MacDidz: The Scottish Blog

[valhalla89]

yea, really entertaining read, im checking in every other day or so. i really like how your changing the influence of the game from the normal conquere, war, "bam bam bam" story to a very complicated, character filled, and political game. props, and thanks again.

[Didz]

Summer 1115: Another new Pope.
News from Rome: Patrick MacDougall sends word that Pope Alexius died last year (1114) and the Pope is now Petrus of Hungary. However, Patrick confirms that this change of leadership has done nothing to diminish Scotland’s special relationship with his holiness. [Pope-o-meter Rating 10/10]. In fact, only Hungary itself can match Scotland in the favour by which it is seen in the eyes of the Pope

[Didz]

Summer 1115: Another new Pope.
News from Rome: Patrick MacDougall sends word that Pope Alexius died last year (1114) and the Pope is now Petrus of Hungary.

However, Patrick confirms that this change of leadership has done nothing to diminish Scotland’s special relationship with his holiness. [Pope-o-meter Rating 10/10]. In fact, only Hungary itself can match Scotland in the favour by which it is seen in the eyes of the Pope.

[Didz]

Summer 1115-1116: The African Trade

Trade with the Dark Continent is growing rapidly, Scotland now has five merchant houses operating from Timbuktu, realising a net income of 5,480 florins per annum for the Scottish treasury, in gold and ivory.

The only minor setback recently has been the death by natural causes of the merchant Gille Patrick of Shetland and he will need to be replaced before income can be restored to its full potential.

[Didz]

Summer 1114-Winter 1117: Feeding the fires, the war against heresy gains momentum.
Following the successful denouncement and burning of Isaac by Father Macgoulchane, his convert the former priest Ranald the Unorthodox fled northwards abandoning East Anglia and heading towards Yorkshire.
However, he did not make it very far, Stuart Macgoulchane and his fellow priests managed to corner Ranald near Nottingham and after a brief examination Ranald joined his mentor on the purification fires in the Summer of 1115.

Impressed by this devotion to the faith Pope Petrus immediately promoted Father Macgoulchane to the college of cardinals. Cardinal Macgoulchane and his supporting priests then decided to head for Ireland where David Canmore had reported that Mataad Nevel was still at large and causing trouble.

The Inquisition strikes
Meanwhile, in Scotland the inquisitor Pierus de Canpo manages to track down the elusive heretic Primus and this time there is no escape for the 'hairy nun' and he burns on the pruification fies in Edinburgh's market square. His convert Feradac Besat is currently no where to be seen and seems to have gone to ground, as has Mataad Nevel.

Frustrated at not being able to find the remaining two heretic's inquisitor de Canpo decided to examine Cardinal Macgooulchane's priests and in doing so discovers that Father Micheil Menzies does not meet his exacting standards of christian devotion. Word is sent to London that a replacement priest is needed.

Two heretic's remain at large but there exact whereabouts is currently unknown.

[Didz]

Lucky in war, unlucky in love
Whilst his fortune in battle has been unblemished Edward’s attempts to gain a victory through courtly love is proving much more of a challenge. Princess Mariot has had a fruitless journey to Cordoba and now returns to Spain in the hope of attracting a suitor from amongst the Spanish nobility.

However, her first attempt was a disaster the Spanish Nobleman Goncaluo el Valiente rejected her advances, and now infuriated and desperate she is heading further north to seek out the Spanish noblemen Valdez the Saint she met on her journey south.

In the meantime Nottingham castle is receiving regular visits from suitors hoping to persuade Edward to grant them the hand of his daughter in return for his Royal favours, but so far Edward has rejected them all in the hope of gaining some political or military advantage from his daughter’s hand.

His latest idea is to send Mariot east again, this time to Venice in the hope that an Italian Prince might be available and interested.

[Didz]

Winter 1116 Makmartane sails South.
At last after years of delay Makmartane has sailed with an army to secure Scotlands trading empire in the Africa. Even so, the demands made on the Scottish treasury to support the war against heresy and Prince Kyles Crusade mean that Makmartane's army is hardly of the quality needed to ensure an easy victory, and the fleet transporting it is equality understrength.

However, with Gods blessing both the fleet and the army will survive and acheive their goals.

Admiral Dougall's fleet collects Makmartane and his rapidly assembled army from the Welsh coast and heads south.

The plan is to land Makmartane and his troops on the coast of Morocco where they will make a quick dash across Portuguese territory into the Sahara and then head south for Timbuktu. The hope is that Makmartane will be able to hire friendly natives locally to bolster his numbers and make up for his lack of foot soldiers before he reaches his goal.

