Re: Pics & History of your Empire
The Chronicles of Bamff’s English
Chapter 13 – King Henry II Expands his Empire(1365 - 1380)
The Byzantine defenders of Dresden Castle in Saxony had held out valiantly, but by 1365, many had succumbed to starvation and disease, trapped like rats in the besieged fortress. With the fall of the castle to the crusading army, the last vestiges of resistance in Saxony crumble, and the province is returned to Catholic hands.
King Henry rejoices in the news that Saxony has been delivered into his control. He proclaims Lord Wulfstan as Elector of Saxony, and there is much rejoicing throughout the kingdom.
Meanwhile far to the south, Lord Roos lands in the formerly Italian province of Corsica. He and his small army have been charged with the responsibility of subduing the rebels that took control of the island upon the fall of the Italian kingdom. The rebel army, under the banner of Don Bagio Morosini, flee to the safety of Bastia Castle. Roos prepares himself for the coming siege.
With matters apparently in hand in Corsica, King Henry himself leads the English invasion of Sardinia. The leader of the Sardinians, Lord Prignano, has proclaimed himself as Guidice of Sardinia, and he now readies himself for the coming fray.
Even as Henry wades ashore, still further English armies are on the move. Sir Stephen Plantagenet leads an impressive force into Austria. For many long years now the Holy Roman Empire have refused all offers of peace. It is time to end their impudence. Plantagenet’s army does this emphatically, as the two armies come face to face just outside the gates of the town of Linz. Emperor Rainald II is captured, and two of his sons are among the 246 German dead that litter the field. A mere 71 English lives have been lost, and all looks well for England in Austria – until Pope Benedict IX intervenes.
With the threat of excommunication hanging heavily over the heads of both Henry, and his general, Sir Stephen Plantagenet, the English army withdraws in 1367. Emperor Rainald’s sole surviving son, Otto, turns the situation further to his own advantage. With both of his elder brothers slain at Linz, Otto refuses to pay for the release of his father. Plantagenet has no choice - with no ransome to be had for Rainald, there is no purpose in wasting either food or guard's wages on the former Emperor. Orders are duly despatched to the guards, and Rainald, in turn, is also despatched. With the untimely death of Rainald in an English dungeon, his machiavellian offspring is proclaimed Emperor Otto VII.
King Henry’s appetite for conquest is far from satiated. Having had his Austrian ambitions thwarted by the papacy, Henry now uses Rome to his advantage, as he secures a papal blessing for a crusade against the Byzantine province of Serbia. The crusaders duly sail from Palestine to Tuscany to commence their holy undertaking.
While still in a belligerent mood, King Henry II decides that now is the time to respond to a spate of recent Polish attacks on English shipping in northern waters. Granted not one of the Polish attacks had been successful, but the Polish aggression was enough to allow Henry to sway his court to declare war. English forces, which had long been massing on the borders, now flood into Pomerania, Brandenburg, Silesia, and Bohemia.
“Let us see if Wladyslaw is capable of fighting on 4 fronts at once.”, says Henry.
“His past performance has been that he cannot fight on just one front.”
In the face of this overwhelming English onslaught, the Polish forces withdraw. Those that are able to evade the English armies flee to the safety of Poland. For many, however, there is no escape. The Polish army loses thousands of its finest across the four provinces.
In 1369, Wladyslaw heads an army of 4,114 men into Pomerania, seeking to raise the siege of Milikinborg Castle. Lord Bolingbroke has but 2,165 men to meet the Polish counterattack. It proves to be too small and inexperienced an army to withstand the Poles. Inspired by Wladyslaw, and bolstered with massive numbers of knights, the Poles surround the English. Bolingbroke and over 470 of his men fall nobly on the field. With the death of the English general, and surrounded by the Poles, the surviving Englishmen revert to little more than a rabble, and they flee in complete disarray. Wladyslaw somewhat cheekily sends one of his captives to Wessex bearing a message inquiring "Which king was it that cannot fight on just one front?"
King Henry is incensed, and refuses to pay the ransom demanded for any of the men captured in the second battle of Milikinborg.
King Andras of Hungary seeks to take advantage of the Polish offensive, and leads a Hungarian army into Bohemia. He pays for this folly with his life. Whilst his army includes a truly impressive number of knights and szekely, any advantage that these cavalry might expect to take advantage of are severely reduced as they are forced to charge uphill into row upon row of Tyrolian pikemen, all the time under murderous arbalest and longbow fire. His army is utterly destroyed, and with it, the cream of Hungarian knighthood.
With the bulk of Wladyslaw’s Polish army still encamped in Pomerania, Henry orders his generals to strike at Poland itself. At the same time, a large English army marches into Pomerania to ensure that Wladyslaw remains occupied. Wladyslaw had already despatched part of his forces to Poland, and now finds himself in the unenviable position of having too few troops available in either province to mount a successful defence. Both Polish armies suffer terrible defeats, and the survivors flee to their strongholds to prepare themselves for the inevitable English sieges.
King Knud of Denmark commits the unthinkable in 1370, invading the strongly garrisoned English province of Sweden. The mere sight of the English forces on the far side of the field is more than enough for many of his men, who melt away before battle can be joined. Abandoned by so many of his followers, Knud himself turns back to Denmark.
His foolhardy gesture will cost him dearly over the ensuing years. As word of the Danish aggression against England reaches Rome, Pope Benedict denounces the Danish action, and revokes the Papal treaty with Denmark. The loss of Papal favour is indeed a blow to the Scandinavian kingdom, but there is far more that Knud must pay for his actions. In 1371, as the English forces sweep into Denmark from Sweden and Saxony, bent on vengeance, Knud loses both his kingdom and his life. Denmark is no more.
“Foolhardiness is indeed an epidemic across all of Europe.”, notes King Henry to his assembled court. “It seems to particularly affect the nobility these recent years.”
And indeed, King Henry does have a point, as evidenced by the suicidal invasion of Tyrolia by Otto IV of the Holy Roman Empire in 1371. The German forces are humbled by Sir Walter Basset’s men. Barely 1/3 of Otto’s total force of just over 300 men survive to escape back to Austria. Otto is ransomed back to his people for the princely sum of 11,170 florins.
Henry smiles grimly, noting to his Chancellor "It is as well for young Otto that his own son was too young to make the decision that he himself made only a few years ago."
With so much blood spilt across so much of Europe in these past few years, Henry longs for peace. He is also mindful of the possibility of Papal intervention on behalf of the Poles. More importantly, the Polish armies are now so substantially reduced, that they are unlikely to provide any credible threat for years to come. Henry orders his troops to withdraw from Poland and Pomerania in 1372.
The following year Beograd Castle in Serbia falls to the crusaders. The province of Serbia is delivered to the English.
In 1378, Pope Benedict grants Henry 1,000 florins for his services to Christianity, and peace settles across Europe...but for how long?
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#Hillary4prism 
Originally Posted by bamff
The addition of the Portugese really balances out a thing or two in the Iberian.
Thank you, Innocentius, clearly I couldn't see the sand for all of those tiny rocks! I am determined to see this one through to the end first though - but now I can begin to plot beyond 1453....
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