Sorry should have read Davidic, as in the Davidic Covenant and its attendant Laws based on the Pentateuch.
The Sons in Splendor, Volume III: The (Great) Grandsons in Splendor
- Thread starter CrepedCrusader
- Start date
Narrative Interlude 1
1548-1554
Around the world in three stories
Goughton, Elizabeth County, Norland, December 19th 1550
It was getting dark as William Raleigh left the Guildhall of Goughton, Elizabeth County. The building was one of the few in the town made of stone, and its arched colonnades sheltered the young businessman from the stiff onshore breeze. Goughton was busy despite the cold weather and Christmas only a week away, a few ships had made it into port that morning causing a frenzy.
The Cornish farmers, Devonshire sailors, even two guards with dark faces belying their native heritage, all bustled through the slippy and wet streets, illuminated by the guttering light of torches. Bales of Tobacco, Turkeys, and a cart with orange orbs - some kind of new vegetable - were carried or pushed about. William paid them no heed. The boy had arrived with a note just a few moments before to tell him that his wife had gone into labour. Home was the only thing on his mind.
As an Alderman of the town, and member of the Norland Trading Company, William was accorded certain privileges, a home on the outskirts of town was one of them. The small carriage he now rode in was another. With the boy - Willard - seated up with the driver, the carriage made his way west along the Bradbury River (OTL James River). Goughton was only around 50 years old, but it had sprung up quickly. As the centre of the Tobacco trade and plantations in Norland it saw plenty of money flowing in. As such the houses on Yarlow Street were large and well built with timber and daub, as good as any in London, Norwich, Calais, or Exeter where William had been born. However the roads themselves were less good, of late the Aldermen had tried to bring some order to Goughton, but without an established government there was little they could do to raise taxation. The fetid and swirling morass of mud and swill that the carriage now skidded over was the result.
The din of the port receded as the road climbed a low rise. There at the crest stood William’s home, the one his father had built almost 30 years ago when they came to Norland. Much had changed since then; the house, the town, even the name; Princess Elizabeth’s Land was now plain Elizabeth County. The biggest change was the Raleigh family wealth. Thomas Raleigh had invested well and worked hard, the family were now the wealthiest in the whole County - a place in the Guildhall and within the Norland Trading Company had been assured. The house itself now had an entire new wing added, which is where William dashed for as the carriage drew to a halt.
Tabitha, the native maid whose real name was unpronounceable, took Raleigh’s coat as he entered and directed him to his wife’s bedroom. There a group of women from the town gaggled around the doorway, talking in hushed tones which died when they saw William coming hurriedly towards them. ‘Where is she?’ Raleigh asked.
‘She is within, my Lord’ a younger girl with a west-country accent replied ‘the child has come, a strapping young boy!’
Overcome with relief and excitement, William Raleigh completely forgot to reply and instead barged past the group of women and into the bedchamber.
On the bed, fresh sheets already replaced, lay his wife Alice. Her long brown hair covered her shoulders and in her arms was a small face surrounded by swaddling cloth. At his sight the woman smiled weakly. ‘William’ she said.
Moving towards his wife, he replied ‘rest my darling, rest, all is well?’
Gripping his hand with her spare one Alice Raleigh outlined how the birth had been remarkably swift and effortless, she then turned slightly to her husband. ‘Would you like to hold him?’
Pulling out a small stool Raleigh sat and extended his arms for his young son. ‘Have you thought about the name?’ he asked.
‘I still like your choice’ Alice replied looking at her husband and son with fondness and warmth in her eyes.
‘Very well’, William Raleigh responded looking down at his new son’s podgy and sleeping face ‘we shall call him Walter’. Neither parent knew that their son would change the world.
Edo Bay, Japan, August 19th 1551
Sir Richard Chancellor stood on the deck of the Adventurer as it glided into the foreign inlet. The bay was wide, and shielded to seaward by a tall mountain and to landward Chancellor could see small fishing boats moving around close to shore. A few miles to his rear he could see the large white sails of the Lady of Hannes as she rounded the cape to the south. The sun was shining and a light easterly breeze pushed the ships into the bay, it was a welcome relief.
Richard stroked the stubble on his chin, and felt the gaunt lines of his cheeks. After almost six months at sea they had finally made it across the great ocean, Ithaca a distant memory. The Adventurer pitched as her helmsman brought her about to point to the gaggle of small boats to starboard. Even at this distance, the first boats responded in alarm pulling their nets and making for shore will all haste.
Richard sensed Martin Bradbury at his elbow. ‘They don't seem too pleased to see us’ the first mate said.
‘I cannot blame them’ his captain replied ‘by my reckoning the Portuguese have made it this far east as yet, we are likely the first Europeans these men have laid eyes on. Run up the colours and signal the Lady of Hannes to follow, let us see if we can make a trade with these people.’
The two ships - there had been three - were running dangerously low on supplies, Chancellor had already cut rations by half, and the water was particularly low. He now hoped that some of their Potcham (OTL Potosi) Silver could get them some fish, even vegetables, but also some water. The ship was drawing closer to the shore now as Richard saw the ship’s pennant - a yellow sun on a blue field - hoist from the main mast. The response from the locals was strange, a few boats paused in their anxious rowing to stare, one turned to present her squat side to the Adventurer.
Within moments Chancellor judged he was within hailing range, it was worth a try. Cupping his hands to his mouth he yelled ‘Conn Itchy War!’ across the stretch of open sea towards the fishing boats. He hoped he had gotten the pronunciation correct. The papers and writings they had been able to buy from Portuguese merchants and monks in Cornel had included some small snippets of language of these strange people, but Chancellor had had no way until now to know if they were genuine.
With relief flooding into his veins, he now saw that a few more of the small boats had come about, and their occupants were now staring at him in confusion rather than fear. Not relying any more on his understanding of this strange language, Richard Chancellor allowed the international language of commerce to do the talking for him, pulling a Silver coin from his belt pouch he held it up to glint in the sun. As if drawn to it, a number of the fishermen began rowing towards the Adventurer.
By now the ship’s crew had gathered along the side of the vessel to gawk at this strange new land they had discovered. Keeping a respectable distance from their captain, they nonetheless heckled and jostled with each other and the fishermen below, excited to finally be in a sheltered harbour. At length, Chancellor was able to barter some small silver coins for the entire catch of fish in the tiny boats below him, and left the remaining negotiations to Edward Bentley, their diplomat. Bentley had also studied the Protuguese drawings and writings, but given his skills was more confident than the Captain.
Withdrawing to the foredeck to take in his surroundings, Chancellor again found himself joined by Martin, his first officer and life-long friend. ‘I have had the men drop anchor, we are in 5 fathoms’ he said by way of greeting ‘should we send a party ashore?’
Chancellor considered for a moment, his gaze fixed on the rocky headland to the north. ‘Thank you Martin’ he began ‘I think not, though this lot seem happy to see us, they do not seem very developed, I would guess they are not the ones in charge.’ He gestured at the small wooden homes built just above the shoreline which made a make-shift village, even now another group of people emerged from them to stare at the newcomer.
As if in response a square vessel rounded the headland. Chancellor could see that it was powered by many oars which rose and fell like the legs of a creeping insect, from its stern rose a large red flag punctuated with three white dots, at this distance little more could be made out, but the vessel was coming towards them.
The Atlantic Ocean, around 10 miles south of New Lothian (OTL Newfoundland), 17th September 1551
‘Man overboard!’ the Bosun yelled, pointing with his stubby and scarred arm. ‘500 yards off the Port bow!’
Captain William Drake stared over the side of the Horn of Plenty to the dark spot his crewman was pointing at. It was hard to see through the murk and mist which so plagued these sea lanes, but he could make out an arm waving at the least.
‘Bring us over to them Mr Tillbury’ he ordered the helmsman, ‘all hands keep a steady watch, this could be a trap.’
The Horn was not a military vessel by any means, but by order of the Norland Trading Company she possessed a few missile weapons to deter boarding. Beyond that she actually carried a mixed cargo of powder and metal for the new defences at Julianston (OTL Boston) which could be used if the situation grew desperate. Drake judged that this would not be necessary. The figure had come more clearly into view and he could now make out that it was one of three, crammed into a small boat. The vessel was no bigger than the Horn’s row-boat, and was not meant for open water, that was strange.
With a growing sense of unease, Captain Drake marched down the ship’s port side, pushing his crewmen out of the way, until he reached the prow of the vessel. ‘What do you see Blake?’ he asked of the Bosun.
‘Three men in a boat Captain, though I’d say one may be a woman by the look of her’
‘Very good Blake, hail them if you please, enquire their status’
Cupping his hands to his mouth and yelling in his distinctly Essex accent Blake shouted ‘ahoy, there! What is your status and business here?!’
Much of the response was lost to the wind and his aging ears but Drake could still make out the words ‘children’, ‘adrift’ and ‘help’ which was enough for him. ‘Lower the boat and get them in!’ he yelled to his crew.
A short time later, the occupants of the small boat had been brought aboard, wrapped in warm blankets and seated in the Captain’s cabin. It had transpired that there were five souls in the small boat; a woman, her three children, one a babe and another in the early years of adolescence and a priest who had identified himself as Thomas Newman, rector of St Barnabas (OTL St John’s) some 40 miles away.
The entire party was cold and dishevelled, even pale, as might be expected after two days at sea in a small craft intended for inland work. The children clung to their mother, the two younger girls concealed by the large blanket draped over her shoulders, whilst the older boy sat protectively with his arm around her. The woman herself, dark of hair and pale of skin, sat with her head down and she held her children close to her.
‘And then the scoundrels put us in that confounded boat and pushed us to sea, said we could trust our God would save us the swines! A mother and her children adrift at sea!’ Newman took a deep breath as he finished his testimony. ‘And then thank the Lord, after two days aimlessly drifting, we came upon you.’
Drake was having a hard time processing what he had just heard. ‘Indeed, father, you are fortunate that we found you, there is nought much beyond us but the open Ocean. But I am sorry, you said the people of St Barnabas did this to you?’
‘Yes! Well no, not them, many of them were beaten by the rebels, but it was them, the rebels I mean, who did this to us. They claimed that they were acting on behalf of their rightful King James VI of Scotland, and claiming the land in his name. They executed my Lord Morton - the Seneschal of the island you understand - claimed their independence and set us to sea as punishment. It defies all logic!’
The Captain sat for a moment. ‘Perhaps it is not so illogical as you think, father’ He responded after a pause, and went on to describe the disaster in Scotland, the rising against English and Reformist interests, the murder of the King’s brother, and the Civil War raging even now.
‘It would seem that the Scots’ Rebellion has carried to the New World.’
Around the world in three stories
Goughton, Elizabeth County, Norland, December 19th 1550
It was getting dark as William Raleigh left the Guildhall of Goughton, Elizabeth County. The building was one of the few in the town made of stone, and its arched colonnades sheltered the young businessman from the stiff onshore breeze. Goughton was busy despite the cold weather and Christmas only a week away, a few ships had made it into port that morning causing a frenzy.
The Cornish farmers, Devonshire sailors, even two guards with dark faces belying their native heritage, all bustled through the slippy and wet streets, illuminated by the guttering light of torches. Bales of Tobacco, Turkeys, and a cart with orange orbs - some kind of new vegetable - were carried or pushed about. William paid them no heed. The boy had arrived with a note just a few moments before to tell him that his wife had gone into labour. Home was the only thing on his mind.
As an Alderman of the town, and member of the Norland Trading Company, William was accorded certain privileges, a home on the outskirts of town was one of them. The small carriage he now rode in was another. With the boy - Willard - seated up with the driver, the carriage made his way west along the Bradbury River (OTL James River). Goughton was only around 50 years old, but it had sprung up quickly. As the centre of the Tobacco trade and plantations in Norland it saw plenty of money flowing in. As such the houses on Yarlow Street were large and well built with timber and daub, as good as any in London, Norwich, Calais, or Exeter where William had been born. However the roads themselves were less good, of late the Aldermen had tried to bring some order to Goughton, but without an established government there was little they could do to raise taxation. The fetid and swirling morass of mud and swill that the carriage now skidded over was the result.
The din of the port receded as the road climbed a low rise. There at the crest stood William’s home, the one his father had built almost 30 years ago when they came to Norland. Much had changed since then; the house, the town, even the name; Princess Elizabeth’s Land was now plain Elizabeth County. The biggest change was the Raleigh family wealth. Thomas Raleigh had invested well and worked hard, the family were now the wealthiest in the whole County - a place in the Guildhall and within the Norland Trading Company had been assured. The house itself now had an entire new wing added, which is where William dashed for as the carriage drew to a halt.
Tabitha, the native maid whose real name was unpronounceable, took Raleigh’s coat as he entered and directed him to his wife’s bedroom. There a group of women from the town gaggled around the doorway, talking in hushed tones which died when they saw William coming hurriedly towards them. ‘Where is she?’ Raleigh asked.
‘She is within, my Lord’ a younger girl with a west-country accent replied ‘the child has come, a strapping young boy!’
Overcome with relief and excitement, William Raleigh completely forgot to reply and instead barged past the group of women and into the bedchamber.
On the bed, fresh sheets already replaced, lay his wife Alice. Her long brown hair covered her shoulders and in her arms was a small face surrounded by swaddling cloth. At his sight the woman smiled weakly. ‘William’ she said.
Moving towards his wife, he replied ‘rest my darling, rest, all is well?’
Gripping his hand with her spare one Alice Raleigh outlined how the birth had been remarkably swift and effortless, she then turned slightly to her husband. ‘Would you like to hold him?’
Pulling out a small stool Raleigh sat and extended his arms for his young son. ‘Have you thought about the name?’ he asked.
‘I still like your choice’ Alice replied looking at her husband and son with fondness and warmth in her eyes.
‘Very well’, William Raleigh responded looking down at his new son’s podgy and sleeping face ‘we shall call him Walter’. Neither parent knew that their son would change the world.
Edo Bay, Japan, August 19th 1551
Sir Richard Chancellor stood on the deck of the Adventurer as it glided into the foreign inlet. The bay was wide, and shielded to seaward by a tall mountain and to landward Chancellor could see small fishing boats moving around close to shore. A few miles to his rear he could see the large white sails of the Lady of Hannes as she rounded the cape to the south. The sun was shining and a light easterly breeze pushed the ships into the bay, it was a welcome relief.
Richard stroked the stubble on his chin, and felt the gaunt lines of his cheeks. After almost six months at sea they had finally made it across the great ocean, Ithaca a distant memory. The Adventurer pitched as her helmsman brought her about to point to the gaggle of small boats to starboard. Even at this distance, the first boats responded in alarm pulling their nets and making for shore will all haste.
Richard sensed Martin Bradbury at his elbow. ‘They don't seem too pleased to see us’ the first mate said.
‘I cannot blame them’ his captain replied ‘by my reckoning the Portuguese have made it this far east as yet, we are likely the first Europeans these men have laid eyes on. Run up the colours and signal the Lady of Hannes to follow, let us see if we can make a trade with these people.’
The two ships - there had been three - were running dangerously low on supplies, Chancellor had already cut rations by half, and the water was particularly low. He now hoped that some of their Potcham (OTL Potosi) Silver could get them some fish, even vegetables, but also some water. The ship was drawing closer to the shore now as Richard saw the ship’s pennant - a yellow sun on a blue field - hoist from the main mast. The response from the locals was strange, a few boats paused in their anxious rowing to stare, one turned to present her squat side to the Adventurer.
Within moments Chancellor judged he was within hailing range, it was worth a try. Cupping his hands to his mouth he yelled ‘Conn Itchy War!’ across the stretch of open sea towards the fishing boats. He hoped he had gotten the pronunciation correct. The papers and writings they had been able to buy from Portuguese merchants and monks in Cornel had included some small snippets of language of these strange people, but Chancellor had had no way until now to know if they were genuine.
With relief flooding into his veins, he now saw that a few more of the small boats had come about, and their occupants were now staring at him in confusion rather than fear. Not relying any more on his understanding of this strange language, Richard Chancellor allowed the international language of commerce to do the talking for him, pulling a Silver coin from his belt pouch he held it up to glint in the sun. As if drawn to it, a number of the fishermen began rowing towards the Adventurer.
By now the ship’s crew had gathered along the side of the vessel to gawk at this strange new land they had discovered. Keeping a respectable distance from their captain, they nonetheless heckled and jostled with each other and the fishermen below, excited to finally be in a sheltered harbour. At length, Chancellor was able to barter some small silver coins for the entire catch of fish in the tiny boats below him, and left the remaining negotiations to Edward Bentley, their diplomat. Bentley had also studied the Protuguese drawings and writings, but given his skills was more confident than the Captain.
Withdrawing to the foredeck to take in his surroundings, Chancellor again found himself joined by Martin, his first officer and life-long friend. ‘I have had the men drop anchor, we are in 5 fathoms’ he said by way of greeting ‘should we send a party ashore?’
Chancellor considered for a moment, his gaze fixed on the rocky headland to the north. ‘Thank you Martin’ he began ‘I think not, though this lot seem happy to see us, they do not seem very developed, I would guess they are not the ones in charge.’ He gestured at the small wooden homes built just above the shoreline which made a make-shift village, even now another group of people emerged from them to stare at the newcomer.
As if in response a square vessel rounded the headland. Chancellor could see that it was powered by many oars which rose and fell like the legs of a creeping insect, from its stern rose a large red flag punctuated with three white dots, at this distance little more could be made out, but the vessel was coming towards them.
The Atlantic Ocean, around 10 miles south of New Lothian (OTL Newfoundland), 17th September 1551
‘Man overboard!’ the Bosun yelled, pointing with his stubby and scarred arm. ‘500 yards off the Port bow!’
Captain William Drake stared over the side of the Horn of Plenty to the dark spot his crewman was pointing at. It was hard to see through the murk and mist which so plagued these sea lanes, but he could make out an arm waving at the least.
‘Bring us over to them Mr Tillbury’ he ordered the helmsman, ‘all hands keep a steady watch, this could be a trap.’
The Horn was not a military vessel by any means, but by order of the Norland Trading Company she possessed a few missile weapons to deter boarding. Beyond that she actually carried a mixed cargo of powder and metal for the new defences at Julianston (OTL Boston) which could be used if the situation grew desperate. Drake judged that this would not be necessary. The figure had come more clearly into view and he could now make out that it was one of three, crammed into a small boat. The vessel was no bigger than the Horn’s row-boat, and was not meant for open water, that was strange.
With a growing sense of unease, Captain Drake marched down the ship’s port side, pushing his crewmen out of the way, until he reached the prow of the vessel. ‘What do you see Blake?’ he asked of the Bosun.
‘Three men in a boat Captain, though I’d say one may be a woman by the look of her’
‘Very good Blake, hail them if you please, enquire their status’
Cupping his hands to his mouth and yelling in his distinctly Essex accent Blake shouted ‘ahoy, there! What is your status and business here?!’
Much of the response was lost to the wind and his aging ears but Drake could still make out the words ‘children’, ‘adrift’ and ‘help’ which was enough for him. ‘Lower the boat and get them in!’ he yelled to his crew.
A short time later, the occupants of the small boat had been brought aboard, wrapped in warm blankets and seated in the Captain’s cabin. It had transpired that there were five souls in the small boat; a woman, her three children, one a babe and another in the early years of adolescence and a priest who had identified himself as Thomas Newman, rector of St Barnabas (OTL St John’s) some 40 miles away.
The entire party was cold and dishevelled, even pale, as might be expected after two days at sea in a small craft intended for inland work. The children clung to their mother, the two younger girls concealed by the large blanket draped over her shoulders, whilst the older boy sat protectively with his arm around her. The woman herself, dark of hair and pale of skin, sat with her head down and she held her children close to her.
‘And then the scoundrels put us in that confounded boat and pushed us to sea, said we could trust our God would save us the swines! A mother and her children adrift at sea!’ Newman took a deep breath as he finished his testimony. ‘And then thank the Lord, after two days aimlessly drifting, we came upon you.’
Drake was having a hard time processing what he had just heard. ‘Indeed, father, you are fortunate that we found you, there is nought much beyond us but the open Ocean. But I am sorry, you said the people of St Barnabas did this to you?’
‘Yes! Well no, not them, many of them were beaten by the rebels, but it was them, the rebels I mean, who did this to us. They claimed that they were acting on behalf of their rightful King James VI of Scotland, and claiming the land in his name. They executed my Lord Morton - the Seneschal of the island you understand - claimed their independence and set us to sea as punishment. It defies all logic!’
The Captain sat for a moment. ‘Perhaps it is not so illogical as you think, father’ He responded after a pause, and went on to describe the disaster in Scotland, the rising against English and Reformist interests, the murder of the King’s brother, and the Civil War raging even now.
‘It would seem that the Scots’ Rebellion has carried to the New World.’
1548-1554 Part 1
Britannia: the forging of a people, S Schama (2006)
Scotland was the last piece of the Brittanic puzzle to fall into place. Arguably it was the most difficult. Scotland and England had been old enemies for generations. Entire cultures had been built upon war with the other, whole swathes of land on both sides of the border were sparsely populated owing to raids. The currents of resentment and enmity ran deep on both sides.
Always the underdog, by the mid 16th century Scotland was hopelessly behind England by every metric. The new world colonies and the Nine Years War between them had accelerated England to predominance in the known-world. Scotland remained a semi-Medieval backwater, underdeveloped economically and militarily and hopelessly outnumbered by their much larger and stronger neighbour. Once the English possessions in France, Ireland and Colombia were factored in, there really wasn’t a competition.
Nevertheless, Scotland resisted their subjugation at every turn. Since James IV’s death at the siege of Newcastle in 1514, Scotland had been ruled by a woman, ever under threat of the English. Queen Margaret had ruled from the age of eight until her death in 1544 aged 40. Despite her English mother, Margaret had won the support of the Scottish lords, and married one of them, she was able to wring financial and trade concession from the notoriously stingy Edward V to allow Scotland a stake in the New World trade and in 1532 was able to secure the right for Scots to settle in what they came to call New Lothian (OTL Nova Scotia and Newfoundland). In many ways Margaret was able to steady the ship, but in the long term she doomed it to sink later on.
Margaret died shortly after her only child Anne married Manuel of Brest, Richard IV’s brother. This had been part of the agreement she had made with Manuel’s grandfather, but it kept Scotland under the English yolk. Perhaps Margaret had hoped that Anne could stand independent as she herself had done, but it was not to be. Queen Anne of Scotland died on the 2nd of February 1548 aged just 20 in the process of giving birth to her son, the future James VI. This left Scotland with an infant king for the third time in a century, and this time the child had an English guardian
The divisions in Scotland were exacerbated by the Reformation. Margaret had joined the League of Copenhagen in 1532 and ascribed to the Augsburg Confession as a means of gaining more political autonomy, she was not thought to be overtly Protestant, simply minded to reform the more egregious Catholic excesses. However there were many Lords in Scotland who wanted further reforms; the Earls Argyll, Glencairn and Morton all formed what would become known as the Lords of Congregation after Anne’s death. They hoped to influence the young King James and win support for their cause through his father Manuel who was English by culture, if not name or birth.
Opposing them were a disparate group of nobles who either opposed the English, Protestantism or both. Whilst the Lords of Congregation were willing to deal with England to achieve their ends, there were some reformers such as John Killbixie who wanted greater independence. Oddly, men such as this found common cause with Cardinal Beaton, Earls Huntly, Arran and Home and Lord Bothwell; collectively they were called the Lions after their allegiance to Scotland of old.
The Lions struck the first blow when they were able to have the infant King James spirited away from Stirling Castle a mere 3 weeks after his birth to Scone where Archbishop Beaton, once Papal Legate, crowned him with the full Catholic ceremony. This caused much uproar; the Catholic population of Scotland rallied behind the new King and his ‘advisors’ whilst Manuel, backed by Argyle, appealed to his brother Richard IV stating that his son had been kidnapped. Eventually James was returned to his father’s care but all the major magnates of Scotland were summoned to a Council at Dunfermline for May with Richard of Oudenburg, Duke of York and Marshall of England in attendance.
The Council of Dunfermline reached a compromise that neither party was happy with, but were forced to acquiesce to. A regency Council of eight members was to be established (any suggestion of an odd number of members floundered on who the odd person, and therefore tie-breaker, was to be). Manuel, styled in Scotland as Earl of Dunbar, Argyll, Glencairn and Morton were the four Congregation Lords, Cardinal Beaton, Arran, Home and Huntly being the four Lions. This Council was to serve until James was twelve and would only deal with matters arising, for the time being issues of religion and Reformation were to be placed on hold. This was the only thing all sides would agree to, although it meant that the race was on to influence James and maneuver for position on secondary issues such as legal disputes involving the Church or Monastic orders.
Historians have debated for years whether this Council was intended as a means to English control by the back-door, but it is immediately obvious that there was little to be gained from the Council by either side. It was perpetually paralysed by in-fighting and division with very little actually achieved. Indeed it is hard to tell Richard IV’s intentions with Scotland at this time; he surely wanted to keep the peace and maintain Manuel’s position, but it seems he was unwilling to become too involved at this stage, leading a more ‘hands-off’ approach which undoubtedly contributed to the later tragedy.
The Earl Manuel, father to the King, seems to have been a rather pious man for a Protestant. He often wore black with few adornments and famously did not drink alcohol. Having married Lady Jane Campbell, daughter of his ally the Earl of Argyll, he remained distant from her and it was rumoured refused to sleep with her, they certainly had no children. These traits may explain why Manuel was repeatedly at odds with the Lions in Council and blocked their every move on principal. By 1550 Manuel had used force and political acumen to install loyal Bishops to around half of the Scottish diocese, including one suspicious circumstance where the Catholic incumbent was found dead, and was tightening his grip on power.
All of this may serve to explain the Earl of Arran’s conspiracy. In 1550 he sent Bothwell to France to negotiate with King Henri II. The Auld Alliance still held, but with the Palatinate War entering its final stages, Henri could only spare so much support; he dispatched the Duke of Guise with around 7,000 men to Scotland in the spring of 1551. Perhaps Henri hoped that he could distract Richard IV long enough to achieve a victory.
Hamilton’s Last Stand: the wars of Scottish Sovereignty 1548-1552, D MacAdam (2006)
Manuel Plantagenet, Earl of Dunbar and Lord of Brest, was not liked by the Scottish people. Certainly the Lords of Congregation were willing to ally with him in order to achieve their desired religious goals and gain the support of England, but they did not like him. Manuel was pious, stand-offish and jealously protected his son, James VI. Rumours that he had the Catholic Bishop of Orkney killed in his bed did not help matters.
Manuel was at his estate near Heddington, East Lothian on the night of March 29th 1551 when the reckoning came for him. A band of armed men, allegedly led by Bothwell himself, were let into the house by a servant through the orchard gate, and made quick work of the royal guard. Reaching Manuel’s bedchamber, they stormed inside and emerged with his severed head, leaving the decapitated corpse to stain the bed sheets red.
The next morning the head was placed on a spike in the centre of Edinburgh, a large crowd gathering to look. The magistrate quickly had it removed and interred but the damage had been done. On the same day at Perth James Hamilton declared himself the rightful Protector of King James VI, still at his palace near Edinburgh untouched and unharmed, and that he would drive all the forces of England and the Reformation from Scottish soil. He was accompanied by the Lions, and quickly joined by many Gentry from the north of Scotland. Meanwhile the Lords of Congregation hurried to shore up their own support. Many of the merchants and townsfolk south of Stirling supported them as the representatives of progress and prosperity (even if this meant being shackled to England) but large number of the rural peasantry were apathetic or against them, not to mention the majority of the population north of Stirling.
To make matters worse, Scotland had once again become the battleground of Anglo-French rivalry; the Duke of Guise arrived in Dundee in early April with his 7,000 men and a further number of Scottish exiles from France. In England, the response to the murder of the King’s brother was confused by the Palatinate War. Richard IV was in Calais with his cousin the Duke of York whilst their sons and a large number of English soldiers ‘volunteered’ on the Protestant side of the conflict. This left the aging Lord Protector Arthur Tudor, Earl of Richmond to issue his own response. Being short on manpower the York and Chester companies were sent from the north under the command of the Earl of Warwick and Henry, Lord Flint, Tudor’s grandson now aged 24. Together they managed only around 3,000 men. Tudor issued a warrant for the arrest of those responsible for Manuel’s murder, backed by the Star Chamber, which Richard IV co-signed from Calais.
It was midsummer before the English army arrived in Edinburgh, and this gave the Lions time to prepare. James Hamilton, Earl of Arran, was a clever and resourceful man. He knew that the fickle lowland Scots and merchants would stick with the status quo unless there was a huge shift in the balance of power. This meant that Arran had to strike a blow against the Congregation Lords and their English backers.
Firstly Arran dispatched agents via Ireland to New Lothian in Norland where they could foment rebellion against the English there. Secondly the Lions seized all shipping in ports north of Leith and used them to raise much needed funds, and secure the support of some marginal nobles. Unfortunately this also had the impact of driving most of the burghers and merchants into Congregation arms at the theft of their property. All bank branches in Scotland (mostly Edinburgh) immediately refused all credit to the Lions and loaned generously to their opponents. Finally Arran planned a bold move to take the initiative.
Before the bulk of the English forces arrived in Edinburgh, Arran chose to raid the city in the hopes that the people would support the Lions’ actions and join them. Arran also hoped to take custody of James VI, by now moved to Edinburgh Castle under the protection of the Earl of Glencairn. The Futile March, as it has become known, actually began by sea. Arran, Angus, Cardinal Beaton and the Duke of Guise used the captured ships to transfer around 5,000 men, around half of which was French, into the port of Leith on the evening of the 29th of May. The army sent ahead of them heralds claiming to be coming in peace to pay fealty to King James VI.
The Lords of Congregation were caught flat-footed. The English had only been able to send an advance party of 200 mounted soldiers led by Ambrose Dudley, Lord Tyne. Glencairn himself had another 300 soldiers including the city watch, but Argyll and the bulk of the Congregation forces were touring the lowlands to rally support. Most worryingly, William Craik the Lord Provost of Edinburgh refused to close the gates to the oncoming force, claiming that he believed their intentions were genuine, he then declared for the Lions himself.
Therefore Edinburgh was open to Arran and his men entered the city unopposed on the morning of the 30th of May. Glencairn and Lord Tyne took refuge in the Castle and barred the gates. Arran’s army was warmly welcomed by the peasantry and lower orders of the city and surrounding countryside who saw them as liberators, but crucially the wealthier townsfolk, especially the City council and guilds, were lukewarm in their reception at best. Arran’s earlier seizure of all shipping had won him no friends.
This left the Lions in a quandary. They had taken Edinburgh, but not the castle or the King, and only a costly and dangerous siege would achieve their goals. They had not won the popular support they had hoped for; the lower orders were well behind them, but they lacked acclaim where it mattered. Instead a curious stand-off developed where Arran and his associates went to the castle gates every day to petition the three-year old King directly for entry, and were of course politely rebuffed by Earl Glencairn who ordered the army to put down their weapons and leave the city. This continued for close to a weak until the 6th of June when conditions worsened for the Lions’ army. Tension between the soldiers and townsfolk, which had been building for a week, finally boiled over around Haymarket into an orgy of looting and burning which levelled much of this area of the city. Only the Duke of Guise’s timely intervention with a detachment of his own men against those of Angus and Fife stemmed the bloodshed.
In the days that followed, agents of the Alderman bank branch in Edinburgh, working with the Guildhall and the Corporation of the city, escaped to Leith and bribed the captains of the ships to sail for Newcastle. By the 9th of June, there were no ships left in the port and Arran was trapped. Simultaneously word reached the city that Argyll was on the way with 10,000 men. Left with no other choice, the Lions quit Edinburgh on the 10th of June marching west. They took with them very meagre spoils as Arran had forbidden any further looting and the Royal mint inside the Castle had been untouched. Very few new supporters left with them. Only a small number of townsfolk, led by William Craik, and a few other vagabonds and rogues trailed behind the army.
With their ships gone, and the Forth now patrolled by an English squadron at any rate, Arran and his men had to march the 20 miles to Stirling where they had to skirt around the loyal town and its castle garrison. This left them vulnerable to attack and on the 12th of June a Congregation force hit them in the rear at Raploch as the vanguard crossed Stirling Bridge. Raploch was a narrow meadow between the castle crag and a stretch of marshland, ideal for a skirmish of movement and light cavalry. Unfortunately Lords Pitarro and Tyne, leader of the Anglo-Scottish force of 500, were eager to crush the rebels as quickly as possible and so brought up their battery of four demi-cannon in order to strike the bridge crossing. These got stuck in boggy ground and were counter-attacked by the Duke of Guise whilst they were trying to be dug out. The Battle of Raploch ended with Pitarro dead and Tyne captured, some 300 of their men dead or captured and the rest put to flight, Guise only lost around 50 men.
Once over the forth Arran and his army were safe, but Raploch was poor consolation for their failed attempt to land a killing blow. In fact they had demonstrated the lack of support they had from the people of Edinburgh and the wealthy of the city, others would now be slow to join them. The Lions’ had expanded little in manpower, but what ships they had were gone, and crucially their sense of momentum too. Byb the end of June Warwick and Lord Flint had arrived in Edinburgh with their 3,000 men which they used to strengthen defenses at Stirling. The only real success for the Lions’ cause in 1551 was in New Lothian where the Scots population declared their independence, brutally executed the Seneschal of the island, set his family adrift, and managed their own affairs for at least a year.
The winter of 1551 was not as bleak for Arran and his supporters as the stories might suggest. Robert Burns depicted them as the twilight of Scottish nobility and independence, huddled together for warmth. The reality is that north of the Forth life was rather comfortable; Catholic priests and Bishops were re-established and the four Lion Lords of the Regency Council governed in the King’s stead. Only in hindsight were they living on borrowed time.
With the end of the Palatinate War, a much larger force became available to Richard IV, who marched north in spring 1552 with 10,000 men behind him including his son Edward, the Prince of Wales, the Earl of Lincoln, Duke of Gloucester and Martin Grey, Lord Bath, commander of the Veteran London Company. Alongside Warwick and Flint’s men and those of the Lords of Congregation, this gave the English 20,000 men a distinct 2:1 advantage over Arran.
The Anglo-Scottish army of 1552 was also one of the most cutting edge the world had ever seen. Gloucester’s military reforms in 1548 had led to the London, York and Chester Companies being the most organised, well-drilled and well-equipped force in English History. Between them they could account for 4,000 professional infantry, 1,000 heavy cavalry and a further 1,000 light cavalry equipped with sabres and Schragbus, an armoured core around which the Lords retinues and yeoman could assemble. Gloucester’s mobile demi-cannon were also in attendance but were well accompanied and protected after the disaster at Raploch. Finally, the English handgunners were armed with the new flintlock handguns which Gloucester had also developed. These could fire and reload faster and were a lot more resilient than matchlocks, they would come in extremely handy during the ensuing conflict
Against this Arran could not hope to fight a conventional war. He had Guise’s crack soldiers which had already shown their worth at Edinburgh and Raploch, but the majority of his force was incredibly haphazard and included many untrained peasants. Their real advantage was in the terrain and their knowledge of it, allowing them to spring ambushes where and when they could.
