt a' þusend scips
And burnt þe topleas tours of Ilium?
Helen, maic me undeadly wiþ a kiss!)
The more I do this, the more it sounds Scottish. That actually makes sense when I think about it...
JimboIX: It's English, or more properly Middle English (Modern English begins in the 18th century in this timeline). And look back at the de Cornouaille geneology to find a good division, it should be fairly obvious (unless I'm not good at getting those sorts of things across, which is likely ).
Kurt_Steiner: Now you've got me thinking about what Catalan or Spanish might have done in this timeline!
Draco Rexus: I'd like to pull that off, don't know if I can deliver, though...
Chief Ragusa: The goal is to become King of France through whatever means necessary. Practically, that would require complete conquest.
In case you're wondering what pronunciation I have in mind for my 16th century English, here you go:
Vowels as in modern English.
Exception: OU at end of a word = OW at end of a word
Consonants:
B = B
C = K
CH = CH
D = D
F = F
G = G (always hard)
GH = Dutch GH
H = H
J = J
K = not used
L = L
M = M
N = N
P = P
Q = not used (QU repaced with CW)
R = R
S = S
SC = SH
T = T
TH = TH in Thomas
Þ = TH (both the hard sound in "that" and the soft sound in "thing")
V = V
W = W
X = X
Y = Y
Z = Z
I couþe do þis Middelenglisc all dey if I would to...
Maximilliano: Hopefully. I'm not perfectly good at this game, though...
RGB: Good. Glad I'm not confusing everybody.
Tskb18: I prefer Christopher Marlowe myself: "Is this the face that launched a thousand ships/And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?"
(Or should I say:
Is þis þe nebb þat wurpt a' þusend scips
And burnt þe topleas tours of Ilium?
Helen, maic me undeadly wiþ a kiss!)
The more I do this, the more it sounds Scottish. That actually makes sense when I think about it...
JimboIX: It's English, or more properly Middle English (Modern English begins in the 18th century in this timeline). And look back at the de Cornouaille geneology to find a good division, it should be fairly obvious (unless I'm not good at getting those sorts of things across, which is likely
).Kurt_Steiner: Now you've got me thinking about what Catalan or Spanish might have done in this timeline!
Draco Rexus: I'd like to pull that off, don't know if I can deliver, though...
Chief Ragusa: The goal is to become King of France through whatever means necessary. Practically, that would require complete conquest.
In case you're wondering what pronunciation I have in mind for my 16th century English, here you go:
Vowels as in modern English.
Exception: OU at end of a word = OW at end of a word
Consonants:
B = B
C = K
CH = CH
D = D
F = F
G = G (always hard)
GH = Dutch GH
H = H
J = J
K = not used
L = L
M = M
N = N
P = P
Q = not used (QU repaced with CW)
R = R
S = S
SC = SH
T = T
TH = TH in Thomas
Þ = TH (both the hard sound in "that" and the soft sound in "thing")
V = V
W = W
X = X
Y = Y
Z = Z
I couþe do þis Middelenglisc all dey if I would to...
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Of course it makes sense. Scots is mostly Northern English anyway, right, the way it used to be pre-Normanisation?
I like that language so much better than the modern one. Sounds like it means business, it does.
I like that language so much better than the modern one. Sounds like it means business, it does.
I looked over the speech with my pronunciation guide (I'm no linguist) good stuff. My survey over the tables revealed a few possible candidates for your York including the Dukes of Cornwall, Mar (who you bolded) and my own personal favorite, Borkalon. Hopefully the suspense will end soon. Really, a combination of the two would parallel our time most accurately, for if I recall correctly Richard, Duke of York (not his son Richard III) was the heir of both Lionel, Duke of Clarence through his mother of the Mortimer Earls or March and a male-line descendant of Edward III through the original Duke of York, and thus both heir general and (sans Lancaster/Beaufort) heir-male of Edward III. Not to mention inbred. But that goes without saying for a Plantagenet.
RGB: Basically. And sounding like you're ready to do business is a specialty of the Germanic languages.
JimboIX: The line of Mar has died out in the meantime (Mar was inherited by King William I). Cornwall was what I had in mind, although the Borkalans will definitely play a part in the proceedings... and a couple more times, too... And inbreeding goes without saying for any medieval noble (and later if you're a Habsburg)
- - - - - - - -
Titles:
King of England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and France (to 1429)
Prince of Wales
Lord of the Scottish and Greek (to 1455) Isles
Duke of Holland, Bretagne (to 1429), Normandy (to 1429), Poitou (to 1429), and Iceland (to 1455)
Count of Guines and Navarra (to 1429)
The regency of a young king was becoming an annoyingly common event in England, and by necessity the English had become masters at it. A regency council was rapidly set up, in which the dominating figure was Ioan's uncle, Iorweth, Duke of Bedford. Also prominent was another uncle, Alun, Earl of Salisbury, along with Ioan's moderately distant relative, Duke Henry of Cornwall. They quickly proclaimed Ioan heir to the French throne, just in time for King Asclettin to finally die on 22 October. Unfortunately, a young child had by that very condition less force of authority than Maelgwn would have, and despite the claims of the English and their allies in northern France, the rest of the country rallied behind Asclettin's theoretically illegitimate son Etienne while paying lip service to Ioan.
Recognizing the delicacy of the situation, Bedford rushed Ioan to Paris, made the capital of English France, and called the Pope over for a coronation. Said Pope refused to crown Ioan until he was at least ten years of age. The English decided to hold on to their lands as much as possible until that time, although France appeared to be gaining more and more power to the south.
