We are 46 and have 5 children, including our eldest son and heir 28 year old Prince Eamonn mac Amalgaid Ua Cheinnselaig, Duke of Gwynedd, Earl of Powys, Baron of Trim, Heir to the Kingdom of Ireland and Wales. He has five children of his own with the eldest being 10 year old Iacob mac Eamonn Ua Cheinnselaig, Heir to the Duke of Gwynedd - our line of succession is fairly safe.
We recently were able to wrest two counties away from Scotland in the continual expansion of our realm. We now have claims on two more counties, and once the truce with Scotland is over we plan to attack them once again. And so we begin...
1223-1230 In the Court in Ireland
We settle down to the normal running of our Kingdom, we marry relatives off, raise our Grandson, etc.
I bed a mistress in 1225 and one of my nephews wants to duel another one, babies are born by the dozen it seems and a few people die but basically we just move through the same old, same old.
We got our grandson the patient trait but then later we were forced to give him wroth and he lost patience.
I have a bastard son with a lover in 1227 and legitamize him, later in the year I gain the lustful trait - and all of this after I got an STD in the last session, this King is just a horndog!
The Duke of Dheubarth passed his titles to an heir in 1228 and was followed by the Duke of Connacht in 1229. As the end of the truce with Scotland approaches only the Duke of Ulster and Baron of Enniscorthy have negative opinions of me. I'm definately going to try to get one more war in with Scotland before this King passes once that truce comes due.
1230-1234 War once more in Scotland
In late 1230 our truce with Scotland ends and we immediately declare war - they are still being revolted against so we also declare war on the Scotish revolt (as they own one of the Counties we hold claim to) and once more the mighty armies of Ireland rise up and march to the land of Scotland!
We engage in several skirmishes in which we come out decisivley on top and then siege the counties of Argyll and Carrick.
I lost the trait of shy at the age of 54 in 1231 (apparently it took me that long to grow confident).
We finish the conquest of Argyll and get a peace offer from the Scottish Revolt, and in August 1232 we Usurp the title of Earl of Argyll - we gift the title to the new Earl Cerball Ua Cheinnselaig and move on to fighting Scotland itself.
The Duchess of Munster is caught trying to fabricate a claim to the Kingdom of Ireland and we are able to imprison her - we'll see where that leads after the war is over.
In 1233 England turned Grey - I was afraid that the Holy Roman Empire or Norway had taken them over - turns out King Guy 'the Ill-Ruler' changed his main title from King of England to King of Jerusalem but they are still actually the same country.
Later in the year our brother Brandub dies and passes the Baronry of Enniscorthy to his daughter, who has no children and we become her heir. A short while later she is ambushed by mercenaries on a country road and we inherit her title (we may have successfully plotted to kill her...) We grant the title to our eldest son and continue on in our war.
Unfortunately it becomes common knowledge that I was involved and get the 'Kinslayer' trait, now a few of my vassals don't like me.... Ooops.
We get a peace offer from Scotland very late in the year and grant the title of Earl of Galloway to our son.
Unfortunately our son Eamonn dies of Leoprasy on the last day of 1233 and his titles are split among his eldest three sons (there goes all my work collecting them!). Now our heir is our grandson Iacob, he's a good kid but his wife is already 35 (he's 20) and she has abysmall stats - I set out to kill her (already a Kinslayer so why not?)
Soon after our Grandson gets excommunicated in 1234 and I have to beg the Pope to lift it before Jerusalem decides to attack him.
Now I guess we wait to die... (is that bad?)
Our Duke of Connacht hatches a plan to kill one of my court so I throw him in jail. That makes two Dukes in jail now.
In October 1234 we pay the Pope 100 Prestige and 50 Piety to drop the trait 'Kinslayer' it is a good thing as less than six months later we finally succomb to our Great Pox and pass the succession to King Iacob of Ireland.