Having landed Makmartane's Army, Admiral Dougall’s fleet will continue eastwards into the Mediterranean and will rendezvous with Prince Kyle’s crusade somewhere along the Adriatic coast. Then, hopefully reinfoced by additional mercenary ships, Dougall will load the Prince’s Crusaders and carry them on to Jerusalem.

It was an ambitious plan, woefully under resourced but at least it was underway.

[Didz]

Summer 1116: The collapse of the Spanish Coalition
Just as Edward had predicted the ex-communication of The Holy Roman Emperor triggered hostile interest from a number of other christian factions. France ended its war with Spain to attack the HRE and they were joined by both Venice and Denmark.

More interestingly Spain decided that it no longer wished to be associated with the HRE. probably on the direction of the Pope, and cancelled their alliance leaving the Spanish coalition with only England and Portugal as its other members.

The HRE now became the centre of its own coalition consisting of the other ex-communicated Christian faction Milan, plus the Byzantine Empire, and much to Edwards surprise, Hungary.

The impact that this reshuffle of the political cards might have on Scotlands trade route to Africa was not yet clear. Portugal was still allied with both Spain and the HRE and thus in theory unlikely to be friendly towards Scotland or France. However, England was now far more isolated politically than it had been when Spain and France were at war and a lot would depend on what Spain did next.

Winter 1117: Prince Lulach comes of age.

King Edward’s youngest son Lulach comes of age

[Didz]

Winter 1117 - Winter 1119: All is being done that can be done.

This was a relatively quiet time for the Kingdom. Prince Kyle and his crusade was busy getting lost in central Germany and costing the treasury a fortune in mercenary and equipment expenses trying to replace the large numbers of crusaders and pilgrims who were abandoning Prince Kyle on a daily basis due to his appalling navigation skills.

In the meantime Makmartane's expedition was sailing steadily south across the Bay of Biscay and down the west coast of Spain towards an uncertain future in Africa.

The most annoying thing Edward had to deal with were the suitors seeking the hand of Alexanders daughter Raghnailt.

Edward is in no real mood for dealing with these power hungry minor nobles and refuses to grant any of their proposals. The result is that poor Alexander is left with four unmarried daughters, a situation bound to drive any man to drink.

Edward takes more interest in the approaches of The Guild of Theologian's who wish to build a guild house and college in London. Edward had deliberately rescinded the charter of the Thieves Guild in London a few years ago in the hope of attracting something more useful to the city and he was quick to grant the Theologian's a charter to do so when they requested one.

The war against heresy seems to have been largely successful. In the summer of 1119, Cardinal Macgoulchane discovered a minor new cult leader in Ireland leader by a man called Buchan and had him executed. However, the major ring leader Mataad Nevel remains at large and speculation is that he may have died or taken his own life.

The only other notable event was a minor rebellion led by the Earl of Lincoln, which Edward was forced to disperse with his customary ruthlessness earning himself an even more fearful reputation (+1 dread)

The important thing is that life is returning to normal in the kingdom, heresy levels and religious unrest are dropping and tax levels are high suggesting that the ‘war on heresy’ has been successful and the people are reasonably content.

Bit boring really.

[Didz]

1120: The Unholy Alliance
Whilst life in the United Kingdom was reasonably peaceful, mainland Europe was wracked by war. The ex-communicated Holy Roman Emperor and his ally the ex-communicated Doge of Milan had formed an unholy alliance to try and fend off attacks by almost all their neighbouring princes.

Despite this alliance Arcill Vissman reports that The Holy Roman Emperor has already lost two cities.
The chart below gives some indication of the pressure that the Unholy Alliance were under at this time, and Scotlands relationship to the main participants.

Surprisingly Scotlands relationship with The Holy Roman Empire actually improved over this period though Edward had no idea why they felt he was being co-operative.

It was through this maelstrom of warring armies that Prince Kyle was trying to march his crusade and it was proving extremely difficult to force a passage through the narrow passes and defiles of alpine Germany and Italy with so many armies marching and countermarching around him. There were times when the Prince was seriously tempted to smash his way through by force, but he kept his peace despite the desertions that such delays caused and eventually emerged into the relatively clear terrain around Zagreb.

[Didz]

Winter 1120: The Death of Edmund Canmore, Duke of Edinburgh.

Edmund Canmore, the Duke of Edinburgh and brother of the King has died peacefully at Caenarvon Castle in Wales. Edmund was a loyal and dutiful brother to the King whose skills were invaluable in keeping order and justice alive in Scotland during the periods of religious unrest which racked the province between 1108 and 1119.

[Didz]

Summer 1120: Morgunn Canmore comes of Age

Morgunn Canmore the only son of David Canmore comes of age, appointed Duke of Northumberland and made governor of York .


Winter 1120: Marriage prevails over Papal politic's.

