Chronological History Part Six, The Unification War to 1400
1340 William was slain in the battles in the Empire, he had no heir of his own. The Ticetian forces were left leaderless, and morale, already low, plummeted to new depths. The war quickly turned against Ticetia, as their generals had two wars to fight one with the Empire and one with each other. With no cohesion at the top, the Ticetian lines were overrun. The army was spent, and the Empire began a march on Ticetia, and liberated Caldonacia. The Emperor, Thomas II, was no fool. Caldonacia had no King, so while his forces were marching on Ticetia, he went to Caldonacia with his personal guard, and took the crown of Caldonacia early in 1341, and faced no resistance. When Ticetia finally fell, later that year, he was there to seize that crown too.
1342 Emperor Thomas II crowned himself King of all the lands. He called his new country Arthea, a name he took from his wife’s noble family house. The Caldonacians and those in the Empire were happy with the arrangements, unlike the nobles of Ticetia who disliked the way Arthea's rule was imposed upon them. Thomas took no heed of those Ticetians that objected to his rule. He took a decision in the early months of his reign to keep himself aloof from the pressures of the Ticetian nobles. He began to seek out ways that he could exert control. The Ticetian nobles couldn't raise any kind of army, their defeat in 1340 had put paid to that for a generation. But Ticetians have a reputation for working outside the normally agreed framework of rules.
Thomas was wary of the threat posed by the Ticetians, and with good reason. By 1343 there were already the beginnings of rebellion. Thomas had tried to bring in an Imperial-style chamber where the nobility could lift some of the burden of running the nation from the Kings shoulders, but this was proving difficult through the obstinate Ticetian nobles. After all this had failed, by the end of 1343, Thomas had begun replacing the worst offending Ticetian nobles with people he could trust. Even this struggled as a policy - newly appointed nobles had difficulty calling upon the fealty of those of high office beneath them to toe the line. While this was going on Thomas began talking to his Imperial advisers and to his most trusted Caldonacian allies about the imposition of a constitution. Many historians think that his initial idea was to impose a rigid feudal system on the Ticetians, it did not survive the discussions at the hands of the nobility in this form.
1344 Dwarves, mining copper ore in the northern part of the Ticetia stumbled on an unusual pre-disaster find. They discovered the top of a tower, buried deep inside the earth, and partially crushed in some kind of land movement which probably took place during The Great Disaster. Deep beneath the site there are probably the remains of some city or town, but the dwarves could not get very deep into the tower because of all the damage to the lower levels. Only the top room of the structure survived intact, and this seemed to have been sealed magically a long time ago. While the dwarves were keen to discover what treasures awaited them inside, they did not want to risk opening the chambers, so they called in human mages who could properly unlock the magic which was binding the rooms shut, and properly examine the contents.
Time had taken its toll on the building, and even the magic sealing these rooms had mostly dissipated. The magic had helped to preserve the contents, though, as inside was a pre-Disaster treasure trove. There were no items of monetary value, only a few pieces of jewellery which the dwarves took. The real value was in the magical artefacts that had clearly been sealed away. There were three pieces, a light helmet-like hat, a metal staff, and a dark metal ring. The items were stored in a cabinet which was clearly intended to show them off, but whatever magic they once held had long since dissipated, only a faint trace of their former power could now be discerned.
The items were only of historical value, as were much of the notes and the furniture found in the room too. The Ticetian authorities removed these items and the remaining contents of the room, and transported them to Cellam where they were eventually placed on display for all people to view (for a small price).
The helmet appears to have been made from Mithral, inset with gold and silver designs. It is extremely well crafted, but the metal has been beaten very thin so could not have been used for protection, it would be far too weak to withstand any blows. The metal staff raised the most eyebrows. It is smooth and cold and it had been highly polished but was very light to carry. Set into the end is a piece of polished quarz not particularly valuable, but cut and polished with considerable skill. The ring is made of a dark metal, darker than iron, but very strong. Of the three, this held the most of its former magic, but no use could be made of it. The purpose of each of the items remains a mystery, and no one knows what their former powers were, or if they still have some sleeping power within them waiting for a trigger to bring them to life.
1346 King Thomas finally imposed the constitutional terms for his new country, despite little more than a tenuous agreement with his senior nobles. He was concerned about uprisings in some parts of his realms, and used this new document to remove such doubts about the future - clipping back the power of his nobility where he could. The changes hurt him, however. While some of the powers he's defined were helpful to nobility, he ran foul of many objections from his home nations and from Caldonacia. But in Ticetia he really made things worse. Many Ticetian nobles were unhappy with their restriction placed on their power, some violently so. There were many changes that were aimed at improving the social welfare of the masses. He had removed of the right of nobles to kill peasants without reason or cause, and by doing this had elevated them from being mere possessions of the feudal power, into being part of their noble's protectorate. This unwelcome change, however, had repercussions. In all these dealings, Thomas underestimated the financial backbone of Ticetias landowners, and the effectiveness of their assassins.