April 1552 saw Richard IV leading the advance himself, as the combined army of 20,000 men crossed Stirling Bridge in search of Arran. Officially Arran was portrayed as the murderer of Earl Manuel, the King’s father, destroyed of property, and would-be tyrant over James VI, and Richard's actions were merely intended to bring him to justice. Of course things were more complicated than this, and Arran’s ‘crimes’ were a convenient casus belli and excuse for Richard IV taking control of Scotland.
By May Richard’s army had reached the outskirts of Perth where Arran and the other Lions had holed up along with the Duke of Guise. Arran had slowed the English march using hit and run ambushes which had given him time to prepare Perth for a siege and arrange further partisans, but the losses caused by the new English weaponry were much higher than was expected or could be tolerated. In the face of this challenge, it is thought that Arran hoped that a siege, and constant attacks would weaken Richard’s army enough to sally out and attack.
For months the 20,000 strong army camped outside the walls of Perth, slowly bringing down the walls with cannon fire. Such was the external threat that Richard IV ordered a second siege line be built facing outwards. This double duty for months on end took its toll on the besiegers, although their resupply from the Tay River kept them alive.Eventually by October disease had run rampant throughout the besieged town, and the English resolve had not faltered. Richard only resisted storming the walls for the sake of his men and innocent civilians.
Again Arran was forced to order the retreat. Under cover of darkness his army slipped across the Tay in boats leaving their heavy baggage and cannon behind, all the horses had long since been eaten. This left the army free but on the far bank of the Tay without swift means of transport, leaving them at the mercy of Lord Flint and his blocking force of the Chester Company. Of the 10,000 men under Arran’s command before the Futile March, only around 4,000 were left by autumn 1552, the rest caught or killed in the retreat from Perth.
Arran himself, along with Bothwell, fled for Kirkwall, but the rest of the Lions either surrendered or went to ground. Guise was captured trying to defend the retreat at Perth, and after causing a diplomatic incident with France was ransomed back three years later. Cardinal Beaton died at Dalwhinnie in the Highlands in November 1552, some said of a broken heart.
The Lions were broken, but their teeth had not been completely pulled. Only Arran and Bothwell remained, holed up in the latter’s Orkney stronghold. A naval raid led by William Hawkins and his son John in 1553 failed to kill or capture either fugitive, but they did destroy a number of ships and stocks in Kirkwall harbour In the end Arran died of a fever later that summer and Bothwell escaped to the continent where he died in obscurity in eastern Poland, fighting as a mercenary, in 1558.
In February 1553 a Great Council was held at Heddington, site of Manuel’s murder. In attendance were Richard IV, his cousin York, Warwick, Chief Justice Cromwell and Archbishop Cranmer. For Scotland Argyll led the pack, but almost every other major Lord was present. Richard IV presented his claim to authority over Scotland using the ancient rights established by Edward I, and enforced by the will of the late Queen Anne which surfaced during the sovereignty crisis in 1552. This will, which is almost certainly fake, claimed that Anne sought a strong Scotland to protect her son, with English help if needs be.
The upshot of this Council was threefold: Alexander Gordon was appointed Archbishop of St Andrews by Cranmer, securing a Reformist bent in Scotland for the foreseeable future, and formalising the unspoken assumption that the Archbishop of Cranmer was the senior primate in the Anglican Communion. Second, Archibald Campbell, Earl of Argyll was appointed as Lord Protector of Scotland. This position was almost identical in authority and responsibility as the English equivalent and so it began the long tradition of this position in Scottish politics. Finally the infant James VI was married to the Queen’s Granddaughter Anna, first child of Prince Edward of Wales and his wife Barbara of Hesse. It was hope that this match would one day unite the English and Scottish monarchs, although in hindsight it was too close a match to be sensible.
With two years of the Battle of Perth, Scotland was at peace. Hamilton’s Last Stand had been heroic but ultimately futile, even the New Lothian Rebellion had fizzled to nothing. Instead it had allowed the English to identify any hostile threats towards them and eliminate them. Many of the common soldiers or partisans had escaped direct justice but they were unable to organise themselves alone and so there was little chance of another rebellion against Argyle’s Protectorship.
By 1554 Scotland had become integrated into the English economic system, and picked up a lot of English culture and Political systems including Seneschals and named companies (just Edinburgh and Ayr companies to begin with). Further, with the defeat of the New Lothian colonists, Scotland was once again restricted from new world access, but gained educationally and economically from English grammar school and an involvement in the New World Trade through the Norland Trading Company. In the short term this would be enough to win moral support until John Knox arrived on the scene.
Scotland was the last piece of the Brittanic puzzle to fall into place. Arguably it was the most difficult. Scotland and England had been old enemies for generations. Entire cultures had been built upon war with the other, whole swathes of land on both sides of the border were sparsely populated owing to raids. The currents of resentment and enmity ran deep on both sides.
Always the underdog, by the mid 16th century Scotland was hopelessly behind England by every metric. The new world colonies and the Nine Years War between them had accelerated England to predominance in the known-world. Scotland remained a semi-Medieval backwater, underdeveloped economically and militarily and hopelessly outnumbered by their much larger and stronger neighbour. Once the English possessions in France, Ireland and Colombia were factored in, there really wasn’t a competition.
Nevertheless, Scotland resisted their subjugation at every turn. Since James IV’s death at the siege of Newcastle in 1514, Scotland had been ruled by a woman, ever under threat of the English. Queen Margaret had ruled from the age of eight until her death in 1544 aged 40. Despite her English mother, Margaret had won the support of the Scottish lords, and married one of them, she was able to wring financial and trade concession from the notoriously stingy Edward V to allow Scotland a stake in the New World trade and in 1532 was able to secure the right for Scots to settle in what they came to call New Lothian (OTL Nova Scotia and Newfoundland). In many ways Margaret was able to steady the ship, but in the long term she doomed it to sink later on.
Margaret died shortly after her only child Anne married Manuel of Brest, Richard IV’s brother. This had been part of the agreement she had made with Manuel’s grandfather, but it kept Scotland under the English yolk. Perhaps Margaret had hoped that Anne could stand independent as she herself had done, but it was not to be. Queen Anne of Scotland died on the 2nd of February 1548 aged just 20 in the process of giving birth to her son, the future James VI. This left Scotland with an infant king for the third time in a century, and this time the child had an English guardian
The divisions in Scotland were exacerbated by the Reformation. Margaret had joined the League of Copenhagen in 1532 and ascribed to the Augsburg Confession as a means of gaining more political autonomy, she was not thought to be overtly Protestant, simply minded to reform the more egregious Catholic excesses. However there were many Lords in Scotland who wanted further reforms; the Earls Argyll, Glencairn and Morton all formed what would become known as the Lords of Congregation after Anne’s death. They hoped to influence the young King James and win support for their cause through his father Manuel who was English by culture, if not name or birth.
Opposing them were a disparate group of nobles who either opposed the English, Protestantism or both. Whilst the Lords of Congregation were willing to deal with England to achieve their ends, there were some reformers such as John Killbixie who wanted greater independence. Oddly, men such as this found common cause with Cardinal Beaton, Earls Huntly, Arran and Home and Lord Bothwell; collectively they were called the Lions after their allegiance to Scotland of old.
The Lions struck the first blow when they were able to have the infant King James spirited away from Stirling Castle a mere 3 weeks after his birth to Scone where Archbishop Beaton, once Papal Legate, crowned him with the full Catholic ceremony. This caused much uproar; the Catholic population of Scotland rallied behind the new King and his ‘advisors’ whilst Manuel, backed by Argyle, appealed to his brother Richard IV stating that his son had been kidnapped. Eventually James was returned to his father’s care but all the major magnates of Scotland were summoned to a Council at Dunfermline for May with Richard of Oudenburg, Duke of York and Marshall of England in attendance.
The Council of Dunfermline reached a compromise that neither party was happy with, but were forced to acquiesce to. A regency Council of eight members was to be established (any suggestion of an odd number of members floundered on who the odd person, and therefore tie-breaker, was to be). Manuel, styled in Scotland as Earl of Dunbar, Argyll, Glencairn and Morton were the four Congregation Lords, Cardinal Beaton, Arran, Home and Huntly being the four Lions. This Council was to serve until James was twelve and would only deal with matters arising, for the time being issues of religion and Reformation were to be placed on hold. This was the only thing all sides would agree to, although it meant that the race was on to influence James and maneuver for position on secondary issues such as legal disputes involving the Church or Monastic orders.
Historians have debated for years whether this Council was intended as a means to English control by the back-door, but it is immediately obvious that there was little to be gained from the Council by either side. It was perpetually paralysed by in-fighting and division with very little actually achieved. Indeed it is hard to tell Richard IV’s intentions with Scotland at this time; he surely wanted to keep the peace and maintain Manuel’s position, but it seems he was unwilling to become too involved at this stage, leading a more ‘hands-off’ approach which undoubtedly contributed to the later tragedy.
The Earl Manuel, father to the King, seems to have been a rather pious man for a Protestant. He often wore black with few adornments and famously did not drink alcohol. Having married Lady Jane Campbell, daughter of his ally the Earl of Argyll, he remained distant from her and it was rumoured refused to sleep with her, they certainly had no children. These traits may explain why Manuel was repeatedly at odds with the Lions in Council and blocked their every move on principal. By 1550 Manuel had used force and political acumen to install loyal Bishops to around half of the Scottish diocese, including one suspicious circumstance where the Catholic incumbent was found dead, and was tightening his grip on power.
All of this may serve to explain the Earl of Arran’s conspiracy. In 1550 he sent Bothwell to France to negotiate with King Henri II. The Auld Alliance still held, but with the Palatinate War entering its final stages, Henri could only spare so much support; he dispatched the Duke of Guise with around 7,000 men to Scotland in the spring of 1551. Perhaps Henri hoped that he could distract Richard IV long enough to achieve a victory.
Hamilton’s Last Stand: the wars of Scottish Sovereignty 1548-1552, D MacAdam (2006)
Manuel Plantagenet, Earl of Dunbar and Lord of Brest, was not liked by the Scottish people. Certainly the Lords of Congregation were willing to ally with him in order to achieve their desired religious goals and gain the support of England, but they did not like him. Manuel was pious, stand-offish and jealously protected his son, James VI. Rumours that he had the Catholic Bishop of Orkney killed in his bed did not help matters.
Manuel was at his estate near Heddington, East Lothian on the night of March 29th 1551 when the reckoning came for him. A band of armed men, allegedly led by Bothwell himself, were let into the house by a servant through the orchard gate, and made quick work of the royal guard. Reaching Manuel’s bedchamber, they stormed inside and emerged with his severed head, leaving the decapitated corpse to stain the bed sheets red.
The next morning the head was placed on a spike in the centre of Edinburgh, a large crowd gathering to look. The magistrate quickly had it removed and interred but the damage had been done. On the same day at Perth James Hamilton declared himself the rightful Protector of King James VI, still at his palace near Edinburgh untouched and unharmed, and that he would drive all the forces of England and the Reformation from Scottish soil. He was accompanied by the Lions, and quickly joined by many Gentry from the north of Scotland. Meanwhile the Lords of Congregation hurried to shore up their own support. Many of the merchants and townsfolk south of Stirling supported them as the representatives of progress and prosperity (even if this meant being shackled to England) but large number of the rural peasantry were apathetic or against them, not to mention the majority of the population north of Stirling.
To make matters worse, Scotland had once again become the battleground of Anglo-French rivalry; the Duke of Guise arrived in Dundee in early April with his 7,000 men and a further number of Scottish exiles from France. In England, the response to the murder of the King’s brother was confused by the Palatinate War. Richard IV was in Calais with his cousin the Duke of York whilst their sons and a large number of English soldiers ‘volunteered’ on the Protestant side of the conflict. This left the aging Lord Protector Arthur Tudor, Earl of Richmond to issue his own response. Being short on manpower the York and Chester companies were sent from the north under the command of the Earl of Warwick and Henry, Lord Flint, Tudor’s grandson now aged 24. Together they managed only around 3,000 men. Tudor issued a warrant for the arrest of those responsible for Manuel’s murder, backed by the Star Chamber, which Richard IV co-signed from Calais.
It was midsummer before the English army arrived in Edinburgh, and this gave the Lions time to prepare. James Hamilton, Earl of Arran, was a clever and resourceful man. He knew that the fickle lowland Scots and merchants would stick with the status quo unless there was a huge shift in the balance of power. This meant that Arran had to strike a blow against the Congregation Lords and their English backers.
Firstly Arran dispatched agents via Ireland to New Lothian in Norland where they could foment rebellion against the English there. Secondly the Lions seized all shipping in ports north of Leith and used them to raise much needed funds, and secure the support of some marginal nobles. Unfortunately this also had the impact of driving most of the burghers and merchants into Congregation arms at the theft of their property. All bank branches in Scotland (mostly Edinburgh) immediately refused all credit to the Lions and loaned generously to their opponents. Finally Arran planned a bold move to take the initiative.
Before the bulk of the English forces arrived in Edinburgh, Arran chose to raid the city in the hopes that the people would support the Lions’ actions and join them. Arran also hoped to take custody of James VI, by now moved to Edinburgh Castle under the protection of the Earl of Glencairn. The Futile March, as it has become known, actually began by sea. Arran, Angus, Cardinal Beaton and the Duke of Guise used the captured ships to transfer around 5,000 men, around half of which was French, into the port of Leith on the evening of the 29th of May. The army sent ahead of them heralds claiming to be coming in peace to pay fealty to King James VI.
The Lords of Congregation were caught flat-footed. The English had only been able to send an advance party of 200 mounted soldiers led by Ambrose Dudley, Lord Tyne. Glencairn himself had another 300 soldiers including the city watch, but Argyll and the bulk of the Congregation forces were touring the lowlands to rally support. Most worryingly, William Craik the Lord Provost of Edinburgh refused to close the gates to the oncoming force, claiming that he believed their intentions were genuine, he then declared for the Lions himself.
Therefore Edinburgh was open to Arran and his men entered the city unopposed on the morning of the 30th of May. Glencairn and Lord Tyne took refuge in the Castle and barred the gates. Arran’s army was warmly welcomed by the peasantry and lower orders of the city and surrounding countryside who saw them as liberators, but crucially the wealthier townsfolk, especially the City council and guilds, were lukewarm in their reception at best. Arran’s earlier seizure of all shipping had won him no friends.
This left the Lions in a quandary. They had taken Edinburgh, but not the castle or the King, and only a costly and dangerous siege would achieve their goals. They had not won the popular support they had hoped for; the lower orders were well behind them, but they lacked acclaim where it mattered. Instead a curious stand-off developed where Arran and his associates went to the castle gates every day to petition the three-year old King directly for entry, and were of course politely rebuffed by Earl Glencairn who ordered the army to put down their weapons and leave the city. This continued for close to a weak until the 6th of June when conditions worsened for the Lions’ army. Tension between the soldiers and townsfolk, which had been building for a week, finally boiled over around Haymarket into an orgy of looting and burning which levelled much of this area of the city. Only the Duke of Guise’s timely intervention with a detachment of his own men against those of Angus and Fife stemmed the bloodshed.
In the days that followed, agents of the Alderman bank branch in Edinburgh, working with the Guildhall and the Corporation of the city, escaped to Leith and bribed the captains of the ships to sail for Newcastle. By the 9th of June, there were no ships left in the port and Arran was trapped. Simultaneously word reached the city that Argyll was on the way with 10,000 men. Left with no other choice, the Lions quit Edinburgh on the 10th of June marching west. They took with them very meagre spoils as Arran had forbidden any further looting and the Royal mint inside the Castle had been untouched. Very few new supporters left with them. Only a small number of townsfolk, led by William Craik, and a few other vagabonds and rogues trailed behind the army.
With their ships gone, and the Forth now patrolled by an English squadron at any rate, Arran and his men had to march the 20 miles to Stirling where they had to skirt around the loyal town and its castle garrison. This left them vulnerable to attack and on the 12th of June a Congregation force hit them in the rear at Raploch as the vanguard crossed Stirling Bridge. Raploch was a narrow meadow between the castle crag and a stretch of marshland, ideal for a skirmish of movement and light cavalry. Unfortunately Lords Pitarro and Tyne, leader of the Anglo-Scottish force of 500, were eager to crush the rebels as quickly as possible and so brought up their battery of four demi-cannon in order to strike the bridge crossing. These got stuck in boggy ground and were counter-attacked by the Duke of Guise whilst they were trying to be dug out. The Battle of Raploch ended with Pitarro dead and Tyne captured, some 300 of their men dead or captured and the rest put to flight, Guise only lost around 50 men.
Once over the forth Arran and his army were safe, but Raploch was poor consolation for their failed attempt to land a killing blow. In fact they had demonstrated the lack of support they had from the people of Edinburgh and the wealthy of the city, others would now be slow to join them. The Lions’ had expanded little in manpower, but what ships they had were gone, and crucially their sense of momentum too. Byb the end of June Warwick and Lord Flint had arrived in Edinburgh with their 3,000 men which they used to strengthen defenses at Stirling. The only real success for the Lions’ cause in 1551 was in New Lothian where the Scots population declared their independence, brutally executed the Seneschal of the island, set his family adrift, and managed their own affairs for at least a year.
The winter of 1551 was not as bleak for Arran and his supporters as the stories might suggest. Robert Burns depicted them as the twilight of Scottish nobility and independence, huddled together for warmth. The reality is that north of the Forth life was rather comfortable; Catholic priests and Bishops were re-established and the four Lion Lords of the Regency Council governed in the King’s stead. Only in hindsight were they living on borrowed time.
With the end of the Palatinate War, a much larger force became available to Richard IV, who marched north in spring 1552 with 10,000 men behind him including his son Edward, the Prince of Wales, the Earl of Lincoln, Duke of Gloucester and Martin Grey, Lord Bath, commander of the Veteran London Company. Alongside Warwick and Flint’s men and those of the Lords of Congregation, this gave the English 20,000 men a distinct 2:1 advantage over Arran.
The Anglo-Scottish army of 1552 was also one of the most cutting edge the world had ever seen. Gloucester’s military reforms in 1548 had led to the London, York and Chester Companies being the most organised, well-drilled and well-equipped force in English History. Between them they could account for 4,000 professional infantry, 1,000 heavy cavalry and a further 1,000 light cavalry equipped with sabres and Schragbus, an armoured core around which the Lords retinues and yeoman could assemble. Gloucester’s mobile demi-cannon were also in attendance but were well accompanied and protected after the disaster at Raploch. Finally, the English handgunners were armed with the new flintlock handguns which Gloucester had also developed. These could fire and reload faster and were a lot more resilient than matchlocks, they would come in extremely handy during the ensuing conflict
Against this Arran could not hope to fight a conventional war. He had Guise’s crack soldiers which had already shown their worth at Edinburgh and Raploch, but the majority of his force was incredibly haphazard and included many untrained peasants. Their real advantage was in the terrain and their knowledge of it, allowing them to spring ambushes where and when they could.
April 1552 saw Richard IV leading the advance himself, as the combined army of 20,000 men crossed Stirling Bridge in search of Arran. Officially Arran was portrayed as the murderer of Earl Manuel, the King’s father, destroyed of property, and would-be tyrant over James VI, and Richard's actions were merely intended to bring him to justice. Of course things were more complicated than this, and Arran’s ‘crimes’ were a convenient casus belli and excuse for Richard IV taking control of Scotland.
By May Richard’s army had reached the outskirts of Perth where Arran and the other Lions had holed up along with the Duke of Guise. Arran had slowed the English march using hit and run ambushes which had given him time to prepare Perth for a siege and arrange further partisans, but the losses caused by the new English weaponry were much higher than was expected or could be tolerated. In the face of this challenge, it is thought that Arran hoped that a siege, and constant attacks would weaken Richard’s army enough to sally out and attack.
For months the 20,000 strong army camped outside the walls of Perth, slowly bringing down the walls with cannon fire. Such was the external threat that Richard IV ordered a second siege line be built facing outwards. This double duty for months on end took its toll on the besiegers, although their resupply from the Tay River kept them alive.Eventually by October disease had run rampant throughout the besieged town, and the English resolve had not faltered. Richard only resisted storming the walls for the sake of his men and innocent civilians.
Again Arran was forced to order the retreat. Under cover of darkness his army slipped across the Tay in boats leaving their heavy baggage and cannon behind, all the horses had long since been eaten. This left the army free but on the far bank of the Tay without swift means of transport, leaving them at the mercy of Lord Flint and his blocking force of the Chester Company. Of the 10,000 men under Arran’s command before the Futile March, only around 4,000 were left by autumn 1552, the rest caught or killed in the retreat from Perth.
Arran himself, along with Bothwell, fled for Kirkwall, but the rest of the Lions either surrendered or went to ground. Guise was captured trying to defend the retreat at Perth, and after causing a diplomatic incident with France was ransomed back three years later. Cardinal Beaton died at Dalwhinnie in the Highlands in November 1552, some said of a broken heart.
The Lions were broken, but their teeth had not been completely pulled. Only Arran and Bothwell remained, holed up in the latter’s Orkney stronghold. A naval raid led by William Hawkins and his son John in 1553 failed to kill or capture either fugitive, but they did destroy a number of ships and stocks in Kirkwall harbour In the end Arran died of a fever later that summer and Bothwell escaped to the continent where he died in obscurity in eastern Poland, fighting as a mercenary, in 1558.
In February 1553 a Great Council was held at Heddington, site of Manuel’s murder. In attendance were Richard IV, his cousin York, Warwick, Chief Justice Cromwell and Archbishop Cranmer. For Scotland Argyll led the pack, but almost every other major Lord was present. Richard IV presented his claim to authority over Scotland using the ancient rights established by Edward I, and enforced by the will of the late Queen Anne which surfaced during the sovereignty crisis in 1552. This will, which is almost certainly fake, claimed that Anne sought a strong Scotland to protect her son, with English help if needs be.
The upshot of this Council was threefold: Alexander Gordon was appointed Archbishop of St Andrews by Cranmer, securing a Reformist bent in Scotland for the foreseeable future, and formalising the unspoken assumption that the Archbishop of Cranmer was the senior primate in the Anglican Communion. Second, Archibald Campbell, Earl of Argyll was appointed as Lord Protector of Scotland. This position was almost identical in authority and responsibility as the English equivalent and so it began the long tradition of this position in Scottish politics. Finally the infant James VI was married to the Queen’s Granddaughter Anna, first child of Prince Edward of Wales and his wife Barbara of Hesse. It was hope that this match would one day unite the English and Scottish monarchs, although in hindsight it was too close a match to be sensible.
With two years of the Battle of Perth, Scotland was at peace. Hamilton’s Last Stand had been heroic but ultimately futile, even the New Lothian Rebellion had fizzled to nothing. Instead it had allowed the English to identify any hostile threats towards them and eliminate them. Many of the common soldiers or partisans had escaped direct justice but they were unable to organise themselves alone and so there was little chance of another rebellion against Argyle’s Protectorship.
By 1554 Scotland had become integrated into the English economic system, and picked up a lot of English culture and Political systems including Seneschals and named companies (just Edinburgh and Ayr companies to begin with). Further, with the defeat of the New Lothian colonists, Scotland was once again restricted from new world access, but gained educationally and economically from English grammar school and an involvement in the New World Trade through the Norland Trading Company. In the short term this would be enough to win moral support until John Knox arrived on the scene.
1548-1554 Part 2
Richard IV, L Worsley (2017)
The wake of the Cromwell reforms saw some much needed consolidation in the English political system. Whilst the relationship between the English Crown and her various possessions across the seas had been defined more clearly, England itself still required attention. The Saxon Civil War, Ware Rebellion, Geraldine Rebellion and the ongoing unrest in Scotland and the North showed that England needed to continue her military development.
The English army, such as it was in 1548, was already one of the foremost in Europe. The Nine Years War had turned the hodge-podge of retinues and yeoman archers into an organised and professional force. The ten named companies (London, Calais, Piacenza, Norwich, Coventry, Ludlow, Bristol, Chester, York and Winchester) formed the spine of the fighting force. Before 1548 these companies varied wildly - the York company was a veritable standing force of around 2000 professional soldiers and had their own cannon, in the service of the Council of the North. The Piacenza Company was a mercenary company of adventurers from across Protestant Europe under the merely nominal control of the English Crown. In contrast the Coventry Company only numbered 400 selected members of the midlands elite and a few of their retinue; it was more a status symbol than a military unit. These companies needed standardising, and it was the Earl of Gloucester who rose to the challenge.
Richard of Hutton, Earl of Gloucester and Pembroke, Master of Arms and Horse, Grandson of the venerable Richard of Gloucester (OTL Richard III) had been a veteran soldier all of his life, warfare was in his blood, and so it is unsurprising that Richard IV was the third monarch to entrust him with strengthening the English Army. Between 1548 and 1551 Gloucester introduced a raft of legislation to first the King’s Privy Council, now becoming the foremost government structure in England, and thence to Parliament where they were easily assented to.
The Military Companies Act of 1548 added four new companies (Lincoln, Nottingham, Exeter and Stafford) to their number but crucially also standardised their makeup and armament. Each Company was to maintain arms for 2000 infantry and 1000 cavalry, whilst maintaining half that number of personnel in times of peace. Each Company were also to maintain at least 6 field cannon which could be utilised for sieges, and 12 demi-cannon which had been used to great effect at the Battle of Appleby and could be moved and fired very quickly on an open field. Gloucester also acknowledged that certain areas could support more than one company, and by 1549 Bristol, York and Calais had formed one extra company each and London two more to bring the total to 19 companies. These became the St Leger, Micklegate, Marck, Aldgate and Barbican Companies.
These Companies were to be funded and organised by the local gentry in each area, with a commander being appointed by the Lord Protector with Gloucester’s advice and the King’s assent. In times of war this commander would be responsible for mobilising and equipping their full force using Royal taxes collected centrally and distributed by the Lord Protector’s officials.
This Act alone transformed the English Army into a modern fighting force. Increasingly the Companies were made up of professional soldiers paid by the rates of local gentry. Military service was still seen as a signifier of class, but the professionalism required deterred many from taking up these responsibilities and so many paid ‘company dues’ instead to allow a professional to take their place. This professionalism and standardisation meant that the King of England could call on 57,000 fully armed soldiers and artillery in times of war, and could supplement this number further with noble retinues and common folk if needed.
The 1550 Retainers Act also regulated military forces. With a shortage of professional soldiers for the named Companies, many still retained by Lords, Gloucester placed limits on the number of soldiers each Lord could retain to force them to release men into the organised companies. The Ware and Geraldine Rebellions had also shown the dangers of allowing Lords to retain their own forces and these were also curtailed by the Act. Firstly anyone wishing to retain a military force required a commission of attainder (the named Companies had these issued in perpetuity), which were limited in size often dependant on social rank or official position. For example Gloucester himself could retain up to 4,000 men at arms and 2,000 cavalry whilst Gregory Cromwell, Lord Lavenham, was permitted 500 men at arms and 100 cavalry by his status and could retain a further 200 cavalry in his position of Seneschal of Suffolk.
Concurrent with these acts, Richard of Hutton also penned his own treatise which was published in 1551 in Fleet Street and formed the foundations of further legislation. ‘The Book of Arms’ followed in the steps of the Black Book and White Book as a textbook on courtly duties and customs released by a scion of the York dynasty, but this one was specifically aimed at warfare. The Book of Arms codified much of the earlier Companies and Retainers Acts but also included notes on modern strategy in which the Nine Years War figured heavily as did the logistics of campaign. Like many Yorkist thinkers before him, Hutton was as concerned with the amount of victuals an infantryman required each day of a march as he was with the more flashy details of military strategy. The fine details were not overlooked.
Most importantly, the Book of Arms further standardised the English military, especially its equipment. Events of the Palatinate War had shown the value in standardised equipment wherever possible, and Gloucester began with cannon. The aforementioned Demi-Cannon were now set at a 12lb ball and bags of ‘grape shot’ whilst the larger siege guns were rated at 32lb. Cavalry was split between heavy and light with the former being equipped in full plate and armed with lance and hand weapons whilst the latter were to be equipped with Schragbus, sabres and lances.
Most ingenious were Gloucester’s infantry tactics. Working on the winning strategy from the Nine Years’ War, infantry were to work in concert with pikes, halberds and arquebus making up a single formation. Units were standardised at 500 men on the battlefield with half being pikes, and a quarter each armed with polearms and handguns. The idea was that the Pikes would offer a stable defence whilst the gunners fired and reloaded whilst the polearm-equipped soldiers carved apart any enemy formations. This ‘Hutton Square’ became a standard English formation for over a century and was widely copied across Europe. Of course Gloucester also standardised this equipment, particularly polearms and firearms where he benefitted from recent innovation.
Sir William Packet was an Engineer, chemist and mathematician, born in Cheapside around 1498. He was apprenticed as a clerk to the Alderman bank aged just 12, where his aptitude for mathematics was quickly discovered and he was granted a scholarship to Mortimer College, Cambridge. From there he returned to London and benefitted from the patronage of the Bank, the Grand Colombia Company and eventually the Earl of Gloucester himself. Packet also joined the Royal Society shortly after it was established in 1544 and it was here, collaborating with Reginald Pike, and Dutch Engineer Caspar Myria, that he discovered numerous breakthroughs in the art of gunpowder. Packet discovered a way to make gunpowder more efficient and so reduce the amount required per shot, but his greatest invention was the Snelbus. Whereas the Arquebus was a strong but inefficient weapon, and the Schragbus a ferocious but short-range gun, the Snelbus specialised in swift and accurate fire, and in the hands of an expert could fire 3 shots for every 2 of an Arquebus. The Snelbus benefitted from a new flintlock firing system, much more efficient and reliable than the old matchlock resulting in a much shorter loading time. The Snelbus would become the standard infantry firearm across Europe for decades to come, and Hutton dedicated an entire chapter to its use and application in the Book of Arms.
Taken individually, each of these reforms and innovations would have had a demonstrable impact upon the English army, but together Gloucester made it the most efficient and professional fighting force that the world had seen to that point. Many of these innovations were exported to England’s allies across Europe, where they had a fleeting impact on the waning engagements of the Palatinate War. Furthermore Lady Margaret, Henry Tudor and Duke Edward all implemented these new weapons and tactics in Ireland, Colombia and Brittany respectively. In Colombia Tudor created the Hampton (rather than New London), Goughton, Avon, Albion and Hartsport Companies (OTL Jacksonville, Newport News, Boston, Hispaniola and Veracruz). In Ireland, the Leinster, Ulster and Munster Companies were created based in Dublin, Armagh and Cork and in Brittany the Rennes and Brest Companies were created.
Beyond the military, England also developed politically. Lord Richard Lees, keeper of the Privy Seal since 1538 had maneuvered the Privy Council into a prime governmental position. Originally existing as a bureaucratic and legal institution, the Privy Council gradually became the pseudo-cabinet of Royal governance in England. Lees enticed the Council into this position through his own dynamism and skills of organisation. With the offices of countless justices, seneschals, councils, not to mention the Lord Protector and High Marshall, someone needed to coordinate and consolidate all of these authorities and their information. Richard Lees became that man. Lees was another product of Yorkist prosperity, born in Maidstone, Kent in 1502, he attended one of the first Grammar Schools in England at Canterbury and from there went into Law before being picked up by Thomas Cromwell and then Richard IV himself.
By 1548 the Privy Council had become the nervous centre of English politics, the aging Lord Protector, Arthur Tudor, used it as his main council and Richard IV was able to delegate responsibilities to its members. Lees himself exacted very little political power directly but was merely the administrator keeping the wheels turning. Indeed it was his bureaucracy which kept the realm moving during the quadruple crises of inflation, the Palatinate War, Scottish Wars and New Lothian Rebellion.
With all of these new men rising to prominence and usefulness, it is unsurprising that 1553 saw a second Grammar School Act. Whereas the first act in 1546 had established multiple schools across every town in England (and some in Wales and Ireland) the second Act again codified and standardised much of the curriculum. Reading, Writing and Mathematics were crucial, as well as Theology. Classical languages and studies were still taught in many places, but were no longer required by Royal decree. Instead the 1553 Act made it clear that Grammar Schools were to train the next generation of lawyers, bureaucrats, accountants, merchants and priests. Given the fashionability of philanthropy, and the Reformation decline in religious patronage, the 1553 Act also allowed for the formal creation of scholarships in these Grammar Schools for the poor and needy. It became fashionable for wealthier gentry and bourgeois families to pay for the education of promising lower orders.
The discovery of what turned out to be a monstrous Silver deposit at Potcham (OTL Potosi) in 1545, did not immediately impact the English economy. Thomas Boleyn was still Chancellor of the Exchequer, and working closely with his ex-colleagues at the Alderman bank and the Royal Barrow Company was able to manage the trickle of Silver back to London. However Boleyn died in 1449 and a year later Reginald Pike’s scientific breakthrough inadvertently caused an economic crisis. Pike discovered how to use mercury to speed up the extraction of silver from ore which led to a veritable avalanche of the precious metal onto the European market. Sir John Baker, Boleyn’s protege and successor did not have the skills or contacts required to reign in imports. The result was a crippling inflation which almost sunk the trans-Atlantic trade.
Coming as it did during the Palatinate Crisis, this threatened to undermine England at the worst possible time. Buoyed by Cromwell and Lees’ support, Richard IV removed Baker from his position and replaced him with Thomas Boleyn Jnr, the new earl of Wiltshire. Having followed his father into the banking business, Wiltshire possessed the contacts and nous to bring the Silver trade under control. Furthermore, the new Chancellor also introduced the Royal Mint Act of 1553 which brought the Royal Mints firmly under the Chancellor’s control and gave them the authority to hold onto surplus shipments of silver into England in order to regulate inflation. This not only solved the crisis at hand but set the stage for future Royal financial institutions.
The inflation crisis however also lay bare the divisions between England’s possessions once again. With the inflation especially rampant in London and the south-east, given the proximity of silver imports, banks and traders moved to using other currencies with more reliable value, placing pressure on those in turn. The Breton Gwin was especially hard hit, and Brittany suffered inflation itself as a result. This, combined with their lack of spoils from the silver trade itself, led to much resentment, and again Richard IV had to directly intervene with help from his brother Edward Duke of Brittany. The solution they found was an imperfect one, but linked the Gwin and the Pound in value, standardising the value of both coins to be identical, and in exchange Brittany was to get an annual payment worth around 7 or 8% of all Silver imports from the New World.
The Breton currency settlement was itself short term, but it contributed to a long term and lasting change in the understanding of inter-regional relations in the mind of Sir Thomas Wyatt. Wyatt had already contributed to the Cromwell Reforms, and the Crown of Ireland Act, but the Breton disagreement of 1551 had shown him that mere legislation and reform of existing systems could not solve the intractable issues of multiple authorities jostling for prominence and primacy. His response was ‘The Rolling Spheres’, published in 1552. There was little immediate fanfare, and no connected legislation to Wyatt’s book, his ideas were too radical to be immediately adopted.
‘The Rolling Spheres’ was based on a simple cosmological principle; the world kept inexorably turning and no man could stop it. More than this, no man could control the currents that this movement produced. This image was a mere metaphor for political science. Wyatt postulated that societies and realms had their own momentum and movement, connected but autonomous of one another, and no one man, as part of those realms or societies could control them. The backdrop to this was of course the never-ceasing tension between the various parts of the Yorkist diaspora (especially Brittany) but also the seeming disintegration of the Holy Roman Empire in the wake of the Palatinate War. Emperor Maximillian II had become the victim of the rolling sphere of European politics and religion and had become tangled in their movements and ultimately crushed.