1235-1237 A new King in Ireland
King Iacob's reign begins with a few issues. First and foremost is that we hold too many duchies along with several other negatives and that makes us have some pretty pissed off vassals - I decide not to give up any of my titles and to see if I can manipulate things so I get some of the titles of my brothers back.
My wife dies at the age of 37... it may have been me (I'm in a ruthless mood :) )
We marry 16 year old Princess Teresa Jimena of Leon, tying us into an alligeance and getting us a young wife who might actually give us some children.
I realize that I have a level 10 demense! and we have a claim on a county in Scotland (and no more truce because the truce was with our Grandfather) to war! But unfortunately he is fighting a heresy and I don't have the piety to afford it so we will have to wait.
My Chancellor is murdered while trying to fabricate claims for me in Scotland, but turns out he was the Count of Galloway and I was his heir, another County in my Demense!
Now we only have two adult brothers left, the first is the Baron of Trim and Enniscorthy and the second is the Duke of Austria and the Heir to the Baron of Enniscorthy (we are the heir to the Baron of Trim). So the only way to collect all of these titles would be to die... so that sucks. No biggie though, they're just Baronries.
Looks like England is tied into a Holy War in Outerjordan right now and can only muster about 9000 men total, we can do probably 17-19,000 so we could press some claims right now if we want - but since all we have is a De jure claim to one county it really isn't worth it.
1238-1247 Another new King of Ireland
King Iacob dies from poisoning in mid 1238 - the one who did it is imprisoned but the deed is done and now King Olchobar is the new King! Turns out we only imprisoned the actual assassin, he was being paid by our own brother Broen - hopefully the same doesn't happend to us!
Now to the business of giving away some of these titles and not having so many pissed off vassals. We make a new Earl of Galloway and a new Baron of Enniscorhty (two different guys) and this reduces our Demense to 10 counties. Unfortunately even though we have 20 stewardship our wife has none so we can only have 9 counties so we need to get rid of one more. A new Earl of Powys and Duke of Gwynedd and we are under our Demense cap and lost the too many Duchies penalty.
Some of our Duke level vassals are pretty ticked with us so we hunker down preparing for rebellions. We are able to expand the retinues to 3000 men (1000 cavalry) and build some other castle upgrades and such.
I just realized my wife is chaste! Dang I am having the hardest time with succession lately. But in August 1241 she is finally pregnant! And in March 1242 our son Enri is born!
To celebrate the new heir to the Kingdom and a marriage and alliance to the Kingdom of Aragon we decide to hold a Grand Tournament!
We are able to upgrade our Retinue to 3500 men in 1243 and our wife becomes pregnant with our second child!
We are able to get a marriage alliance with Jerusalem later in 1243. Our daughter Lucia is born just before the dawn of 1244.
I lost the Cynical trait through an event with a Courtier in 1246.
1247 Status
We went through two Kings in this update, Iacob didn't last very long but hopefully we can get some good reign time out of Olchobar. And we have our Heir Prince Enri who is about to turn 6 so we can start being his guardian. I took a chance and betrothed him already - Princess Emma Salian of the Holy Roman Empire is 4 years old, and she is a 'Born in the Purple' Genius and already has 6s and 7s on every stat! I'd love to breed that into my line (have a few with quick and strong but no geniuses).
As you can see on the map, the Kingdom of Ireland continues to grow and the map continues to turn grey! We actually have about a dozen Dukes (in and out of Ireland) and about the same number of Counts+Barons in the Dynasty which now has 456 members (219 living) and a Prestige of 1355.
It's still weird to see England called Jerusalem on the map, and the size of the Holy Roman Empire still astonishes me. Just to the right of the visible map, the Ilkhanate has absorbed most of the lands that were first conquered by the Golden Horde and they are starting to chew on the Holy Roman Empire, Fatimid and the Russian states, this version of history is all about big empires - Next time we will see how close we can get to us being the next one...
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