Meanwhile, the regency tried their best to hold England itself together. Despite proclamations in 1423 that expanded royal control over the various parts of the kingdom, often the parliaments or local authorities simply refused to enforce the royal ordinances. By late 1424 the Icelanding Althing was blatantly igorning almost everything the de Cornouaille dynasty sent their way and did not even recognize his representatives as part of their government, basically declaring independence.
Turning away from the north for a time, the regency instead focused on the south. On 1 February 1426, the Count of Geldre declared his realms a part of the Duchy of Holland and swore fealty to King Ioan. This was an insult and a threat to the authority of Geldre's former lord, the Holy Roman Emperor; but by this time, the Empire was already weakening, well on its way to becoming a theoretical construct and little more.
The final place of importance was France itself. The country had hardened its lines between support for King Jean III (Ioan), sometimes derisively called the "King of Calais" due to his limited authority, and King Etienne II. Things looked like they might at first resolve themselves peacefully; a delegation was sent from Blois to Paris to meet with Ioan and a few of the regency council to work out a deal. The meeting occured in late 1427, and for several days negotiations went back and forth. It was when the six-year-old Ioan was invited to appear that things fell apart. Headstrong as he was, he refused to follow protocol, insulted the French delegates, demanded that they kneel to him, and said that his armies were already preparing to move in order to crush any opposition to his position as King of France. Before the council could react and ascribe their monarch's words to the indiscretion of youth, the French simply stormed out.
This could have been a recoverable situation had it not been for the near-simultaneous appearance of a young woman from the Champagne* region known as Jeanne d'Arc. Claiming that she had begun recieving visions from God, she called for France to rise up against the English and drive them from the continent, claiming that there would be a sudden reversal at Orleans. At the same time, the French delegation returned to Blois and told their story. The combination of the two drove Etienne into a rage, and at that point the Kingdom of France was at war.
Contemporary drawing of Jeanne d'Arc, by Clement de Fauquembergue (1429)
The northern part of France fell into chaos at this announcement. England itself suffered a major blow when Ioan's own relative, Charles, Duke of Orleans, switched sides and swore fealty to Etienne II. He repudiated his family name of de Cornouaille, becoming Charles d'Orleans, and sent his illegitimate half-brother Jean d'Orelans, Count of Dunois with his army. Etienne took a liking to the young Dunois and sent him out with Jeanne d'Arc to lead the French attack against the English holdings in the north.
Paris and Rouen were rapidly dealt with, controlling the Seine and splitting Normandy, Bretagne, and Poitou from Picardy, Calais, and Holland. D'Arc and Dunois chose to concentrate on the latter, as that was where the English armies landed and marched from. Said armies were coming together slowly; English finances were in a bad place, and the regency was forced to go 20,000 pounds into debt in order to finance an army. Bedford gathered more than twenty-two thousand men in London and as quickly as possible got them across the Channel. Unfortunately, "as quickly as possible" was only on 20 August, by which time Amiens, one of the last major English strongholds in France proper, was threatening to fall.
Dunois' army was, at the time, more towards Rouen than Amiens. Bedford rushed down to relieve the city, across the Somme River, and was within a kilometer of the French covering force when Dunois made his way back. This he did by threatening to cut Bedford off from the coast. Bedford was not quite sure of his enemy's position and marched carefully towards Pontremy, where there was a bridge across the Somme (the pont in the town's name). Dunois carefully controlled his speed so that he would arrive just as Bedford's army did at a crossroads just south of the bridge.
The French army was led by the 4,000 cavalry of Dunois himself, whose appearance forced the English to scatter into a defensive posture in order to screen the road leading to the bridge. At first Dunois appeared to be attacking the crossroads in order to make the English retreat more difficult, with his cavalry staying just at the edge of bowshot range. As the French infantry came up behind him, Dunois began shifting to his left, towards the river. The English slowly shifted as well, until finally, when about half the French army was in position, Dunois charged, on the English right flank rather than the crossroads. Said flank rapidly collapsed just as the rest of the English army became engaged in battle, unable to easily escape.
English soldiers chased across the bridge at Pontremy.
Realizing what was happening, those English who were able to broke and ran for the bridge. The French cavarly quickly cut off that road, allowing only a few hundred to make it across to the town. The rest were quickly pushed into a swampy area next to the river itself, where some attempted to swim the river (mostly drowning as they forgot to get rid of their armor and weapons first). Bedford himself had an opportunity to make it across, but chose to make a stand at the front of his army. Dunois himself rode forward to fight the Englishman, and in a duel Bedford was killed and Dunois moderately injured.
The Battle of Pontremy. Each line is c. 1000 men.
The English now called for quarter. Many of the others in the French army were inclined to grant it, but Dunois cited Agincourt and stated that if the English would slaughter their prisoners, he would do the same. Crossbows flew into the area, where the English were unable to put up a proper defence and were cut down by the thousands. Dunois' light infantry (he realized that his heavy knights would be useless in the swamp) marched in and continued the slaughter. Jeanne chastised Dunois for his actions, but Etienne II is generally believed to have supported his general's decision.
The complete destruction of the English army destroyed any hope of success. Ameins fell on 22 October, and the French moved on to Antwerp in Holland. The capture of Caen in March of 1429 and then Antwerp in August sealed the fate of English hopes in France. Etienne declared a commise--the confiscation of a noble's lands by the king, in this case justified as rebellion--and gave the English two options: Accept French control of Paris, Picardy, and Zeeland, or give up the confiscated lands. Etienne knew that the regency council would never accept the loss of the rich port of Antwerp, and as he had hoped the English agreed to the latter proposal.
Said confiscation already did not include Bretagne (which was not officially part of the Kingdom of France) and the work of John Talbot, 1st Talbot Earl of Shrewsbury, protected Calais from capture. Etienne granted them that concession, and on 19 October 1429 Ioan did homage to the French king as Count of Guines (Calais). This marked the practical end of the Hundred Years War (which actually lasted 92 years, 1337-1429, and was actually a series of wars) and the hope of the English to gain the French crown.