1347-1348 At times during this period, the Kings court in Cellam, the capital of Ticetia, fell to base argument and bickering, brought down time and again by the deft debating power of the local dukes. It was the dukes of Aberenent and Essonlow that ran the show, ably assisted by their Earls of Camarth, Coupring and Briddger. As has later been seen in their diaries, the objective was to interrupt the smooth operation of the court as often as possible, to prevent the duties of the King being done, and to filibuster or delay proceedings if there was no way to actively cause mayhem. At first such co-ordinated activities began slowly but picked up pace towards the end of 1348 to the point where little was achieved by the court - legal matters were being ignored and debate was collapsing into drawn out argument daily.
1349 King Thomas held court in Cellam for the last time. Relations in the north were becoming more strained and it was a tough decision to choose between the need to be present, which helped calm down the nobles and keep a lid on the rebels, and the safety of the King himself. The end of the summer saw Thomas leaving the palace in Cellam with his entourage, vowing to be back in early spring. That winter, however, was harsh, and the Ticetians became more and more militant. At first Thomas postponed his return until midsummer, then finally conceded that he could not return that year.
1358 The troubles in Arthea had continued, and Ticetia has seen several popular uprisings over the previous ten years. Many of the king's most trusted and valuable councillors had been assassinated, control in Ticetia was becoming impossible. As the years slowly passed the situation remained barely contained. The mid 1350's had seen the crown capable of focussing on these problems, but the health of the King had been failing. The strain of the fight with Ticetia had taken its toll upon him. For a while his former Imperial advisers pursued the cause with more vigor but with reducing compassion as the Kings health saw him more an more sidelined. In Dusemot 1358 (the height of summer) Thomas finally died. Thomas’s son, Marcus, took over the Kingdom, but was left with an immense task. Marcus called immediately for the assistance of The Elves, but they were unwilling to help; they had assisted the humans when lives needed to be saved, to be able to handle their food supply problems, and were reluctant to get involved in political problems between human realms.
1362 The raids from the east began again in this year. Marcus was powerless to prevent the invaders terrorising his shores. Even the movement of troops into the eastern regions did little ho help the people. They did not know where the next raid would strike, and by the time the troops had arrived at the scene of an attack, they were usually too late. While these raids did not affect Ticetia directly, they gnawed away at morale of the Caldonacians (who bore the brunt of the attacks), Hebrians and the people of Tholain.
1363 King Marcus’s response to the raids from the east was to begin a series of fortifications of the towns along the coastline from northern Caldonacia as far as the Empire. These were expensive public works, and involved the building of walls around many of the smaller towns which had not been defended this way before. The work was expensive, and to cover the cost he raised taxation from across the lands. This did not go down well in Ticetia where the nobles already mistrusted their King. It was in response to these taxation rises that the Ticetian nobles sent permanent thorns into the court of King Marcus in Mercunum and to the debates in Malberina, where additional court business was carried out which involved the north (especially Ticetia). The tactics they'd used some fifteen years before to break the will of Thomas were now being used in the south, in the centre of Marcus' home lands.
1366 With the courts of the south being jammed up with overflowing business, the politics began taking another turn. In the north, especially in South Ticetia, small acts of resistance began to take place, aimed at what were seen as structures of Empire. Court buildings, imperial-styled architecture, guard stations, even the properties of the feudal leaders (who were behind much of the organised unrest) were attacked by small groups intent on causing damage. As time passed, these small operations became bigger and bigger.
1375 Rebellion had increased alarmingly in Ticetia; they were verging on all-out civil war by now. Many nobles stood openly against the King, and many withheld their tax income in protest. The assassins of Ticetia had become very wealthy from this time. King Marcus had failed to stop, or even defend most of the raids from the east, and many in the Northwest believed he should step down in favour of a Ticetian of royal blood. The nobles of Ticetia had done a good job. They had changed their demand for a separate country into a demand for rule of the whole land. The people of the northeast and the south, though, had many bitter memories of the last kings of Ticetia. For this plan to come to fruition, it needed more support in the other lands.
1377 The first blows of civil war were struck in this year. Fighting in the streets of Ticetia and Western Caldonacia became common, as King Marcus’s grip on power slipped away from him. He could not afford the manpower to defend his eastern coastline as well as fight an internal uprising in the northwest. What made it worse was that some Caldonacian Lords were joining the war on the side of the Ticetians, and many others were unwilling to commit to either side, the chance to back the winning side later was too appealing. Marcus had also not realised that there was still a feeling in much of his realm that the Kings house was an Imperial house, and did not reflect the diversity of the nation. Some lords had begun to question Marcus’s claim to the crown of Caldonacia.
