The Unified Kingdom, and account of Arthean History following Unification

This book is compiled by Vitus Antonus, Senior Scribe of History at the Imperial Library in Mercunum, from the writings of himself and Bartol Dusept of the Imperial Library in Nareth. It describes the earliest days of Arthea following the unification and times leading up to the end of the first Ticetian King.

Introduction

The history recorded here is an account of the earliest days of Arthea from the crowning of Thomas Usindus as King Thomas I through to the end of he house of Usindus and the imposition of an unpopular Ticetian monarch, Robert Lannenhart. This was a period of upheaval and change for all the kingdoms, but was also the time when trade rather than warfare became the way to wealth and glory. Robert is a much maligned king, but some of his small achievements have proved of huge benefit to our nations as we have grown.

We begin our account as King William of both Ticetia and Caldonacia is defeated in battle by Emperor Thomas II who took both the vacant crowns for himself. This had never been part of the original war plans, but was, from his perspective, an helpful and opportune happening. The Empire had entered into the war in the first place to quell the power of the Ticetians, and here they had done it fighting alongside the Caldonacians. William died in 1340, and the Imperial army marched through and conquered Caldonacia and Ticetia by the end of 1341.

Three Crowns become One Crown

The war had been considered an odd fight by the Imperials. Caldonacia was an occupied nation, it had been cut to pieces by the Ticetians, who had, during the build up to that war, conscripted thousands of men from that land. As the Empire had marched northwards, they had been met by deserters and their prisoners from the battles would openly turn and fight on their behalf.

When the victory was assured, Thomas was keen to see that these people were treated fairly. But at the same time there was no open heir to the throne of either Caldonacia or the defeated Ticetia. Even at the point of victory, Thomas had not considered this situation. He had political issues with expanding the Empire - his own nobles baulked at the idea as the size of these two northern kingdoms, especially Ticetia, would create an imbalance of power among the other kingdoms. Ticetia was at least as big, in terms of population, as any two of the imperial nations.

Another solution was needed, and one that didn't involve months of searching for the rightful heir, or even a politically acceptable heir. The proposed solution appealed to his ego, and a new kingdom was created. The only hurdle in the way was one of administration, especially in Ticetia where the nobles were past masters in political inaction. They had no way to raise an army of their own, but from the earliest days of the Unified nation, they established barrier after barrier to the reforms that Thomas wanted to make.

Gaining Political Control

The first attempt to bring the experience of those Ticetian nobles to his court was through a Senate, which was largely a copy of the Imperial political structure. He established one each at Cellam and at Callow, and called upon the nobles to send a representative each, or to attend themselves. This chamber was marginally successful in Caldonacia, but in Ticetia the thing became a place of argument and brawl as debaters disagreed with each other. Eventually, by late 1343, the chambers were relegated to status of Feudal courts, with courtiers appearing when they were needed, and the business of the King carried by a leader in his absence, or by the King himself whenever he could.

All through this process, Thomas was slowly picking out and removing Ticetian nobles and replacing them with his own trusted men. It had become difficult to identify who the worst troublemakers were. The nobles were crafty and subtle, and when plots were exposed they closed ranks and would not openly give each other away. Yet during this each Ticetian noble seemed eager to please, and keen to help the new King. They would remain helpful and subservient until actual information was needed, or actual deeds needed to be done.

Where difficult nobles were replaced it was often less successful than would have been hoped. The feudal chain requires the obedience of those in office in the next rank down, and this was seldom forthcoming. As the King himself had experienced, the nobles found they could be too easily be thwarted by a consistent failure to comply from all the nobles beneath. While this mess continued, the King began discussions with his Imperial friends and with the Caldonacians about the terms of a new constitution that would lay out the powers afforded to each of these nobles in this new kingdom.

Constitutional Changes

The King had agreed a way with his senior dukes and princes about how best to deliver control across this huge and wide spread new nation. Unfortunately such an agreement needed teeth too, there was no other way to bring the Ticetians into line, and was a decision that would lead to problems later on. In addition to struggles to control the nobles in Ticetia, it was felt that the peasantry too were very close to out and out rebellion. This also needed to be curtailed.

One of the ways that this was handled was to beef up the powers of the local Barons and Viscounts. Not only were they empowered to impose strict rule of law, it was demanded of them. King Thomas's first priority was clearly to stamp out any peasant uprisings. To keep the newly empowered Barons in check, the role of the Earl and Count was reviewed to give them more control over who ran which barony, and to control such barony borders. As long as the tax take could support it, they could have as many viscounts and barons as they liked, and they were free to set the boundaries for baronies as they saw fit. The last constitutional change was to ensure that the King's power was without question. He alone took the power to appoint all Dukes and Princes, allowing him full control over who was to join his court and who was not. Prior to the change the feudal Princes had pretty much run the show in their Imperial nations, and now for the first time we saw princes assigned to control Ticetia and Caldonacia. The King took the Ticetian seat for himself, hoping it could be used to control his wayward new principality.

As the changes bit deep, the political landscape changed. Political patronige became the order of the day. If a Baron did not provide the necessary bond, then his Earl or Count would simply drop him from office. Being a Baron became very tough. They needed to control their peasantry and get them producing income, without that, their barony would be reallocated, and there could be a lottery over who would come in and take over. A new profession turned up too - a ruthless Baron that would take over a barony for a year or two, force more and more output from the peasants, squeezing their income to produce the baron's bond, then finally leaving - deliberately avoiding payment of the bond to move to another area, another professional role. They became the leeches of society.

CategoryHistory