__________
*Although her hometown is now in the Haute-Lorraine region.
JimboIX: The line of Mar has died out in the meantime (Mar was inherited by King William I). Cornwall was what I had in mind, although the Borkalans will definitely play a part in the proceedings... and a couple more times, too... And inbreeding goes without saying for any medieval noble (and later if you're a Habsburg)
- - - - - - - -
Ioan (John) II the Mad
Born: 6 Dec. 1421, Reading
Married: Margaret d'Anjou (on 23 April 1445)
Died: 21 May 1471, London
Born: 6 Dec. 1421, Reading
Married: Margaret d'Anjou (on 23 April 1445)
Died: 21 May 1471, London
Titles:
King of England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and France (to 1429)
Prince of Wales
Lord of the Scottish and Greek (to 1455) Isles
Duke of Holland, Bretagne (to 1429), Normandy (to 1429), Poitou (to 1429), and Iceland (to 1455)
Count of Guines and Navarra (to 1429)
The achievements which society rewards are won at the cost of diminution of personality.
--Carl Jung
The regency of a young king was becoming an annoyingly common event in England, and by necessity the English had become masters at it. A regency council was rapidly set up, in which the dominating figure was Ioan's uncle, Iorweth, Duke of Bedford. Also prominent was another uncle, Alun, Earl of Salisbury, along with Ioan's moderately distant relative, Duke Henry of Cornwall. They quickly proclaimed Ioan heir to the French throne, just in time for King Asclettin to finally die on 22 October. Unfortunately, a young child had by that very condition less force of authority than Maelgwn would have, and despite the claims of the English and their allies in northern France, the rest of the country rallied behind Asclettin's theoretically illegitimate son Etienne while paying lip service to Ioan.
Recognizing the delicacy of the situation, Bedford rushed Ioan to Paris, made the capital of English France, and called the Pope over for a coronation. Said Pope refused to crown Ioan until he was at least ten years of age. The English decided to hold on to their lands as much as possible until that time, although France appeared to be gaining more and more power to the south.
Meanwhile, the regency tried their best to hold England itself together. Despite proclamations in 1423 that expanded royal control over the various parts of the kingdom, often the parliaments or local authorities simply refused to enforce the royal ordinances. By late 1424 the Icelanding Althing was blatantly igorning almost everything the de Cornouaille dynasty sent their way and did not even recognize his representatives as part of their government, basically declaring independence.
Turning away from the north for a time, the regency instead focused on the south. On 1 February 1426, the Count of Geldre declared his realms a part of the Duchy of Holland and swore fealty to King Ioan. This was an insult and a threat to the authority of Geldre's former lord, the Holy Roman Emperor; but by this time, the Empire was already weakening, well on its way to becoming a theoretical construct and little more.
The final place of importance was France itself. The country had hardened its lines between support for King Jean III (Ioan), sometimes derisively called the "King of Calais" due to his limited authority, and King Etienne II. Things looked like they might at first resolve themselves peacefully; a delegation was sent from Blois to Paris to meet with Ioan and a few of the regency council to work out a deal. The meeting occured in late 1427, and for several days negotiations went back and forth. It was when the six-year-old Ioan was invited to appear that things fell apart. Headstrong as he was, he refused to follow protocol, insulted the French delegates, demanded that they kneel to him, and said that his armies were already preparing to move in order to crush any opposition to his position as King of France. Before the council could react and ascribe their monarch's words to the indiscretion of youth, the French simply stormed out.
This could have been a recoverable situation had it not been for the near-simultaneous appearance of a young woman from the Champagne* region known as Jeanne d'Arc. Claiming that she had begun recieving visions from God, she called for France to rise up against the English and drive them from the continent, claiming that there would be a sudden reversal at Orleans. At the same time, the French delegation returned to Blois and told their story. The combination of the two drove Etienne into a rage, and at that point the Kingdom of France was at war.
Contemporary drawing of Jeanne d'Arc, by Clement de Fauquembergue (1429)
The northern part of France fell into chaos at this announcement. England itself suffered a major blow when Ioan's own relative, Charles, Duke of Orleans, switched sides and swore fealty to Etienne II. He repudiated his family name of de Cornouaille, becoming Charles d'Orleans, and sent his illegitimate half-brother Jean d'Orelans, Count of Dunois with his army. Etienne took a liking to the young Dunois and sent him out with Jeanne d'Arc to lead the French attack against the English holdings in the north.
Paris and Rouen were rapidly dealt with, controlling the Seine and splitting Normandy, Bretagne, and Poitou from Picardy, Calais, and Holland. D'Arc and Dunois chose to concentrate on the latter, as that was where the English armies landed and marched from. Said armies were coming together slowly; English finances were in a bad place, and the regency was forced to go 20,000 pounds into debt in order to finance an army. Bedford gathered more than twenty-two thousand men in London and as quickly as possible got them across the Channel. Unfortunately, "as quickly as possible" was only on 20 August, by which time Amiens, one of the last major English strongholds in France proper, was threatening to fall.
Dunois' army was, at the time, more towards Rouen than Amiens. Bedford rushed down to relieve the city, across the Somme River, and was within a kilometer of the French covering force when Dunois made his way back. This he did by threatening to cut Bedford off from the coast. Bedford was not quite sure of his enemy's position and marched carefully towards Pontremy, where there was a bridge across the Somme (the pont in the town's name). Dunois carefully controlled his speed so that he would arrive just as Bedford's army did at a crossroads just south of the bridge.