1381 Many historians consider the spring of 1381 as the beginning of the civil war. It is marked by the open declaration against King Marcus by dozens of nobles in Caldonacia. Frustrated at being unprotected against invasion and the repeated target of raids from the coastline, they were at the end of their tether - and it took just a few to deny taxes to the crown and throw their lot in with the Ticetians to set the ball rolling. One by one, the dukes, counts and earls, declared their support for the opposition to the monarch. Those who did not join with them were considered traitors, and were attacked or arrested. There was no legal precedent for this action, and the breaking of the feudal chain in this way had huge ramifications once the dust had settled. Ticetia was inspired, and royalists across the north soon joined to this cause. It soon became clear that, by the end of the year, there were many factions in the former Empire that also had seen enough of their King - these views were especially prevalent in the east, in Hebria and Tholain, where they had suffered twenty years of raiding.
1384 An end to the war came in this year with success for the uprising. As the Ticetians had raised their army, built of volunteers, and bolstered by huge numbers of troops who were also unhappy with Marcus. Only in the heart of the former Empire in the south was there any real support for him, and even there it was possible to raise support for the uprising, with the promise of strong leadership and a powerful nation. The army was roused by one particularly outspoken, charismatic champion, Robert Lannenhart, a Ticetian who became the spokesman for the north.
Marcus’s throne was finally taken by Lannenhart. To help justify his legitimacy as King, he claimed to have royal blood. He had been connected with the royal council which held Ticetia together for many years, and also managed to trace his lineage (however obscurely) to the earlier Kings of Caldonacia. Robert had been one of Ticetias most outspoken critics of the former King, and had spent more money than any of the others to secure his place. Marcus himself was executed for his crimes, yet many of the senior nobles of Antaurus kept their seats, provided they swore oaths of fealty to the new king.
What Arthea needed now was firm leadership and direction. Robert provided this. His personal guards wore red breastplates and carried longswords. They had been largely symbolic while he was fighting his part in the civil war, but now he gave them a fuller role and he expanded their numbers to handle much of the policing of the realm. He filled their numbers with many of the loyal soldiers who had rallied to his call. At first, they laid down the law strictly, but as the rule of order spread, the need for harsh policing became less. The training these guards received was a tough military training, and they proved good at their job. As a military force and a peacekeeping element they proved their value many times over. At first they also worked under strict orders to persecute those who had stood against the uprising as it happened. Most of Marcus’s supporters were stripped of their wealth and position before the end of 1386. The guards helped contain the problems of the east, where the invasions continued. They were partly successful, and it is here where their skills were finally polished. Some units had been equipped with fast horses, and used this mobility to hunt down the raiders. They also upgraded the docklands at certain ports in the southern empire, and started to produce fighting ships here too.
The army of revolution was not immediately disbanded either. It remained in the south to maintain order while the new Kings Guard was recruited and trained. Their last official act was to guard the transfer of the the capital (the crown and its baubles) back to the Royal Palace in Cellam, which took place in 1385, and where it has remained ever since. There has been no call for any national army to be raised since this time.
1392 Infighting amongst the powerful was demonstrated during this year, as in Abanacon (the 5th month) King Robert was successfully overthrown by Siegfried Mallart, another of Ticetia’s Nobles. The coup entailed a storming of the Royal Palace in Cellam. Siegfried’s first action was to gain the support of the Guards by rewriting Arthea’s constitution giving them far reaching and wider powers over the people. Life was made increasingly difficult in Arthea as Siegfried imposed his will on the people.
1398 Attacks along the east had been dying off during the years following the civil war, but increased again during this year. Both Robert and Siegfried had recognised this danger, and had invested in new technology for their ships. Vastly improved ships were now available in the south and had managed to engage some of the raider’s vessels. Shipbuilding in Arthea was still not an advanced technology, but they did manage to assault and sink one of the raider’s ships in shallow waters near Cavonry, on the coastline of Cerlain. The vessel was salvaged and brought into the docks at Morara. Arthea had no vessels that could move out of sight of land, and this represented a major coup. King Siegfried poured resources at this vessel. It also attracted private money from the traders of the south, and drew the attention of experts from Candonacia who had been leading the way with Arthean ship advancement before this. Its secrets were quickly assimilated, and work on new dockyards began at Morara in 1399, and at Addinsly Port in Ticetia and at Ellisport and Port Tolsor in Caldonacia in 1401. More shipbuilding docks began to appear across the former Empire over the following years, too.
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