Few people took issue with Wyatt’s understanding of the world as a series of rolling spheres, nor his suggestion that these could not all be controlled by one man or government, there was ample evidence for that. Yet their issue came with Wyatt’s solution. He postulated that only a person or entity above and beyond these rolling spheres could hope to regulate their movements and prevent conflict. The Holy Roman Empire had disintegrated precisely because it relied on these spheres (electors) for its own being, and their discord had ripped the Empire, and Emperor, apart. Instead an authority above, and not dependent on, these spheres would be required. The easy analogy here, and the part which wrote off Wyatt’s theory for many, was God himself. He alone could control the world and its chaos, because he was not part of the world. To some Wyatt seemed to be suggesting that a temporal authority should take on the authority of God.
This blasphemous interpretation of the Rolling Spheres, got Wyatt into hot water that only his associates Thomas Cromwell (Chief Justice) and Hugh Latimer (Archbishop of Canterbury) could get him out of, but it also represented a miss-reading of his work. Wyatt was not advocating the replacement of God, but simply the creation of a new temporal authority which was distinct and separate from all other authorities be they Irish, Colombian, Breton, Norman, Welsh or English. In short Wyatt was recommending nothing short of an Emperor, but a new Emperor for a new age...
The Yorkist Religious Settlement 1527-1581 G Barnard (2013)
The 1540s after the 1543 Ordinance of Clergy were relatively quiet. Archbishop Cranmer wisely steered a conciliatory and consolidating course, implementing the ordinance and the Seven Acts rather than introducing any new legislation. The effect of this was a period of relative stability; south of the Trent much of the Church adopted the various reforms with enthusiasm and in the north, most were willing to abide by the spirit, if not the letter of the legislation. Given the catastrophe of the 1590s, there has been much debate over the nature of any Radical Catholic Remnants and how they escaped the winds of change, however it is possible to identify that many of these were wealthier gentry who could pursue their own religion in private, concealed priests and all. The vast majority of people in England by 1550 were happy with the religious settlement as it stood, and barring any outside manipulation, or other causes masked by religious agitation, there was little religious opposition at this time.
The great exception were the Puritan dissenters. Led by Bishops Ridley of Rochester and Hooper of Gloucester and Dean Edmund Grindal of Westminster, the Puritans kept pushing Archbishop Cranmer to make further reforms and completely purify the Church of England from any Papal influence including any kind of Church decoration or vestments. The situation came to a head in 1552 when Hugh Latimer was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury following the death of Cranmer. Latimer resisted the Puritan urges for further reform, and was appointed over Nicholas Ridley, their preferred candidate. In response Edmund Grindal led the Purification of Westminster in which all Churches west of London were entered by Puritans and had their decoration removed and windows smashed. Only after the organ at Westminster Abbey was set alight did the King himself send in the Royal Swiss Guard and bring the destruction to an end.
Something had to be done. Archbishop Latimer called a Council for Canterbury in 1552, inviting the Puritan leaders, and all English and Welsh Bishops. He also took the unusual step of inviting the Archbishops of Dublin, Armagh, Rouen, Lille, Rennes, Cornel, and New London, all primates of the Church in English control or connection. These additional Archbishops were merely observers, but this was significant as the first time all the Church of the future Britannic Empire were included in the same Council.
The Council was tense. The Puritan clergy and Bishops even showed disrespect to Latimer by refusing to stand when he entered proceedings. This only raised the ire of the Bishops of Rennes and Carlisle, the more pro Catholic Bishops present, even further. In the end the Council was able to reach a compromise on a number of issues; new plainer vestments were introduced which met the requirements of Puritans, but most helpful was the Canterbury declaration. This stated that Church decorations were to be limited to a cross or crucifix dependent on the incumbent's wishes, and little else. In reality this was open to interpretation, as was intended, and so the Puritans were satisfied whilst Catholic Churches could continue as before.
A year later, Matthew Parker and John Rogers (Bishops of Norwich and Oxford respectively) published ‘In Praise of our Lord’. Part prayer book and part theological primer, In Praise of our Lord was intended for general consumption, and was widely used in the burgeoning grammar schools in particular. The book charted a fine line between Catholic and Puritan demands but was slightly in favour of the Puritans. It continued the religious tradition of the age in being a compromise, but one gradually moving towards the Puritan position. It detailed prayers, Church services and 'personal holiness' and was seen as a textbook for the mid 16th-century Church-goer (that being everyone).
The Rolling Spheres: the Colombias of Richard IV R Boothroyd (1991)
The Silver discovery at Potcham (OTL Potosi) only intensified the need for labour in the New World. There was still a steady stream of migrants from Europe by 1548, which would increase with the Palatinate War, but these numbers were largely urban middling sorts or rural yeomen and their families, they were not willing to engage in back-breaking mining. Especially after Pike’s method for extracting silver from ore was perfected in 1550, the need for labour in Potcham only increased.
This led to a morbid milestone in the history of the New World, the institution of slavery. The Spanish had been using slaves in south Colombia for almost 50 years by this point, but thus far the English had resisted the urge, if for no other reason than they had plentiful labour with migration and the surviving indigenous population. The scale of Potcham however forced them to intensify the exploitation of manpower; first many of the local Incan tribes and their tributaries were enslaved, but this quickly became insufficient as disease ran rampant here as it had elsewhere in the New World. The Royal Barrow Company therefore happened on the idea of importing African Slaves. This began slowly but by 1555, and the intervention of Sir John Hawkins, there was a steady stream of slaves heading for Barrow and the Silver mines.
Slavery was not the only factor in making the 1550s a rather dark decade for the Colombias. New Lothian (OTL Newfoundland and Nova Scotia) had been discovered and named New Norfolk in the late 15th century, but only the town of St Barnabas (OTL St John’s) had been founded as a watering and fishing station. All of this changed in 1532 when Queen Margaret of Scotland was able to extract settlement rights from Edward V in exchange for a marriage alliance. Between 1532 and 1548, the area saw some 10,000 Scottish immigrants who renamed the region New Lothian. The land was perfect for fishing, raising livestock, and limited agriculture, and served to relieve some pressure in Scotland.
Queen Margaret had only secured settlement rights, not legal jurisdiction, and this resulted in the unfortunate situation of the largely Scottish population being governed by a small English minority. Lord Roger Morton, and around 500 English had settled around St Barnabas with Morton being made Seneschal of the island and the wider Lothian County by the Hampton reforms. This had not gone down well with the Scots who had wanted John, Lord Aubigny, a scion of the Stewart clan, to be made seneschal instead. However the situation could have remained peaceful were it not for the events in Scotland.
When Queen Anne died in 1548, leaving her newborn son James as King under the protection of his English father Manuel Plantagenet, it had a rather explosive impact in New Lothian. Divided from their homeland though they might be, the Scottish population of New Lothian nonetheless knew where their loyalties lay, and the feeling of subjugation under an English boot was one with which they could empathise. Though the initial crisis only lasted under a year, it allowed the Scots of New Lothian to prepare. Aubigny was elected their leader in secret, and he dispatched agents to the Earl of Arran in Scotland to establish contact.
Dissent in New Lothian was decidedly less religious than it was in mainland Scotland. The New World’s distance had always insulated it from the religious strife of the Old World and the people of the County practiced largely what they had always done; an unorthodox form of Catholicism. Even the small English contingent in St Barnabas were not exactly reformed, their lack of mixing with the Scots entirely cultural in nature and not religious. The divisions nonetheless existed. The English population of New Lothian was mostly wealthy and based in and around St Barnabas, most of them had some involvement in government and were educated, even those who took to sea, which was the main employment. The Scots in contrast were generally less wealthy and mostly fished or farmed, relying on English merchants to sell their goods. The Scots were also much more dispersed across New Lothian Island (OTL Newfoundland) in smaller settlements, relying on their own knowledge, and some friendly natives, for navigation. For example some Scottish settlements were only accessible by boat and stretched south-west as far as Cape Barnock (OTL Sydney, Nova Scotia) although the mainland itself had less than 500 people living there.
The simmering tension in New Lothian could only boil over upon the murder of Manuel and the beginning of ‘Hamilton’s Last Stand’. The Earl of Arran sent word of his rebellion to St Barnabas via Ireland which arrived in May 1551. The response was predictably brutal. Lord Aubigny was quick to gather an armed mob of over 1,000 Scots from around St Barnabas by September and they marched into the town, executed Roger Morton, put his family and priest in a small boat on the open sea, declared their independence and made Aubigny Prince of New Lothian. St Barnabas, as an English name, was renamed Port Stewart.
The New Lothian Rebellion was the biggest challenge to confront the New World since the early days of the Nine Years War, some suggest it was the biggest challenge since 1492. It laid bare the weaknesses of the Hampton Reforms and the structural problems of New World governance. With Morton and his associates eliminated, New Lothian was free from English authority. Henry Tudor, Viceroy of the Colombias, in New London did not hear of the events in New Lothian until Christmas, by which time the weather prevented a swift reaction. Even by spring 1552, Tudor’s options to respond were limited; he had only just implemented the Named Companies Act, and only the Hampton Company in New London could be said to have had anywhere near a fighting force. Furthermore, Tudor’s authority as Viceroy did not extend far enough to allow him to muster additional forces without Royal consent, something which would be at least another nine months or so away. Tudor could not wait that long, he had received news of Manuel’s murder and the war in Scotland, and knew that any rebellion in New Lothian would only prolong the disorder.
Tudor’s salvation was the Norland Trading Company and the Potcham mines. As Viceroy Tudor knew their local agents well, and he had access to the silver reserves of Potcham, what with many of the treasure ships transiting through New London. He therefore had the ships and the wealth to counteract the New Lothian Rebellion, but he still lacked manpower. Henry Tudor went on his last voyage in March 1552 with 2,000 soldiers (the total of the embryonic Hampton Company) and some 30 ships of the White Fleet and NTC sailing for New York (OTL New York, but centred on OTL Hell’s Kitchen).
By April the fleet entered New York harbour to much consternation. New Canaan defied definition at this point in its existence but today we would call it a Conciliar Republic; a council of nine elders (three Jewish, three Hussite and three Anglican) led the nation, but in reality space and resources were so abundant that their was little conflict, nor was there a need for any kind of foreign policy or military. Only the justice system was in any way developed. New Canaan was of course linked to the outside world, and had cordial relations with Norland and England in general, but a fleet the size of Tudor’s in 1552 was an unforeseen sight. The huge mass of his flagship the Mary Rose (the second ship of that name having been built in Gosport in 1546) was unprecedented.
Yet Tudor had not come to pillage, he had come for supplies and manpower. The Davidowicz Bank was only too pleased to extend Tudor enough credit, secured on Potcham reserves, to fund and equip a mercenary army. This was the beginning of centuries of prosperity for the Bank. Tudor had fought in the Nine Years’ War with many Hussite soldiers. His irregular cavalry squadrons armed with Schragbus had turned the tide of more than one battle, and he still had friends and veterans in New Canaan whom he could call on. Within a month Tudor had doubled his army with 2,000 Canaanites led by Joseph Gross, a veteran of Euskirchen and one of his long-time friends. The stop in New Canaan may have strengthened Tudor’s arm but it meant that it was June 1552, almost a year since the New Lothian Rebellion began, before his fleet anchored off Port Stewart.
John Stewart, Lord Aubginy, had not been idle in the past year, like the Earl of Arran he had seized all shipping which had come into St Barnabas/Port Stewart as property of New Lothian. With these resources he had purchased arms and armour through bewildered merchants in La Rochelle and Lisbon, and also acquired a company of 500 French Handgunners. At home he had consolidated all fighting men around Port Stewart as the only major settlement, and had sent lookouts to the south, anticipating a response from New London. So it was that he got word in May that Tudor was in New York gathering supplies.
On the night of the 17th of June 1552, Tudor’s invasion of New Lothian began in force. Of the 31 ships of the English-Colombian fleet, 9 were out and out warships, with another 7 equipped with cannon. These 16 ships steered in close to Port Stewart and reduced all shipping at anchor to splinters, then turned their guns on the town. In Scottish folklore the ‘Rape of Port Stewart’ was an evil act against a civilian settlement without warning or just cause, it is largely unknown in English circles. Estimates and impartial reports are hard to come by but Port Stewart was largely destroyed by this bombardment, almost a year of pent-up English rage and justice expended on the only major town in New Lothian. Thankfully the town was largely empty, but Lord Aubigny could not have thought that Tudor would do this, for his wife and two youngest children died in the attack.
Aubigny and his army of now 4,500 men were camped a mile out of town and were brought running by the sound and smoke, allowing Tudor to land his 4000 men for the summer campaign at Maddox Cove six miles south of Port Stewart. The Coastline of New Lothian was notoriously difficult, and Port Stewart was remarkable as the only safe harbour for miles. Tudor had therefore been forced into the less than optimum landing at Maddox by the situation, but it still took the best part of a day to land his forces under constant pressure from the rebels, with the loss of around 200 men to the enemy or the waves. By the end of the 18th of June, with Port Stewart a smouldering ruin, Tudor had established an earthwork fort above the cove he serendipitously named Fort Longshanks.
The Summer was to be a long and difficult one for both sides. The terrain of New Lothian was flat and boggy further inland, punctuated by coniferous forest, which made large-scale movement of armies difficult. Furthermore, Tudor had burnt the main settlement, there was nothing specific for the Scots to defend, and so the campaign was fluid and arduous as Tudor tried to hunt down the Scots and eliminate them. Both sides were kept well supplied by their fleets and local fish and farms throughout the summer, but winter would be difficult. Tudor knew this and so he sought to eliminate the rebels before then. The makeup of the opposing forces did not help him either.
Given the nature of Norland coastal travel, neither side had many horses. Aubigny had around 10 which he used for scouting and communication, and Tudor had a maximum of 100 which he gave to Gross and his men to act as scouts and raiders. These Hussites/Canaanites were armed with Schragbus, some of which had been used in the Nine Years’ War, and could negotiate the difficult terrain. Beyond that Tudor’s dozen cannon which he had hauled ashore were useless across the boggy terrain and without any walls to shoot at - they remained laid up at Fort Longshanks for the duration. This meant that the New Lothian campaign would be an infantry affair. The Hampton and Canaanite contingents were well armed with plate, sword and Arquebus, but the terrain precluded the use of larger pike or pole-arm formations. In contrast Lord Aubigny had his 500 Arquebusiers from France, augmented with a further 200 of his own, but the bulk of his force was made up of infantry armed with a myriad of short spears, swords, axes, crossbows, and short bows and armed with half-plate bought from Europe. The Scots had been well-drilled by Aubigny, but were all inexperienced. Their only hope was their local knowledge and the fact that they were defending their own ground. Finally the Scots were aided by around 200 Inuit armed with bows who knew the terrain best and were being paid in furs taken from one of the impounded ships.
Tudor spent the majority of the summer trying to hunt down and destroy the rebels. A battle at Kilbride at the end of June showed the fate of things to come. Kilbride is still today a series of low lakes which protect Fort Longshanks from the rest of the island to the west. On the 30th of June an English army of around 3000 men was making a futile attempt to haul cannon around the Greater Loch Kilbride (OTL Long Pond, Newfoundland) when they were attacked from high ground further west by bow and gunfire. Tudor sent Gross and his cavalry to chase the rebels off, but they were led into a narrow gully where Aubigny had concealed his French Arquebusiers. Gross was killed alongside half of his force although they took over 100 French with them using the Schragbus. Eventually a massed infantry charge forced the Scots away but Tudor made the decision to retreat to Longshanks with the cannon where they would remain.
Changing tack, July saw the English enter Port Stewart and fortify a handful of the remaining buildings. Aubigny had abandoned the town after the bombardment, but Tudor needed a morale boost for his forces. A week later a fast ship from London arrived with letters from Richard IV sanctioning the Viceroy’s actions, but offering little other help as the war in Scotland was still ongoing and the Palatinate War had only just ended. With the harbour secured Tudor now had much easier access to the rest of the island, albeit with less cavalry to make use of this.
The start of August meant at most six more weeks left of campaign before the north Atlantic winter arrived. Tudor threw everything he had at the rebels at Mount Pearl, a few miles south west of Port Stewart. The Battle of Mount Pearl occurred on the 12th of August 1552 in two parts. The Mount itself is in fact a ridgeline north of the main road out of Port Stewart, and half of the battle occurred upon this ridge. The other half took place in the valley below upon the road itself separated by 300 metres of impassable slope and bog. Lord Aubigny had discovered Tudor’s intention for a forced march across the island to draw him out, and had been able to pre-emptively block the road unexpectedly close to Port Stewart, so close that Tudor had not even deployed his scouts.
Aubigny had used the short nights that far north to get into position before the early dawn, and so as the English reached the valley of Mount Pearl they were confronted by Aubigny’s force of 2000 rebels augmented with the 400 French drawn up in a line across the road. Concealed on the ridge were a further 1500 rebels armed with crossbows who could put flanking fire into the English below. Aubigny had planned his strategy well: to stop, trap and kill the English army, to weaken them enough to force them to leave New Lothian, but he had not reckoned on the tenacity and leadership of Henry Tudor.
The Viceroy of the Colombias had been a soldier all of his life; he had bested two Emperors - Moctezuma and Charles V - and brought both their Empires low, he had fought in the jungles of central Colombia and the windswept fields of Picardy and Flanders, in what would prove to be his final battle at Mount Pearl, he put all of that experience to use. Without his trademark cavalry - and only some 3500 infantry unsupported by artillery - there was little Tudor could do but order a general charge. However it seems he did notice the Scots upon the ridge itself and sent Martin Berners, 400 soldiers, and the remaining Hussite cavalry to deal with them. The battle in the valley below Mount Pearl would decide the outcome of the New Lothian Rebellion. The French handguns were able to get two clear shots away across open ground before the English charge faltered home, Tudor received a glancing blow to his helmet in the process.
Once battle was joined, however, the French handguns were next to useless, and the soldiers wielding them backed away from the bloody melee. This left Aubigny and his 2000 rebels armed with swords and spears to hack into Tudor’s army. By all accounts the following battle was bloody if brief. Berners succeeded in distracting the Scots on the ridge long enough for Tudor’s forces to get the upper hand below. After a few hours of desperate hand to hand combat, which saw the Scots drag the French handgunners into battle wielding their guns as clubs, Aubigny was finally felled by one of Tudor’s own retinue. The result was that the rebels - fractured without their commander - began to quit the field in small groups, with the hopes of sneaking home to their families. On the ridge, his purpose fulfilled, Berners pulled back to the valley and added his numbers to Tudors main force, ramming home their advantage,
The battle of Mount Pearl was not pretty, and nor was it entirely decisive, around half of the rebels were able to escape with Tudor and Berners unable to give chase. Not only were the English themselves badly bloodied, but Tudor collapsed at the end of the battle and had to be taken back to the port unconscious. Over the next few weeks Berners took out raids to wear down the remaining rebels who ambushed him where they could. By October all active rebellion had died away, and Berners only encountered passive Scots or a handful of belligerent Inuit on his sorties. The New Lothian Rebellion died quietly in a whimper over winter 1552-1553 as did the man who vanquished it.
More than a month after the battle of Mount Pearl, Henry Tudor, Lord Hampton, Earl of Colombia and Viceroy died in his sleep aboard the Mary Rose as it lay at anchor in Port Stewart - renamed and rebuilt Port Tudor later in his honour. He had never recovered from his wounds suffered in battle and at the age of 61 his body finally gave out.
The second son of Henry Tudor and Elizabeth of York, in another world Henry Tudor, Lord Hampton, may have been confined to England, but with the survival of his brother Arthur, who outlived him by a few years, and the New World opening before him, the way to his fortune was clear. It is hard to overestimate the impact of Henry Tudor on today’s world; the Norland Commonwealth certainly owes much of its modern make-up and institutions to his hard work, but its capital of Hampton most clearly shows his mark.
New London (OTL Jacksonville) was not founded by Tudor, but he made it his home after the destruction of Cornel (OTL Santo Domingo) by the Great Raid during the Nine Years’ War. Renamed Hampton in 1554 in Tudor’s honour by the new Viceroy William Raleigh, Lord Goughton, the city stands to this day as a testament to the wealth of the New World and the ingenuity and resilience of the Old. No one man typified that ingenuity and resilience more than Henry Tudor; inventor and perfecter of the Schragbus, conqueror of the Aztecs, explorer, merchant, trader, general, politician and statesman, he was a man who truly influenced the modern world. Survived by his adoring wife of over 30 years Anne Boleyn, a son Edward and three daughters, Tudor's legacy was secure.
The wake of the Cromwell reforms saw some much needed consolidation in the English political system. Whilst the relationship between the English Crown and her various possessions across the seas had been defined more clearly, England itself still required attention. The Saxon Civil War, Ware Rebellion, Geraldine Rebellion and the ongoing unrest in Scotland and the North showed that England needed to continue her military development.
The English army, such as it was in 1548, was already one of the foremost in Europe. The Nine Years War had turned the hodge-podge of retinues and yeoman archers into an organised and professional force. The ten named companies (London, Calais, Piacenza, Norwich, Coventry, Ludlow, Bristol, Chester, York and Winchester) formed the spine of the fighting force. Before 1548 these companies varied wildly - the York company was a veritable standing force of around 2000 professional soldiers and had their own cannon, in the service of the Council of the North. The Piacenza Company was a mercenary company of adventurers from across Protestant Europe under the merely nominal control of the English Crown. In contrast the Coventry Company only numbered 400 selected members of the midlands elite and a few of their retinue; it was more a status symbol than a military unit. These companies needed standardising, and it was the Earl of Gloucester who rose to the challenge.
Richard of Hutton, Earl of Gloucester and Pembroke, Master of Arms and Horse, Grandson of the venerable Richard of Gloucester (OTL Richard III) had been a veteran soldier all of his life, warfare was in his blood, and so it is unsurprising that Richard IV was the third monarch to entrust him with strengthening the English Army. Between 1548 and 1551 Gloucester introduced a raft of legislation to first the King’s Privy Council, now becoming the foremost government structure in England, and thence to Parliament where they were easily assented to.
The Military Companies Act of 1548 added four new companies (Lincoln, Nottingham, Exeter and Stafford) to their number but crucially also standardised their makeup and armament. Each Company was to maintain arms for 2000 infantry and 1000 cavalry, whilst maintaining half that number of personnel in times of peace. Each Company were also to maintain at least 6 field cannon which could be utilised for sieges, and 12 demi-cannon which had been used to great effect at the Battle of Appleby and could be moved and fired very quickly on an open field. Gloucester also acknowledged that certain areas could support more than one company, and by 1549 Bristol, York and Calais had formed one extra company each and London two more to bring the total to 19 companies. These became the St Leger, Micklegate, Marck, Aldgate and Barbican Companies.
These Companies were to be funded and organised by the local gentry in each area, with a commander being appointed by the Lord Protector with Gloucester’s advice and the King’s assent. In times of war this commander would be responsible for mobilising and equipping their full force using Royal taxes collected centrally and distributed by the Lord Protector’s officials.
This Act alone transformed the English Army into a modern fighting force. Increasingly the Companies were made up of professional soldiers paid by the rates of local gentry. Military service was still seen as a signifier of class, but the professionalism required deterred many from taking up these responsibilities and so many paid ‘company dues’ instead to allow a professional to take their place. This professionalism and standardisation meant that the King of England could call on 57,000 fully armed soldiers and artillery in times of war, and could supplement this number further with noble retinues and common folk if needed.
The 1550 Retainers Act also regulated military forces. With a shortage of professional soldiers for the named Companies, many still retained by Lords, Gloucester placed limits on the number of soldiers each Lord could retain to force them to release men into the organised companies. The Ware and Geraldine Rebellions had also shown the dangers of allowing Lords to retain their own forces and these were also curtailed by the Act. Firstly anyone wishing to retain a military force required a commission of attainder (the named Companies had these issued in perpetuity), which were limited in size often dependant on social rank or official position. For example Gloucester himself could retain up to 4,000 men at arms and 2,000 cavalry whilst Gregory Cromwell, Lord Lavenham, was permitted 500 men at arms and 100 cavalry by his status and could retain a further 200 cavalry in his position of Seneschal of Suffolk.
Concurrent with these acts, Richard of Hutton also penned his own treatise which was published in 1551 in Fleet Street and formed the foundations of further legislation. ‘The Book of Arms’ followed in the steps of the Black Book and White Book as a textbook on courtly duties and customs released by a scion of the York dynasty, but this one was specifically aimed at warfare. The Book of Arms codified much of the earlier Companies and Retainers Acts but also included notes on modern strategy in which the Nine Years War figured heavily as did the logistics of campaign. Like many Yorkist thinkers before him, Hutton was as concerned with the amount of victuals an infantryman required each day of a march as he was with the more flashy details of military strategy. The fine details were not overlooked.
Most importantly, the Book of Arms further standardised the English military, especially its equipment. Events of the Palatinate War had shown the value in standardised equipment wherever possible, and Gloucester began with cannon. The aforementioned Demi-Cannon were now set at a 12lb ball and bags of ‘grape shot’ whilst the larger siege guns were rated at 32lb. Cavalry was split between heavy and light with the former being equipped in full plate and armed with lance and hand weapons whilst the latter were to be equipped with Schragbus, sabres and lances.
Most ingenious were Gloucester’s infantry tactics. Working on the winning strategy from the Nine Years’ War, infantry were to work in concert with pikes, halberds and arquebus making up a single formation. Units were standardised at 500 men on the battlefield with half being pikes, and a quarter each armed with polearms and handguns. The idea was that the Pikes would offer a stable defence whilst the gunners fired and reloaded whilst the polearm-equipped soldiers carved apart any enemy formations. This ‘Hutton Square’ became a standard English formation for over a century and was widely copied across Europe. Of course Gloucester also standardised this equipment, particularly polearms and firearms where he benefitted from recent innovation.
Sir William Packet was an Engineer, chemist and mathematician, born in Cheapside around 1498. He was apprenticed as a clerk to the Alderman bank aged just 12, where his aptitude for mathematics was quickly discovered and he was granted a scholarship to Mortimer College, Cambridge. From there he returned to London and benefitted from the patronage of the Bank, the Grand Colombia Company and eventually the Earl of Gloucester himself. Packet also joined the Royal Society shortly after it was established in 1544 and it was here, collaborating with Reginald Pike, and Dutch Engineer Caspar Myria, that he discovered numerous breakthroughs in the art of gunpowder. Packet discovered a way to make gunpowder more efficient and so reduce the amount required per shot, but his greatest invention was the Snelbus. Whereas the Arquebus was a strong but inefficient weapon, and the Schragbus a ferocious but short-range gun, the Snelbus specialised in swift and accurate fire, and in the hands of an expert could fire 3 shots for every 2 of an Arquebus. The Snelbus benefitted from a new flintlock firing system, much more efficient and reliable than the old matchlock resulting in a much shorter loading time. The Snelbus would become the standard infantry firearm across Europe for decades to come, and Hutton dedicated an entire chapter to its use and application in the Book of Arms.
Taken individually, each of these reforms and innovations would have had a demonstrable impact upon the English army, but together Gloucester made it the most efficient and professional fighting force that the world had seen to that point. Many of these innovations were exported to England’s allies across Europe, where they had a fleeting impact on the waning engagements of the Palatinate War. Furthermore Lady Margaret, Henry Tudor and Duke Edward all implemented these new weapons and tactics in Ireland, Colombia and Brittany respectively. In Colombia Tudor created the Hampton (rather than New London), Goughton, Avon, Albion and Hartsport Companies (OTL Jacksonville, Newport News, Boston, Hispaniola and Veracruz). In Ireland, the Leinster, Ulster and Munster Companies were created based in Dublin, Armagh and Cork and in Brittany the Rennes and Brest Companies were created.
Beyond the military, England also developed politically. Lord Richard Lees, keeper of the Privy Seal since 1538 had maneuvered the Privy Council into a prime governmental position. Originally existing as a bureaucratic and legal institution, the Privy Council gradually became the pseudo-cabinet of Royal governance in England. Lees enticed the Council into this position through his own dynamism and skills of organisation. With the offices of countless justices, seneschals, councils, not to mention the Lord Protector and High Marshall, someone needed to coordinate and consolidate all of these authorities and their information. Richard Lees became that man. Lees was another product of Yorkist prosperity, born in Maidstone, Kent in 1502, he attended one of the first Grammar Schools in England at Canterbury and from there went into Law before being picked up by Thomas Cromwell and then Richard IV himself.
By 1548 the Privy Council had become the nervous centre of English politics, the aging Lord Protector, Arthur Tudor, used it as his main council and Richard IV was able to delegate responsibilities to its members. Lees himself exacted very little political power directly but was merely the administrator keeping the wheels turning. Indeed it was his bureaucracy which kept the realm moving during the quadruple crises of inflation, the Palatinate War, Scottish Wars and New Lothian Rebellion.
With all of these new men rising to prominence and usefulness, it is unsurprising that 1553 saw a second Grammar School Act. Whereas the first act in 1546 had established multiple schools across every town in England (and some in Wales and Ireland) the second Act again codified and standardised much of the curriculum. Reading, Writing and Mathematics were crucial, as well as Theology. Classical languages and studies were still taught in many places, but were no longer required by Royal decree. Instead the 1553 Act made it clear that Grammar Schools were to train the next generation of lawyers, bureaucrats, accountants, merchants and priests. Given the fashionability of philanthropy, and the Reformation decline in religious patronage, the 1553 Act also allowed for the formal creation of scholarships in these Grammar Schools for the poor and needy. It became fashionable for wealthier gentry and bourgeois families to pay for the education of promising lower orders.
The discovery of what turned out to be a monstrous Silver deposit at Potcham (OTL Potosi) in 1545, did not immediately impact the English economy. Thomas Boleyn was still Chancellor of the Exchequer, and working closely with his ex-colleagues at the Alderman bank and the Royal Barrow Company was able to manage the trickle of Silver back to London. However Boleyn died in 1449 and a year later Reginald Pike’s scientific breakthrough inadvertently caused an economic crisis. Pike discovered how to use mercury to speed up the extraction of silver from ore which led to a veritable avalanche of the precious metal onto the European market. Sir John Baker, Boleyn’s protege and successor did not have the skills or contacts required to reign in imports. The result was a crippling inflation which almost sunk the trans-Atlantic trade.
Coming as it did during the Palatinate Crisis, this threatened to undermine England at the worst possible time. Buoyed by Cromwell and Lees’ support, Richard IV removed Baker from his position and replaced him with Thomas Boleyn Jnr, the new earl of Wiltshire. Having followed his father into the banking business, Wiltshire possessed the contacts and nous to bring the Silver trade under control. Furthermore, the new Chancellor also introduced the Royal Mint Act of 1553 which brought the Royal Mints firmly under the Chancellor’s control and gave them the authority to hold onto surplus shipments of silver into England in order to regulate inflation. This not only solved the crisis at hand but set the stage for future Royal financial institutions.
The inflation crisis however also lay bare the divisions between England’s possessions once again. With the inflation especially rampant in London and the south-east, given the proximity of silver imports, banks and traders moved to using other currencies with more reliable value, placing pressure on those in turn. The Breton Gwin was especially hard hit, and Brittany suffered inflation itself as a result. This, combined with their lack of spoils from the silver trade itself, led to much resentment, and again Richard IV had to directly intervene with help from his brother Edward Duke of Brittany. The solution they found was an imperfect one, but linked the Gwin and the Pound in value, standardising the value of both coins to be identical, and in exchange Brittany was to get an annual payment worth around 7 or 8% of all Silver imports from the New World.
The Breton currency settlement was itself short term, but it contributed to a long term and lasting change in the understanding of inter-regional relations in the mind of Sir Thomas Wyatt. Wyatt had already contributed to the Cromwell Reforms, and the Crown of Ireland Act, but the Breton disagreement of 1551 had shown him that mere legislation and reform of existing systems could not solve the intractable issues of multiple authorities jostling for prominence and primacy. His response was ‘The Rolling Spheres’, published in 1552. There was little immediate fanfare, and no connected legislation to Wyatt’s book, his ideas were too radical to be immediately adopted.
‘The Rolling Spheres’ was based on a simple cosmological principle; the world kept inexorably turning and no man could stop it. More than this, no man could control the currents that this movement produced. This image was a mere metaphor for political science. Wyatt postulated that societies and realms had their own momentum and movement, connected but autonomous of one another, and no one man, as part of those realms or societies could control them. The backdrop to this was of course the never-ceasing tension between the various parts of the Yorkist diaspora (especially Brittany) but also the seeming disintegration of the Holy Roman Empire in the wake of the Palatinate War. Emperor Maximillian II had become the victim of the rolling sphere of European politics and religion and had become tangled in their movements and ultimately crushed.
Few people took issue with Wyatt’s understanding of the world as a series of rolling spheres, nor his suggestion that these could not all be controlled by one man or government, there was ample evidence for that. Yet their issue came with Wyatt’s solution. He postulated that only a person or entity above and beyond these rolling spheres could hope to regulate their movements and prevent conflict. The Holy Roman Empire had disintegrated precisely because it relied on these spheres (electors) for its own being, and their discord had ripped the Empire, and Emperor, apart. Instead an authority above, and not dependent on, these spheres would be required. The easy analogy here, and the part which wrote off Wyatt’s theory for many, was God himself. He alone could control the world and its chaos, because he was not part of the world. To some Wyatt seemed to be suggesting that a temporal authority should take on the authority of God.
This blasphemous interpretation of the Rolling Spheres, got Wyatt into hot water that only his associates Thomas Cromwell (Chief Justice) and Hugh Latimer (Archbishop of Canterbury) could get him out of, but it also represented a miss-reading of his work. Wyatt was not advocating the replacement of God, but simply the creation of a new temporal authority which was distinct and separate from all other authorities be they Irish, Colombian, Breton, Norman, Welsh or English. In short Wyatt was recommending nothing short of an Emperor, but a new Emperor for a new age...
The Yorkist Religious Settlement 1527-1581 G Barnard (2013)
The 1540s after the 1543 Ordinance of Clergy were relatively quiet. Archbishop Cranmer wisely steered a conciliatory and consolidating course, implementing the ordinance and the Seven Acts rather than introducing any new legislation. The effect of this was a period of relative stability; south of the Trent much of the Church adopted the various reforms with enthusiasm and in the north, most were willing to abide by the spirit, if not the letter of the legislation. Given the catastrophe of the 1590s, there has been much debate over the nature of any Radical Catholic Remnants and how they escaped the winds of change, however it is possible to identify that many of these were wealthier gentry who could pursue their own religion in private, concealed priests and all. The vast majority of people in England by 1550 were happy with the religious settlement as it stood, and barring any outside manipulation, or other causes masked by religious agitation, there was little religious opposition at this time.
The great exception were the Puritan dissenters. Led by Bishops Ridley of Rochester and Hooper of Gloucester and Dean Edmund Grindal of Westminster, the Puritans kept pushing Archbishop Cranmer to make further reforms and completely purify the Church of England from any Papal influence including any kind of Church decoration or vestments. The situation came to a head in 1552 when Hugh Latimer was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury following the death of Cranmer. Latimer resisted the Puritan urges for further reform, and was appointed over Nicholas Ridley, their preferred candidate. In response Edmund Grindal led the Purification of Westminster in which all Churches west of London were entered by Puritans and had their decoration removed and windows smashed. Only after the organ at Westminster Abbey was set alight did the King himself send in the Royal Swiss Guard and bring the destruction to an end.