The French army was led by the 4,000 cavalry of Dunois himself, whose appearance forced the English to scatter into a defensive posture in order to screen the road leading to the bridge. At first Dunois appeared to be attacking the crossroads in order to make the English retreat more difficult, with his cavalry staying just at the edge of bowshot range. As the French infantry came up behind him, Dunois began shifting to his left, towards the river. The English slowly shifted as well, until finally, when about half the French army was in position, Dunois charged, on the English right flank rather than the crossroads. Said flank rapidly collapsed just as the rest of the English army became engaged in battle, unable to easily escape.
English soldiers chased across the bridge at Pontremy.
Realizing what was happening, those English who were able to broke and ran for the bridge. The French cavarly quickly cut off that road, allowing only a few hundred to make it across to the town. The rest were quickly pushed into a swampy area next to the river itself, where some attempted to swim the river (mostly drowning as they forgot to get rid of their armor and weapons first). Bedford himself had an opportunity to make it across, but chose to make a stand at the front of his army. Dunois himself rode forward to fight the Englishman, and in a duel Bedford was killed and Dunois moderately injured.
The Battle of Pontremy. Each line is c. 1000 men.
The English now called for quarter. Many of the others in the French army were inclined to grant it, but Dunois cited Agincourt and stated that if the English would slaughter their prisoners, he would do the same. Crossbows flew into the area, where the English were unable to put up a proper defence and were cut down by the thousands. Dunois' light infantry (he realized that his heavy knights would be useless in the swamp) marched in and continued the slaughter. Jeanne chastised Dunois for his actions, but Etienne II is generally believed to have supported his general's decision.
The complete destruction of the English army destroyed any hope of success. Ameins fell on 22 October, and the French moved on to Antwerp in Holland. The capture of Caen in March of 1429 and then Antwerp in August sealed the fate of English hopes in France. Etienne declared a commise--the confiscation of a noble's lands by the king, in this case justified as rebellion--and gave the English two options: Accept French control of Paris, Picardy, and Zeeland, or give up the confiscated lands. Etienne knew that the regency council would never accept the loss of the rich port of Antwerp, and as he had hoped the English agreed to the latter proposal.
Said confiscation already did not include Bretagne (which was not officially part of the Kingdom of France) and the work of John Talbot, 1st Talbot Earl of Shrewsbury, protected Calais from capture. Etienne granted them that concession, and on 19 October 1429 Ioan did homage to the French king as Count of Guines (Calais). This marked the practical end of the Hundred Years War (which actually lasted 92 years, 1337-1429, and was actually a series of wars) and the hope of the English to gain the French crown.
__________
*Although her hometown is now in the Haute-Lorraine region.
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The titles and their durational period are such a teaser, along with the sobriquet "The Mad" because that always ends well...right? Will he go mad (on a more cataonic than usual level) at the news of Bretagne's loss as Henry did at the news of Acquitaine's last gasp despite Shrewsbury's efforts? The parallels are interesting. Good luck with the Civil War. I've actually always been of the opinion that long-term the War of the Roses and the loss of the hundred years war worked out pretty well for England in driving its direction in certain ways. Besides, the Tudor Rose is a really fun symbol.
Oh my those damn French.
I like when the French are winning, mind, but not in this AAR. Go crush them and take Paris back.
I like when the French are winning, mind, but not in this AAR. Go crush them and take Paris back.
RGB said:
Not with this king, methinks... Ok, let's make a deal, Mr. Maccabeus.
First you crush the French, reconquer the realm and then...
you crush them again.
JimboIX: We're not to the civil war yet... there's other triggers for that mess.
RGB: If only I could...
Kurt_Steiner: Again, if only I could...
Olaus Petrus: And how might I go around doing that? The French are even stronger now!
- - - - - - - -
It likely can never be known what mental effect the loss of the French posessions had on the young king Ioan; what few writings of his are available never once mention the events of his youth. He was certainly old enough by 1429 to understand the basic implications of such an event, and there was probably some connection to his later full-blown mental problems. At the time, however, Ioan took it mostly in stride, as he could rely on the regency council to control the country while he dealt with his education and the other various matters more pertinent to a child of his age.
The council was not so sure of the situation, however. Even after the end of the war, things were moving at rapid pace in various directions. The French moved in to eradicate the English language and culture which had moved into Normandy over the past century, pushing the region into periodic revolt; unfortunately, the poor economic situation which the previous war had caused prevented the English from supporting any of these revolts. The Count of Burgundy seized Hainaut before it could be taken by Jacoba of Bavaria, the Countess of Friesland. Jacoba's husband, the Duke of Gloucester, fervently petitioned the council to intervene in the matter. France backed Burgundy, however, preventing the English from taking any part in it.
Jacoba von Wittelsbach, Countess of Friesland
Even England itself was not in a good state. The nobility had begun to be restless with one another, as Robert, Duke of Cornwall, began getting in a feud with the Earl of Somerset. This almost devolved into open fighting, until the regency council carefully stepped around the issue and pushed the status quo. Realizing that if either made the first move they would have the force of the rest of England against them, both Cornwall and Somerset backed off. This problematic event was soon followed, in 1432, by an outbreak of plague in the southern reaches of the country. For four more years England was forced to deal with internal matters, until an outside event changed things.
In early 1436, Jacoba of Bavaria died. Gloucester immediately asked for permission to try for the inheritance of Friesland, and gained the regency council's approval--although the council flatly denied any aid from their part. Before Gloucester could even arrive, however, the Frisians, forming an alliance with the rulers of Oldenburg and Muenster, found a local ruler to control their region. Gloucester called for help, and above the grumbles of the council came a new voice: Ioan II, now fourteen and determined to assert his authority. He dissolved the council, already having Gloucester's support (obviously) and soon that of his relative the Duke of Cornwall as well. An English army under Cornwall moved into Holland and, in April of 1436, began to press Gloucester's claim. The destruction of the Frisian army was swift, and by September Frisia itself was in English hands.