In an unexpected edict Pope Petrus the Unorthodox instructs Edward to cancel his alliance with France. Edward can see no reason why this should be necessary but complies anyway rather than risk the wrath of the Pope.

However, having satisfied the Pope, Edward wasted no time in re-establishing the close ties between France and Scotland. He was aware that King Phillipe had a number of daughters and he immediately proposed that a marriage be netogiated between the Frenchy Princess Loyse and Prince Kyle his eldest son and now heir to the Scottish Throne.

King Phillipe was not terribly keen on the match but when it was sweetened with a payment of 3,000 florin's to be paid over two years the agreement was struck and wedding plans put in motion.

The immediate political consequence of this marriage was that France renewed its alliance with Scotland and in doing so was forced to make peace with Scotland's ally Sicily.


[The above images answer an earlier question about how the game refers to foriegn Princesses involved in marriages, as you can see it quite incorrectly refers to them by their married name, even before they are married. From a purely roleplaying point of view it would have been better if wives were referred to by their maiden names so that family ties could be determined from the family tree.]

Prince Kyle gains a SMART WIFE

A wife that actually increases all trade and tax income by 10%, rather than draining your credit card balance. Very novel.

[Didz]

Winter 1129: An act of desperation

Mariot Canmore’s quest to find a suitable husband which had begun with such high expectations twenty years ago was now little more than a desperate hunt. Mariot was now 36 years old and time had almost run out if she were to have children.

Since the death of her father Edward, not only had her status as a Princess suffered, but all diplomatic assistance in tracing likely candidates had also ceased. It appears that Uncle Alex had enough trouble trying to find suitable husbands for his own four daughters without the added burden of finding one for a left over Princess on the verge of becoming an old maid.

Thus it was a tired and dispirited Mariot who wandering northwards again after a fruitless trip to Sicily, bumped into a minor Sicilian nobleman called Teofilatto di Martamo.

Twenty years ago neither Mariot or her father would have given such a man a second glance but this was not twenty years ago and Mariot considered herself lucky to find any man willing to consider her as a wife this late in the day. She threw herself at him pulling out all the stops in a last desperate chance of happiness and in doing so completely discarded any loyalty she still had to the Scottish cause or her family.

Not that anybody back home seemed to care, for Alexander this just resulted in one less woman to worry about and her brother Kyle was much too busy playing soldiers on Crete to pay much attention.

[Didz]

Summer 1130: Oxfords Revolt.

In the summer of 1130 AD the resentment of the dispossessed Anglo- Saxon nobility once more festered into open revolt. Godwine, the former Earl of Oxford, who had been stripped of most of his estates by William, Duke of Normandy, had hoped to have his lands restored when the Scots kicked the Normans out of England. But instead the Norman squatters had merely been replaced by Scottish ones and as time had passed and his fortunes dwindled it became obvious that he must do something to try and reclaim what was rightfully his.

He raised a small army and marched north gathering additional support as he went and hoping to raise enough men to either force the Scots to negotiate or, if not, to seize the city of York as a bargaining chip. By this time Godwine had an army of some 680 men, including a small core of 200 English Knights and 240 longbowmen from Cheshire. The rest of the force were mostly local levies consisting of a mixture of archers and spearmen.

However, if Godwine really hoped for a negotiated settlement his timing could not have been worse. With King Kyle still on his way back from the Holyland the only person available to negotiate with was his uncle, Alexander the Mean, and he was not likely to be reasonable about anything least of all giving money to an Englishman.

News of the English revolt reached Alexander at Nottingham just as Godwine’s army reached the Great North Road and Alexander lost no time in mustering a force to confront them. At 59 Alexander was somewhat old to be going into battle, but with the prospect of Englishmen to kill nobody dared suggest that he did not lead the army himself.

Nevertheless, some concern was expressed when Alexander announced that all he would be taking to crush the revolt was his own personal retinue and 240 knights.

The city of Nottingham was full of troops, but Alexander was adamant that he would not need them to deal with a bunch of English rebels. He had already decided that this would most likely be his last chance of battle and he wanted it to be glorious. He imagined himself leading the charge that would crush the English under its hooves. It was only when he was politely reminded that the English might not co-operate in this vision and that longbowmen with their stakes were notoriously good at frustrating mounted charges that Alexander was finally persuaded to take some crossbowmen, 2 ballistae and 120 men at arms along just in case.

[manwithplanx]

Three cheers for the updates!
Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!

[Razor1952]

Poor old Mariot!. I think Alexander was poorly advised , his knights would be more than enough for the rebels, I suspect his judgment is clouded as it would seem a great chance to make the battle reveal a hero or man of the hour, for then he could reflect in the glory of a new protege.