inquisitor kills my king... realistic?

Lok Thar!

Today it happened the second time that a bad inquisitor killed my king... my king was a great hero, but his faith wasnt heroic ;) I think he had 1 point in piety, not much I know.

I dont think this is realistic. Ok, sometimes many great men were killed by the church because of their lack of faith, but kings? As far as I know kings had often much problems with the pope and the church, e.g. england, but the church never killed a powerful monarch. they had other ways to punish a king(dom).

do you think this is a realistic way? Does it is too easy for inquisitors kill important persons of your kingdom (king, prince)?

by the way:

How do you improve your piety/faith-rating of your generals? I tried with good relations to the pope, I let my generals and kings in cities with cathedrals and I send them in cities which are building church buildings, but they never improve their ininitial piety-rating... hmpf!

Patch 1.2 should introduce settings that prevent inquisitors from baking your leader or heir to a crisp well done.

Realistically Inquisitors had no power to condem you to death and they certainly couldn't attack high ranking members of the aristocracy without some pretty strong prrof.

This has already been discussed a fair deal and the new patch will fix things

Just remember that the inquisition fried almost the entire knights templar... Including the grand master, who had as much power as most kings.

The Templars were actually fried because a King indebted to them asked the inquisition nicely...

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Originally Posted by Empirate

The Templars were actually fried because a King indebted to them asked the inquisition nicely...

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More precisely, he pulled the Pope's strings to have the Templar inquisition sanctioned. The accepted reasoning he did this was as you stated, he was A> deeply in debt to them and B> saw how much they were worth anyway. A distant second reason would be that he feared their growing power based.

Yup, inquisitions was a political tool... And as it was used against the templars, it is reasonable that it could have been used against a king.

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Originally Posted by HoreTore

...it is reasonable that it could have been used against a king.

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By whom ?
Kings were supposed to have their rule through a divine mandate direct from god . It was the focus of a political conflict between the Papalcy and the Nobility throughout the middle ages .
The Popes tried many times to become middlemen {ie , to be the ones to give and more importantly take kingship "in Gods' name"} , but the best they achieved was the right to take part in the ceremony involved in most kingdoms .

The Templars were not kings , nor did they have one . They were a monastic order answerable to the Pope only and thus were vunerable .
The French Kings' forces were the lions share of the troops who took part in the raids {the French King wasn't the only noble indebted to the Templars , it thus wasn't hard to get the large numbers needed} with the Pope merely giving the excuse .


If Kings really were vunerable , then when Emperor Fredrich was excommunicated , he would have been burned also {he was a strong monarch who had a unifying effect on the H.R.E. and a weakened H.R.E. would have been far less threatening} given he was potentially a great threat to the Vatican its' self {he had good reason to despise them} .

Simply put , Kings were nigh immune . Had the Popes gone down the path of burning Kings , they would have been exterminated by other catholic monarchs {who considered themselves largly equal in rank to the Pope in most things under their God} .
Violent men with armies and served by other violent men with their own armies are difficult to take against their will .

By whom? Of course not by the pope alone. The pope didn't fry the templars alone, nor was he the mastermind behind it.

However, a union of kings allied with the pope could have fried a rival king. Say, the french and spanish kings and the holy roman emperor allied with the church conspiring against the aragonese king.

Remember that the inquisition wasn't just a papal weapon, it was used more by the kings and princes of the world.

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Originally Posted by HoreTore

By whom? Of course not by the pope alone. The pope didn't fry the templars alone, nor was he the mastermind behind it.

However, a union of kings allied with the pope could have fried a rival king. Say, the french and spanish kings and the holy roman emperor allied with the church conspiring against the aragonese king.

Remember that the inquisition wasn't just a papal weapon, it was used more by the kings and princes of the world.

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Again , the Templars were not kings nor did they have a king .
They were monks .


Name a reigning Catholic king {that's King , not a lesser title of an independant holding} of the period the game spans whom was executed by the Inquisition . I have never hear of one .

A deposed {as in , they were actually replaced and widely accepted as such} King or Emperor might have been somewhat vunerable however I have not heard of one such being killed by the Inquisition either .

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Originally Posted by HoreTore

By whom? Of course not by the pope alone. The pope didn't fry the templars alone, nor was he the mastermind behind it.

However, a union of kings allied with the pope could have fried a rival king. Say, the french and spanish kings and the holy roman emperor allied with the church conspiring against the aragonese king.

Remember that the inquisition wasn't just a papal weapon, it was used more by the kings and princes of the world.

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Your words alone prove that how the game does it is unrealistic. You're basically saying that if an inquisitor would kill a king, he needs another king's army to do it. Well, if that happens, I can defend myself in a battle.

Inquisitors might be able to kill agents but there's no way they should be able to kill any general without bringing an army. And no, I don't think they should get armies out of thin air in the game.

The way the game represents the inquisition is quite off, really. It targeted heretical regions/cities and clergy, not kings, princes and other very high nobility. http://www.sundayschoolcourses.com/inq/inqcont.htm is a good description of the inquisition.

The most powerful person killed by the inquisition, was the grand master of the templars. But the grand master wasn't the target, it was the order and their wealth. It was done by the french king with a political aim, not by the pope with a theological aim. The pope was merely an ally.

In my mind, it is not very far fetched to think that the same could have happened to a king. Not a very powerful one, perhaps. Take Scotland during their wars with england, for example. Imagine that a part of the clergy turned their backs on the pope, or there were loud rumours that they were doing blasphemous things, say sodomy or idolatry. This would have brought the attention of the inquisition there. Now, imagine that the english king didn't have the military strength to fully crush Scotland. Instead, he devises a new plan. He is a very close friend of the pope, or even has the pope in his pocket. He does the same thing as the real french king, he accuses the scottish king and court of blasphemy. He also convinces the french king to turn their backs on and accuse scotland. Scotland doesn't have any other allies. He then sends his army in secret to capture and arrest the scottish high nobility. The inquisitors burn them all at the stake, and the english king completes his move by occupying scotland.

One of those things that could have happened...

The Inquisition had no legal power to kill (they could still torture). The Inquisition could only try a suspect and then pass them on to secular authorities to carry out the sentence. The power to kill (burn, hang, mince, drown, behead, ect ect.) came from secular authority. I know of no monarch who would authorize his own death. I can't think of a single example where Inquisition killed a monarch. Maybe during the Bohemian wars? Really don't know.