Two other things stood in the way of a swift victory, however. First, Oldenburg and Muenster had large armies ready to move into Frisia and prevent Gloucester's inheritance. Second, part of the Frisian inheritance was Brabant, well to the south. Unable to be in both places at once, Cornwall gained Henry's approval in allowing the Count of Geldre to attack Brabant. Cornwall himself struck into Germany, where the combined armies of Oldenburg and Muenster were waiting. The battle occured near Westerstede on 8 October 1436. Cornwall's 22,000 were outnumbered by the 25,000 Germans, but they were poorly led and divided between the Count of Oldenburg and the Bishop of Muenster. The Count was captured and the armies dispersed, knocking both out of the war in one quick action.
After a treaty was signed with the two ending their support of the Frisians, Cornwall began to look south to aid Geldre in their slow preparations to attack Brabant. Early in 1437, however, the noble feuds becoming epidemic in Britain at the time struck again. James Borkalan, the Duke of Lothian, was in the army with a small Scottish contingent. Also there were several of the Douglas clan, who had no love for the Borkalans. On 3 February 1437, James was assassinated, by an unknown man but no doubt with the aid of the Douglases. This did not effect England so much as it sent shock waves through Scotland. James was seen as a sort of unofficial representative of the Scots, and his killing nearly sparked a civil war in the region. As it was, vengance would come in 1452, when the second James Borkalan killed the head of the Douglas clan and executed a royal order breaking their power.
Geldre finally got their army moving and, in October 1437, took Brabant with Cornwall's aid. Geldre gained the region and Gloucester was formally installed as Count of Friesland, swearing allegiance to Ioan under the Duchy of Holland. Said duchy had basically become synonymous with the Dutch lands, a situation which at least linguistically lingers to this day.
France, meanwhile, had used the opportunity of England's distraction to attack Bretagne. English control of the region had rapidly dissolved, and Ioan barely raised a cry as the French, in a two-year campaign, took most of the duchy and only left the region of Cornouaille itself to its namesake dynasty. This caused an immediate uproar in England, but there was almost nothing for Ioan to do except risk the loss of Calais and possibly even Holland, and unacceptable outcome and not worth the slight chance of protecting Bretagne. King Etienne also began reforming the French taxation and military systems to make them even more resilient. In response, Ioan began to try and normalize relations with the French, securing a promise that he could marry Margaret, daughter of the Duke of Anjou, in 1445.
Margaret d'Anjou, in a later depiction
In the meantime, Ioan looked to deal with the long-standing rebellion in Iceland. It was a horribly unpopular and certainly foolish decision, as Iceland would take several years, many men, and much money to subdue. Whatever the case, in 1448, 20,000 English soldiers under Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, attacked and swept aside the small army that the Althing raised against the English. The English army would have to spend two winters in Iceland, however, and tens of thousands either died or became unfit to fight due to frostbite or other causes. More thousands were ferried from England and Scotland, while ships were smashed against rocks and ice. On 23 February 1444 the Althing finally agreed to submit, and the army could return home.
Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, later known as the "Kingmaker"
The moderately successful outcome of the Dutch and Icelandic campaigns gave Ioan a small amount of breathing-room. This was not to say all was well in England, of course. Lollards still popped up from time to time, and a major revolt in Geldre threatened to weaken the position not only of that count but also England in the region. Cornwall led more than twenty-five thousand men to fight 24,000 rebels. He was able to put them down with few casualties. The region would be inflamed again in 1451, when a group of peasants feeling oppressed by the nobility raised a general revolt, coinciding with an abortive uprising in Kent under a man named Jack Cade. Again Cornwall quickly put them down, and Holland would remain peaceful for decades to come.
Peace was not in the future for England, however. Ioan's marriage to Margaret soon facilitated a general alliance with France, ending any possiblity of conflict between the two nations (even if Ioan maintained a claim to the French throne and to the Ypres region while France still claimed Calais). In 1454, this alliance found itself in war against the Pope in Verdun, along with the powerful Rhineland Palatinate. France required Ioan's help against the two, and Ioan sent it, as Warwick and 23,000 men marched south for Lorraine.
He arrived in the Nevers region in July 1454, as the French were being pushed back by an army of Friedrich von Wittelsbach, regent of the Palatinate for his nephew Philip and de facto Elector Palatine. The sudden arrival of the English caused him to pull back into Lorraine. There, in October, he collected 25,000 men and met Warwick's army. In a quick battle on 29 October the Palatine army was decimated, although Warwick lost several thousand himself, and the English moved north towards the Rhine in an attempt to find a crossing-point.
Friedrich "the Victorious"
They found a crossing on 29 November and collected a dozen fairly sizeable barges to ferry the army across the river. This they did over several days, and by 5 December, aided by a fairly mild winter, they were ready to move through the town of Gross-Rohrheim to find the remnants of the Palatine army. They didn't have to go far: before the English had even gotten the supply-train moving out of the riverside camp, five thousand Palatine soldiers arrived to threaten Warwicks army of now 16,000, along with a booming cannon which only temporarily unnerved the English and had little effect on the rest of the battle.
It appeared like a deceptively stupid move, and Warwick thought that there would be a second attack from the south. This was a severe miscalcuation: There were indeed 3,000 more Palatine soldiers in the area, but in the north. Also attacking were four large river craft attempting to destroy the English barges. They managed to burn three, but at the cost of two of their number (one sank and the other, striking the wreckage of a half-sunken English ship, was disabled and forced to float back north with the current). The other two were rapidly overwhelmed by English soldiers on the remaining barges and captured.
