We are 46 years old with 8 children including our eldest son and heir Duke Amalgaid II mac Ardgar Ua Cheinnselaig, Duke of Gwynedd, Earl of Powys, Baron of Mellifont, Prince of Ireland and Heir to Kingdom of Ireland and Wales. He has four children (including 3 sons).
We hold a claim to a county in the Duchy of the Isles in Scottland and a de Jure claim to a County in England.
1205-1213 Building the Kingdom to new heights
We raise our first Retinues (should reinforce to 2000 men) which should help us enforce the claims we are attempting to make on the Kingdom of Scottland.
Early in 1206 our wife Dorothea becomes pregnant with our 9th child and in November our son Aengus is born.
My son and heir contracts Typhoid Fever in June 1208 but thankfully he seems to loose it shortly after. The disease is moving through our lands like crazy.
My daughter Lerthan (who is unwed at 27 but betrothed to an almost adult Prince of Poland) becomes pregnant out of wedlock, I gain the Kind trait - which helps me fulfill my ambition to improve my diplomacy. Later we fulfill our ambition to improve our intrigue and are out of ambitions!
We gain a claim on the County of Innse Gall in 1210 and begin to try to get a claim on County Argyll, if we can get all three we will Press All Claims and take that Duchy from Scotland.
In late 1213 our second wife Dorothea dies and so we set out to get remarried. We marry the 23 year old Hungarian Queen Edit Arpad, who is a relative of a Count in Hungary. She has some great traits and most importantly has high stewardship so we don't have to shrink our Demnse.
1214-1218 A new King
Unfortunately we don't have time to have any children as King Ardgar dies a natural death at the age of 54 3 days before the end of the year 1213.
And so at the beginning of 1214 we become King Amalgaid II mac Ardgar Ua Cheinnselaig.
Our first order of business is our Demense, we hold 11 areas including 9 counties and 2 baronries, we also hold 3 duchies which makes are vassals not like us.
We happen to have 2 unlanded sons (out of our 5 children). The first is our eldest son and heir Eamonn who is 18 and has an 18 year old wife who is an amazing 20 stewardship so when/if he takes over they should be fine with demnse size.
I grant the Baronry of Trim to Eamonn and the Baronry of Mellifont to our second son Lugaid. We also give the County of Powys and Duchy of Gwynedd to our son Eamonn as well. This balances the books as far as vassals go. New assignments for our council and we only have 2 vassals with a negative opinion (our Brother, the Baron of Enniscorthy is mad he isn't king, and the Duchess of Munster is up to her old tricks).
Our stewardship goes back up to allow a size 9 demense in January (not sure why but we didn't need to give up one of our titles!) this just means we will have room to keep one of the titles we plan to take from Scotland.
And within the month we have a claim on the County of the Isle of Man again.
The Duke of Munster dies in February and the new Duke of Munster has a slightly less negative opinion of us so that's good.
In 1216 our Duke Baetan of Connacht is caught attempting to fabricate a claim to the Duchy of Ulster so we attempt to imprison him and unfortunately he escapes our guards - to arms!
During the conflict we successfully fabricate a claime to Innse Gall.
In November 1217 the Duke of Connacht surrenders and we Usurp the Title of Earl of Oriel, then we reform the title of Duke of Connacht. We pass the two title to Ardgar mac Fergus, our Kinsman.
We follow the revolt with a Feast that is successful in increasing our relations with our vassals.
1219-1221 Expanding the Kingdom Once Again
In 1219 we see that Scotland has just finished a large revolt and their army is nearly halfway gone. We only have claims to the Isle of Man and Innes Gall (not Argyll) but with Scotland free of allies this may be our best shot - and so war is declared!
We get a few good licks in on the Scotish Army before our allies, the Holy Roman Empire, simply flood Scotland with several 10-15,000 man armies and basically win the war for us.
During the conflict Duke Mael-Maedoc of Ulster dies and passes his titles of Earl of Connacht and Duke of Ulster to his son, Duke Eogan II of Ulster - who is anything but loyal, but he's depressed so maybe he'll pass on to his heir quickly.
The war in Scotland ends by the end of 1220 and we take the titles of Earl of The Isle of Man, Earl of Innese Gall and Duke of The Isles. We pass the Earl of Innese Gall and Duke of The Isles titles to the young (12 year old) Murchad mac Eamonn Ua Chenniselaig. But we keep the Earl of the Isle of Man to ourselves.
We gain the claim on Argyll shortly after the end of the conflict but Scotland is in the middle of a revolt (and Argyll is one of the revolting Counties) plus we probably have a truce with them for a while and breaking that wouldn't be the best thing. We will wait and continue to gain claims, grow, etc.
To celebrate the added size of the Kingdom we announce a Grand Tournament in early 1221. I become the Guardian of my 8 year old Grandson (the heir of my heir) and get him the dilligent trait almost immediately.
A Crusade for Andalusia is announced in 1221, after the Grand Tournament is through we may choose to join. After the Grand Tournament we hold a feast but neither is very interesting.
Duke Faelbe of Deheubarth dies from illness and passes his County and Duchy to Duke Toirrdelbach, who isn't the happiest with me but just by -6.
1221-1223 Crusade!
With the Holy Land still in control of England, the Papacy has declared a Crusade for Andalusia (the souther portion of the Iberian peninsula. We join in early 1222. We raise the Levies and prepare for war!
Even in camp preparing to leave on the Crusade we are able to convince our Grandson of the virtues of being Kind and not Cruel.
Our forces embark on the Crusade and reach the shores of Iberia in mid 1222. By October we are engaged in the Crusade and get the trait. Unfortunately on the Crusade I develop the Great Pox! This has the side effect of reducing my Stewardship so that I am only allowed a level 8 Demense - so I give the County of Isle of Man to Iacob mac Gilla-Comgain Ua Cheinnselaig, a newly mature kinsman of mine.
We are asked to join the Duchess of Normandy's war of revolt, and since we are allies with her we break off from Iberia and go to help her out. Two of our kinsmen are married into the Duchy of Normany (1 to the Duchess herself and one to her daughter and heir, who is also a baroness in the County Evreux). Gotta protect our Dynastic interests.
The Duke of Munster dies of illness and his daughter becomes Duchess Aibinn II of Munster, she likes me a lot more than her father so that is good.
The Crusade for Andalusia is successful and in 1223 the Kingdom of Andalusia becomes another part of the enormous Holy Roman Empire.
1223 Status
The sun sets on 1223 and the Kingdom of Ireland and Wales is larger and stronger than ever before and with Scotland wracked with internal conflict we will hopefully be able to expand even further soon - we have two and are working on a third claim on their counties but have a truce with them until 1230.
England has been very quiet for some time, they still hold the Holy Land and don't seem to be having any revolts or anything like that - we will likely have to fully unite the Kingdoms of Ireland, Wales and Scotland before we can hope to take them on.
Elsewhere we see that Francia is in shambles, we have our Dynasty in the Duchy of Brittany and the Duchy of Normany so maybe in the long haul (after taking England) we can start taking over the mainland like England tried in the 100 years war.
I've basically decided that the Holy Roman Empire is going to take over the world and I'm just trying to become strong enough that when they come for use we can swear fealty and be the Kings of 4 Kingdom (and maybe an emperor) within the greater Holy Roman Empire that owns the world :)
Next time I plan to continue to build until we can attack Scotland again, hopefully we can grab 2-4 counties before we die (although the Great Pox may hasten that) the next Succession era isn't going to be an easy one so we'll need to prepare. Next time...
No comments:
Post a Comment