Something had to be done. Archbishop Latimer called a Council for Canterbury in 1552, inviting the Puritan leaders, and all English and Welsh Bishops. He also took the unusual step of inviting the Archbishops of Dublin, Armagh, Rouen, Lille, Rennes, Cornel, and New London, all primates of the Church in English control or connection. These additional Archbishops were merely observers, but this was significant as the first time all the Church of the future Britannic Empire were included in the same Council.
The Council was tense. The Puritan clergy and Bishops even showed disrespect to Latimer by refusing to stand when he entered proceedings. This only raised the ire of the Bishops of Rennes and Carlisle, the more pro Catholic Bishops present, even further. In the end the Council was able to reach a compromise on a number of issues; new plainer vestments were introduced which met the requirements of Puritans, but most helpful was the Canterbury declaration. This stated that Church decorations were to be limited to a cross or crucifix dependent on the incumbent's wishes, and little else. In reality this was open to interpretation, as was intended, and so the Puritans were satisfied whilst Catholic Churches could continue as before.
A year later, Matthew Parker and John Rogers (Bishops of Norwich and Oxford respectively) published ‘In Praise of our Lord’. Part prayer book and part theological primer, In Praise of our Lord was intended for general consumption, and was widely used in the burgeoning grammar schools in particular. The book charted a fine line between Catholic and Puritan demands but was slightly in favour of the Puritans. It continued the religious tradition of the age in being a compromise, but one gradually moving towards the Puritan position. It detailed prayers, Church services and 'personal holiness' and was seen as a textbook for the mid 16th-century Church-goer (that being everyone).
The Rolling Spheres: the Colombias of Richard IV R Boothroyd (1991)
The Silver discovery at Potcham (OTL Potosi) only intensified the need for labour in the New World. There was still a steady stream of migrants from Europe by 1548, which would increase with the Palatinate War, but these numbers were largely urban middling sorts or rural yeomen and their families, they were not willing to engage in back-breaking mining. Especially after Pike’s method for extracting silver from ore was perfected in 1550, the need for labour in Potcham only increased.
This led to a morbid milestone in the history of the New World, the institution of slavery. The Spanish had been using slaves in south Colombia for almost 50 years by this point, but thus far the English had resisted the urge, if for no other reason than they had plentiful labour with migration and the surviving indigenous population. The scale of Potcham however forced them to intensify the exploitation of manpower; first many of the local Incan tribes and their tributaries were enslaved, but this quickly became insufficient as disease ran rampant here as it had elsewhere in the New World. The Royal Barrow Company therefore happened on the idea of importing African Slaves. This began slowly but by 1555, and the intervention of Sir John Hawkins, there was a steady stream of slaves heading for Barrow and the Silver mines.
Slavery was not the only factor in making the 1550s a rather dark decade for the Colombias. New Lothian (OTL Newfoundland and Nova Scotia) had been discovered and named New Norfolk in the late 15th century, but only the town of St Barnabas (OTL St John’s) had been founded as a watering and fishing station. All of this changed in 1532 when Queen Margaret of Scotland was able to extract settlement rights from Edward V in exchange for a marriage alliance. Between 1532 and 1548, the area saw some 10,000 Scottish immigrants who renamed the region New Lothian. The land was perfect for fishing, raising livestock, and limited agriculture, and served to relieve some pressure in Scotland.
Queen Margaret had only secured settlement rights, not legal jurisdiction, and this resulted in the unfortunate situation of the largely Scottish population being governed by a small English minority. Lord Roger Morton, and around 500 English had settled around St Barnabas with Morton being made Seneschal of the island and the wider Lothian County by the Hampton reforms. This had not gone down well with the Scots who had wanted John, Lord Aubigny, a scion of the Stewart clan, to be made seneschal instead. However the situation could have remained peaceful were it not for the events in Scotland.
When Queen Anne died in 1548, leaving her newborn son James as King under the protection of his English father Manuel Plantagenet, it had a rather explosive impact in New Lothian. Divided from their homeland though they might be, the Scottish population of New Lothian nonetheless knew where their loyalties lay, and the feeling of subjugation under an English boot was one with which they could empathise. Though the initial crisis only lasted under a year, it allowed the Scots of New Lothian to prepare. Aubigny was elected their leader in secret, and he dispatched agents to the Earl of Arran in Scotland to establish contact.
Dissent in New Lothian was decidedly less religious than it was in mainland Scotland. The New World’s distance had always insulated it from the religious strife of the Old World and the people of the County practiced largely what they had always done; an unorthodox form of Catholicism. Even the small English contingent in St Barnabas were not exactly reformed, their lack of mixing with the Scots entirely cultural in nature and not religious. The divisions nonetheless existed. The English population of New Lothian was mostly wealthy and based in and around St Barnabas, most of them had some involvement in government and were educated, even those who took to sea, which was the main employment. The Scots in contrast were generally less wealthy and mostly fished or farmed, relying on English merchants to sell their goods. The Scots were also much more dispersed across New Lothian Island (OTL Newfoundland) in smaller settlements, relying on their own knowledge, and some friendly natives, for navigation. For example some Scottish settlements were only accessible by boat and stretched south-west as far as Cape Barnock (OTL Sydney, Nova Scotia) although the mainland itself had less than 500 people living there.
The simmering tension in New Lothian could only boil over upon the murder of Manuel and the beginning of ‘Hamilton’s Last Stand’. The Earl of Arran sent word of his rebellion to St Barnabas via Ireland which arrived in May 1551. The response was predictably brutal. Lord Aubigny was quick to gather an armed mob of over 1,000 Scots from around St Barnabas by September and they marched into the town, executed Roger Morton, put his family and priest in a small boat on the open sea, declared their independence and made Aubigny Prince of New Lothian. St Barnabas, as an English name, was renamed Port Stewart.
The New Lothian Rebellion was the biggest challenge to confront the New World since the early days of the Nine Years War, some suggest it was the biggest challenge since 1492. It laid bare the weaknesses of the Hampton Reforms and the structural problems of New World governance. With Morton and his associates eliminated, New Lothian was free from English authority. Henry Tudor, Viceroy of the Colombias, in New London did not hear of the events in New Lothian until Christmas, by which time the weather prevented a swift reaction. Even by spring 1552, Tudor’s options to respond were limited; he had only just implemented the Named Companies Act, and only the Hampton Company in New London could be said to have had anywhere near a fighting force. Furthermore, Tudor’s authority as Viceroy did not extend far enough to allow him to muster additional forces without Royal consent, something which would be at least another nine months or so away. Tudor could not wait that long, he had received news of Manuel’s murder and the war in Scotland, and knew that any rebellion in New Lothian would only prolong the disorder.
Tudor’s salvation was the Norland Trading Company and the Potcham mines. As Viceroy Tudor knew their local agents well, and he had access to the silver reserves of Potcham, what with many of the treasure ships transiting through New London. He therefore had the ships and the wealth to counteract the New Lothian Rebellion, but he still lacked manpower. Henry Tudor went on his last voyage in March 1552 with 2,000 soldiers (the total of the embryonic Hampton Company) and some 30 ships of the White Fleet and NTC sailing for New York (OTL New York, but centred on OTL Hell’s Kitchen).
By April the fleet entered New York harbour to much consternation. New Canaan defied definition at this point in its existence but today we would call it a Conciliar Republic; a council of nine elders (three Jewish, three Hussite and three Anglican) led the nation, but in reality space and resources were so abundant that their was little conflict, nor was there a need for any kind of foreign policy or military. Only the justice system was in any way developed. New Canaan was of course linked to the outside world, and had cordial relations with Norland and England in general, but a fleet the size of Tudor’s in 1552 was an unforeseen sight. The huge mass of his flagship the Mary Rose (the second ship of that name having been built in Gosport in 1546) was unprecedented.
Yet Tudor had not come to pillage, he had come for supplies and manpower. The Davidowicz Bank was only too pleased to extend Tudor enough credit, secured on Potcham reserves, to fund and equip a mercenary army. This was the beginning of centuries of prosperity for the Bank. Tudor had fought in the Nine Years’ War with many Hussite soldiers. His irregular cavalry squadrons armed with Schragbus had turned the tide of more than one battle, and he still had friends and veterans in New Canaan whom he could call on. Within a month Tudor had doubled his army with 2,000 Canaanites led by Joseph Gross, a veteran of Euskirchen and one of his long-time friends. The stop in New Canaan may have strengthened Tudor’s arm but it meant that it was June 1552, almost a year since the New Lothian Rebellion began, before his fleet anchored off Port Stewart.
John Stewart, Lord Aubginy, had not been idle in the past year, like the Earl of Arran he had seized all shipping which had come into St Barnabas/Port Stewart as property of New Lothian. With these resources he had purchased arms and armour through bewildered merchants in La Rochelle and Lisbon, and also acquired a company of 500 French Handgunners. At home he had consolidated all fighting men around Port Stewart as the only major settlement, and had sent lookouts to the south, anticipating a response from New London. So it was that he got word in May that Tudor was in New York gathering supplies.
On the night of the 17th of June 1552, Tudor’s invasion of New Lothian began in force. Of the 31 ships of the English-Colombian fleet, 9 were out and out warships, with another 7 equipped with cannon. These 16 ships steered in close to Port Stewart and reduced all shipping at anchor to splinters, then turned their guns on the town. In Scottish folklore the ‘Rape of Port Stewart’ was an evil act against a civilian settlement without warning or just cause, it is largely unknown in English circles. Estimates and impartial reports are hard to come by but Port Stewart was largely destroyed by this bombardment, almost a year of pent-up English rage and justice expended on the only major town in New Lothian. Thankfully the town was largely empty, but Lord Aubigny could not have thought that Tudor would do this, for his wife and two youngest children died in the attack.
Aubigny and his army of now 4,500 men were camped a mile out of town and were brought running by the sound and smoke, allowing Tudor to land his 4000 men for the summer campaign at Maddox Cove six miles south of Port Stewart. The Coastline of New Lothian was notoriously difficult, and Port Stewart was remarkable as the only safe harbour for miles. Tudor had therefore been forced into the less than optimum landing at Maddox by the situation, but it still took the best part of a day to land his forces under constant pressure from the rebels, with the loss of around 200 men to the enemy or the waves. By the end of the 18th of June, with Port Stewart a smouldering ruin, Tudor had established an earthwork fort above the cove he serendipitously named Fort Longshanks.
The Summer was to be a long and difficult one for both sides. The terrain of New Lothian was flat and boggy further inland, punctuated by coniferous forest, which made large-scale movement of armies difficult. Furthermore, Tudor had burnt the main settlement, there was nothing specific for the Scots to defend, and so the campaign was fluid and arduous as Tudor tried to hunt down the Scots and eliminate them. Both sides were kept well supplied by their fleets and local fish and farms throughout the summer, but winter would be difficult. Tudor knew this and so he sought to eliminate the rebels before then. The makeup of the opposing forces did not help him either.
Given the nature of Norland coastal travel, neither side had many horses. Aubigny had around 10 which he used for scouting and communication, and Tudor had a maximum of 100 which he gave to Gross and his men to act as scouts and raiders. These Hussites/Canaanites were armed with Schragbus, some of which had been used in the Nine Years’ War, and could negotiate the difficult terrain. Beyond that Tudor’s dozen cannon which he had hauled ashore were useless across the boggy terrain and without any walls to shoot at - they remained laid up at Fort Longshanks for the duration. This meant that the New Lothian campaign would be an infantry affair. The Hampton and Canaanite contingents were well armed with plate, sword and Arquebus, but the terrain precluded the use of larger pike or pole-arm formations. In contrast Lord Aubigny had his 500 Arquebusiers from France, augmented with a further 200 of his own, but the bulk of his force was made up of infantry armed with a myriad of short spears, swords, axes, crossbows, and short bows and armed with half-plate bought from Europe. The Scots had been well-drilled by Aubigny, but were all inexperienced. Their only hope was their local knowledge and the fact that they were defending their own ground. Finally the Scots were aided by around 200 Inuit armed with bows who knew the terrain best and were being paid in furs taken from one of the impounded ships.
Tudor spent the majority of the summer trying to hunt down and destroy the rebels. A battle at Kilbride at the end of June showed the fate of things to come. Kilbride is still today a series of low lakes which protect Fort Longshanks from the rest of the island to the west. On the 30th of June an English army of around 3000 men was making a futile attempt to haul cannon around the Greater Loch Kilbride (OTL Long Pond, Newfoundland) when they were attacked from high ground further west by bow and gunfire. Tudor sent Gross and his cavalry to chase the rebels off, but they were led into a narrow gully where Aubigny had concealed his French Arquebusiers. Gross was killed alongside half of his force although they took over 100 French with them using the Schragbus. Eventually a massed infantry charge forced the Scots away but Tudor made the decision to retreat to Longshanks with the cannon where they would remain.
Changing tack, July saw the English enter Port Stewart and fortify a handful of the remaining buildings. Aubigny had abandoned the town after the bombardment, but Tudor needed a morale boost for his forces. A week later a fast ship from London arrived with letters from Richard IV sanctioning the Viceroy’s actions, but offering little other help as the war in Scotland was still ongoing and the Palatinate War had only just ended. With the harbour secured Tudor now had much easier access to the rest of the island, albeit with less cavalry to make use of this.
The start of August meant at most six more weeks left of campaign before the north Atlantic winter arrived. Tudor threw everything he had at the rebels at Mount Pearl, a few miles south west of Port Stewart. The Battle of Mount Pearl occurred on the 12th of August 1552 in two parts. The Mount itself is in fact a ridgeline north of the main road out of Port Stewart, and half of the battle occurred upon this ridge. The other half took place in the valley below upon the road itself separated by 300 metres of impassable slope and bog. Lord Aubigny had discovered Tudor’s intention for a forced march across the island to draw him out, and had been able to pre-emptively block the road unexpectedly close to Port Stewart, so close that Tudor had not even deployed his scouts.
Aubigny had used the short nights that far north to get into position before the early dawn, and so as the English reached the valley of Mount Pearl they were confronted by Aubigny’s force of 2000 rebels augmented with the 400 French drawn up in a line across the road. Concealed on the ridge were a further 1500 rebels armed with crossbows who could put flanking fire into the English below. Aubigny had planned his strategy well: to stop, trap and kill the English army, to weaken them enough to force them to leave New Lothian, but he had not reckoned on the tenacity and leadership of Henry Tudor.
The Viceroy of the Colombias had been a soldier all of his life; he had bested two Emperors - Moctezuma and Charles V - and brought both their Empires low, he had fought in the jungles of central Colombia and the windswept fields of Picardy and Flanders, in what would prove to be his final battle at Mount Pearl, he put all of that experience to use. Without his trademark cavalry - and only some 3500 infantry unsupported by artillery - there was little Tudor could do but order a general charge. However it seems he did notice the Scots upon the ridge itself and sent Martin Berners, 400 soldiers, and the remaining Hussite cavalry to deal with them. The battle in the valley below Mount Pearl would decide the outcome of the New Lothian Rebellion. The French handguns were able to get two clear shots away across open ground before the English charge faltered home, Tudor received a glancing blow to his helmet in the process.
Once battle was joined, however, the French handguns were next to useless, and the soldiers wielding them backed away from the bloody melee. This left Aubigny and his 2000 rebels armed with swords and spears to hack into Tudor’s army. By all accounts the following battle was bloody if brief. Berners succeeded in distracting the Scots on the ridge long enough for Tudor’s forces to get the upper hand below. After a few hours of desperate hand to hand combat, which saw the Scots drag the French handgunners into battle wielding their guns as clubs, Aubigny was finally felled by one of Tudor’s own retinue. The result was that the rebels - fractured without their commander - began to quit the field in small groups, with the hopes of sneaking home to their families. On the ridge, his purpose fulfilled, Berners pulled back to the valley and added his numbers to Tudors main force, ramming home their advantage,
The battle of Mount Pearl was not pretty, and nor was it entirely decisive, around half of the rebels were able to escape with Tudor and Berners unable to give chase. Not only were the English themselves badly bloodied, but Tudor collapsed at the end of the battle and had to be taken back to the port unconscious. Over the next few weeks Berners took out raids to wear down the remaining rebels who ambushed him where they could. By October all active rebellion had died away, and Berners only encountered passive Scots or a handful of belligerent Inuit on his sorties. The New Lothian Rebellion died quietly in a whimper over winter 1552-1553 as did the man who vanquished it.
More than a month after the battle of Mount Pearl, Henry Tudor, Lord Hampton, Earl of Colombia and Viceroy died in his sleep aboard the Mary Rose as it lay at anchor in Port Stewart - renamed and rebuilt Port Tudor later in his honour. He had never recovered from his wounds suffered in battle and at the age of 61 his body finally gave out.
The second son of Henry Tudor and Elizabeth of York, in another world Henry Tudor, Lord Hampton, may have been confined to England, but with the survival of his brother Arthur, who outlived him by a few years, and the New World opening before him, the way to his fortune was clear. It is hard to overestimate the impact of Henry Tudor on today’s world; the Norland Commonwealth certainly owes much of its modern make-up and institutions to his hard work, but its capital of Hampton most clearly shows his mark.
New London (OTL Jacksonville) was not founded by Tudor, but he made it his home after the destruction of Cornel (OTL Santo Domingo) by the Great Raid during the Nine Years’ War. Renamed Hampton in 1554 in Tudor’s honour by the new Viceroy William Raleigh, Lord Goughton, the city stands to this day as a testament to the wealth of the New World and the ingenuity and resilience of the Old. No one man typified that ingenuity and resilience more than Henry Tudor; inventor and perfecter of the Schragbus, conqueror of the Aztecs, explorer, merchant, trader, general, politician and statesman, he was a man who truly influenced the modern world. Survived by his adoring wife of over 30 years Anne Boleyn, a son Edward and three daughters, Tudor's legacy was secure.
So, Wyatt is proposing absolutism... I wonder what the Parliament would say about that.
Good update and a redemption of sorts for the younger Henry Tudor.
Can I recommend different brackets for OTL notes though?
Can I recommend different brackets for OTL notes though?
Usual format is the square brackets [these] originally used as editorial notes rather than author ones and adopted to signify a different writer than the alleged author.
If you ever need a third set so as to compare in universe editorial with out universe [i.e. OTL] editorial I recommend {these} or «these»
1548-1554 Part 3
Apologies the final section of 1548-1554 is so big it needed breaking into two sections. Sorry for the length, its essentially the collapse of the HRE so it needed doing right! Hopefully the concluding part will be out later today or tomorrow. -CC
Between Two Worlds: Europe 1531-1606 O Thompson (2015)
The Holy Roman Empire was a shadow of its former self. The 1532 Treaty of Liege had legally removed all lands in the northern Empire from the jurisdiction of the Holy Roman Emperor with the justification that the Emperor himself had waged war against his subjects. Of course this was considered a just war by Catholics, but the Protestant rulers in question were only too happy to throw off the shackles of the Emperor and claim the moral high ground. After 1532 Charles V, as Emperor only had jurisdiction south of the line running from Ghent-Brussels-Liege-Aachen-Bonn-Limberg-Frankfurt-Wurzburg-Coburg-Hof and then into the Kingdom of Bohemia.
Charles V never really came to terms with this, and sought any means he could to reclaim his lost Empire, including sending aid to the Saxon rebels in the 1538-1540 Civil War in the hope that they would submit to him. In the end the rebels were defeated and John Frederick II kept Saxony Protestant. The complication for Charles was that the religious and political motives of his former subjects were inextricably intertwined. As Emperor he was only ever likely to be a scion of Papal influence in their eyes. This forced the Reforming inclined to seek to escape his authority, and those chafing under his rule to claim Protestantism to achieve the same. In short, the situation for the HRE was hopeless, and the thought of regaining lost ground mere fantasy.
It didn't help that the Treaty of Liege had wiped out Saxony and Cologne as electors, leaving the remaining seven (Brandenburg only just survived) who were all shades of Catholicism. The Archbishoprics of Mainz and Trier were especially bellicose and demanded a crusade to reclaim Hesse, Cologne, Saxony, Hannover and the rest whilst Bohemia and Brandenburg contended with reformist populations themselves. The HRE was hopelessly divided and weakened after the Treaty of Liege, and some historians (especially Tim Blanning) date its demise from 1532. In reality the institution hobbled along for another 20 years before a further war shattered it in all but name.
With his attempts to maintain Catholicism in his own Empire having failed, Charles V spent the rest of his dozen or so years as Emperor defending Christendom from Ottoman advances, a task he achieved rather well. However, Charles’ attitude left the remaining Empire to rot and fragment, the office of Emperor receding to the position of mere figure-head which it had been centuries before. The only relief was the personal connections to Austria, Bavaria and Hungary (owned outright by Charles) and Bavaria (occupied by a distant cousin) and also the various Catholic Bishoprics which clung to the Emperor for protection. Effective against the Ottomans though Charles was, he was not immortal, and his death after the Battle of Kalocsa in August 1545 tipped his domain into Civil War.
The Habsburg Wars of 1545-1547 have been discussed at length elsewhere and so they will not be repeated here. In brief the wars saw the Germanic and Spanish branches of the Habsburg family at war with each other over control of the whole of Charles’ realm. Phillip II and Maximillian II, both aged 19 at the outbreak of war, had each been raised in Spain and Austria respectively, and after Charles V’s death his realm divided more or less along linguistic lines with Iberia supporting Phillip and the Empire electing Maximillian. Even Pope Paul III, who knew both men well, was powerless to stop the bloodshed, encouraged as it was by Francis I of France.
Francis never formally declared for either side, but he could control access to both territories and used his influence to extract ever greater concessions from Phillip and Macimillian and generally prolonged the conflict. Eventually it took Francis’ death, and a defeat for Maximillian at the Battle of Tortola in 1547 to end the war with the Treaty of Trent. Brokered by Paul III and the new French King Henri II, the Treaty barely changed the boundaries of Europe but made it clear that the House of Habsburg was now split in two: Spain and Empire. The Habsburg Wars had pushed both sides to the brink, but Maximillian II was especially drained by the conflict having had to cajole and buy support for almost the entire conflict. The Emperor, Pope and French King all collectively hoped that the spring of 1548 would bring a new start for the Empire and hopefully a renewal, and then there was a death in Bavaria.
Albert V, Duke of Bavaria was 20 years old when he died in 1548. His life was just coming into its own; his father had died at Euskirchen in 1531 and the young Duke had been raised by an old friend of Duke William’s Wiguleus Hundt. Albert had fought for Maximillian II in the war, and had prevented Tortola from becoming a complete rout, and his wife was pregnant. He truly had his life before him, when he caught dysentery and died returning from campaign. Albert’s death could not have come at a worse moment. His wife Archduchess Anna had not yet given birth, and so he had no clear heir, nor did he have any siblings which had survived to adulthood. The Duchy was therefore vacant and was pounced upon by Otto-Henry Count of Palatinate-Neuburg.
The man who would finally shatter the Holy Roman Empire had an interesting upbringing. Raised by his uncle Frederick II, Elector Palatine, Otto-Henry had succeeded to the half-Duchy of Palatine-Neuberg which had been severed from the rest of the Palatinate in 1505 following the War of the Landshut succession. He had courted Protestantism for a while, but had not declared for either side during the Nine Years’ War meaning that he remained a subject of the Holy Roman Emperor after 1532. It is now believed that Otto-Henry became Protestant around 1540, before his marriage to Amalia of Cleves in 1544 which made him a brother in law to Richard IV of England, and son in law to John of Cleves, the de facto leader of the independent and Protestant United Netherlands.
In fact it seems that Otto-Henry was playing the long game, establishing contacts with the Protestant League of Copenhagen, gaining support and legitimacy for himself before he made the jump to Protestantism publicly. Indeed, Otto-Henry had sent representatives, including his wife, to the 1545 Council of Cologne where the free German Princes, led by Phillip of Hesse, requested protection from Richard IV. Otto’s gamble paid off; in 1546 his wife gave birth to a son - Wilhelm - who became his heir, and he was able to persuade his uncle Frederick II - another closet Lutheran - to relinquish the title of Elector Palatine to him. Finally in 1547, as the Habsburg Wars wound down, Otto-Henry declared himself Protestant and no longer a member of the Holy Roman Empire, simultaneously joining the League of Copenhagen and swearing the Augsburg Confession.
Of all the territories to join Protestantism, the Rhine Palatinate was possibly the worst. It was a strong territory on the eastern bank of the Rhine from Karlsruhe to Bonn - split by the Free City of Frankfurt - and was bordered to the north by the Protestant territories of Cologne and Hesse. To the east lay the new Imperial heartland of Bavaria and to the west lay the Archbishoprics of Trier and Mainz. With the Palatinate gone these two cities - seats of Imperial Electors too no less - would be cut off from the rest of the Empire and Bavaria would be helplessly exposed. Maximilian II surely had Otto-Henry on his to do list when Albert V of Bavaria died and complicated the entire situation.
Otto-Henry’s claim to Bavaria was not without merit, his grandfather George had been Duke some forty years previously, but it crashed against the realities of Bavarian society. Bavaria was Catholic, and quite comfortably so, it was also very close to the Imperial seat in Vienna and viewed itself as the shield of the Empire against Protestantism. Her Duchess was Anna of Austria, the Emperor’s oldest sister, and her upper society led by Wiguleus Hundt and George Stockhammer all saw Otto-Henry as a heretical vulture swooping to pick the meat from good Catholic bones.
Therefore when Otto-Henry tried to lead an army of around 1500 mounted soldiers into Bavaria near Ulm in June 1548 he found the road blocked. Otto had already crossed Wurtemberg as Duke Ulrich had refused to take sides, but the people of Bavaria resolutely did not want him as their Duke. Undeterred, Otto-Henry sought assistance from his in-laws in England and the United Netherlands. Here the War of the Bavarian Succession should have ended, like in Saxony a decade before Richard IV and John of Cleves decided not to directly intervene. However someone in their governments did decide to intervene, and the Palatinate War was born.
Before Maximillian II could even give a response to Otto-Henry’s claim, news reached him of the confrontation at Ulm. He therefore gathered around 3,000 men and his brother Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, who himself had just returned home from the Habsburg War, and marched for Ulm. The Emperor arrived on the banks of the Danube at the end of July 1548 and received some startling news: there were English soldiers in the Palatinate. Thomas of Oudenburg and his Cologne Company; a mixture of Flemish, Dutch, German and English Protestant soldiers and men of fortune had marched south from Cologne a week earlier and made camp outside Wiesbaden. In a rage Maximillian II declared Otto-Henry a traitor to the Empire, ‘consorting with foreign villains and heathens’, but also judged him not to be the Duke of Bavaria ‘in favour of the rightful Duke’ (without saying who this was) and seizing the entire Palatinate into the bargain, gifting it to his brother Ferdinand.
Maximilian’s reaction would have been appropriate had it been 30 years earlier; the Holy Roman Emperor did have the right of judgement over inheritance and succession but in reality this depended on the situation and the amount of power the Emperor had. Maximilian’s namesake and grandfather would have had no issue judging the Bavarian issue, nor even perhaps seizing the Palatinate, so long as it was not absorbed by his own family, but Maximillian II was not his grandfather. After the Nine Years’ War and the Habsburg War, the hard power of the Emperor was incredibly brittle, Maximilian did not have the political capital to make such demands or judgements, and he badly miscalculated the situation on his subsequent march.
Given that the Cologne Company’s actions sparked the Palatinate War, they have been the subject of furious debate by historians. Thomas of Oudenburg was the second son of Richard of Oudenburg, grandson of Edward IV and High Marshall and Constable of England, responsible for the entire realm’s foreign policy and external defence. The Company itself was created in 1545 as a fig leaf for the German Protestants who still feared the Empire. Its use in supporting the Palatinate’s claim and independence could be interpreted - and indeed was by Maximillian - as direct English intervention in the affairs of the Empire. However a few points are worth noting: the Cologne Company was not one of Gloucester’s nineteen he had created, but rather a convenient label for a motley collection of second sons, soldiers and adventurers - they were not a coherent military force.
Recent research by Dr Chris Clark has shown how the Cologne Company camped outside Wiesbaden in the summer of 1548 numbered around 3000, but could only field around half that in combat effectiveness. Furthermore the Company was a disparate mix of men who only had their dislike of Catholics and their fondness for Gold in common, beyond that they were untrained and untested. Finally, and most astonishingly, Clark has demonstrated how the Cologne contingent was around 8% from the Palatinate itself, most prominently Johan Miehlen who was a captain in the Company. Clark has therefore postulated that the Cologne Company's actions were independent of either King Richard, or his cousin the Constable of England. It is certainly possible to see a situation whereby Thomas of Oudenburg was cajoled into leading the company, if indeed it could be ‘led’ into the Palatinate by Miehlen and his compatriots. Regardless of their reason for being in the Palatinate, the Cologne Company were powerless to prevent what happened next.
Following his vociferous declaration from Ulm, the Emperor and his small force of by now 4,000 men crossed the Danube into Wurtemburg on the 28th of July, Duke Ulrich again sitting on his hands to the rising consternation of his people and especially his son. The Imperial army crossed the 90 miles to the Rhine in just 3 days, showing Maximillian’s desperation to solve the issue once and for all. On the 1st of August Maximillian II reached Heidelberg, where a terrible atrocity occurred. The University of Heidelberg was one of the oldest, if not the oldest, in the Empire. It had been one of the first to challenge and probe Martin Luther’s new ideas in 1518. As such its library possessed one of the greatest archives of knowledge north of the Alps, perhaps in the entire world. The Imperial force burnt it and large parts of the University, to the ground. The cause of this is still unknown, but it is believed that the Bavarian contingent, in a rage and desperate for vengeance, was responsible.
The burning of Heidelberg compromised Maximillian’s mission in the eyes of many of his loyal subjects. Even if they had been willing to overlook his slightly deranged Ulm Declaration, they could not abide by the destruction of knowledge and one of the most prestigious institutions in Europe. The immediate effect was that the gates of Weinheim some 5 miles away were barred in the face of the Emperor and his army. Maximillian was said to be enraged even further, but his brother Ferdinand was able to convince him to march on along the narrow floodplain of the Rhine towards Wiesbaden.
On the morning of the 2nd of August Otto Henry and the Cologne Company were able to establish a defensive position on the Main River at Florsheim, 10 miles from Wiesbaden to prevent the Emperors advance. The position was well chosen as the Main, and the Rhine it fed into a few miles away were impassable without the bridge at Florsheim, and Otto and Thomas of Oudenberg had sealed this tight. The Emperor sought to flank this position through Frankfurt but the Council of the Free City, fearful of the events at Heidelberg, refused to allow the Emperor entry with so many armed soldiers. Again flying into a rage, and having no artillery with which to force entry to the city, Maximillian was led away by his brother Ferdinand in the direction of Ulm.
By sheer desperation and good fortune, the Palatinate had survived their attempt to leave the Empire, Otto Henry was still at large, and most importantly he had successfully dragged in the other Protestant forces to his feud. The Cologne Company would have to be reinforced now regardless. The only real good news for Maximillian was waiting for him when he returned to Vienna in early September: his sister had given birth to a boy, William, the new Duke of Bavaria, and so Otto-Henry’s claim to the Duchy had failed.
The winter of 1548-1549 was merely a pause for breath. The Emperor’s rage did not abate and he summoned all of the Empire’s soldiers to muster for the spring. Maximillian also went cap in hand to Henri II. The Palatinate secession was a threat to France too. If successful it would place a strong Protestant realm less than 20 miles from France proper, and Maximillian used this to persuade Henri to sign the Treaty of Dijon in February 1549, pledging French help in retaking the Palatinate and bringing Otto-Henry to justice. If the League of Copenhagen were still reluctant to intervene, the Dijon Treaty encouraged them to support the Palatinate.
It was not hard to find support for Otto-Henry. His neighbour Phillip of Hesse sent his son William (b1532) with 2000 men and John Frederick II of Saxony (b1529) sent a further 3000. The biggest help came from the most surprising of corners. Ulrich Duke of Wurttemberg had famously done nothing as two armies had marched across his territory. That Christmas his son Christoph had him imprisoned in Hellenstein Castle and with support from a number of key landowners made himself Duke, declared the Augsburg Confession, and joined the League of Copenhagen, simultaneously announcing Wurttemburg’s departure from the Empire. Arguably an even bigger coup was Albert Margrave of Brandenburg. Known to History as Alcibiades, Albert was one of the most feared warriors in the Empire; he had fought with Charles V against the Ottomans and with Maximillian in the recent Civil War. Alcibiades responded to the Dijon Treaty by also swearing allegiance to the League of Copenhagen and the Augsburg confession.
All of this German support was perhaps fortunate given that England and the Netherlands did not fancy a full scale war with France and the Empire again. The Scottish Crisis alone was enough to make Richard IV think twice. But the Palatinate was not entirely without help, Richard IV was after all the leader of the Council of Copenhagen; he sent his half-cousin Giovanni Il Nero - now styling himself Giovanni Hartson - to whip the Cologne Company into shape and allowed Richard of Oudenburg to send assistance also. By spring 1549 large parts of the Piacenza, Calais and Marck companies had ‘volunteered’ for service in the Palatinate with their fees paid via the Saxon bank, inevitably from the Exchequer. These ‘volunteer’s were Richard IV’s way of getting around a declaration of war, and in theory anyone wishing to serve in the Rhineland had to seek a dispensation from him from their original duties, no records exist of any dispensations being refused.
A large number of the whos who of English up and coming nobility chose to fight in the Palatinate in 1549: both of Giovanni’s sons William (b1529) and Phillip (b1531) led the Piacenza and Marck companies respectively to war whilst their half-cousin Edward Earl of March, Lord of Dunkirk and heir to Richard of Oudenburg (b1516) took the Calais Company. He was joined by his cousin John of Antwerp (b1529) and Matthew Boleyn (b1524) nephew of the Chancellor and son of George Boleyn. William Hartson, John of Antwerp, Matthew Boleyn and Thomas of Oudenburg had all grown up together and were likened by many to the Falcons which their fathers Edward and Richard [OTL Princes in the Tower] had led in their youth. Collectively this group of young men became known as the New Falcons, led by Edward of Oudenburg as the senior member aged 32.
The upshot of all these volunteers was that by Easter 1549 around 10,000 men from the English volunteer companies, another 12,000 from the German Princes, and 6,000 from the Palatinate itself were standing reading to defend the Rhine Palatinate from the Emperor’s revenge. As for the Emperor himself, Maximilian was in fact well supported by Mainz, Trier and Bavaria. The two Archbishoprics were vociferously Catholic and together could raise 4,000 men under John of Isenburg-Grenzau, Archbishop of Trier. Bavaria added another 6,000 under Stockenhammer. From the Catholic low countries around Liege, Luxembourg and Brussels came a further 4,000 men, and from Austria, Hungary and Bohemia another 10,000 although the Ottoman threat prevented further troops. Finally Maximillian had been able, with Papal backing, to pry around 8,000 Italian troops from around Lombardy and Tuscany led by the experienced commanders Alfonso D’Avalos and Piero Strozzi. This gave the Empire 32,000 men, but the 8,000 from the West of the Rhine were cut off by the Palatinate and Wurttemburg and so they joined the French contingent. For his part Henri II, despite his promises, could only provide 12,000 men under Francis Count Enghien and the Seigneur de Montluc given Huguenot and Tax rebellions in the west and south of France.