Meanwhile, the Palatine flanking attack on the north arrived. It did so none too soon: Friedrich's plan had been ill-advised, as his men began to fall to pieces. The English camp was easily overrun (half the garrison had been brought forward to aid the rest of the English) but the frontal attack nearly broke completely. The flanking heavy cavalry arrived just in time to smash into the English flank. It bent, and mostly broke (especially as some of the English had moved further forward to pursue fleeing men from the frontal attack), but enough held to ensure most of the army remained in good order. Still, the route to the river was cut off by 7,000 tough Palatine soldiers, and only 6,000 of the English army remained in good enough condition to fight.
Warwick decied to save his army, and after a small counterattack gave an escape route for a small band of surrounded soldiers, he ordered his longbowmen to created a bristling porcupine of arrows. The Palatinate men had taken bad casualties and were now shy of charging the legendary longbows, allowing Warwick to withdraw in good order. An attempt by the soldiers who had ransacked the English camp to sieze the ships was repulsed and those moved upstream as well.
The Battle of Rohrheim. Each line is c. 1000 men.
Although Warwick's army had survived, it was not in a good position. Winter was coming, and the enemy might get reinforcements at any time, after they had already defeated the English army with their current number. Neither the Dukes of Baden to the south or the Archbishop of Cologne to the north agreed to let the English through their lands, and Friedrich would oppose any attempt to cross the Rhine. Warwick decided to give events a chance to play out, hopefully with the French drawing Friedrich's attention away with their large armies. Before that could happen, however, news arrived from England:
Civil war was at hand.
RGB: If only I could...
Kurt_Steiner: Again, if only I could...
Olaus Petrus: And how might I go around doing that? The French are even stronger now!
- - - - - - - -
It likely can never be known what mental effect the loss of the French posessions had on the young king Ioan; what few writings of his are available never once mention the events of his youth. He was certainly old enough by 1429 to understand the basic implications of such an event, and there was probably some connection to his later full-blown mental problems. At the time, however, Ioan took it mostly in stride, as he could rely on the regency council to control the country while he dealt with his education and the other various matters more pertinent to a child of his age.
The council was not so sure of the situation, however. Even after the end of the war, things were moving at rapid pace in various directions. The French moved in to eradicate the English language and culture which had moved into Normandy over the past century, pushing the region into periodic revolt; unfortunately, the poor economic situation which the previous war had caused prevented the English from supporting any of these revolts. The Count of Burgundy seized Hainaut before it could be taken by Jacoba of Bavaria, the Countess of Friesland. Jacoba's husband, the Duke of Gloucester, fervently petitioned the council to intervene in the matter. France backed Burgundy, however, preventing the English from taking any part in it.
Jacoba von Wittelsbach, Countess of Friesland
Even England itself was not in a good state. The nobility had begun to be restless with one another, as Robert, Duke of Cornwall, began getting in a feud with the Earl of Somerset. This almost devolved into open fighting, until the regency council carefully stepped around the issue and pushed the status quo. Realizing that if either made the first move they would have the force of the rest of England against them, both Cornwall and Somerset backed off. This problematic event was soon followed, in 1432, by an outbreak of plague in the southern reaches of the country. For four more years England was forced to deal with internal matters, until an outside event changed things.
In early 1436, Jacoba of Bavaria died. Gloucester immediately asked for permission to try for the inheritance of Friesland, and gained the regency council's approval--although the council flatly denied any aid from their part. Before Gloucester could even arrive, however, the Frisians, forming an alliance with the rulers of Oldenburg and Muenster, found a local ruler to control their region. Gloucester called for help, and above the grumbles of the council came a new voice: Ioan II, now fourteen and determined to assert his authority. He dissolved the council, already having Gloucester's support (obviously) and soon that of his relative the Duke of Cornwall as well. An English army under Cornwall moved into Holland and, in April of 1436, began to press Gloucester's claim. The destruction of the Frisian army was swift, and by September Frisia itself was in English hands.
Two other things stood in the way of a swift victory, however. First, Oldenburg and Muenster had large armies ready to move into Frisia and prevent Gloucester's inheritance. Second, part of the Frisian inheritance was Brabant, well to the south. Unable to be in both places at once, Cornwall gained Henry's approval in allowing the Count of Geldre to attack Brabant. Cornwall himself struck into Germany, where the combined armies of Oldenburg and Muenster were waiting. The battle occured near Westerstede on 8 October 1436. Cornwall's 22,000 were outnumbered by the 25,000 Germans, but they were poorly led and divided between the Count of Oldenburg and the Bishop of Muenster. The Count was captured and the armies dispersed, knocking both out of the war in one quick action.
After a treaty was signed with the two ending their support of the Frisians, Cornwall began to look south to aid Geldre in their slow preparations to attack Brabant. Early in 1437, however, the noble feuds becoming epidemic in Britain at the time struck again. James Borkalan, the Duke of Lothian, was in the army with a small Scottish contingent. Also there were several of the Douglas clan, who had no love for the Borkalans. On 3 February 1437, James was assassinated, by an unknown man but no doubt with the aid of the Douglases. This did not effect England so much as it sent shock waves through Scotland. James was seen as a sort of unofficial representative of the Scots, and his killing nearly sparked a civil war in the region. As it was, vengance would come in 1452, when the second James Borkalan killed the head of the Douglas clan and executed a royal order breaking their power.
Geldre finally got their army moving and, in October 1437, took Brabant with Cornwall's aid. Geldre gained the region and Gloucester was formally installed as Count of Friesland, swearing allegiance to Ioan under the Duchy of Holland. Said duchy had basically become synonymous with the Dutch lands, a situation which at least linguistically lingers to this day.
France, meanwhile, had used the opportunity of England's distraction to attack Bretagne. English control of the region had rapidly dissolved, and Ioan barely raised a cry as the French, in a two-year campaign, took most of the duchy and only left the region of Cornouaille itself to its namesake dynasty. This caused an immediate uproar in England, but there was almost nothing for Ioan to do except risk the loss of Calais and possibly even Holland, and unacceptable outcome and not worth the slight chance of protecting Bretagne. King Etienne also began reforming the French taxation and military systems to make them even more resilient. In response, Ioan began to try and normalize relations with the French, securing a promise that he could marry Margaret, daughter of the Duke of Anjou, in 1445.
Margaret d'Anjou, in a later depiction
In the meantime, Ioan looked to deal with the long-standing rebellion in Iceland. It was a horribly unpopular and certainly foolish decision, as Iceland would take several years, many men, and much money to subdue. Whatever the case, in 1448, 20,000 English soldiers under Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, attacked and swept aside the small army that the Althing raised against the English. The English army would have to spend two winters in Iceland, however, and tens of thousands either died or became unfit to fight due to frostbite or other causes. More thousands were ferried from England and Scotland, while ships were smashed against rocks and ice. On 23 February 1444 the Althing finally agreed to submit, and the army could return home.
Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, later known as the "Kingmaker"
The moderately successful outcome of the Dutch and Icelandic campaigns gave Ioan a small amount of breathing-room. This was not to say all was well in England, of course. Lollards still popped up from time to time, and a major revolt in Geldre threatened to weaken the position not only of that count but also England in the region. Cornwall led more than twenty-five thousand men to fight 24,000 rebels. He was able to put them down with few casualties. The region would be inflamed again in 1451, when a group of peasants feeling oppressed by the nobility raised a general revolt, coinciding with an abortive uprising in Kent under a man named Jack Cade. Again Cornwall quickly put them down, and Holland would remain peaceful for decades to come.
Peace was not in the future for England, however. Ioan's marriage to Margaret soon facilitated a general alliance with France, ending any possiblity of conflict between the two nations (even if Ioan maintained a claim to the French throne and to the Ypres region while France still claimed Calais). In 1454, this alliance found itself in war against the Pope in Verdun, along with the powerful Rhineland Palatinate. France required Ioan's help against the two, and Ioan sent it, as Warwick and 23,000 men marched south for Lorraine.
He arrived in the Nevers region in July 1454, as the French were being pushed back by an army of Friedrich von Wittelsbach, regent of the Palatinate for his nephew Philip and de facto Elector Palatine. The sudden arrival of the English caused him to pull back into Lorraine. There, in October, he collected 25,000 men and met Warwick's army. In a quick battle on 29 October the Palatine army was decimated, although Warwick lost several thousand himself, and the English moved north towards the Rhine in an attempt to find a crossing-point.
Friedrich "the Victorious"
They found a crossing on 29 November and collected a dozen fairly sizeable barges to ferry the army across the river. This they did over several days, and by 5 December, aided by a fairly mild winter, they were ready to move through the town of Gross-Rohrheim to find the remnants of the Palatine army. They didn't have to go far: before the English had even gotten the supply-train moving out of the riverside camp, five thousand Palatine soldiers arrived to threaten Warwicks army of now 16,000, along with a booming cannon which only temporarily unnerved the English and had little effect on the rest of the battle.
It appeared like a deceptively stupid move, and Warwick thought that there would be a second attack from the south. This was a severe miscalcuation: There were indeed 3,000 more Palatine soldiers in the area, but in the north. Also attacking were four large river craft attempting to destroy the English barges. They managed to burn three, but at the cost of two of their number (one sank and the other, striking the wreckage of a half-sunken English ship, was disabled and forced to float back north with the current). The other two were rapidly overwhelmed by English soldiers on the remaining barges and captured.
Meanwhile, the Palatine flanking attack on the north arrived. It did so none too soon: Friedrich's plan had been ill-advised, as his men began to fall to pieces. The English camp was easily overrun (half the garrison had been brought forward to aid the rest of the English) but the frontal attack nearly broke completely. The flanking heavy cavalry arrived just in time to smash into the English flank. It bent, and mostly broke (especially as some of the English had moved further forward to pursue fleeing men from the frontal attack), but enough held to ensure most of the army remained in good order. Still, the route to the river was cut off by 7,000 tough Palatine soldiers, and only 6,000 of the English army remained in good enough condition to fight.
Warwick decied to save his army, and after a small counterattack gave an escape route for a small band of surrounded soldiers, he ordered his longbowmen to created a bristling porcupine of arrows. The Palatinate men had taken bad casualties and were now shy of charging the legendary longbows, allowing Warwick to withdraw in good order. An attempt by the soldiers who had ransacked the English camp to sieze the ships was repulsed and those moved upstream as well.
The Battle of Rohrheim. Each line is c. 1000 men.
Although Warwick's army had survived, it was not in a good position. Winter was coming, and the enemy might get reinforcements at any time, after they had already defeated the English army with their current number. Neither the Dukes of Baden to the south or the Archbishop of Cologne to the north agreed to let the English through their lands, and Friedrich would oppose any attempt to cross the Rhine. Warwick decided to give events a chance to play out, hopefully with the French drawing Friedrich's attention away with their large armies. Before that could happen, however, news arrived from England:
Civil war was at hand.
Things aren't going well, even Pfalz kicks your ass. Alliance with French saved you from further humiliation against them. You seem to be able to defeat minors only.
Not a pleasant situation. Looks like the Mad is set to be deposed, though he did it to himself.
Don't let Aye see the Maid of Orleans with long hair! And where'd you swiped the .gif files fro the battles of Pontremy and Rohrheim?