On Palm Sunday 1549 the Imperial army of 24,000 German and Italian soldiers crossed the Danube at Ulm and entered Wurttemberg. Maximilian II again issued a declaration from Ulm, but this time it was much more composed and supported in law. Firstly he issued warrants of arrest for Christoph of Wurttemberg for the false imprisonment of his own father. Secondly Otto-Henry and his uncle Frederick were both attainted for raising arms against the Emperor and finally the burghers of Frankfurt were accused of treason after they refused the Emperor passage the previous summer. These were all legitimate claims; Christoph, Frederick, Otto-Henry and the leaders of Frankfurt had committed these acts. In the latter case there was an argument that Frankfurt had acted wisely following the raising of Heidelberg, but the fact that they had disobeyed their Emperor could not be denied. It is thought that the second Ulm declaration was orchestrated by Archduke Ferdinand as an Olive branch to the more moderate members of the Empire.
In defense of Wurttemberg there were only Duke Christoph’s 3,000 men plus the 2,000 Swiss mercenaries under Wilhelm Frulich he had been able to hire using credit from the Saxon Bank. Christoph was in a hopel;ess position and his seat of Bad Urach was only 15 miles from Ulm, he immediately pulled his men west towards the Rhine which allowed Alfonso D’Avalos to ride to Hellenstein and free Duke Ulrich from custody. The Duke immediately swore allegiance to the Emperor and joined the ranks of his army. Maximillian then spent the next two months touring Wurttemberg rewarding loyalty and delivering justice where it was required.
Meanwhile the Wurttemberg forces desperately tried to join up with Otto-Henry and Phillip of Hesse’s larger force. As they crossed Upper Wurttemberg in April they discovered that the combined French-Imperial force of 20,000 men under Count Enghien had crossed the Rhine at Strasbourg and were moving to intercept. Pushed by the Archbishop of Trier himself, this army was moving with all haste to apprehend the disgraced former Duke, this led to a confused confrontation on the morning of the 26th of April 1549 at Bruchsal.
The Battle of Bruchsal, or the Battle of Three-ways as it is sometimes known, took place in a dense morning mist as Christoph and his army reached the Rhine floodplain from the south-east and the Seigneur de Montluc led a blocking force of some 4,000 French and Trier-Mainz Cavalry from the south-west to block them. Given the fog, records are confused, but it seems the two armies stumbled upon each other in the mist and a vicious melee ensued which brought the attention of a third force. That morning Edward of Oudenburg and around 1500 men of the Calais company including John of Antwerp and Matthew Boleyn were patrolling south of Heidelberg 6 miles away when they heard gunfire. Riding impetuously into battle, the Calais Company only attacked their enemy at the last possible moment when they spied a Fleur-de-Lys through the fog, they had almost attacked Duke Christoph’s Swiss mercenaries in the rear.
The arrival of the English took both sides by surprise, but it was Montluc who was outnumbered. Fortunately the Count of Isenburg-Grenzau (Archbishop of Trier) was leading another company of the Franco-Imperial army in support. Before long their number began to tell and it was the English commander who ordered the retreat, covering the rear of the badly-bloodied Wurttemberg force. Bruchsal cost Duke Christoph half of his 4,000 men killed or captured, whilst Matthew Boleyn was also taken prisoner. The French had also lost around 1,800 men although their control of the battlefield allowed them to recover their wounded.
By the start of May, the Calais and Piacenza companies, including Giovanni Il Nero/Hartson had fortified Heidelberg and the countryside around it, entering a tense stand-off with Enghien’s army camped 6 miles to the south near Bruchsal itself. Meanwhile further north Otto-Henry and his main army of 18,000 men lay siege to Mainz across the Rhine, having sent a screening force across the River to block the city from the south. Frankfurt had also reluctantly thrown in their lot with the rebels, given their accusation by Maximillian’s declaration.
By June the Emperor was again ready to move, and led a march against Frankfurt from the south-east. Skirting around the Odenwald, the Imperial army marched through Fulda just before Midsummer’s Eve. From here they were harried all the way into Frankfurt by Margrave Acibiades of Brandenburg. This was his land and he knew the terrain exceptionally well. Fighting in the style made famous by the English in the Nine Years’ War - with Schragbus from close range - Acibiades was able to slow the Imperial advance to a crawl as every hamlet, forest and hillock had to be swept for his men. At the Fulda Gap itself a series of detonations blocked the road for days.
Finally west of Fulda, but clearly in enemy territory, and with his supply lines constantly under attack by Alcibiades, Maximillian must have known that his time was limited. He was now beyond the reaches of the Empire, and he could not easily retreat given that the Rhine to the west was in enemy hands, north lay further hostile terrain, and south was fouled up with partisans. We know from Archduke Ferdinand’s papers that the plan had been to lay siege to Frankfurt and force a confrontation with the Palatinate and allied forces and so destroy them. However, the precarious supply position meant that a lengthy siege would have been as harmful to the Imperial army as their enemies.
Maximillian II settled for a parlay outside the town of Hanau, 5 miles up river from Frankfurt, on the 2nd of July 1549 with Heinrich Meissen, Mayor of the City, Count Otto-Henry, Phillip of Hesse, John Frederick II of Saxony and Johan Miehlen. Notably no English was present, although Miehlen no doubt reported back on their behalf. The Hanau Conference lasted almost a month, and after initial tensions had died down, negotiations had begun over the future of the western parts of the Empire. Officially the Emperor was intransigent but through Freidrich Staphylus working in back-channels made it clear that he was willing to recognise the Palatinate’s departure from the Empire. It was Wurttemberg that delayed proceedings; Duke Christoph had wisely kept a low profile since Bruchsal, and was not at Hanau, but Maximillian kept demanding his head for the young man’s actions. Unwilling to sell even one of their less useful allies down the river, the Protestant Lords kept their heels dug in until talks explosively collapsed at the end of July when word came from Mainz.
John of Isenburg-Grenzau, Archbishop of Trier, was not your typical Church leader. As Count of Isenburg-Grenzau he had access to his own income and retinue, as well as a good deal of martial experience. John had been present at Euskirchen, the last battle of the Nine Years War and had witnessed the death of his brother Anthony to an English cavalry charge. This event had gifted him his secular title, but had also inflamed a passionate hatred in him for Protestants and the English in particular.The warrior Archbishop had spent the summer of 1549 on the banks of the Rhine staring across open floodplain at an English army dug in around Heidelberg, and had not been able to attend the Hannau conference. Archbishop John was good friends with Archbishop von Heussenstamm of Mainz, whose city was under siege by the rebel army. This siege was not particularly ghastly; Otto-Henry was too afraid of bad press to order a full bombardment of the walls, and his 6,000 men stationed on the left bank of the Rhine under William of Hesse and Phillip Hartson only prevented supplies reaching the city garrison, anyone who wished to was free to leave. However after months of idleness, the two Archbishops were frustrated with their secular commanders. On the 18th of July they left the Franco-Imperial encampment at Bruchsal with 8,000 men, joined later by Montluc and another 2,000 men sent by Count Enghien to keep an eye on them.
This force left during the night and so was immediately spotted by the Anglo-Palatinate forces intended to stop them. The Archbishops marched south for 10 miles before they found a point to cross the Rhine, and then turned north heading for Mainz. The western bank of the Rhine here was nominally loyal to the two Archbishops and so they had little trouble in reaching the edge of the besieged city on the morning of the 24th of July, a day of two battles. The swift march of the Archbishops’ army had taken the English by surprise. The Marck Company led by Phillip Hartson, and the German forces under William of Hesse, had prepared earthworks to their south in case of such an advance but they were outnumbered by two to one. Combined with a sally from the Mainz garrison, responding to the banner of their Archbishop, the Battle of Mainz was a resounding victory for the Catholics. The earthworks did slow down the Franco-German advance, but this only allowed more of their 5,000 opponents to escape. Phillip Hartson was able to cross the Rhine on the small fleet of ships they had used with around 3,000 of his men, the remaining number were killed, captured or drowned in the process. One unfortunate victim was William of Hesse, heir of Phillip, who fell from a boat in the crossing and drowned in his armour. This death alone would have deep ramifications for the conflict, but so too would the battle occuring 80 miles to the south.
On the same day as the Archbishops reached Mainz, Edward of Oudenburg decided to act. The commander of the Calais Company was one of the more experienced English soldiers in the Palatinate that summer, and he had benefited most from the military reforms of the Earl of Gloucester. The Calais Company, and the Piacenza Company led by William Hartson had both spent the summer camped south of Heidelberg confronting and blocking the Imperial-French army led by the Count of Enghien. They had used this time to drill themselves well and by the end of July both companies together boasted 6,000 infantrymen equipped in armour with pikes, halberds, and the latest weapon from London, the Snelbus. The Snelbus was a refined model of the older Arquebus which the French and Imperial forces were using; it had a longer range, greater accuracy, and faster reload time. Sir William Packet had perfected the design early in the Spring, and the first 500 of these new weapons would get their testrun in the ensuing battle. Edward and William also had a further 2000 cavalry, mixed 50:50 between the traditional equipment and the lighter plate and Schragbus, and another 24 field guns pulled by teams of horses which could fire and move rapidly across an open field. The cousins were further backed up by Wilhelm Frulich and his Swiss mercenaries, along with Christoph of Wurttemberg who together commanded another 4,000 men. In total the rebel force consisted of 12,000 men against Count Enghien’s 8,000 men.
A few days before the 24th of July, Edward of Oudenburg, Lord of Dunkirk and Earl of March, had discovered that their opposing army had shrunk with the departure of the Archbishops, and word from Mannheim had arrived with their location on the far bank of the Rhine. Edward had also spotted that the level of the Rhine had dropped considerably since Enghien had constructed his earthworks in mid-Spring meaning that the western end of his encampment was relatively undefended. At dawn on the 24th of July, the English commander launched his attack, and the Battle of Hambrucken began. Count Enghien had constructed an earthwork defense from the ridge-line to the river Rhine in April for just under a mile and believed his position secure. He had not noticed that as the Rhine shrank in summer the last 200 yards of his flank were exposed. Thus at dawn when the English fieldguns opened up from in front of the camp near the hamlet of Hambrucken, the French Count did not immediately see the danger.
Edward and his Companies had spent the night getting into position along the dried-up fringes of the Rhine waterway on the location of the modern-day village of Huttenheim. Thus when the cannon-fire began they easily moved out of the shallow defile and fell upon Enghien’s camp from its exposed flank. The French army, outnumbered and underprepared was more or less annihilated, only 500 or so men made it back to Strasbourg. Count Enghien was captured, and Matthew Boleyn released from his custody. After months of retreat and stand-off the Protestant forces had scored a victory.
The response to the ‘Day of Two Battles’ at Hanau was explosive. News of both battles arrived within mere hours of each other thanks to the Burgher of Frankfurt slowing down news of the defeat at Mainz for a day or so. Phillip of Hesse went into deep mourning at the loss of his heir, and withdrew from the Conference on the evening of the 27th. Though initially happy at his victory at Mainz, if frustrated by the Archbishop’s acting without orders, Maximilian II threw into a rage when he learned that the French army had been wiped out later that night. According to legend he threw into a rage in the conference chamber itself and pulled his sword on Otto-Henry, declaring treachery. Cooler heads were unable to prevent what happened next and the ‘Night of Swords’ has entered History as another sorry episode in the European Wars of Religion. The streets of the small town of Hanau ran red with the blood of Catholic and Protestant alike as the two retinues fought hand-to-hand in the gutters and taverns. Thankfully neither army was fully present, and so a full battle was spared, but come dawn on the 28th Hanau was in ruins and both leaderships had fled. Miraculously no major leaders had been killed although Stockenhammer, the Bavarian leader, was severely injured and captured by the Protestants.
A large battle seemed inevitable, Maximillian himself again screamed for the heads of the traitors, but once more his brother Ferdinand was able to make the Emperor see reason. With their allies gone, and the harrying of their supply lines now set to resume, the Imperial army north of Hannau was dangerously exposed. They may have had local superiority over the paltry 6,000 men which Otto had garrisoned near to Frankfurt, but they risked losing their entire army to wastage and starvation if they tried to move against it. Reluctantly the Emperor made the decision to withdraw.
Once the dust had settled upon the last days of July, the Palatinate War had taken another lurch towards the abyss. The Emperor had been humiliated. For all his armies and having the rebels caught in a pincer movement, his ally had been destroyed and all he had to show for it was a grateful Duke Ulrich once again in control of Wurttemberg. The Palatinate was further from his grasp than ever. King Henri II was incensed at the loss of much needed forces, and the rebels ire had been raised even further.
After his period of mourning had ended, and with the Emperor safely behind the Odenwald and Danube for another season, Phillip of Hesse travelled to Calais in November 1549 where he met Richard of Oudenburg, the High Marshal of England, and King Richard IV himself. Also present was Giovanni Hartson, his two sons the commanders of the Piacenza and Marck companies, and Oudenburg’s son Edward who commanded the Calais Company. From Germany Otto-Henry and Christoph of Wurttemberg, now a fugitive from his own inheritance. Together these men agreed that the Emperor must be dealt with and the Palatinate secured for Protestantism. In what became an impromptu meeting of the League of Copenhagen, once King Christian III and John of Cleves arrived too, the decision was taken to formally declare that the Palatinate was formally under their protection and that they were now officially at war with the Emperor.
Correspondingly in France, a further rebellion in Maine and Aquitaine kept Henri II pinned down, and the loss of Count Enghien had taken the wind from the King’s sails. Now that he would effectively be at war with England and the entire League if he persisted, Henri sent diplomats to Amiens to ensure a truce with the Protestants and he withdrew from the Treaty of Dijon citing Maximillian’s recklessness as his reason.
It was a quiet Christmas in Austria that winter. Maximilian had taken the Summer’s frustrations and the Winter’s news badly, and may have suffered some kind of breakdown. He had clearly been unstable for some time, and he was not seen at all in public throughout Advent and into the new year. It seems that his brother Ferdinand was taking more and more responsibility for orchestrating the Empire’s response to the ongoing crisis, and by the time of the new campaign, Maximilian had retreated to Riegersburg Castle near Graz to ‘take the air’ making Ferdinand commander of the Imperial Army in his absence.
Between Two Worlds: Europe 1531-1606 O Thompson (2015)
The Holy Roman Empire was a shadow of its former self. The 1532 Treaty of Liege had legally removed all lands in the northern Empire from the jurisdiction of the Holy Roman Emperor with the justification that the Emperor himself had waged war against his subjects. Of course this was considered a just war by Catholics, but the Protestant rulers in question were only too happy to throw off the shackles of the Emperor and claim the moral high ground. After 1532 Charles V, as Emperor only had jurisdiction south of the line running from Ghent-Brussels-Liege-Aachen-Bonn-Limberg-Frankfurt-Wurzburg-Coburg-Hof and then into the Kingdom of Bohemia.
Charles V never really came to terms with this, and sought any means he could to reclaim his lost Empire, including sending aid to the Saxon rebels in the 1538-1540 Civil War in the hope that they would submit to him. In the end the rebels were defeated and John Frederick II kept Saxony Protestant. The complication for Charles was that the religious and political motives of his former subjects were inextricably intertwined. As Emperor he was only ever likely to be a scion of Papal influence in their eyes. This forced the Reforming inclined to seek to escape his authority, and those chafing under his rule to claim Protestantism to achieve the same. In short, the situation for the HRE was hopeless, and the thought of regaining lost ground mere fantasy.
It didn't help that the Treaty of Liege had wiped out Saxony and Cologne as electors, leaving the remaining seven (Brandenburg only just survived) who were all shades of Catholicism. The Archbishoprics of Mainz and Trier were especially bellicose and demanded a crusade to reclaim Hesse, Cologne, Saxony, Hannover and the rest whilst Bohemia and Brandenburg contended with reformist populations themselves. The HRE was hopelessly divided and weakened after the Treaty of Liege, and some historians (especially Tim Blanning) date its demise from 1532. In reality the institution hobbled along for another 20 years before a further war shattered it in all but name.
With his attempts to maintain Catholicism in his own Empire having failed, Charles V spent the rest of his dozen or so years as Emperor defending Christendom from Ottoman advances, a task he achieved rather well. However, Charles’ attitude left the remaining Empire to rot and fragment, the office of Emperor receding to the position of mere figure-head which it had been centuries before. The only relief was the personal connections to Austria, Bavaria and Hungary (owned outright by Charles) and Bavaria (occupied by a distant cousin) and also the various Catholic Bishoprics which clung to the Emperor for protection. Effective against the Ottomans though Charles was, he was not immortal, and his death after the Battle of Kalocsa in August 1545 tipped his domain into Civil War.
The Habsburg Wars of 1545-1547 have been discussed at length elsewhere and so they will not be repeated here. In brief the wars saw the Germanic and Spanish branches of the Habsburg family at war with each other over control of the whole of Charles’ realm. Phillip II and Maximillian II, both aged 19 at the outbreak of war, had each been raised in Spain and Austria respectively, and after Charles V’s death his realm divided more or less along linguistic lines with Iberia supporting Phillip and the Empire electing Maximillian. Even Pope Paul III, who knew both men well, was powerless to stop the bloodshed, encouraged as it was by Francis I of France.
Francis never formally declared for either side, but he could control access to both territories and used his influence to extract ever greater concessions from Phillip and Macimillian and generally prolonged the conflict. Eventually it took Francis’ death, and a defeat for Maximillian at the Battle of Tortola in 1547 to end the war with the Treaty of Trent. Brokered by Paul III and the new French King Henri II, the Treaty barely changed the boundaries of Europe but made it clear that the House of Habsburg was now split in two: Spain and Empire. The Habsburg Wars had pushed both sides to the brink, but Maximillian II was especially drained by the conflict having had to cajole and buy support for almost the entire conflict. The Emperor, Pope and French King all collectively hoped that the spring of 1548 would bring a new start for the Empire and hopefully a renewal, and then there was a death in Bavaria.
Albert V, Duke of Bavaria was 20 years old when he died in 1548. His life was just coming into its own; his father had died at Euskirchen in 1531 and the young Duke had been raised by an old friend of Duke William’s Wiguleus Hundt. Albert had fought for Maximillian II in the war, and had prevented Tortola from becoming a complete rout, and his wife was pregnant. He truly had his life before him, when he caught dysentery and died returning from campaign. Albert’s death could not have come at a worse moment. His wife Archduchess Anna had not yet given birth, and so he had no clear heir, nor did he have any siblings which had survived to adulthood. The Duchy was therefore vacant and was pounced upon by Otto-Henry Count of Palatinate-Neuburg.
The man who would finally shatter the Holy Roman Empire had an interesting upbringing. Raised by his uncle Frederick II, Elector Palatine, Otto-Henry had succeeded to the half-Duchy of Palatine-Neuberg which had been severed from the rest of the Palatinate in 1505 following the War of the Landshut succession. He had courted Protestantism for a while, but had not declared for either side during the Nine Years’ War meaning that he remained a subject of the Holy Roman Emperor after 1532. It is now believed that Otto-Henry became Protestant around 1540, before his marriage to Amalia of Cleves in 1544 which made him a brother in law to Richard IV of England, and son in law to John of Cleves, the de facto leader of the independent and Protestant United Netherlands.
In fact it seems that Otto-Henry was playing the long game, establishing contacts with the Protestant League of Copenhagen, gaining support and legitimacy for himself before he made the jump to Protestantism publicly. Indeed, Otto-Henry had sent representatives, including his wife, to the 1545 Council of Cologne where the free German Princes, led by Phillip of Hesse, requested protection from Richard IV. Otto’s gamble paid off; in 1546 his wife gave birth to a son - Wilhelm - who became his heir, and he was able to persuade his uncle Frederick II - another closet Lutheran - to relinquish the title of Elector Palatine to him. Finally in 1547, as the Habsburg Wars wound down, Otto-Henry declared himself Protestant and no longer a member of the Holy Roman Empire, simultaneously joining the League of Copenhagen and swearing the Augsburg Confession.
Of all the territories to join Protestantism, the Rhine Palatinate was possibly the worst. It was a strong territory on the eastern bank of the Rhine from Karlsruhe to Bonn - split by the Free City of Frankfurt - and was bordered to the north by the Protestant territories of Cologne and Hesse. To the east lay the new Imperial heartland of Bavaria and to the west lay the Archbishoprics of Trier and Mainz. With the Palatinate gone these two cities - seats of Imperial Electors too no less - would be cut off from the rest of the Empire and Bavaria would be helplessly exposed. Maximilian II surely had Otto-Henry on his to do list when Albert V of Bavaria died and complicated the entire situation.
Otto-Henry’s claim to Bavaria was not without merit, his grandfather George had been Duke some forty years previously, but it crashed against the realities of Bavarian society. Bavaria was Catholic, and quite comfortably so, it was also very close to the Imperial seat in Vienna and viewed itself as the shield of the Empire against Protestantism. Her Duchess was Anna of Austria, the Emperor’s oldest sister, and her upper society led by Wiguleus Hundt and George Stockhammer all saw Otto-Henry as a heretical vulture swooping to pick the meat from good Catholic bones.
Therefore when Otto-Henry tried to lead an army of around 1500 mounted soldiers into Bavaria near Ulm in June 1548 he found the road blocked. Otto had already crossed Wurtemberg as Duke Ulrich had refused to take sides, but the people of Bavaria resolutely did not want him as their Duke. Undeterred, Otto-Henry sought assistance from his in-laws in England and the United Netherlands. Here the War of the Bavarian Succession should have ended, like in Saxony a decade before Richard IV and John of Cleves decided not to directly intervene. However someone in their governments did decide to intervene, and the Palatinate War was born.
Before Maximillian II could even give a response to Otto-Henry’s claim, news reached him of the confrontation at Ulm. He therefore gathered around 3,000 men and his brother Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, who himself had just returned home from the Habsburg War, and marched for Ulm. The Emperor arrived on the banks of the Danube at the end of July 1548 and received some startling news: there were English soldiers in the Palatinate. Thomas of Oudenburg and his Cologne Company; a mixture of Flemish, Dutch, German and English Protestant soldiers and men of fortune had marched south from Cologne a week earlier and made camp outside Wiesbaden. In a rage Maximillian II declared Otto-Henry a traitor to the Empire, ‘consorting with foreign villains and heathens’, but also judged him not to be the Duke of Bavaria ‘in favour of the rightful Duke’ (without saying who this was) and seizing the entire Palatinate into the bargain, gifting it to his brother Ferdinand.
Maximilian’s reaction would have been appropriate had it been 30 years earlier; the Holy Roman Emperor did have the right of judgement over inheritance and succession but in reality this depended on the situation and the amount of power the Emperor had. Maximilian’s namesake and grandfather would have had no issue judging the Bavarian issue, nor even perhaps seizing the Palatinate, so long as it was not absorbed by his own family, but Maximillian II was not his grandfather. After the Nine Years’ War and the Habsburg War, the hard power of the Emperor was incredibly brittle, Maximilian did not have the political capital to make such demands or judgements, and he badly miscalculated the situation on his subsequent march.
Given that the Cologne Company’s actions sparked the Palatinate War, they have been the subject of furious debate by historians. Thomas of Oudenburg was the second son of Richard of Oudenburg, grandson of Edward IV and High Marshall and Constable of England, responsible for the entire realm’s foreign policy and external defence. The Company itself was created in 1545 as a fig leaf for the German Protestants who still feared the Empire. Its use in supporting the Palatinate’s claim and independence could be interpreted - and indeed was by Maximillian - as direct English intervention in the affairs of the Empire. However a few points are worth noting: the Cologne Company was not one of Gloucester’s nineteen he had created, but rather a convenient label for a motley collection of second sons, soldiers and adventurers - they were not a coherent military force.
Recent research by Dr Chris Clark has shown how the Cologne Company camped outside Wiesbaden in the summer of 1548 numbered around 3000, but could only field around half that in combat effectiveness. Furthermore the Company was a disparate mix of men who only had their dislike of Catholics and their fondness for Gold in common, beyond that they were untrained and untested. Finally, and most astonishingly, Clark has demonstrated how the Cologne contingent was around 8% from the Palatinate itself, most prominently Johan Miehlen who was a captain in the Company. Clark has therefore postulated that the Cologne Company's actions were independent of either King Richard, or his cousin the Constable of England. It is certainly possible to see a situation whereby Thomas of Oudenburg was cajoled into leading the company, if indeed it could be ‘led’ into the Palatinate by Miehlen and his compatriots. Regardless of their reason for being in the Palatinate, the Cologne Company were powerless to prevent what happened next.
Following his vociferous declaration from Ulm, the Emperor and his small force of by now 4,000 men crossed the Danube into Wurtemburg on the 28th of July, Duke Ulrich again sitting on his hands to the rising consternation of his people and especially his son. The Imperial army crossed the 90 miles to the Rhine in just 3 days, showing Maximillian’s desperation to solve the issue once and for all. On the 1st of August Maximillian II reached Heidelberg, where a terrible atrocity occurred. The University of Heidelberg was one of the oldest, if not the oldest, in the Empire. It had been one of the first to challenge and probe Martin Luther’s new ideas in 1518. As such its library possessed one of the greatest archives of knowledge north of the Alps, perhaps in the entire world. The Imperial force burnt it and large parts of the University, to the ground. The cause of this is still unknown, but it is believed that the Bavarian contingent, in a rage and desperate for vengeance, was responsible.
The burning of Heidelberg compromised Maximillian’s mission in the eyes of many of his loyal subjects. Even if they had been willing to overlook his slightly deranged Ulm Declaration, they could not abide by the destruction of knowledge and one of the most prestigious institutions in Europe. The immediate effect was that the gates of Weinheim some 5 miles away were barred in the face of the Emperor and his army. Maximillian was said to be enraged even further, but his brother Ferdinand was able to convince him to march on along the narrow floodplain of the Rhine towards Wiesbaden.
On the morning of the 2nd of August Otto Henry and the Cologne Company were able to establish a defensive position on the Main River at Florsheim, 10 miles from Wiesbaden to prevent the Emperors advance. The position was well chosen as the Main, and the Rhine it fed into a few miles away were impassable without the bridge at Florsheim, and Otto and Thomas of Oudenberg had sealed this tight. The Emperor sought to flank this position through Frankfurt but the Council of the Free City, fearful of the events at Heidelberg, refused to allow the Emperor entry with so many armed soldiers. Again flying into a rage, and having no artillery with which to force entry to the city, Maximillian was led away by his brother Ferdinand in the direction of Ulm.
By sheer desperation and good fortune, the Palatinate had survived their attempt to leave the Empire, Otto Henry was still at large, and most importantly he had successfully dragged in the other Protestant forces to his feud. The Cologne Company would have to be reinforced now regardless. The only real good news for Maximillian was waiting for him when he returned to Vienna in early September: his sister had given birth to a boy, William, the new Duke of Bavaria, and so Otto-Henry’s claim to the Duchy had failed.
The winter of 1548-1549 was merely a pause for breath. The Emperor’s rage did not abate and he summoned all of the Empire’s soldiers to muster for the spring. Maximillian also went cap in hand to Henri II. The Palatinate secession was a threat to France too. If successful it would place a strong Protestant realm less than 20 miles from France proper, and Maximillian used this to persuade Henri to sign the Treaty of Dijon in February 1549, pledging French help in retaking the Palatinate and bringing Otto-Henry to justice. If the League of Copenhagen were still reluctant to intervene, the Dijon Treaty encouraged them to support the Palatinate.
It was not hard to find support for Otto-Henry. His neighbour Phillip of Hesse sent his son William (b1532) with 2000 men and John Frederick II of Saxony (b1529) sent a further 3000. The biggest help came from the most surprising of corners. Ulrich Duke of Wurttemberg had famously done nothing as two armies had marched across his territory. That Christmas his son Christoph had him imprisoned in Hellenstein Castle and with support from a number of key landowners made himself Duke, declared the Augsburg Confession, and joined the League of Copenhagen, simultaneously announcing Wurttemburg’s departure from the Empire. Arguably an even bigger coup was Albert Margrave of Brandenburg. Known to History as Alcibiades, Albert was one of the most feared warriors in the Empire; he had fought with Charles V against the Ottomans and with Maximillian in the recent Civil War. Alcibiades responded to the Dijon Treaty by also swearing allegiance to the League of Copenhagen and the Augsburg confession.
All of this German support was perhaps fortunate given that England and the Netherlands did not fancy a full scale war with France and the Empire again. The Scottish Crisis alone was enough to make Richard IV think twice. But the Palatinate was not entirely without help, Richard IV was after all the leader of the Council of Copenhagen; he sent his half-cousin Giovanni Il Nero - now styling himself Giovanni Hartson - to whip the Cologne Company into shape and allowed Richard of Oudenburg to send assistance also. By spring 1549 large parts of the Piacenza, Calais and Marck companies had ‘volunteered’ for service in the Palatinate with their fees paid via the Saxon bank, inevitably from the Exchequer. These ‘volunteer’s were Richard IV’s way of getting around a declaration of war, and in theory anyone wishing to serve in the Rhineland had to seek a dispensation from him from their original duties, no records exist of any dispensations being refused.
A large number of the whos who of English up and coming nobility chose to fight in the Palatinate in 1549: both of Giovanni’s sons William (b1529) and Phillip (b1531) led the Piacenza and Marck companies respectively to war whilst their half-cousin Edward Earl of March, Lord of Dunkirk and heir to Richard of Oudenburg (b1516) took the Calais Company. He was joined by his cousin John of Antwerp (b1529) and Matthew Boleyn (b1524) nephew of the Chancellor and son of George Boleyn. William Hartson, John of Antwerp, Matthew Boleyn and Thomas of Oudenburg had all grown up together and were likened by many to the Falcons which their fathers Edward and Richard [OTL Princes in the Tower] had led in their youth. Collectively this group of young men became known as the New Falcons, led by Edward of Oudenburg as the senior member aged 32.
The upshot of all these volunteers was that by Easter 1549 around 10,000 men from the English volunteer companies, another 12,000 from the German Princes, and 6,000 from the Palatinate itself were standing reading to defend the Rhine Palatinate from the Emperor’s revenge. As for the Emperor himself, Maximilian was in fact well supported by Mainz, Trier and Bavaria. The two Archbishoprics were vociferously Catholic and together could raise 4,000 men under John of Isenburg-Grenzau, Archbishop of Trier. Bavaria added another 6,000 under Stockenhammer. From the Catholic low countries around Liege, Luxembourg and Brussels came a further 4,000 men, and from Austria, Hungary and Bohemia another 10,000 although the Ottoman threat prevented further troops. Finally Maximillian had been able, with Papal backing, to pry around 8,000 Italian troops from around Lombardy and Tuscany led by the experienced commanders Alfonso D’Avalos and Piero Strozzi. This gave the Empire 32,000 men, but the 8,000 from the West of the Rhine were cut off by the Palatinate and Wurttemburg and so they joined the French contingent. For his part Henri II, despite his promises, could only provide 12,000 men under Francis Count Enghien and the Seigneur de Montluc given Huguenot and Tax rebellions in the west and south of France.
On Palm Sunday 1549 the Imperial army of 24,000 German and Italian soldiers crossed the Danube at Ulm and entered Wurttemberg. Maximilian II again issued a declaration from Ulm, but this time it was much more composed and supported in law. Firstly he issued warrants of arrest for Christoph of Wurttemberg for the false imprisonment of his own father. Secondly Otto-Henry and his uncle Frederick were both attainted for raising arms against the Emperor and finally the burghers of Frankfurt were accused of treason after they refused the Emperor passage the previous summer. These were all legitimate claims; Christoph, Frederick, Otto-Henry and the leaders of Frankfurt had committed these acts. In the latter case there was an argument that Frankfurt had acted wisely following the raising of Heidelberg, but the fact that they had disobeyed their Emperor could not be denied. It is thought that the second Ulm declaration was orchestrated by Archduke Ferdinand as an Olive branch to the more moderate members of the Empire.
In defense of Wurttemberg there were only Duke Christoph’s 3,000 men plus the 2,000 Swiss mercenaries under Wilhelm Frulich he had been able to hire using credit from the Saxon Bank. Christoph was in a hopel;ess position and his seat of Bad Urach was only 15 miles from Ulm, he immediately pulled his men west towards the Rhine which allowed Alfonso D’Avalos to ride to Hellenstein and free Duke Ulrich from custody. The Duke immediately swore allegiance to the Emperor and joined the ranks of his army. Maximillian then spent the next two months touring Wurttemberg rewarding loyalty and delivering justice where it was required.
Meanwhile the Wurttemberg forces desperately tried to join up with Otto-Henry and Phillip of Hesse’s larger force. As they crossed Upper Wurttemberg in April they discovered that the combined French-Imperial force of 20,000 men under Count Enghien had crossed the Rhine at Strasbourg and were moving to intercept. Pushed by the Archbishop of Trier himself, this army was moving with all haste to apprehend the disgraced former Duke, this led to a confused confrontation on the morning of the 26th of April 1549 at Bruchsal.
The Battle of Bruchsal, or the Battle of Three-ways as it is sometimes known, took place in a dense morning mist as Christoph and his army reached the Rhine floodplain from the south-east and the Seigneur de Montluc led a blocking force of some 4,000 French and Trier-Mainz Cavalry from the south-west to block them. Given the fog, records are confused, but it seems the two armies stumbled upon each other in the mist and a vicious melee ensued which brought the attention of a third force. That morning Edward of Oudenburg and around 1500 men of the Calais company including John of Antwerp and Matthew Boleyn were patrolling south of Heidelberg 6 miles away when they heard gunfire. Riding impetuously into battle, the Calais Company only attacked their enemy at the last possible moment when they spied a Fleur-de-Lys through the fog, they had almost attacked Duke Christoph’s Swiss mercenaries in the rear.
The arrival of the English took both sides by surprise, but it was Montluc who was outnumbered. Fortunately the Count of Isenburg-Grenzau (Archbishop of Trier) was leading another company of the Franco-Imperial army in support. Before long their number began to tell and it was the English commander who ordered the retreat, covering the rear of the badly-bloodied Wurttemberg force. Bruchsal cost Duke Christoph half of his 4,000 men killed or captured, whilst Matthew Boleyn was also taken prisoner. The French had also lost around 1,800 men although their control of the battlefield allowed them to recover their wounded.
By the start of May, the Calais and Piacenza companies, including Giovanni Il Nero/Hartson had fortified Heidelberg and the countryside around it, entering a tense stand-off with Enghien’s army camped 6 miles to the south near Bruchsal itself. Meanwhile further north Otto-Henry and his main army of 18,000 men lay siege to Mainz across the Rhine, having sent a screening force across the River to block the city from the south. Frankfurt had also reluctantly thrown in their lot with the rebels, given their accusation by Maximillian’s declaration.
By June the Emperor was again ready to move, and led a march against Frankfurt from the south-east. Skirting around the Odenwald, the Imperial army marched through Fulda just before Midsummer’s Eve. From here they were harried all the way into Frankfurt by Margrave Acibiades of Brandenburg. This was his land and he knew the terrain exceptionally well. Fighting in the style made famous by the English in the Nine Years’ War - with Schragbus from close range - Acibiades was able to slow the Imperial advance to a crawl as every hamlet, forest and hillock had to be swept for his men. At the Fulda Gap itself a series of detonations blocked the road for days.
Finally west of Fulda, but clearly in enemy territory, and with his supply lines constantly under attack by Alcibiades, Maximillian must have known that his time was limited. He was now beyond the reaches of the Empire, and he could not easily retreat given that the Rhine to the west was in enemy hands, north lay further hostile terrain, and south was fouled up with partisans. We know from Archduke Ferdinand’s papers that the plan had been to lay siege to Frankfurt and force a confrontation with the Palatinate and allied forces and so destroy them. However, the precarious supply position meant that a lengthy siege would have been as harmful to the Imperial army as their enemies.
Maximillian II settled for a parlay outside the town of Hanau, 5 miles up river from Frankfurt, on the 2nd of July 1549 with Heinrich Meissen, Mayor of the City, Count Otto-Henry, Phillip of Hesse, John Frederick II of Saxony and Johan Miehlen. Notably no English was present, although Miehlen no doubt reported back on their behalf. The Hanau Conference lasted almost a month, and after initial tensions had died down, negotiations had begun over the future of the western parts of the Empire. Officially the Emperor was intransigent but through Freidrich Staphylus working in back-channels made it clear that he was willing to recognise the Palatinate’s departure from the Empire. It was Wurttemberg that delayed proceedings; Duke Christoph had wisely kept a low profile since Bruchsal, and was not at Hanau, but Maximillian kept demanding his head for the young man’s actions. Unwilling to sell even one of their less useful allies down the river, the Protestant Lords kept their heels dug in until talks explosively collapsed at the end of July when word came from Mainz.
John of Isenburg-Grenzau, Archbishop of Trier, was not your typical Church leader. As Count of Isenburg-Grenzau he had access to his own income and retinue, as well as a good deal of martial experience. John had been present at Euskirchen, the last battle of the Nine Years War and had witnessed the death of his brother Anthony to an English cavalry charge. This event had gifted him his secular title, but had also inflamed a passionate hatred in him for Protestants and the English in particular.The warrior Archbishop had spent the summer of 1549 on the banks of the Rhine staring across open floodplain at an English army dug in around Heidelberg, and had not been able to attend the Hannau conference. Archbishop John was good friends with Archbishop von Heussenstamm of Mainz, whose city was under siege by the rebel army. This siege was not particularly ghastly; Otto-Henry was too afraid of bad press to order a full bombardment of the walls, and his 6,000 men stationed on the left bank of the Rhine under William of Hesse and Phillip Hartson only prevented supplies reaching the city garrison, anyone who wished to was free to leave. However after months of idleness, the two Archbishops were frustrated with their secular commanders. On the 18th of July they left the Franco-Imperial encampment at Bruchsal with 8,000 men, joined later by Montluc and another 2,000 men sent by Count Enghien to keep an eye on them.
This force left during the night and so was immediately spotted by the Anglo-Palatinate forces intended to stop them. The Archbishops marched south for 10 miles before they found a point to cross the Rhine, and then turned north heading for Mainz. The western bank of the Rhine here was nominally loyal to the two Archbishops and so they had little trouble in reaching the edge of the besieged city on the morning of the 24th of July, a day of two battles. The swift march of the Archbishops’ army had taken the English by surprise. The Marck Company led by Phillip Hartson, and the German forces under William of Hesse, had prepared earthworks to their south in case of such an advance but they were outnumbered by two to one. Combined with a sally from the Mainz garrison, responding to the banner of their Archbishop, the Battle of Mainz was a resounding victory for the Catholics. The earthworks did slow down the Franco-German advance, but this only allowed more of their 5,000 opponents to escape. Phillip Hartson was able to cross the Rhine on the small fleet of ships they had used with around 3,000 of his men, the remaining number were killed, captured or drowned in the process. One unfortunate victim was William of Hesse, heir of Phillip, who fell from a boat in the crossing and drowned in his armour. This death alone would have deep ramifications for the conflict, but so too would the battle occuring 80 miles to the south.
On the same day as the Archbishops reached Mainz, Edward of Oudenburg decided to act. The commander of the Calais Company was one of the more experienced English soldiers in the Palatinate that summer, and he had benefited most from the military reforms of the Earl of Gloucester. The Calais Company, and the Piacenza Company led by William Hartson had both spent the summer camped south of Heidelberg confronting and blocking the Imperial-French army led by the Count of Enghien. They had used this time to drill themselves well and by the end of July both companies together boasted 6,000 infantrymen equipped in armour with pikes, halberds, and the latest weapon from London, the Snelbus. The Snelbus was a refined model of the older Arquebus which the French and Imperial forces were using; it had a longer range, greater accuracy, and faster reload time. Sir William Packet had perfected the design early in the Spring, and the first 500 of these new weapons would get their testrun in the ensuing battle. Edward and William also had a further 2000 cavalry, mixed 50:50 between the traditional equipment and the lighter plate and Schragbus, and another 24 field guns pulled by teams of horses which could fire and move rapidly across an open field. The cousins were further backed up by Wilhelm Frulich and his Swiss mercenaries, along with Christoph of Wurttemberg who together commanded another 4,000 men. In total the rebel force consisted of 12,000 men against Count Enghien’s 8,000 men.
A few days before the 24th of July, Edward of Oudenburg, Lord of Dunkirk and Earl of March, had discovered that their opposing army had shrunk with the departure of the Archbishops, and word from Mannheim had arrived with their location on the far bank of the Rhine. Edward had also spotted that the level of the Rhine had dropped considerably since Enghien had constructed his earthworks in mid-Spring meaning that the western end of his encampment was relatively undefended. At dawn on the 24th of July, the English commander launched his attack, and the Battle of Hambrucken began. Count Enghien had constructed an earthwork defense from the ridge-line to the river Rhine in April for just under a mile and believed his position secure. He had not noticed that as the Rhine shrank in summer the last 200 yards of his flank were exposed. Thus at dawn when the English fieldguns opened up from in front of the camp near the hamlet of Hambrucken, the French Count did not immediately see the danger.
Edward and his Companies had spent the night getting into position along the dried-up fringes of the Rhine waterway on the location of the modern-day village of Huttenheim. Thus when the cannon-fire began they easily moved out of the shallow defile and fell upon Enghien’s camp from its exposed flank. The French army, outnumbered and underprepared was more or less annihilated, only 500 or so men made it back to Strasbourg. Count Enghien was captured, and Matthew Boleyn released from his custody. After months of retreat and stand-off the Protestant forces had scored a victory.
The response to the ‘Day of Two Battles’ at Hanau was explosive. News of both battles arrived within mere hours of each other thanks to the Burgher of Frankfurt slowing down news of the defeat at Mainz for a day or so. Phillip of Hesse went into deep mourning at the loss of his heir, and withdrew from the Conference on the evening of the 27th. Though initially happy at his victory at Mainz, if frustrated by the Archbishop’s acting without orders, Maximilian II threw into a rage when he learned that the French army had been wiped out later that night. According to legend he threw into a rage in the conference chamber itself and pulled his sword on Otto-Henry, declaring treachery. Cooler heads were unable to prevent what happened next and the ‘Night of Swords’ has entered History as another sorry episode in the European Wars of Religion. The streets of the small town of Hanau ran red with the blood of Catholic and Protestant alike as the two retinues fought hand-to-hand in the gutters and taverns. Thankfully neither army was fully present, and so a full battle was spared, but come dawn on the 28th Hanau was in ruins and both leaderships had fled. Miraculously no major leaders had been killed although Stockenhammer, the Bavarian leader, was severely injured and captured by the Protestants.
A large battle seemed inevitable, Maximillian himself again screamed for the heads of the traitors, but once more his brother Ferdinand was able to make the Emperor see reason. With their allies gone, and the harrying of their supply lines now set to resume, the Imperial army north of Hannau was dangerously exposed. They may have had local superiority over the paltry 6,000 men which Otto had garrisoned near to Frankfurt, but they risked losing their entire army to wastage and starvation if they tried to move against it. Reluctantly the Emperor made the decision to withdraw.
Once the dust had settled upon the last days of July, the Palatinate War had taken another lurch towards the abyss. The Emperor had been humiliated. For all his armies and having the rebels caught in a pincer movement, his ally had been destroyed and all he had to show for it was a grateful Duke Ulrich once again in control of Wurttemberg. The Palatinate was further from his grasp than ever. King Henri II was incensed at the loss of much needed forces, and the rebels ire had been raised even further.
After his period of mourning had ended, and with the Emperor safely behind the Odenwald and Danube for another season, Phillip of Hesse travelled to Calais in November 1549 where he met Richard of Oudenburg, the High Marshal of England, and King Richard IV himself. Also present was Giovanni Hartson, his two sons the commanders of the Piacenza and Marck companies, and Oudenburg’s son Edward who commanded the Calais Company. From Germany Otto-Henry and Christoph of Wurttemberg, now a fugitive from his own inheritance. Together these men agreed that the Emperor must be dealt with and the Palatinate secured for Protestantism. In what became an impromptu meeting of the League of Copenhagen, once King Christian III and John of Cleves arrived too, the decision was taken to formally declare that the Palatinate was formally under their protection and that they were now officially at war with the Emperor.
Correspondingly in France, a further rebellion in Maine and Aquitaine kept Henri II pinned down, and the loss of Count Enghien had taken the wind from the King’s sails. Now that he would effectively be at war with England and the entire League if he persisted, Henri sent diplomats to Amiens to ensure a truce with the Protestants and he withdrew from the Treaty of Dijon citing Maximillian’s recklessness as his reason.
It was a quiet Christmas in Austria that winter. Maximilian had taken the Summer’s frustrations and the Winter’s news badly, and may have suffered some kind of breakdown. He had clearly been unstable for some time, and he was not seen at all in public throughout Advent and into the new year. It seems that his brother Ferdinand was taking more and more responsibility for orchestrating the Empire’s response to the ongoing crisis, and by the time of the new campaign, Maximilian had retreated to Riegersburg Castle near Graz to ‘take the air’ making Ferdinand commander of the Imperial Army in his absence.
@CrepedCrusader I have a few key questions which will help me visualise the situation of England/Britain, if you wouldn't mind answering.
1. England seems to have competently managed inflation and massively re-invested into the nation. Does this mean that when compared to the Spanish Empire, precious metals (gold and silver) make up a lesser degree of government income? If so, is it to a large degree or a minor one?
2. Is Scotland officially part of this complex web of English protectorates - or is it nominally independent?
3. Have butterflies changed anything significant in the Balkans or the Middle East?
4. Is England's population higher than OTL, is it roughly the same, or is it lower? If it is noticeably different, roughly where would you put England's population?
Thanks
1. England seems to have competently managed inflation and massively re-invested into the nation. Does this mean that when compared to the Spanish Empire, precious metals (gold and silver) make up a lesser degree of government income? If so, is it to a large degree or a minor one?
2. Is Scotland officially part of this complex web of English protectorates - or is it nominally independent?
3. Have butterflies changed anything significant in the Balkans or the Middle East?
4. Is England's population higher than OTL, is it roughly the same, or is it lower? If it is noticeably different, roughly where would you put England's population?
Thanks
@EvilJam thanks for the questions.
1. True England is less reliant on precious metals than OTL Spain. The sheer volume of trade, and the tobacco industry in particular are just two areas. Given the investment weaponry and shipbuilding are also up there. However Gold and Silver still make up a significant amount of the initial investment value so it is to a larger degree of wealth, although England is less reliant on it than OTL Spain.
2. Scotland is nominally independent, though by 1554 it would be fair to say that it was entirely in th English orbit and under their control even if this is not explicitly spelled out in any Law or Act of Parliament
3. I will be honest and say that I don't have any clear plans for Middle East or Balkans. I have the Ottomans being less of a threat given that Charles V had a good decade before his death to devote to putting them in their place. But this is largely because I don't want to extend the timeline there for fear of the extra work it would create me!
4. Yes England's population is bigger. so OTL the figures I have are a rough pop of 2.1 mill in 1490 rising to 2.3 mill (1522), 2.8 mill (1541) and 3.2 mill (1560). Given the greater wealth pouring into England ITTL from 1490, I see a good increase in population growth meaning 2.7mill by 1522, 3.5 mill (1541) and as high as 4.4 mill by 1560. Although some of this will be spread over the New World, the population of England by 1560 would be fair to say around 3.9 mill with around another million (including native Americans and other European settlers) or so across the Atlantic. Or to put it plainly, the King of England in 1555 ITTL can command the loyalty of as many subjects as OTL 1650.
Hope that helps you get a better idea, feel free to ask follow ups!
CC
1. True England is less reliant on precious metals than OTL Spain. The sheer volume of trade, and the tobacco industry in particular are just two areas. Given the investment weaponry and shipbuilding are also up there. However Gold and Silver still make up a significant amount of the initial investment value so it is to a larger degree of wealth, although England is less reliant on it than OTL Spain.
2. Scotland is nominally independent, though by 1554 it would be fair to say that it was entirely in th English orbit and under their control even if this is not explicitly spelled out in any Law or Act of Parliament
3. I will be honest and say that I don't have any clear plans for Middle East or Balkans. I have the Ottomans being less of a threat given that Charles V had a good decade before his death to devote to putting them in their place. But this is largely because I don't want to extend the timeline there for fear of the extra work it would create me!
4. Yes England's population is bigger. so OTL the figures I have are a rough pop of 2.1 mill in 1490 rising to 2.3 mill (1522), 2.8 mill (1541) and 3.2 mill (1560). Given the greater wealth pouring into England ITTL from 1490, I see a good increase in population growth meaning 2.7mill by 1522, 3.5 mill (1541) and as high as 4.4 mill by 1560. Although some of this will be spread over the New World, the population of England by 1560 would be fair to say around 3.9 mill with around another million (including native Americans and other European settlers) or so across the Atlantic. Or to put it plainly, the King of England in 1555 ITTL can command the loyalty of as many subjects as OTL 1650.
Hope that helps you get a better idea, feel free to ask follow ups!
CC
1548-1554 Part 4
Between Two Worlds: Europe 1531-1606 O Thompson (2015)
Archduke Ferdinand of Austria was a reasonable man. As the second and youngest son of his father Ferdinand, he had never expected to wield supreme power. However following Ferdinand the elder’s death at Euskirchen in 1531, and Charles V’s death in 1545, it left the two brothers - Maximilian and Ferdinand - to hold the Habsburg Empire together. This was a task for which Maximillian was unsuited. His psychotic break in the winter of 1549-50 came as a consequence of five years of constant fighting for his own position at a still relatively young age. Especially at Hanau, it fell to Ferdinand to keep his brother stable and in control. Confronted with the situation in early 1550, especially the absence of his brother, Ferdinand elected to negotiate.
The Archduke, as supreme commander of the Imperial army, could still command around 30,000 men against 16,000 rebels at that stage. However the Imperial coffers were running dry and only an emergency loan from the Pope would keep the army fed and equipped. Furthermore Ferdinand knew that he would be facing the might of England following the meeting at Calais just before Christmas. Wisely, he disbanded half of his army, keeping the household troops from Austria, Hungary, Bohemia and Bavaria, and invited Phillip of Hesse and Richard IV to a conference at Ulm for April that year.
Ulm was an important town on the border with Bavaria and Wurttemburg, and its Golden Ulmer Rathaus (Town Hall) was a lavish location for a meeting which would decide the future of Europe. As previously arranged, both sides brought 10,000 soldiers with them but these were separated by the Danube and stationed 10 miles from Ulm to prevent any further bloodshed as there had been at Hannau. The Imperial delegation led by Ferdinand was the first to arrive whilst Richard and Phillip arrived a week later. Richard IV brought the High Marshall of England with him, and the ageing Chief Justice Thomas Cromwell protected by the Royal Swiss Guard and few others. This was deliberate in order to convey the utmost majesty without risking a conflict.
Negotiations ran on and on for over three months. William Cecil, a clerk assisting Thomas Cromwell, kept a fastidiously detailed account from which we can see that again Ferdinand was willing to recognise the Palatinate’s departure from the Holy Roman Empire. However negotiations again faltered upon the future of Wurttemberg. Unhelpfully Duke Ulrich had died in January, and by rights his son Christoph should have inherited the title and land. However Ferdinand was still against allowing him to accede to his inheritance, and tried desperately to keep it within the Empire, even conferring the title upon the infant Duke of Bavaria to no avail. Matters were not helped by the two warrior Archbishops of Trier and Mainz who arrived in Ulm in early May to light a fire under the Archduke and attempt to sever the southern Palatinate, including Heidelberg, from Otto-Henry’s domain to allow them a land-bridge to the rest of the Empire. The arrival of these Electors only increased tension without bringing a solution, and Ferdinand in the end had the two men removed from the Ulmer Rathaus.
By mid-July a compromise had been reached whereby Duke Christoph would become Duke of Wurttemberg-Heilbronn and Jean de Ligne, the Duke of Arenberg, would become Count of Wurttemberg-Stuttgart. In short the Duchy would be cut in half with the northern portion leaving the Empire, but the richer and larger half in the south would remain in the Empire. With that complete the Treaty of Ulm was almost finished, and the Archduke Ferdinand retired on the evening of the 15th of July to rest from his exertions. A number of people would have been unhappy with these terms: Christoph for one who lost a large portion of his birth-right, both Archbishops for second who had the most tenuous of links to the Empire via Karlsruhe, and finally Emperor Maximillian, by now moved to Innsbruck, who had made his feelings clear the previous year on the division of Wurttemberg and Duke Christoph.
On the morning of the 16th of July a chambermaid found the Archduke of Austria dead in his bed. The immediate response was panic and outrage, the Imperial army was summoned from Augsburg and Ferdinand's retinue ran onto the streets of Ulm weapons drawn. There has been endless debate over Ferdinand’s cause of death. At the time of course murder was the most popular explanation with most Catholics blaming Christoph of Wurttemberg, Otto-Henry or Richard IV. Since 1550 conspiracy theorists have suggested that Imperial die-hards, including the Emperor himself, could have been responsible in revenge for what they saw as a bad deal, or even the Pope. More convincing arguments, but not much more convincing, have been heard about the Archbishops of Mainz and Trier.
Murder cannot be conclusively ruled out, the remove of time and lack of evidence makes it impossible, but recently more natural causes have been suggested. Ferdinand would have been understandably stressed, and so some kind of blood pressure related death may be considered, be that heart attack or brain hemorrhage. Crucially there were no marks on the body and no blood loss, which led many contemporaries to suspect Witchcraft. However recent astonishing genetic research using some of Ferdinand’s descendants has shown that he would have had a genetic vulnerability to Cardiac stress and so perhaps a heart attack may explain his untimely demise. Unfortunately, in an era when most medical care still relied on Hippocrates or the movement of the planets, there was little hope of an accurate cause of death.
Given the English response to Ferdinand’s death, we can probably discount them from any murder investigation; they were caught hopelessly flat-footed. We know from Cecil that the Swiss Guard locked down the English accommodation as soon as cries of murder and treachery reverberated from Ferdinand’s residence, but beyond that Richard IV was slow to act. Around early afternoon, when the Imperial army was halfway to Ulm, he finally summoned his own army from Geislingen, but they were behind their rivals. Secondly Richard IV and Oudenburg both stayed in Ulm for the whole of the 16th trying to rescue their treaty, but the Imperial delegation was deaf to reason.
Finally around late afternoon, with the Imperial army starting to cross the Rhine, the English decided to leave, but it was too late. The Royal Swiss Guard of 100 men were able to hack their way clear of Ulm, killing a number of Imperial soldiers who tried to stop them, and set the King and his entourage on the road north. This was a speedy departure; the entire Royal wardrobe and a good number of servants were left behind. Eventually Richard IV met up with Giovanni Hartson commanding the Royal army near the village of Lonsee around 9 miles from Ulm. The Imperial outriders were hard on their heels, but waved off in the face of the English army. The Swiss Royal Guard had stood and fought in the north gate of Ulm and been wiped out to a man, and Cecil records that the King ‘grieved hard for his servants and desired justice in their name’.
Richard IV did not have long to wait as the Imperial forces commanded by Ulrich von Sttetin and Alfonso D’Avalos followed the fleeing Royals north. Being pumped up by the death of their Lord, and confident of the justice of their cause, the Imperial army formed up on a low ridgeline with forest to their back facing north, just to the east of the village of Dornstadt. Across the low flat valley to the north approached the English army. The sun was setting but both sides were itching for a fight and demanding justice for the ‘attacks’ upon each of their leaders.
Thanks to William Cecil we have a good account of the consequent battle. The English may have only had 10,000 men but their commanders were Richard IV, Richard Duke of York and Oudenburg High Marshall and Constable of England, and his half-brother Giovanni Hartson Earl of Amiens. These three grandsons (Richard IV was a great grandson) of Edward IV were some of the finest soldiers of their age, and the two senior scions of York had decades of military experience. Giovanni led the Piacenza Company in the vanguard on the English right, Richard IV had his own retinue and the Calais Company in the centre, and Oudenburg commanded the Cologne company on the left. Coincidentally, all three men had their sons with them; William Hartson seconded his father, Thomas of Oudenburg still commanded the Cologne Company, and Edward Prince of Wales rode into his first battle aged 15, although he remained with the reserves under Lord Cobham. Across the valley were the Imperial soldiers drawn up in two battles shoulder to shoulder, Stettin with the left and Avalos the right.
The English had been able to bring a dozen field cannons with them, enough to pepper the Imperial line across the valley as their own companies advanced. This fire may have only been slight, but it infuriated the already angry Imperial soldiers, and many charged without orders, surrendering their relatively strong position on the hill. The two sides clashed in the centre of the field, silencing the English cannons, but very quickly one side had the edge. The Imperial Army had been marching to avenge Ferdinand since that morning, they were fired with anger and adrenaline rather than common sense. In contrast the English army had only been on the march for a few hours, and were defending their King. Furthermore the English Company organisation was incredibly disciplined and effective - the mere 6000 infantry were able to hold off the massed and disorganised ranks of angry Germans and Italians whilst the Cavalry was able to get around their exposed rear.
Giovanni Il Nero had been leading Cavalry charges for almost 30 years by this point, and what his body lacked in strength his mind made up for in sharpness. Threading the needle between Piacenza and Calais Companies he led a Cavalry charge right between Stettin and Avalos’ units, separating them and falling upon their flanks. With the Imperial army already wavering, Richard IV ordered his son Edward to encircle around the right flank, and Oudenburg to flank on the left. The result was a near perfect encirclement. Ulrich of Stettin was killed by this move but D’Avalos, himself a veteran, read the field well and was able to hack clear, taking around 2000 back to Ulm the long way around via Gunzberg.
As the sun set on the field of Dornstadt, the hope of any reconciliation set with it. The Imperial army may have been badly wounded, but this was just a part of it, and Emperor Maximillian would now be out for revenge. Indeed Alfonso D’Avalos travelled straight to Munich after the battle where he met Maximillian, and together they organised how to defeat the Protestants once and for all. The Treaty of Ulm was never ratified or implemented, Maximilian had it disavowed as not being in line with his wishes, and at any rate he now declared all of the German Protestant Princes traitors once more and demanded his pound of flesh.
Fortunately for the Protestants, Ulm had left the Empire in such disarray that no response would be forthcoming for the rest of 1550 and so they had time to strengthen and prepare. To this end the League of Copenhagen met again at Calais in September. Richard IV was said to be despairing over the loss of the Ulm Treaty and the death of Archduke Ferdinand, there could be no such negotiation with Emperor Maximillian II, and now war was the only solution. Nevertheless the assembled Lords agreed to an unprecedented assembly of forces in the Palatinate the following Spring. England pledged 25,000 men including 8 military companies, a sure sign of their commitment to end the war as soon as possible, whilst the German Princes could provide another 18,000 between them, the Netherlands 6,000 and Denmark 4,000. It would be necessary to supply this army up the Rhine as far as Wiesbaden and so the United Netherlands took responsibility for this task. All told the League of Copenhagen planned to have almost 50,000 soldiers on the ground in the Palatinate by Easter. Those preparations finished, the leaders returned to their homesteads to last the winter.
The Emperor was even less idle. Maximilian II launched himself into his plan for revenge with all the vigour and lustre his grief and guilt addled mind could manage. The Propaganda flowed through the Empire, Italy, France and Hungary portraying the dual tragedies of Ulm and Dornstadt as a fiendish Protestant plot to undermine the true religion. Combined with another sizable loan from the Papacy, Maximilian was not short of resources, and he planned to use them to maximum effect. The Emperor must have had a sense that the entire League would now mobilise against him, his idea was thus to begin his campaign in February, long before it could normally be expected.
Henri II was still reluctant to join Maximillian’s campaign, he had judged the Emperor to be of unsound mind, but was willing to support logistically using the Rhine from Strasbourg. So it was through the winter of 1550-51 that Imperial supplies were stockpiled in the city and the rest of Alsace. As for the military force, the Imperial contingent alone numbered in the 28,000, with a further 6,000 from Maximillian’s own domains. Furthermore D’Avalos was able to gather another 18,000 men and volunteers from across northern Italy, France and even Spain. Phillip II may have had little love for his cousin, but he could not stop his subjects volunteering to fight in the Rhineland. Maximilian also had a secret weapon: Andrew Báthory. Second son of Stephen Bathory, a vital member of the Hungarian nobility, Andrew had known the Emperor on and off through much of his life, and had a talent for warfare. Andrew had been able to gather around 2500 Hungarian roughnecks and mercenaries for a very specific task.
Albert Alcibiades, Margrave of Brandenburg-Kulmbach, had been a thorn in the Imperial side since 1549. His harrying tactics and general military skill had allowed the man to almost single handedly halt the Imperial advance. Alcibiades had ceded from the Empire too, but the attention of all concerned had been to the west. In February 1551, however, the Palatinate War finally came to Kulmbach as Bathory and his band of brigands left Nuremberg on a campaign of burning and pillaging across the Margrave’s domain; first Bayreuth and then Kulmbach were raised to the ground with the Hungarians then taking to the countryside in smaller groups. Bathory used Alcibiades’ own tactics against him, forming hit and run raids which brought misery to Brandenburg-Kulmbach but could not easily be stopped. The effect was to tie down Alcibiades and deny his skills, and those of his men, to the Protestants.
Almost concurrently, in the third week of February, Maximilian began his advance. His army had not entirely formed in Bavaria yet, but at least 32,000 men crossed the Danube heading for the Rhine, with stragglers joining them on the way. By the 19th of February the Imperial army was at Karlsruhe, bearing down on the Palatinate and marching along the Rhine into its heartland. The mood in Neusbach itself was panic: the Protestants had not expected an attack this early in the year and could muster at most 15,000 men to slow them down. The English, save Thomas of Oudenburg and his Cologne Company, were still in Calais or England itself and not ready for war. On the 21st of February Maximillian was once again at Heidelberg, and there were only 4,000 men to stop him.
The Battle of Heidelberg was a one-sided affair. Outnumbered almost 10:1 the most that the beleaguered Cologne Company, augmented by 1000 or so Palatinate soldiers, could do was to delay the oncoming Catholic horde. The Seigneur Montluc, once again in the Rhineland this time as a volunteer, was given the job of dislodging the Protestant force as quickly as possible. Thomas of Oudenburg had chosen to draw his force up north of the River Neckar in the modern-day Schwabenheimer suburb to block a crossing using the ‘Hutton Square’ devised by his great uncle the Earl of Gloucester. This square was ideal for defending a static position; a hedge of pikes augmented by Snelbus and Polearms which could obliterate any incoming cavalry force and give infantry a hard time.
The issue was that the Catholics had learned from their opponents. Montluc had a few mobile fieldguns with him. Copied from designs captured in previous campaigns, these guns resembled their English cousins, although the Imperial gunners were less efficient with them. Nonetheless these field guns peppered the Protestant formation. They came under fire from the English guns across the Neckar, but they did manage to cause casualties. In the end though they were a mere distraction; around noon an Imperial infantry charge across the bridge was accompanied by Montluc’s own cavalry which had spent the morning looking for a crossing further downstream. Having found one, Montluc now attacked the flank and rear of the Cologne Company as his infantry charged the front. The Hutton Square may have been a fantastic defensive formation, but it could not hold off simultaneous attacks from three directions, and it folded rather quickly. In the resultant chaos the Cologne Company was wiped out to a man, no quarter was given, and Thomas of Oudenburg, second son to the High Marshall and Constable of England, was killed.
Heidelberg was a disaster for the League of Copenhagen, but it taught them a lesson. William Hartson and the mounted portion of the Piacenza detachment took to mobile harassment of the Imperial army using the archetypal Yorkist weapon: the Schragbus. This short range but explosive weapon could cause devastating casualties in close quarters, and Hartson stationed men in every hamlet and village from Heidelberg to Frankfurt armed with them. The upshot was that there were no further huge losses for the Protestants, but crucially that it took Maximillan another week to reach Frankfurt.
However this delay was still not enough, and only another 15,000 or so men had made it to the Palatinate for the Protestants by the first day of March. Otto-Henry now had 25,000 men, but was still outnumbered by almost 2:1. Faced with no other choice, he took his army north into the rough terrain around Limberg and surrendered the Rhine, Frankfurt, and his fortress at Neusbach to the Emperor. The city of Frankfurt therefore opened their doors to the Imperial army, and threw itself on the Emperor’s mercy. The Imperial army sacked the city. There had been too much bad blood and frustration to assuage the soldiers, and Maximillian seems to have made no effort to stop the violence; the city burned for three days.
In fact, not satisfied with this destruction, Maximilian also ordered that Neusbach Castle be raised to the ground as well. For this first week of March, the Palatinate War devolved into a orgy of violence, burning and looting. Maximillian’s vengeance was wreaked against the people of the Rhineland, and bar a few Protestant raids, there was little abatement to it. Freidrich Staphylus - a born Protestant turned Catholic in service to the Emperor - records however that this violence would ultimately sour Maximillian’s reputation even further, with his enemies and supposed subjects. French sources claim that Henri II referred to Maximillian II as a ‘rabid dog’ and perhaps that is why Montluc and 2,000 of his men left Frankfurt for home.
After the burning of the Rhineland, any sense of conciliation or moderation in the Imperial army had disappeared, indeed so too did any semblance of sound strategy. For the past month the Imperial army had been well fed by the endless supply of boats plying the Rhine, but with the Protestant’s escape into the hills, Maximilian now wished to follow them. Even D’Avalos and Strozzi could not convince the Emperor of the stupidity of this move, he sensed victory and wanted to press his advantage. The Imperial Army, by now reduced to 46,000 men, was sent on a forced march up into the hills carrying only three days personal supplies forcing them to live off the land. This country was the border between the Empire and Hesse and Maximillian had no problem in allowing his men to pillage the countryside, no matter what side of the border they were actually on. This broken terrain again favoured the Schragbus, more than the Rhine floodplain had, and so the Catholics again started to take losses, this transpired to turn the 70 mile journey into a distinct slog for Maximillian’s army and it was the 12th of March, a full 5 days since leaving Frankfurt, before his army reached the outskirts of Limberg where the League army was waiting for them.
Whilst Maximillian had been burning the Rhineland, another 7,000 men had arrived from England, the Netherlands and Germany to bolster the ranks of the Protestant army, bringing with them Giovanni Hartson and Phillip of Hesse as seasoned commanders. They could now field close to 32,000 men; the Emperor still had an advantage but it was not as unassailable as it had been. That being the case, the Protestant army was still incredibly disparate; 12,000 men (Piacenza, Calais, Marck and London Companies) were English under the command of Giovanni Hartson, his son William, Edward of Oudenberg Earl of March, and Edward Prince of Wales. Otto Henry and his uncle Frederick together commanded 6,000 Palatinate soldiers whilst the other German Princes - Phillip of Hesse, Phillip of Pomerania, Wolfgang of Anhalt-Kohen and Archbishop Adolf Schauenberg of Cologne - commanded 9,000 men between them. Finally came the 4,000 Dutch contingent of John of Cleves, his son William, and William, Count of Nassau and Prince of Orange. The future King of the United Netherlands was just 15 at the time of the Battle of Limberg, but his future strength and military prowess was already evident.
Staphylus records that elements of the Imperial army were at the end of their strength, given the 5 day march through difficult and wintery terrain with minimal rations, and Strozzi in particular urged the Emperor to retreat. But Maximillian II was determined, he had the advantage of numbers and he believed he had the advantage of a just cause as well, he therefore deployed his army in battle formation on the morning of the 13th of March.
The battlefield at Limberg has been largely restored to how it would have looked in 1551. It is a wide plain around 3 miles wide and flanked by a steep gulley with streams at either side. Both of these streams run north towards the River Lahn and Limberg itself, with a third stream - the Linterbach - dissecting the field down the middle. This would particularly hamper the Protestant deployment as it split their line in half. Furthermore the Lahn was at their backs and so further retreat would have been chaotic and bloody, they had to give battle of this ground.
Phillip of Hesse and Giovanni as joint commanders of the army took a half of the field each. Phillip commanded all of the German forces (15,000 total) on the western flank in front of Limberg itself whereas Giovanni and all three English companies took the left flank anchored between the Linterbach and Emsbach. In the centre was the Dutch contingent as a reserve and the battery of English guns in a redoubt protected by a bend in the Linterbach. The entire Protestant line hinged around this redoubt - the banks were too steep to be easily scaled - and Giovanni placed 100 chosen men, the best sharpshooters he had armed with Snelbus to defend this redoubt. Orange Ridge, as this hill is now known had a clear field of view across the whole battlefield. Phillip and Giovanni orientated their lines as an inverted ‘V’ to channel the Imperial Army into these guns.
On the Imperial side Maximillian gave himself the right flank, spying the English banners there, with his household troops and the Duke of Arenberg’s men totalling 24,000 soldiers. The remaining 22,000 were given to D’Avalos and Strozzi on the left flank to pin down the German contingent whilst the Emperor destroyed the English himself and then wheeled left.
It was a cold and grey morning, and it began to snow as the Imperial army advanced. Maximillian probably did not know that it was two weeks shy of 90 years since the battle of Towton, where a desperately outnumbered Yorkist army swept the field against a superior foe in a blizzard, but Giovanni and the Prince of Wales certainly did. The White Prince, as his fair complexion led him to be known, was only 16, but he was already the military visage of his great grandfather, and his father before him, the victor at Towton that day, and he let the three English Companies know it. Prince Edward delivered a rousing speech to the 12,000 men under his nominal command where he extolled the virtues of the house of York, the supremacy of English arms, and the deranged rantings of the bloody Emperor.
Maximilian was confident and did not order any kind of artillery or missile bombardment, he merely launched his entire force towards the English who were outnumbered 2:1. However the Emperor had not reckoned on Giovanni Hartson, Earl of Amiens. As the Imperial army advanced they came under fire from the Protestant artillery on Orange Ridge only a few hundred yards away. Second the army had to cross boggy ground rife with small streams, only a 500m gap in the centre of the English line was not shielded by streams or waterways, and finally Giovanni had formed his four companies into Hutton Squares.
There may have only been around 10,000 infantry in Giovanni's force, but they were formed into a steel wall of pike tips, polearms and Snelbus. With the Imperial charge already faltering, and the Duke of Arenberg already being cut down by English gunfire, the four professional English companies made short work of the first wave. Furious and bloodied himself, Maximilian pulled back for a second charge which this time was better targeted through the section of firm ground and struck home in the centre of the Calais Company where Edward of March commanded. However this was the only place where the Imperial attack landed with any force and so Giovanni was able to lead a cavalry charge through the narrow gaps in the English companies, fall on Maximillian’s flank, and force a retreat.
Further west D’Avalos and Strozzi were fairing slightly better. The Italian and Spanish soldiers were better matched with the German forces. Neither side was as well drilled as the English, and D’Avalos’ superior numbers were starting to tell. Prince Wolfgang fell, as did Otto-Henry’s uncle Frederick, thus when the Imperial withdrawal order came around noon it brought some much needed respite to the beleaguered Germans.
At a hurried conference over lunch, Maximilian ordered D’Avalos to reinforce himself on the right. With Maximillian’s losses putting him below 18,000 men, D’Avalos’ reinforcements would put him close to 30,000 men on that flank, almost three times the English. Strozzi was left with 8,000 men, a cavalry screen and the entire Imperial artillery force to keep Phillip of Hesse and his compatriots busy whilst Maximillian broke the English line. The Emperor seems not to have been aware of how Montluc had broken the Hutton Square at Heidelberg, or if he was, he chose a direct assault instead.
As snow continued to fall, the Emperor led his final gamble against the English line. They had to break, he had almost three times their number, and they had fought all morning. Maximilian gave D’Avalos the task of storming and capturing the English artillery redoubt on Orange Ridge, and gave him 1000 crack Bavarian Landschneckt to do the job. Meanwhile the fast bulk of the Imperial forces crammed into the mile wide stretch of land in between the two streams, the centre streaming ahead on the firmer land. Giovanni had pulled his army back a few paces so that the Catholics had to charge over their dead and wounded comrades from the morning's fighting. The respite around noon had allowed him to gather his own casualties, resupply ammunition, and plan a killing blow. As Maximillian’s centre again hit his - he had switched the Piacenza and Calais Companies around so that his son’s fresher troops met this charge - he put his plan into action.
English Hart by Saul David (2008)
God how Giovanni loved battle! He had been born into this life and he loved it like nothing else. Now as his horse picked up speed across the plain, he relished this moment, his mood undimmed by his freezing legs from the river crossing or the lack of familiar plate on his back.
Duke Phillip had told him about the hidden river crossing to the east of his line, but scouts the previous day had reported it narrow, treacherous and cold at this time of year. It was something Giovanni Il Nero, Earl of Amiens and son of the Prince of Harts, had only planned to use in emergencies, or a desperate final scheme. The passage was so difficult that he had ordered his 1000 or so cavalry to ditch the majority of their armour to ease the journey.
Now, equipped only in open Burgonet, chest plate and greaves, he was charging across the frozen plain of Limberg, the rear of the Emperor’s army in clear view. God love that boy William, Giovanni thought as he saw his proud black cross banner still flying above the rampant White stag symbol of the Piacenza company in the distance. His son’s stand had bought Giovanni and his men time, and now they used it.
They were no more than 200 paces from the Emperor’s standard when they were finally spotted, the damned fool hadn’t even placed any pickets. Giovanni yelled for Sebastian to sound the charge at his right, but he needn’t have bothered, his chosen horsemen were all streaming towards the Black Eagle banner lances couched for impact. ‘For England! For King Dick!’ Giovanni yelled as his lance point hit home. He had hit one of the Imperial Knights in his flank piercing it, and unhorsing him in a spout of blood. Without a breath the Black Bastard dropped the lance, pulled his Schragbus from its holster on his saddle and fired a shot at the crowd of bodyguards behind his first victim, 3 men went down. Then he saw the Emperor. He was in full back armour, seated upon a gigantic black war-horse, the only lightness coming from his open helm where a pale face stared at him in horror.
‘Come here you bastard!’ Giovanni yelled, and kicked his horse towards the man, his world narrowed to just the two of them. Then a jolt, and Giovanni was falling sideways, his horse moving from under him, and there was a severe thud as his head hit the ground. Get up! His brain screamed. Get up or die! Despite the ringing in his ears Giovanni clawed his way to his feet. His 50 year old limbs groaned in protest. He was on foot in a cavalry melee, not good. Miraculously his lighter armour had saved him, in full plate he would have never regained his feet. From the ground he couldn’t see much, but he could make out Sebastian’s form to his right, the loyal man was coming towards him.
‘Get out damn it!’ Giovanni yelled towards him. The plan had been one charge and a brief melee if chances presented themselves, not this. As Giovanni watched, Sebastian was confronted by a beastly knight in full armour, his sword parrying Sebastian’s and his armour resisting any glancing blows. Giovanni tried to move, but the press of bodies was too much, he had lost the Emperor too.
Then another horn blast, long and deep to his left. A counter-charge, he had known this were possible, that’s why speed was of the essence, now he was trapped and death was certain. Then he saw the, bright standard. Not an Imperial Eagle, or the Red tower of their Italian servants, but an Orange field. A bright Orange field shining through the white of the blizzard.
Between Two Worlds: Europe 1531-1606 O Thompson (2015)
Giovanni Hartson’s charge around the eastern edge of battle, utilising two concealed crossings of the Emsbach, was typical of him as a commander. Since the early days of the Nine Years War Giovanni had been charging through impossible gaps into enemy soft spots and he had perfected the art of it. His charge at Limberg would come to define light lancer tactics for a generation; the light spears were enough to pierce full plate and the Schragbus follow-up devastated the already broken enemy. Giovanni targeted his strike into the soft rear of the Emperor’s bodyguard, and would have possibly taken the Emperor, had he himself not been unhorsed. Such a misfortune would have spelt death for the veteran had the Dutch not intervened.
John of Cleves had held the redoubt in the centre of the field well. D’Avalos’ charge had been blunted and the commander himself had been hit by deadly accurate Snelbus fire from the English marksmen. In fact so good was the Protestant defence that the retreat of the Bavarian Landschneckt left a gaping hole in the Imperial centre. William of Cleves and William of Nassau then led a daring charge, this time in full plate, behind the rear of the Imperial army and finished the job that the Earl of Amiens had started. Not only was the Black Bastard rescued, but the Emperor himself put to flight. Days and Weeks of anger had pushed Maximillian II to the brink, and as his own life fell into danger his spirit completely broke, and his army along with it.
The Imperial infantry had pushed the English companies back a little, moving them deeper into the narrow corridor formed by the two streams. This was a planned move by Giovanni, perfectly executed by his nephew the Earl of March. Edward of Oudenburg had ordered the English line to gradually give ground in order to buy time for Giovanni’s flanking maneuver Thus the Imperial soldiers were too deeply engaged when firstly the D’Avalos banner fell and then the Imperial standard fled. At this point the Imperial infantry tried to retreat but were cut off by the Protestant cavalry in their rear and the wet, boggy, and by now slushy, ground. Simultaneously John of Cleves had gotten word to Phillip of Hesse and the German flank sallied, capturing the Imperial guns and putting Piero Strozzi to flight.
The Battle of Limberg was a monumental affair. The Empire lost almost 29,000 men in the battle, most of them to the English, whilst the Protestant army lost about 9,000 men. However the Saxons and then Richard IV arrived within a week with a further 15,000 soldiers between them. giving the League of Copenhagen control of the Rhineland and parts of Wurttemberg too. Maximilian had run all the way back to Ulm, his army in pieces, and much of the surviving personnel, Strozzi included, were captured before they could cross the Odenwald, leaving the Emperor with at most 5,000 men.
Maximilian himself disappeared into the wilds of southern Austria, again taking refuge in its Alpine fastness. He dispatched Frederic Nausea Archbishop of Vienna and Franz Weisser (Ferdinand’s father in law) to Strasbourg where Henri II orchestrated a peace deal. Unlike Hanau and Ulm where negotiations were prolonged by various issues, the defeat at Limberg and the destruction of the Rhineland left little negotiating room for the Imperial delegation. By any metric Maximillian had lost the conflict, and the moral high ground. The Rhine Palatinate was confirmed an independent entity more or less immediately. Wurttemberg took slightly longer, but Christoph still had allies there, and they declared for him meaning that the entire Duchy became his and left the Holy Roman Empire too. Brandenburg-Kulmbach was the last to leave, Albert Alcibiades having finally chased down Andrew Bathory in June and killed him. With the departure of his territory the HRE was even further diminished than its 1531 boundaries, and its leader incapacitated.
The territorial division were the easiest part of Strasbourg to conclude, but the future of the Empire dragged discussion into the autumn. In reality these need not have concerned the English or German delegates, but Richard IV insisted that Maximillian II be held accountable for his actions and King Henri had little choice but to comply (the English army of 40,000 or so was camped over the Rhine ready to invade France if he stalled).
The issue was that the Empire looked increasingly moribund. Maximillian was conspicuous by his absence from Strasbourg and of the original seven electors only the Archbishoprics of Mainz and Trier and the King of Bohemia were still in communion with the Empire. With Maximillian being the King of Bohemia, this left just the two Archbishops in a position to elect a replacement for him. Both men agreed that Count John should become Emperor but this suggestion was laughable. John was an unknown in the majority of the Empire, and at any rate his name was not much more esteemed than Maximillian's.
To add insult to injury Archduke Ferdinand had no heirs when he died, and Maximillian’s only son was born a week after Limberg. The infant Ferdinand, named for his deceased uncle, would in time ascend to the Austrian, Hungarian and Bohemian titles, but he could not seriously become Emperor at less than a year old. As for his cousin the Duke of Bavaria, the title which had sparked the whole war, William V was doing well but he turned three during the Strasbourg Council and so he could not be Emperor either. Here was manifested the downside to dynastic consolidation over the last couple of centuries. The Habsburg line had sewn up many titles in the Empire and then all but failed itself meaning there was no-one able to step in.
Of course Phillip II tried to claim that he would be made Emperor and even sent the Archbishop of Toledo to advance his claim, but Henri II himself scotched this move before Richard IV needed to. No-one wanted Phillip as Emperor, least of all his potential subjects. Phillip was seen by many north of the Pyrenees as a self-obsessed, arrogant, fop and so his attempt to keep alive the Habsburg line of Emperors failed as he was unwilling to go to war with England and France simultaneously to secure it.
With all avenues exhausted, and to cries of outrage from the two Archbishop-Electors, a momentous decision was made. The Holy Roman Empire would cease to exist. The cousins of William and Ferdinand, it was hoped, would mature to accede to Bavaria and Austria-Hungary-Bohemia respectively, but for all intents and purposes the millennium-old institution had ended. Maximilian II, by now in sanctuary in Hohenwerfen Castle, was quietly deposed, and he would live out the rest of his days a broken man. No successor was ever directly elected to the Imperial title to replace him. He died in November 1558, some claim it was suicide.
The Emperor’s wife Maria, and his sister Anna, took joint regency over their sons Ferdinand and William, supported by the Bavarian and Austrian Bishops, but for decades their influence was confined to their own borders. Ferdinand II and his descendants would continue to style themselves as King of the Romans, but this was never more than a ceremonial title.
As for the Protestant world, the Palatinate War had only really stabilised and vindicated their position. With the Palatinate, Wurttemberg and Brandenburg joining the League of Copenhagen, the League’s position in central Europe was assured. Only really France, the weak Low Country Free Cities and Archbishoprics aside, was strong enough to challenge the immediate boundaries of Protestant Europe and King Henri II had shown his reticence to do so. Instead the dominance of the Protestant world, and its armed forces in particular, had been emphasised by the Palatinate War. The Company system, its organisation, weaponry and tactics, had been resoundingly proven on the field of Limberg, and the crowned heads of Europe rushed to follow suit.
There was no immediate celebration in London, what with the Scottish war and New Lothian rebellions on going, but the victory in the war brought about greater prosperity as the whole length of the Rhine was now open for English trade. Frankfurt and Wiesbaden would be rebuilt with money from the London banks not to mention the Norland Trading Company, the Gran Colombia Company, and the Royal Barrow Company, all of which opened branches in Frankfurt.
What had begun over a succession dispute in Bavaria had ended in the de facto collapse of the Holy Roman Empire and the securing of Protestant hegemony over much of northern and western Europe.
Archduke Ferdinand of Austria was a reasonable man. As the second and youngest son of his father Ferdinand, he had never expected to wield supreme power. However following Ferdinand the elder’s death at Euskirchen in 1531, and Charles V’s death in 1545, it left the two brothers - Maximilian and Ferdinand - to hold the Habsburg Empire together. This was a task for which Maximillian was unsuited. His psychotic break in the winter of 1549-50 came as a consequence of five years of constant fighting for his own position at a still relatively young age. Especially at Hanau, it fell to Ferdinand to keep his brother stable and in control. Confronted with the situation in early 1550, especially the absence of his brother, Ferdinand elected to negotiate.
The Archduke, as supreme commander of the Imperial army, could still command around 30,000 men against 16,000 rebels at that stage. However the Imperial coffers were running dry and only an emergency loan from the Pope would keep the army fed and equipped. Furthermore Ferdinand knew that he would be facing the might of England following the meeting at Calais just before Christmas. Wisely, he disbanded half of his army, keeping the household troops from Austria, Hungary, Bohemia and Bavaria, and invited Phillip of Hesse and Richard IV to a conference at Ulm for April that year.
Ulm was an important town on the border with Bavaria and Wurttemburg, and its Golden Ulmer Rathaus (Town Hall) was a lavish location for a meeting which would decide the future of Europe. As previously arranged, both sides brought 10,000 soldiers with them but these were separated by the Danube and stationed 10 miles from Ulm to prevent any further bloodshed as there had been at Hannau. The Imperial delegation led by Ferdinand was the first to arrive whilst Richard and Phillip arrived a week later. Richard IV brought the High Marshall of England with him, and the ageing Chief Justice Thomas Cromwell protected by the Royal Swiss Guard and few others. This was deliberate in order to convey the utmost majesty without risking a conflict.
Negotiations ran on and on for over three months. William Cecil, a clerk assisting Thomas Cromwell, kept a fastidiously detailed account from which we can see that again Ferdinand was willing to recognise the Palatinate’s departure from the Holy Roman Empire. However negotiations again faltered upon the future of Wurttemberg. Unhelpfully Duke Ulrich had died in January, and by rights his son Christoph should have inherited the title and land. However Ferdinand was still against allowing him to accede to his inheritance, and tried desperately to keep it within the Empire, even conferring the title upon the infant Duke of Bavaria to no avail. Matters were not helped by the two warrior Archbishops of Trier and Mainz who arrived in Ulm in early May to light a fire under the Archduke and attempt to sever the southern Palatinate, including Heidelberg, from Otto-Henry’s domain to allow them a land-bridge to the rest of the Empire. The arrival of these Electors only increased tension without bringing a solution, and Ferdinand in the end had the two men removed from the Ulmer Rathaus.
By mid-July a compromise had been reached whereby Duke Christoph would become Duke of Wurttemberg-Heilbronn and Jean de Ligne, the Duke of Arenberg, would become Count of Wurttemberg-Stuttgart. In short the Duchy would be cut in half with the northern portion leaving the Empire, but the richer and larger half in the south would remain in the Empire. With that complete the Treaty of Ulm was almost finished, and the Archduke Ferdinand retired on the evening of the 15th of July to rest from his exertions. A number of people would have been unhappy with these terms: Christoph for one who lost a large portion of his birth-right, both Archbishops for second who had the most tenuous of links to the Empire via Karlsruhe, and finally Emperor Maximillian, by now moved to Innsbruck, who had made his feelings clear the previous year on the division of Wurttemberg and Duke Christoph.
On the morning of the 16th of July a chambermaid found the Archduke of Austria dead in his bed. The immediate response was panic and outrage, the Imperial army was summoned from Augsburg and Ferdinand's retinue ran onto the streets of Ulm weapons drawn. There has been endless debate over Ferdinand’s cause of death. At the time of course murder was the most popular explanation with most Catholics blaming Christoph of Wurttemberg, Otto-Henry or Richard IV. Since 1550 conspiracy theorists have suggested that Imperial die-hards, including the Emperor himself, could have been responsible in revenge for what they saw as a bad deal, or even the Pope. More convincing arguments, but not much more convincing, have been heard about the Archbishops of Mainz and Trier.
Murder cannot be conclusively ruled out, the remove of time and lack of evidence makes it impossible, but recently more natural causes have been suggested. Ferdinand would have been understandably stressed, and so some kind of blood pressure related death may be considered, be that heart attack or brain hemorrhage. Crucially there were no marks on the body and no blood loss, which led many contemporaries to suspect Witchcraft. However recent astonishing genetic research using some of Ferdinand’s descendants has shown that he would have had a genetic vulnerability to Cardiac stress and so perhaps a heart attack may explain his untimely demise. Unfortunately, in an era when most medical care still relied on Hippocrates or the movement of the planets, there was little hope of an accurate cause of death.
Given the English response to Ferdinand’s death, we can probably discount them from any murder investigation; they were caught hopelessly flat-footed. We know from Cecil that the Swiss Guard locked down the English accommodation as soon as cries of murder and treachery reverberated from Ferdinand’s residence, but beyond that Richard IV was slow to act. Around early afternoon, when the Imperial army was halfway to Ulm, he finally summoned his own army from Geislingen, but they were behind their rivals. Secondly Richard IV and Oudenburg both stayed in Ulm for the whole of the 16th trying to rescue their treaty, but the Imperial delegation was deaf to reason.
Finally around late afternoon, with the Imperial army starting to cross the Rhine, the English decided to leave, but it was too late. The Royal Swiss Guard of 100 men were able to hack their way clear of Ulm, killing a number of Imperial soldiers who tried to stop them, and set the King and his entourage on the road north. This was a speedy departure; the entire Royal wardrobe and a good number of servants were left behind. Eventually Richard IV met up with Giovanni Hartson commanding the Royal army near the village of Lonsee around 9 miles from Ulm. The Imperial outriders were hard on their heels, but waved off in the face of the English army. The Swiss Royal Guard had stood and fought in the north gate of Ulm and been wiped out to a man, and Cecil records that the King ‘grieved hard for his servants and desired justice in their name’.
Richard IV did not have long to wait as the Imperial forces commanded by Ulrich von Sttetin and Alfonso D’Avalos followed the fleeing Royals north. Being pumped up by the death of their Lord, and confident of the justice of their cause, the Imperial army formed up on a low ridgeline with forest to their back facing north, just to the east of the village of Dornstadt. Across the low flat valley to the north approached the English army. The sun was setting but both sides were itching for a fight and demanding justice for the ‘attacks’ upon each of their leaders.
Thanks to William Cecil we have a good account of the consequent battle. The English may have only had 10,000 men but their commanders were Richard IV, Richard Duke of York and Oudenburg High Marshall and Constable of England, and his half-brother Giovanni Hartson Earl of Amiens. These three grandsons (Richard IV was a great grandson) of Edward IV were some of the finest soldiers of their age, and the two senior scions of York had decades of military experience. Giovanni led the Piacenza Company in the vanguard on the English right, Richard IV had his own retinue and the Calais Company in the centre, and Oudenburg commanded the Cologne company on the left. Coincidentally, all three men had their sons with them; William Hartson seconded his father, Thomas of Oudenburg still commanded the Cologne Company, and Edward Prince of Wales rode into his first battle aged 15, although he remained with the reserves under Lord Cobham. Across the valley were the Imperial soldiers drawn up in two battles shoulder to shoulder, Stettin with the left and Avalos the right.
The English had been able to bring a dozen field cannons with them, enough to pepper the Imperial line across the valley as their own companies advanced. This fire may have only been slight, but it infuriated the already angry Imperial soldiers, and many charged without orders, surrendering their relatively strong position on the hill. The two sides clashed in the centre of the field, silencing the English cannons, but very quickly one side had the edge. The Imperial Army had been marching to avenge Ferdinand since that morning, they were fired with anger and adrenaline rather than common sense. In contrast the English army had only been on the march for a few hours, and were defending their King. Furthermore the English Company organisation was incredibly disciplined and effective - the mere 6000 infantry were able to hold off the massed and disorganised ranks of angry Germans and Italians whilst the Cavalry was able to get around their exposed rear.
Giovanni Il Nero had been leading Cavalry charges for almost 30 years by this point, and what his body lacked in strength his mind made up for in sharpness. Threading the needle between Piacenza and Calais Companies he led a Cavalry charge right between Stettin and Avalos’ units, separating them and falling upon their flanks. With the Imperial army already wavering, Richard IV ordered his son Edward to encircle around the right flank, and Oudenburg to flank on the left. The result was a near perfect encirclement. Ulrich of Stettin was killed by this move but D’Avalos, himself a veteran, read the field well and was able to hack clear, taking around 2000 back to Ulm the long way around via Gunzberg.
As the sun set on the field of Dornstadt, the hope of any reconciliation set with it. The Imperial army may have been badly wounded, but this was just a part of it, and Emperor Maximillian would now be out for revenge. Indeed Alfonso D’Avalos travelled straight to Munich after the battle where he met Maximillian, and together they organised how to defeat the Protestants once and for all. The Treaty of Ulm was never ratified or implemented, Maximilian had it disavowed as not being in line with his wishes, and at any rate he now declared all of the German Protestant Princes traitors once more and demanded his pound of flesh.
Fortunately for the Protestants, Ulm had left the Empire in such disarray that no response would be forthcoming for the rest of 1550 and so they had time to strengthen and prepare. To this end the League of Copenhagen met again at Calais in September. Richard IV was said to be despairing over the loss of the Ulm Treaty and the death of Archduke Ferdinand, there could be no such negotiation with Emperor Maximillian II, and now war was the only solution. Nevertheless the assembled Lords agreed to an unprecedented assembly of forces in the Palatinate the following Spring. England pledged 25,000 men including 8 military companies, a sure sign of their commitment to end the war as soon as possible, whilst the German Princes could provide another 18,000 between them, the Netherlands 6,000 and Denmark 4,000. It would be necessary to supply this army up the Rhine as far as Wiesbaden and so the United Netherlands took responsibility for this task. All told the League of Copenhagen planned to have almost 50,000 soldiers on the ground in the Palatinate by Easter. Those preparations finished, the leaders returned to their homesteads to last the winter.
The Emperor was even less idle. Maximilian II launched himself into his plan for revenge with all the vigour and lustre his grief and guilt addled mind could manage. The Propaganda flowed through the Empire, Italy, France and Hungary portraying the dual tragedies of Ulm and Dornstadt as a fiendish Protestant plot to undermine the true religion. Combined with another sizable loan from the Papacy, Maximilian was not short of resources, and he planned to use them to maximum effect. The Emperor must have had a sense that the entire League would now mobilise against him, his idea was thus to begin his campaign in February, long before it could normally be expected.
Henri II was still reluctant to join Maximillian’s campaign, he had judged the Emperor to be of unsound mind, but was willing to support logistically using the Rhine from Strasbourg. So it was through the winter of 1550-51 that Imperial supplies were stockpiled in the city and the rest of Alsace. As for the military force, the Imperial contingent alone numbered in the 28,000, with a further 6,000 from Maximillian’s own domains. Furthermore D’Avalos was able to gather another 18,000 men and volunteers from across northern Italy, France and even Spain. Phillip II may have had little love for his cousin, but he could not stop his subjects volunteering to fight in the Rhineland. Maximilian also had a secret weapon: Andrew Báthory. Second son of Stephen Bathory, a vital member of the Hungarian nobility, Andrew had known the Emperor on and off through much of his life, and had a talent for warfare. Andrew had been able to gather around 2500 Hungarian roughnecks and mercenaries for a very specific task.
Albert Alcibiades, Margrave of Brandenburg-Kulmbach, had been a thorn in the Imperial side since 1549. His harrying tactics and general military skill had allowed the man to almost single handedly halt the Imperial advance. Alcibiades had ceded from the Empire too, but the attention of all concerned had been to the west. In February 1551, however, the Palatinate War finally came to Kulmbach as Bathory and his band of brigands left Nuremberg on a campaign of burning and pillaging across the Margrave’s domain; first Bayreuth and then Kulmbach were raised to the ground with the Hungarians then taking to the countryside in smaller groups. Bathory used Alcibiades’ own tactics against him, forming hit and run raids which brought misery to Brandenburg-Kulmbach but could not easily be stopped. The effect was to tie down Alcibiades and deny his skills, and those of his men, to the Protestants.
Almost concurrently, in the third week of February, Maximilian began his advance. His army had not entirely formed in Bavaria yet, but at least 32,000 men crossed the Danube heading for the Rhine, with stragglers joining them on the way. By the 19th of February the Imperial army was at Karlsruhe, bearing down on the Palatinate and marching along the Rhine into its heartland. The mood in Neusbach itself was panic: the Protestants had not expected an attack this early in the year and could muster at most 15,000 men to slow them down. The English, save Thomas of Oudenburg and his Cologne Company, were still in Calais or England itself and not ready for war. On the 21st of February Maximillian was once again at Heidelberg, and there were only 4,000 men to stop him.
The Battle of Heidelberg was a one-sided affair. Outnumbered almost 10:1 the most that the beleaguered Cologne Company, augmented by 1000 or so Palatinate soldiers, could do was to delay the oncoming Catholic horde. The Seigneur Montluc, once again in the Rhineland this time as a volunteer, was given the job of dislodging the Protestant force as quickly as possible. Thomas of Oudenburg had chosen to draw his force up north of the River Neckar in the modern-day Schwabenheimer suburb to block a crossing using the ‘Hutton Square’ devised by his great uncle the Earl of Gloucester. This square was ideal for defending a static position; a hedge of pikes augmented by Snelbus and Polearms which could obliterate any incoming cavalry force and give infantry a hard time.
The issue was that the Catholics had learned from their opponents. Montluc had a few mobile fieldguns with him. Copied from designs captured in previous campaigns, these guns resembled their English cousins, although the Imperial gunners were less efficient with them. Nonetheless these field guns peppered the Protestant formation. They came under fire from the English guns across the Neckar, but they did manage to cause casualties. In the end though they were a mere distraction; around noon an Imperial infantry charge across the bridge was accompanied by Montluc’s own cavalry which had spent the morning looking for a crossing further downstream. Having found one, Montluc now attacked the flank and rear of the Cologne Company as his infantry charged the front. The Hutton Square may have been a fantastic defensive formation, but it could not hold off simultaneous attacks from three directions, and it folded rather quickly. In the resultant chaos the Cologne Company was wiped out to a man, no quarter was given, and Thomas of Oudenburg, second son to the High Marshall and Constable of England, was killed.
Heidelberg was a disaster for the League of Copenhagen, but it taught them a lesson. William Hartson and the mounted portion of the Piacenza detachment took to mobile harassment of the Imperial army using the archetypal Yorkist weapon: the Schragbus. This short range but explosive weapon could cause devastating casualties in close quarters, and Hartson stationed men in every hamlet and village from Heidelberg to Frankfurt armed with them. The upshot was that there were no further huge losses for the Protestants, but crucially that it took Maximillan another week to reach Frankfurt.
However this delay was still not enough, and only another 15,000 or so men had made it to the Palatinate for the Protestants by the first day of March. Otto-Henry now had 25,000 men, but was still outnumbered by almost 2:1. Faced with no other choice, he took his army north into the rough terrain around Limberg and surrendered the Rhine, Frankfurt, and his fortress at Neusbach to the Emperor. The city of Frankfurt therefore opened their doors to the Imperial army, and threw itself on the Emperor’s mercy. The Imperial army sacked the city. There had been too much bad blood and frustration to assuage the soldiers, and Maximillian seems to have made no effort to stop the violence; the city burned for three days.
In fact, not satisfied with this destruction, Maximilian also ordered that Neusbach Castle be raised to the ground as well. For this first week of March, the Palatinate War devolved into a orgy of violence, burning and looting. Maximillian’s vengeance was wreaked against the people of the Rhineland, and bar a few Protestant raids, there was little abatement to it. Freidrich Staphylus - a born Protestant turned Catholic in service to the Emperor - records however that this violence would ultimately sour Maximillian’s reputation even further, with his enemies and supposed subjects. French sources claim that Henri II referred to Maximillian II as a ‘rabid dog’ and perhaps that is why Montluc and 2,000 of his men left Frankfurt for home.
After the burning of the Rhineland, any sense of conciliation or moderation in the Imperial army had disappeared, indeed so too did any semblance of sound strategy. For the past month the Imperial army had been well fed by the endless supply of boats plying the Rhine, but with the Protestant’s escape into the hills, Maximilian now wished to follow them. Even D’Avalos and Strozzi could not convince the Emperor of the stupidity of this move, he sensed victory and wanted to press his advantage. The Imperial Army, by now reduced to 46,000 men, was sent on a forced march up into the hills carrying only three days personal supplies forcing them to live off the land. This country was the border between the Empire and Hesse and Maximillian had no problem in allowing his men to pillage the countryside, no matter what side of the border they were actually on. This broken terrain again favoured the Schragbus, more than the Rhine floodplain had, and so the Catholics again started to take losses, this transpired to turn the 70 mile journey into a distinct slog for Maximillian’s army and it was the 12th of March, a full 5 days since leaving Frankfurt, before his army reached the outskirts of Limberg where the League army was waiting for them.
Whilst Maximillian had been burning the Rhineland, another 7,000 men had arrived from England, the Netherlands and Germany to bolster the ranks of the Protestant army, bringing with them Giovanni Hartson and Phillip of Hesse as seasoned commanders. They could now field close to 32,000 men; the Emperor still had an advantage but it was not as unassailable as it had been. That being the case, the Protestant army was still incredibly disparate; 12,000 men (Piacenza, Calais, Marck and London Companies) were English under the command of Giovanni Hartson, his son William, Edward of Oudenberg Earl of March, and Edward Prince of Wales. Otto Henry and his uncle Frederick together commanded 6,000 Palatinate soldiers whilst the other German Princes - Phillip of Hesse, Phillip of Pomerania, Wolfgang of Anhalt-Kohen and Archbishop Adolf Schauenberg of Cologne - commanded 9,000 men between them. Finally came the 4,000 Dutch contingent of John of Cleves, his son William, and William, Count of Nassau and Prince of Orange. The future King of the United Netherlands was just 15 at the time of the Battle of Limberg, but his future strength and military prowess was already evident.
Staphylus records that elements of the Imperial army were at the end of their strength, given the 5 day march through difficult and wintery terrain with minimal rations, and Strozzi in particular urged the Emperor to retreat. But Maximillian II was determined, he had the advantage of numbers and he believed he had the advantage of a just cause as well, he therefore deployed his army in battle formation on the morning of the 13th of March.
The battlefield at Limberg has been largely restored to how it would have looked in 1551. It is a wide plain around 3 miles wide and flanked by a steep gulley with streams at either side. Both of these streams run north towards the River Lahn and Limberg itself, with a third stream - the Linterbach - dissecting the field down the middle. This would particularly hamper the Protestant deployment as it split their line in half. Furthermore the Lahn was at their backs and so further retreat would have been chaotic and bloody, they had to give battle of this ground.
Phillip of Hesse and Giovanni as joint commanders of the army took a half of the field each. Phillip commanded all of the German forces (15,000 total) on the western flank in front of Limberg itself whereas Giovanni and all three English companies took the left flank anchored between the Linterbach and Emsbach. In the centre was the Dutch contingent as a reserve and the battery of English guns in a redoubt protected by a bend in the Linterbach. The entire Protestant line hinged around this redoubt - the banks were too steep to be easily scaled - and Giovanni placed 100 chosen men, the best sharpshooters he had armed with Snelbus to defend this redoubt. Orange Ridge, as this hill is now known had a clear field of view across the whole battlefield. Phillip and Giovanni orientated their lines as an inverted ‘V’ to channel the Imperial Army into these guns.
On the Imperial side Maximillian gave himself the right flank, spying the English banners there, with his household troops and the Duke of Arenberg’s men totalling 24,000 soldiers. The remaining 22,000 were given to D’Avalos and Strozzi on the left flank to pin down the German contingent whilst the Emperor destroyed the English himself and then wheeled left.
It was a cold and grey morning, and it began to snow as the Imperial army advanced. Maximillian probably did not know that it was two weeks shy of 90 years since the battle of Towton, where a desperately outnumbered Yorkist army swept the field against a superior foe in a blizzard, but Giovanni and the Prince of Wales certainly did. The White Prince, as his fair complexion led him to be known, was only 16, but he was already the military visage of his great grandfather, and his father before him, the victor at Towton that day, and he let the three English Companies know it. Prince Edward delivered a rousing speech to the 12,000 men under his nominal command where he extolled the virtues of the house of York, the supremacy of English arms, and the deranged rantings of the bloody Emperor.
Maximilian was confident and did not order any kind of artillery or missile bombardment, he merely launched his entire force towards the English who were outnumbered 2:1. However the Emperor had not reckoned on Giovanni Hartson, Earl of Amiens. As the Imperial army advanced they came under fire from the Protestant artillery on Orange Ridge only a few hundred yards away. Second the army had to cross boggy ground rife with small streams, only a 500m gap in the centre of the English line was not shielded by streams or waterways, and finally Giovanni had formed his four companies into Hutton Squares.
There may have only been around 10,000 infantry in Giovanni's force, but they were formed into a steel wall of pike tips, polearms and Snelbus. With the Imperial charge already faltering, and the Duke of Arenberg already being cut down by English gunfire, the four professional English companies made short work of the first wave. Furious and bloodied himself, Maximilian pulled back for a second charge which this time was better targeted through the section of firm ground and struck home in the centre of the Calais Company where Edward of March commanded. However this was the only place where the Imperial attack landed with any force and so Giovanni was able to lead a cavalry charge through the narrow gaps in the English companies, fall on Maximillian’s flank, and force a retreat.
Further west D’Avalos and Strozzi were fairing slightly better. The Italian and Spanish soldiers were better matched with the German forces. Neither side was as well drilled as the English, and D’Avalos’ superior numbers were starting to tell. Prince Wolfgang fell, as did Otto-Henry’s uncle Frederick, thus when the Imperial withdrawal order came around noon it brought some much needed respite to the beleaguered Germans.
At a hurried conference over lunch, Maximilian ordered D’Avalos to reinforce himself on the right. With Maximillian’s losses putting him below 18,000 men, D’Avalos’ reinforcements would put him close to 30,000 men on that flank, almost three times the English. Strozzi was left with 8,000 men, a cavalry screen and the entire Imperial artillery force to keep Phillip of Hesse and his compatriots busy whilst Maximillian broke the English line. The Emperor seems not to have been aware of how Montluc had broken the Hutton Square at Heidelberg, or if he was, he chose a direct assault instead.
As snow continued to fall, the Emperor led his final gamble against the English line. They had to break, he had almost three times their number, and they had fought all morning. Maximilian gave D’Avalos the task of storming and capturing the English artillery redoubt on Orange Ridge, and gave him 1000 crack Bavarian Landschneckt to do the job. Meanwhile the fast bulk of the Imperial forces crammed into the mile wide stretch of land in between the two streams, the centre streaming ahead on the firmer land. Giovanni had pulled his army back a few paces so that the Catholics had to charge over their dead and wounded comrades from the morning's fighting. The respite around noon had allowed him to gather his own casualties, resupply ammunition, and plan a killing blow. As Maximillian’s centre again hit his - he had switched the Piacenza and Calais Companies around so that his son’s fresher troops met this charge - he put his plan into action.
English Hart by Saul David (2008)
God how Giovanni loved battle! He had been born into this life and he loved it like nothing else. Now as his horse picked up speed across the plain, he relished this moment, his mood undimmed by his freezing legs from the river crossing or the lack of familiar plate on his back.
Duke Phillip had told him about the hidden river crossing to the east of his line, but scouts the previous day had reported it narrow, treacherous and cold at this time of year. It was something Giovanni Il Nero, Earl of Amiens and son of the Prince of Harts, had only planned to use in emergencies, or a desperate final scheme. The passage was so difficult that he had ordered his 1000 or so cavalry to ditch the majority of their armour to ease the journey.
Now, equipped only in open Burgonet, chest plate and greaves, he was charging across the frozen plain of Limberg, the rear of the Emperor’s army in clear view. God love that boy William, Giovanni thought as he saw his proud black cross banner still flying above the rampant White stag symbol of the Piacenza company in the distance. His son’s stand had bought Giovanni and his men time, and now they used it.
They were no more than 200 paces from the Emperor’s standard when they were finally spotted, the damned fool hadn’t even placed any pickets. Giovanni yelled for Sebastian to sound the charge at his right, but he needn’t have bothered, his chosen horsemen were all streaming towards the Black Eagle banner lances couched for impact. ‘For England! For King Dick!’ Giovanni yelled as his lance point hit home. He had hit one of the Imperial Knights in his flank piercing it, and unhorsing him in a spout of blood. Without a breath the Black Bastard dropped the lance, pulled his Schragbus from its holster on his saddle and fired a shot at the crowd of bodyguards behind his first victim, 3 men went down. Then he saw the Emperor. He was in full back armour, seated upon a gigantic black war-horse, the only lightness coming from his open helm where a pale face stared at him in horror.
‘Come here you bastard!’ Giovanni yelled, and kicked his horse towards the man, his world narrowed to just the two of them. Then a jolt, and Giovanni was falling sideways, his horse moving from under him, and there was a severe thud as his head hit the ground. Get up! His brain screamed. Get up or die! Despite the ringing in his ears Giovanni clawed his way to his feet. His 50 year old limbs groaned in protest. He was on foot in a cavalry melee, not good. Miraculously his lighter armour had saved him, in full plate he would have never regained his feet. From the ground he couldn’t see much, but he could make out Sebastian’s form to his right, the loyal man was coming towards him.
‘Get out damn it!’ Giovanni yelled towards him. The plan had been one charge and a brief melee if chances presented themselves, not this. As Giovanni watched, Sebastian was confronted by a beastly knight in full armour, his sword parrying Sebastian’s and his armour resisting any glancing blows. Giovanni tried to move, but the press of bodies was too much, he had lost the Emperor too.
Then another horn blast, long and deep to his left. A counter-charge, he had known this were possible, that’s why speed was of the essence, now he was trapped and death was certain. Then he saw the, bright standard. Not an Imperial Eagle, or the Red tower of their Italian servants, but an Orange field. A bright Orange field shining through the white of the blizzard.
Between Two Worlds: Europe 1531-1606 O Thompson (2015)
Giovanni Hartson’s charge around the eastern edge of battle, utilising two concealed crossings of the Emsbach, was typical of him as a commander. Since the early days of the Nine Years War Giovanni had been charging through impossible gaps into enemy soft spots and he had perfected the art of it. His charge at Limberg would come to define light lancer tactics for a generation; the light spears were enough to pierce full plate and the Schragbus follow-up devastated the already broken enemy. Giovanni targeted his strike into the soft rear of the Emperor’s bodyguard, and would have possibly taken the Emperor, had he himself not been unhorsed. Such a misfortune would have spelt death for the veteran had the Dutch not intervened.
John of Cleves had held the redoubt in the centre of the field well. D’Avalos’ charge had been blunted and the commander himself had been hit by deadly accurate Snelbus fire from the English marksmen. In fact so good was the Protestant defence that the retreat of the Bavarian Landschneckt left a gaping hole in the Imperial centre. William of Cleves and William of Nassau then led a daring charge, this time in full plate, behind the rear of the Imperial army and finished the job that the Earl of Amiens had started. Not only was the Black Bastard rescued, but the Emperor himself put to flight. Days and Weeks of anger had pushed Maximillian II to the brink, and as his own life fell into danger his spirit completely broke, and his army along with it.
The Imperial infantry had pushed the English companies back a little, moving them deeper into the narrow corridor formed by the two streams. This was a planned move by Giovanni, perfectly executed by his nephew the Earl of March. Edward of Oudenburg had ordered the English line to gradually give ground in order to buy time for Giovanni’s flanking maneuver Thus the Imperial soldiers were too deeply engaged when firstly the D’Avalos banner fell and then the Imperial standard fled. At this point the Imperial infantry tried to retreat but were cut off by the Protestant cavalry in their rear and the wet, boggy, and by now slushy, ground. Simultaneously John of Cleves had gotten word to Phillip of Hesse and the German flank sallied, capturing the Imperial guns and putting Piero Strozzi to flight.
The Battle of Limberg was a monumental affair. The Empire lost almost 29,000 men in the battle, most of them to the English, whilst the Protestant army lost about 9,000 men. However the Saxons and then Richard IV arrived within a week with a further 15,000 soldiers between them. giving the League of Copenhagen control of the Rhineland and parts of Wurttemberg too. Maximilian had run all the way back to Ulm, his army in pieces, and much of the surviving personnel, Strozzi included, were captured before they could cross the Odenwald, leaving the Emperor with at most 5,000 men.
Maximilian himself disappeared into the wilds of southern Austria, again taking refuge in its Alpine fastness. He dispatched Frederic Nausea Archbishop of Vienna and Franz Weisser (Ferdinand’s father in law) to Strasbourg where Henri II orchestrated a peace deal. Unlike Hanau and Ulm where negotiations were prolonged by various issues, the defeat at Limberg and the destruction of the Rhineland left little negotiating room for the Imperial delegation. By any metric Maximillian had lost the conflict, and the moral high ground. The Rhine Palatinate was confirmed an independent entity more or less immediately. Wurttemberg took slightly longer, but Christoph still had allies there, and they declared for him meaning that the entire Duchy became his and left the Holy Roman Empire too. Brandenburg-Kulmbach was the last to leave, Albert Alcibiades having finally chased down Andrew Bathory in June and killed him. With the departure of his territory the HRE was even further diminished than its 1531 boundaries, and its leader incapacitated.
The territorial division were the easiest part of Strasbourg to conclude, but the future of the Empire dragged discussion into the autumn. In reality these need not have concerned the English or German delegates, but Richard IV insisted that Maximillian II be held accountable for his actions and King Henri had little choice but to comply (the English army of 40,000 or so was camped over the Rhine ready to invade France if he stalled).
The issue was that the Empire looked increasingly moribund. Maximillian was conspicuous by his absence from Strasbourg and of the original seven electors only the Archbishoprics of Mainz and Trier and the King of Bohemia were still in communion with the Empire. With Maximillian being the King of Bohemia, this left just the two Archbishops in a position to elect a replacement for him. Both men agreed that Count John should become Emperor but this suggestion was laughable. John was an unknown in the majority of the Empire, and at any rate his name was not much more esteemed than Maximillian's.
To add insult to injury Archduke Ferdinand had no heirs when he died, and Maximillian’s only son was born a week after Limberg. The infant Ferdinand, named for his deceased uncle, would in time ascend to the Austrian, Hungarian and Bohemian titles, but he could not seriously become Emperor at less than a year old. As for his cousin the Duke of Bavaria, the title which had sparked the whole war, William V was doing well but he turned three during the Strasbourg Council and so he could not be Emperor either. Here was manifested the downside to dynastic consolidation over the last couple of centuries. The Habsburg line had sewn up many titles in the Empire and then all but failed itself meaning there was no-one able to step in.
Of course Phillip II tried to claim that he would be made Emperor and even sent the Archbishop of Toledo to advance his claim, but Henri II himself scotched this move before Richard IV needed to. No-one wanted Phillip as Emperor, least of all his potential subjects. Phillip was seen by many north of the Pyrenees as a self-obsessed, arrogant, fop and so his attempt to keep alive the Habsburg line of Emperors failed as he was unwilling to go to war with England and France simultaneously to secure it.
With all avenues exhausted, and to cries of outrage from the two Archbishop-Electors, a momentous decision was made. The Holy Roman Empire would cease to exist. The cousins of William and Ferdinand, it was hoped, would mature to accede to Bavaria and Austria-Hungary-Bohemia respectively, but for all intents and purposes the millennium-old institution had ended. Maximilian II, by now in sanctuary in Hohenwerfen Castle, was quietly deposed, and he would live out the rest of his days a broken man. No successor was ever directly elected to the Imperial title to replace him. He died in November 1558, some claim it was suicide.
The Emperor’s wife Maria, and his sister Anna, took joint regency over their sons Ferdinand and William, supported by the Bavarian and Austrian Bishops, but for decades their influence was confined to their own borders. Ferdinand II and his descendants would continue to style themselves as King of the Romans, but this was never more than a ceremonial title.
As for the Protestant world, the Palatinate War had only really stabilised and vindicated their position. With the Palatinate, Wurttemberg and Brandenburg joining the League of Copenhagen, the League’s position in central Europe was assured. Only really France, the weak Low Country Free Cities and Archbishoprics aside, was strong enough to challenge the immediate boundaries of Protestant Europe and King Henri II had shown his reticence to do so. Instead the dominance of the Protestant world, and its armed forces in particular, had been emphasised by the Palatinate War. The Company system, its organisation, weaponry and tactics, had been resoundingly proven on the field of Limberg, and the crowned heads of Europe rushed to follow suit.
There was no immediate celebration in London, what with the Scottish war and New Lothian rebellions on going, but the victory in the war brought about greater prosperity as the whole length of the Rhine was now open for English trade. Frankfurt and Wiesbaden would be rebuilt with money from the London banks not to mention the Norland Trading Company, the Gran Colombia Company, and the Royal Barrow Company, all of which opened branches in Frankfurt.
What had begun over a succession dispute in Bavaria had ended in the de facto collapse of the Holy Roman Empire and the securing of Protestant hegemony over much of northern and western Europe.
Alas fine page tiz an arduous task, yet more knowledge shall come forth soon and thence a map may be embarked upon!
Amazing. Just amazing. That entire sequence of events felt exactly like history, with incredible coincidences, great (or not so great) men and a host of confounding factors taking a small conflict and causing it to blow up, destroying everything everyone knew. And the battle was written fantastically, my heart was in my throat when Giovanni fell from his horse, it was perfection itself.
1555-1561 Part 1
Author's note: This section gave me a lot of trouble to get it politically realistic and narratively coherent. I hope what has been done is comprehensible, but please do fire any questions at me. There is an element of 'well they havn't worked that out yet' as with any completely new political institution, but hopefully the day-to-day mechanics are clear. I'm also doing another Dramatis Personae so we are up to date at the 1561 mark. - CC
Britannia: the forging of a people, S Schama (2006)
The morning of the 29th of March 1556 dawned bright and cold. Thankfully there was no hint of rain or snow, and the streets of London were packed from well before dawn as people awaited to catch a glimpse of their King. Soon to be Emperor. Finally around noon the Royal procession left the Tower of London, marching through the old city and out through New Gate before skirting the bank of the Thames on its way to Westminster. All the nobility of England and far beyond were present: Richard of York and Oudenburg, Giovanni Hartson, Arthur Tudor (the aging Lord Protector) were all in the vanguard, the sword of state and the Imperial sceptre, freshly gilt by the Goldsmiths of London, held aloft.
Behind them rode the stars of tomorrow, the young falcons: Matthew Boleyn, John of Antwerp, William Hartson and in their centre Edward Prince of Wales, the White Prince. Then, in the very heart of the procession, dressed in an Ermine-trimmed cloak of golden wool and in silver-white doublet etched with diamonds rode Richard IV, now Emperor of Brittania. To his back followed all the soldiers, sailors, merchants, bureaucrats, lawyers and other officials which supported his Empire. By mid-afternoon the Imperial procession finally reached the steps of Westminster Abbey where Hugh Latimer, Archbishop of Canterbury, was waited to confer the Imperial diadem and chain upon Richard’s shoulders.
...
There was nothing inevitable about the forging of the Brittanic Empire. Although ‘Whig’ historians such as Butterfield and Macauley painted Britain as a Millenium-old jigsaw just waiting for the right person to put it together, the present Anglo-Celt commonwealth was neither pre-ordained nor likely for large parts of its History. Nonetheless messrs Butterfield and Macauley are correct insofar as the creation of the Brittanic Empire in 1556 was a major milestone in the story of Brittania.
Even before Thomas Wyatt published ‘The Rolling Spheres’ in 1553 a solution had been sought for the governance of England and all its holdings from Barrow to New Lothian and Donegal to Ostend. Wyatt was part of this mission, as was William Cecil, and the elderly Thomas Cromwell. It was Cromwell’s brilliant mind which had stitched the Protestant realms of Europe together during the Nine Years War, and now Richard IV turned to him with an equally large task.
Richard IV was officially King of England, but he effectively had jurisdiction over northern France from St Malo to Ostend, all of Wales and Ireland and not mention technical control of over 5000 miles of coastline from the fetid jungles of Barrow to the frozen plains of New Lothian. On top of that he also had de facto control over Brittany, Scotland, and much of the Low Countries and Germania Since the end of the Nine Years’ War, the task of ruling over such a vast area had clearly been difficult, but the quadruple crises in the early 1550s of the Scottish Wars, the New Lothian Rebellion, rampant inflation and the Palatinate War had laid bare the tensions of controlling such a realm. Certainly, Richard IV could mobilise considerable resources, but these were slow and often hostage to local interests, meaning that much of the fighting in Europe had fallen to a small few Englishmen from around Calais and Ostend. A solution was needed.
Wyatt had already suggested in ‘The Rolling Spheres’ that the only way for one man to control such diverse interests was to rise above them in such a way as to be independent of their power, yet they were beholden to his own power. This answer, eloquent though it was, took a number of years to become practicable. History remembers this as Cromwell’s efforts, but recent scholarship has suggested that the plaudits largely fall to Wyatt himself.
The first stirrings that change was in the air were felt in the summer of 1554 when the Royal presses of Fleet Street released new editions of the works of William of Malmesbury, Gerald of Wales and John of London’s Life of Edward I. All of these works were remarkable for their focus on the History of England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland. In fact some of these men were also of Norman ancestry tying in France to the bargain. An attempt was clearly being made to depict the History of Britain as a shared story, and therefore one which could be combined once again.
The most obvious sign of change, however, came in the ‘Imperial Parliament’ of 1555. This Parliament is so-called because it was here that the Imperial Acts were first presented to Parliament and the intention to create an Empire became widely known. The Acts themselves were presented by Richard IV himself, supported by Cromwell and the Lord Protector Arthur Tudor. There was immense pageantry and a ‘shadow-game’ familiar to Kings of the age whereby the Imperial Acts were presented as fait accompli, as the God-given right of Richard IV as head of the Church and defender of the realm. Consequently, it is hard for the political scientist or historian to judge the exact workings and justifications from the Rolls of Parliament.
Instead we must turn to ‘The Empire Justified’ a pamphlet thought lost until a copy was discovered tucked into an old copy of the Book of Common Prayer in All Saints Church, Old Buckenham, Norfolk, in 1889. The author identifies himself as a ‘Servant of the Realm’ and justifies why the Empire was required, and what the exact jurisdiction of the Emperor was to be. It is estimated that it was published in 1555. Between this discovered pamphlet and the existing records, it is possible to understand the justification for the Empire.
Broadly speaking, Catholics were to blame. The crises of the 1550s had almost entirely arisen from Catholic machinations. Although the religious settlement had become increasingly accepted, and the Council of Canterbury had calmed a few remaining nerves, the Catholic remnants were nonetheless played up as an existential threat to all the realms of King Richard. In light of later calamities this may have held some weight, but the level of vitriol in ‘The Empire Justified’ and the historical precedent of uniting a people through fear of the ‘other’ suggests that this threat was exaggerated for political effect.
In addition to Catholics, the positive reinforcement of the rights of conquest were played upon too. The House of York had ruled England for 95 years by this point, presiding over a period of unprecedented territorial and economic growth. This alone, for some, justified a reward for their rule. But the point was also made that all of this land, justly claimed and valiantly won, required a far greater leader than a mere King. With the victories of Limberg, Perth and Mount Pearl still fresh in everyone’s minds, there was further divine sanction for the House of York and its domain. Of course the reality was that an Emperor had very recently fallen, Maximilian II was no longer Holy Roman Emperor, and so there seemed to be an opening for another.
In all of this, Richard IV and his counsellors really played on the prevailing mood across England and the rest of the Yorkist realms. Since the summer of 1554 England had once again seemed unassailable; they had defeated a numerous enemy in three theatres, and emerged even more prosperous. The public mood was high, and their opinions of their monarch very good. In practice Parliament never really stood a chance in blocking the creation of the Empire, there was too much common support for it anyway, but once Cromwell and the King had explained the nature of the Empire all but the most recalcitrant opponents acquiesced.
The Emperor of Brittania was to be the oldest male in the direct Yorkist line of succession. That this person was also currently King of England was not considered a problem. Wyatt desired for the Emperor to be above all of his subordinate realms, including England, but at this stage the decision was taken to combine the two titles, although with the proviso that the Emperor could confer the Crown of England upon his son’s head whenever he wished. This was theoretical at this stage, but would be in use within the first 20 years.
The Emperor was to have jurisdiction over every person in England, Wales, Normandy, Picardy, Brittany, Ireland, Norland, Colombia and Barrow, from the most junior bailiff to the Lord Protector himself. However this jurisdiction was to be benign. The Emperor possessed ‘Imperial Prerogative’ which allowed him to command anyone from the King of Ireland, to the Duke of Brittany on downwards, but this was not required on a day to day basis. Cromwell and his team envisaged that this prerogative only be used in ‘the business of the whole Empire’ these being disputes between realms, but mainly rebellions, wars and famines. All of the 1550 crises were considered ‘Imperial Business’. In future this would allow the whole Empire to respond to a threat rather than just a small part of it.
This jurisdiction and prerogative was based upon the rights of conquest and inheritance, inalienable rights which were easy for any contemporary to understand. In short, the Emperor had these rights because he or his ancestors had conquered or inherited all of these lands. The only exception was Brittany, held by a cadet branch of the House of York, and often reluctant to be lumped in with the rest of Brittania. To this end, Richard granted his cousin the Duke of Brittany a veto in all matters save external defence. This was a helpful olive branch for the Breton delegation, but in reality it would be a brave Duke who defied an Emperor.
The appeal of the Empire to many was that it seemed so benign. To the average smallholder in Kildare, the sheep farmer in Glamorgan, the lawyer in York, the merchant of Bristol, the soldier of Calais, the explorer of Barrow, or the settler of Colombia, their de facto ruler would still be the person it was before; Queen, Prince, Mayor, Guild leader, Captain, or Viceroy, but the Emperor merely became another layer above them. To most of the people this was so far above them as to be irrelevant, but they could get excited about the realm’s acclaim and the new status of the House of York. That was enough.
Despite all of the attempts to appear benign and benevolent, Cromwell and Wyatt had just seen the folly of a decentralised Empire, and they knew that Brittania would need firmer control. This was why the title was made hereditary, not electable as it had been in the Holy Roman Empire. Furthermore they set about creating the framework of Imperial government. As per the Emperor’s position, no institutions were to be done away with: the Privy Council, Exchequer, King’s Bench, Councils and Seneschals all stayed, under the control of the ‘King of England’ (even if the Emperor also possessed that title).
Instead a new bureaucracy was created at the top of government for the Emperor personally. The Lord Protector of England was retained, with his Privy Council, but the Emperor now had an Imperial Council to which the Protector could attend as England’s representative. This Imperial Council was the nerve centre around which all other Imperial bureaucracy, and those of the constituent territories, were arranged.
At the Imperial level the Council was orchestrated by the Keeper of the Imperial Seal, Lord Richard Lees ascended to this position from his role as keeper of the Privy Seal. The Imperial Constable was responsible for all external defence and foreign policy, assisted by the Constable’s Council, these personnel were transplanted from the Constable and High Marshall of England which was now defunct and so Richard of York and Oudenberg became the first Imperial Constable, representing the whole Empire not just England. The Imperial Exchequer was created, along with an Imperial Chancellor, to control and co-ordinate the finances of the Empire. In theory the Empire required no taxes save for external defence, and these monies could be levied through Imperial Prerogative when required. Unsurprisingly, Thomas Boleyn Jnr Earl of Wiltshire, became the first Imperial Chancellor passing his role as Chancellor of the Exchequer to Sir Roger Buckingham. The final Imperial institution became the Star Chamber, elevated above all other legal authorities and now led by the Imperial Chief Justice, Thomas Cromwell.
Beyond these central institutions there were a few other pieces to consider. Brittany had been taken care of, but the rest of northern France had been using a haphazard system since 1531. Richard created, or re-created two Dukedoms: Normandy and Picardy. These were to be held by Giovanni Hartson and Richard of York, Oudenberg and now Picardy too and passed on to their heirs. These territories largely corresponded to their existing holdings, but the title replaced the confusing Council of Amiens which had controlled France since the end of the war. With the interior security situation stabilising, the Council was becoming less useful,and the Imperial Acts also created these ‘Imperial Duchies’ directly under the Emperor, not the King of England.
Finally came the New World. Sir William Raleigh, Lord Goughton, was present in London for the Imperial coronation, serendipitously held on the 95th anniversary of Towton (and the 4th of Limberg) and accepted his role as Viceroy of the Colombias. Richard IV created seven Imperial Duchies under him, and awarded him the title of Duke of Goughton. These duchies were intended to act like those of Picardy and Normandy, but under the Viceroy, although they had varying degrees of success. These Colombian Duchies were: Robert Parker, Duke of Barrow, Reginald Bradbury, Duke of Hartsport, John St Leger, Duke of Avon, Martin Berners, Duke of Lothian, Edward Tudor Duke of Hampton and Henry Morley, Duke of Albion. The only exceptions were the low countries and the Germanic Protestant Princes; they welcomed an even stronger Yorkist monarch to protect them, but they were already in the process of developing their own new, independent, institutions.
These Imperial creations were not perfect, and many facets of them needed to be worked out in practice, but given the aura of optimism, Parliament easily ratified them and the Empire of Britannia was proclaimed on Michaelmas 1555, with a coronation set for the following spring. Sharing the Yorkist pretensity for symbolism, Richard IV immediately set about creating his Imperial signet - the Sun in Splendor - and building for himself his own Imperial palace. Originally intended to be an addition to the Royal Palace at Eltham, the Imperial seat far exceeded these grounds and was moved to a virgin site near Kingston on the Thames, and was named Limberg Palace after the battle. Not content with a Palace, Richard IV also commissioned the Imperial Hall to be constructed north of the Hall at Westminster along the Thames and intended to house the seat of Imperial government and its bureaucracy.
Britannia: the forging of a people, S Schama (2006)
The morning of the 29th of March 1556 dawned bright and cold. Thankfully there was no hint of rain or snow, and the streets of London were packed from well before dawn as people awaited to catch a glimpse of their King. Soon to be Emperor. Finally around noon the Royal procession left the Tower of London, marching through the old city and out through New Gate before skirting the bank of the Thames on its way to Westminster. All the nobility of England and far beyond were present: Richard of York and Oudenburg, Giovanni Hartson, Arthur Tudor (the aging Lord Protector) were all in the vanguard, the sword of state and the Imperial sceptre, freshly gilt by the Goldsmiths of London, held aloft.
Behind them rode the stars of tomorrow, the young falcons: Matthew Boleyn, John of Antwerp, William Hartson and in their centre Edward Prince of Wales, the White Prince. Then, in the very heart of the procession, dressed in an Ermine-trimmed cloak of golden wool and in silver-white doublet etched with diamonds rode Richard IV, now Emperor of Brittania. To his back followed all the soldiers, sailors, merchants, bureaucrats, lawyers and other officials which supported his Empire. By mid-afternoon the Imperial procession finally reached the steps of Westminster Abbey where Hugh Latimer, Archbishop of Canterbury, was waited to confer the Imperial diadem and chain upon Richard’s shoulders.
...
There was nothing inevitable about the forging of the Brittanic Empire. Although ‘Whig’ historians such as Butterfield and Macauley painted Britain as a Millenium-old jigsaw just waiting for the right person to put it together, the present Anglo-Celt commonwealth was neither pre-ordained nor likely for large parts of its History. Nonetheless messrs Butterfield and Macauley are correct insofar as the creation of the Brittanic Empire in 1556 was a major milestone in the story of Brittania.
Even before Thomas Wyatt published ‘The Rolling Spheres’ in 1553 a solution had been sought for the governance of England and all its holdings from Barrow to New Lothian and Donegal to Ostend. Wyatt was part of this mission, as was William Cecil, and the elderly Thomas Cromwell. It was Cromwell’s brilliant mind which had stitched the Protestant realms of Europe together during the Nine Years War, and now Richard IV turned to him with an equally large task.
Richard IV was officially King of England, but he effectively had jurisdiction over northern France from St Malo to Ostend, all of Wales and Ireland and not mention technical control of over 5000 miles of coastline from the fetid jungles of Barrow to the frozen plains of New Lothian. On top of that he also had de facto control over Brittany, Scotland, and much of the Low Countries and Germania Since the end of the Nine Years’ War, the task of ruling over such a vast area had clearly been difficult, but the quadruple crises in the early 1550s of the Scottish Wars, the New Lothian Rebellion, rampant inflation and the Palatinate War had laid bare the tensions of controlling such a realm. Certainly, Richard IV could mobilise considerable resources, but these were slow and often hostage to local interests, meaning that much of the fighting in Europe had fallen to a small few Englishmen from around Calais and Ostend. A solution was needed.
Wyatt had already suggested in ‘The Rolling Spheres’ that the only way for one man to control such diverse interests was to rise above them in such a way as to be independent of their power, yet they were beholden to his own power. This answer, eloquent though it was, took a number of years to become practicable. History remembers this as Cromwell’s efforts, but recent scholarship has suggested that the plaudits largely fall to Wyatt himself.
The first stirrings that change was in the air were felt in the summer of 1554 when the Royal presses of Fleet Street released new editions of the works of William of Malmesbury, Gerald of Wales and John of London’s Life of Edward I. All of these works were remarkable for their focus on the History of England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland. In fact some of these men were also of Norman ancestry tying in France to the bargain. An attempt was clearly being made to depict the History of Britain as a shared story, and therefore one which could be combined once again.
The most obvious sign of change, however, came in the ‘Imperial Parliament’ of 1555. This Parliament is so-called because it was here that the Imperial Acts were first presented to Parliament and the intention to create an Empire became widely known. The Acts themselves were presented by Richard IV himself, supported by Cromwell and the Lord Protector Arthur Tudor. There was immense pageantry and a ‘shadow-game’ familiar to Kings of the age whereby the Imperial Acts were presented as fait accompli, as the God-given right of Richard IV as head of the Church and defender of the realm. Consequently, it is hard for the political scientist or historian to judge the exact workings and justifications from the Rolls of Parliament.
Instead we must turn to ‘The Empire Justified’ a pamphlet thought lost until a copy was discovered tucked into an old copy of the Book of Common Prayer in All Saints Church, Old Buckenham, Norfolk, in 1889. The author identifies himself as a ‘Servant of the Realm’ and justifies why the Empire was required, and what the exact jurisdiction of the Emperor was to be. It is estimated that it was published in 1555. Between this discovered pamphlet and the existing records, it is possible to understand the justification for the Empire.
Broadly speaking, Catholics were to blame. The crises of the 1550s had almost entirely arisen from Catholic machinations. Although the religious settlement had become increasingly accepted, and the Council of Canterbury had calmed a few remaining nerves, the Catholic remnants were nonetheless played up as an existential threat to all the realms of King Richard. In light of later calamities this may have held some weight, but the level of vitriol in ‘The Empire Justified’ and the historical precedent of uniting a people through fear of the ‘other’ suggests that this threat was exaggerated for political effect.
In addition to Catholics, the positive reinforcement of the rights of conquest were played upon too. The House of York had ruled England for 95 years by this point, presiding over a period of unprecedented territorial and economic growth. This alone, for some, justified a reward for their rule. But the point was also made that all of this land, justly claimed and valiantly won, required a far greater leader than a mere King. With the victories of Limberg, Perth and Mount Pearl still fresh in everyone’s minds, there was further divine sanction for the House of York and its domain. Of course the reality was that an Emperor had very recently fallen, Maximilian II was no longer Holy Roman Emperor, and so there seemed to be an opening for another.
In all of this, Richard IV and his counsellors really played on the prevailing mood across England and the rest of the Yorkist realms. Since the summer of 1554 England had once again seemed unassailable; they had defeated a numerous enemy in three theatres, and emerged even more prosperous. The public mood was high, and their opinions of their monarch very good. In practice Parliament never really stood a chance in blocking the creation of the Empire, there was too much common support for it anyway, but once Cromwell and the King had explained the nature of the Empire all but the most recalcitrant opponents acquiesced.
The Emperor of Brittania was to be the oldest male in the direct Yorkist line of succession. That this person was also currently King of England was not considered a problem. Wyatt desired for the Emperor to be above all of his subordinate realms, including England, but at this stage the decision was taken to combine the two titles, although with the proviso that the Emperor could confer the Crown of England upon his son’s head whenever he wished. This was theoretical at this stage, but would be in use within the first 20 years.
The Emperor was to have jurisdiction over every person in England, Wales, Normandy, Picardy, Brittany, Ireland, Norland, Colombia and Barrow, from the most junior bailiff to the Lord Protector himself. However this jurisdiction was to be benign. The Emperor possessed ‘Imperial Prerogative’ which allowed him to command anyone from the King of Ireland, to the Duke of Brittany on downwards, but this was not required on a day to day basis. Cromwell and his team envisaged that this prerogative only be used in ‘the business of the whole Empire’ these being disputes between realms, but mainly rebellions, wars and famines. All of the 1550 crises were considered ‘Imperial Business’. In future this would allow the whole Empire to respond to a threat rather than just a small part of it.
This jurisdiction and prerogative was based upon the rights of conquest and inheritance, inalienable rights which were easy for any contemporary to understand. In short, the Emperor had these rights because he or his ancestors had conquered or inherited all of these lands. The only exception was Brittany, held by a cadet branch of the House of York, and often reluctant to be lumped in with the rest of Brittania. To this end, Richard granted his cousin the Duke of Brittany a veto in all matters save external defence. This was a helpful olive branch for the Breton delegation, but in reality it would be a brave Duke who defied an Emperor.
The appeal of the Empire to many was that it seemed so benign. To the average smallholder in Kildare, the sheep farmer in Glamorgan, the lawyer in York, the merchant of Bristol, the soldier of Calais, the explorer of Barrow, or the settler of Colombia, their de facto ruler would still be the person it was before; Queen, Prince, Mayor, Guild leader, Captain, or Viceroy, but the Emperor merely became another layer above them. To most of the people this was so far above them as to be irrelevant, but they could get excited about the realm’s acclaim and the new status of the House of York. That was enough.
Despite all of the attempts to appear benign and benevolent, Cromwell and Wyatt had just seen the folly of a decentralised Empire, and they knew that Brittania would need firmer control. This was why the title was made hereditary, not electable as it had been in the Holy Roman Empire. Furthermore they set about creating the framework of Imperial government. As per the Emperor’s position, no institutions were to be done away with: the Privy Council, Exchequer, King’s Bench, Councils and Seneschals all stayed, under the control of the ‘King of England’ (even if the Emperor also possessed that title).
Instead a new bureaucracy was created at the top of government for the Emperor personally. The Lord Protector of England was retained, with his Privy Council, but the Emperor now had an Imperial Council to which the Protector could attend as England’s representative. This Imperial Council was the nerve centre around which all other Imperial bureaucracy, and those of the constituent territories, were arranged.
At the Imperial level the Council was orchestrated by the Keeper of the Imperial Seal, Lord Richard Lees ascended to this position from his role as keeper of the Privy Seal. The Imperial Constable was responsible for all external defence and foreign policy, assisted by the Constable’s Council, these personnel were transplanted from the Constable and High Marshall of England which was now defunct and so Richard of York and Oudenberg became the first Imperial Constable, representing the whole Empire not just England. The Imperial Exchequer was created, along with an Imperial Chancellor, to control and co-ordinate the finances of the Empire. In theory the Empire required no taxes save for external defence, and these monies could be levied through Imperial Prerogative when required. Unsurprisingly, Thomas Boleyn Jnr Earl of Wiltshire, became the first Imperial Chancellor passing his role as Chancellor of the Exchequer to Sir Roger Buckingham. The final Imperial institution became the Star Chamber, elevated above all other legal authorities and now led by the Imperial Chief Justice, Thomas Cromwell.
Beyond these central institutions there were a few other pieces to consider. Brittany had been taken care of, but the rest of northern France had been using a haphazard system since 1531. Richard created, or re-created two Dukedoms: Normandy and Picardy. These were to be held by Giovanni Hartson and Richard of York, Oudenberg and now Picardy too and passed on to their heirs. These territories largely corresponded to their existing holdings, but the title replaced the confusing Council of Amiens which had controlled France since the end of the war. With the interior security situation stabilising, the Council was becoming less useful,and the Imperial Acts also created these ‘Imperial Duchies’ directly under the Emperor, not the King of England.
Finally came the New World. Sir William Raleigh, Lord Goughton, was present in London for the Imperial coronation, serendipitously held on the 95th anniversary of Towton (and the 4th of Limberg) and accepted his role as Viceroy of the Colombias. Richard IV created seven Imperial Duchies under him, and awarded him the title of Duke of Goughton. These duchies were intended to act like those of Picardy and Normandy, but under the Viceroy, although they had varying degrees of success. These Colombian Duchies were: Robert Parker, Duke of Barrow, Reginald Bradbury, Duke of Hartsport, John St Leger, Duke of Avon, Martin Berners, Duke of Lothian, Edward Tudor Duke of Hampton and Henry Morley, Duke of Albion. The only exceptions were the low countries and the Germanic Protestant Princes; they welcomed an even stronger Yorkist monarch to protect them, but they were already in the process of developing their own new, independent, institutions.
These Imperial creations were not perfect, and many facets of them needed to be worked out in practice, but given the aura of optimism, Parliament easily ratified them and the Empire of Britannia was proclaimed on Michaelmas 1555, with a coronation set for the following spring. Sharing the Yorkist pretensity for symbolism, Richard IV immediately set about creating his Imperial signet - the Sun in Splendor - and building for himself his own Imperial palace. Originally intended to be an addition to the Royal Palace at Eltham, the Imperial seat far exceeded these grounds and was moved to a virgin site near Kingston on the Thames, and was named Limberg Palace after the battle. Not content with a Palace, Richard IV also commissioned the Imperial Hall to be constructed north of the Hall at Westminster along the Thames and intended to house the seat of Imperial government and its bureaucracy.