I bet that the civil war is going to settle this question.... A new king... a new hope...
Tskb18 said:
You're in luck on that account, I'd decided to show you all how to make a Judas Maccabeus battle map.
(This is going to take several posts, as Paradox's image limit sometimes does wonders to drive up my post count.)
First: The maps are based off of actual terrain. We have to find the actual terrain to base it off of, however, and for that we go to Google Maps. Basically, just go to Google and click on "Maps".
Now we need to find a place for a battle. Figuring out the strategy is as important for finding a good battlefield as figuring out the tactics allows one to figure out how things end up. For the purposes of demonstration, I'll pick my own home town, Verona, Kentucky. So I zoom in on the area, and widen the screen as much as possible to get a larger area. Scale is another important factor; most of the time I choose the third level from the top, but this time we'll be in the fourth to get more useful features.
That's the "map" part, which is easier to make a base image out of, but I also use the satellite images to figure out what the terrain really looks like. Sometimes said images aren't available for my usual zoom level, which is another reason I picked a more zoomed-out picture here. In any case, it's important to try and keep the "frame" in the same place.
Each time I do these, I take a shot of the screen, paste it into Paint, and crop the image so that only the map itself is visible. Once I'm finished here there will be two files, one with each type of map. Soon we'll have a third for the battlefield map itself.
One of the reasons why water shows up so often in my maps is because it makes it easier to match things up between maps. All I have to do is load up some more powerful image editing software (I'm cheap so I use the GIMP) and select by color the water.
Once it's selected, it's a simple matter of inverting the selection and cutting out what's selected so only that one color, the water, remains. If I don't have water in the image, or if it's not useful enough (as was the case with Pennedepie and Chandler's Cross), I draw in some other feature such as roads or forests with a solid color and use those.
Streams don't always show up in the road map, so what I do is find where they are in the terrain map and draw them in, copying the result over to the main map. It's a bit more difficult lining things up, and the result will have to be fine-tuned later, but it makes things work out better in the long run.
Next, after the water, comes the roads (these may have already been done if they have been used as the "landmark" feature instead). I don't always copy every road, if they aren't useful, and I certainly don't copy roads that obviously aren't derived from older roads (most roads tend to stay in the same paths, but sometimes newer ones are added). It is a matter of carefully looking at the old map and using the water to figure out relative positions. It doesn't need to be perfectly the same, just reasonably similar and in ways that make sense.
Forests are another major feature to put in, and this is where the terrain map comes in handy. Usually I make sure to expand the forests somewhat (human activity tends to remove trees over time), although in this case I'm reducing the size of the forests to ensure there's enough areas to fight in.
Elevation is not always used, as England and northern France (where most of my battles take place) tend to be fairly flat. It's also hard to find or figure out, as without a broadband connection I can't use Google Earth which has that information. Fortunately, I know the terrain around where I live so I can put it in here to demonstrate.
Elevation is not always used, as England and northern France (where most of my battles take place) tend to be fairly flat. It's also hard to find or figure out, as without a broadband connection I can't use Google Earth which has that information. Fortunately, I know the terrain around where I live so I can put it in here to demonstrate.
There are two more things to do before the base map is finished: First, towns need to be put in (usually smaller than they are today), and second, the image needs to be cropped so there isn't too much unused space.
Now it's time to type in the introduction. I use Junius Modern font (a font based on a font called "Saxon" from the 17th century) for most things, although for water I use Calisto MT. Everything but the date is merged with the base image.
There are two "pages" of text, with the second being information about the armies. I paste the base map in again and once more type over it. As you can (barely) see, I'm deciding to be a bit more silly this time. You can also see the various layers that will go into the animated .gif file.
And the settings for the animation:
Now I will show you the "title" animation I have as a placeholder. It's not as refined as things will be later, but everything's already in order.
There are two more things to do before the base map is finished: First, towns need to be put in (usually smaller than they are today), and second, the image needs to be cropped so there isn't too much unused space.
Now it's time to type in the introduction. I use Junius Modern font (a font based on a font called "Saxon" from the 17th century) for most things, although for water I use Calisto MT. Everything but the date is merged with the base image.
There are two "pages" of text, with the second being information about the armies. I paste the base map in again and once more type over it. As you can (barely) see, I'm deciding to be a bit more silly this time. You can also see the various layers that will go into the animated .gif file.
And the settings for the animation:
Now I will show you the "title" animation I have as a placeholder. It's not as refined as things will be later, but everything's already in order.
Now for the battle itself. We're back to paint, and all I have to do is draw in short lines for however many soldiers (in this case about 250). For each frame I will make a consecutive image where things advance at a certain pace (more frames makes things smoother but also drives up the file size).
Now we need to get them into the animation. I load up the title animation, switch it back to RGB color (IT MUST BE IN RGB* OR THE NEXT STEP WILL NOT WORK), and open each consecutive frame as a layer.
I also use this opportunity to lenghten certain frames of the pre-battle information so they can be read. Lengthening them in this case doesn't increase file size so I can have at it as much as I want, as long as I maintain pacing.
The image is finally finished. All that's left is to save the subsequent image as another .gif file animation, with these settings (they don't override the old frames):
And here is the result:
Now we need to get them into the animation. I load up the title animation, switch it back to RGB color (IT MUST BE IN RGB* OR THE NEXT STEP WILL NOT WORK), and open each consecutive frame as a layer.
I also use this opportunity to lenghten certain frames of the pre-battle information so they can be read. Lengthening them in this case doesn't increase file size so I can have at it as much as I want, as long as I maintain pacing.
The image is finally finished. All that's left is to save the subsequent image as another .gif file animation, with these settings (they don't override the old frames):
And here is the result: