The Sixth of the After Action Reports (AAR) following my direction of the Irish Empire, tracing the dynasty of the Briain dynasty through the Middle Ages. The previous AARs can be found here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5.
The High King Donn passes away due to complications with obesity. Stress induced by the constant intrigue and killings of children to destabilise the Francia empire led him to take solace in food. He is succeeded by his daughter, the High Queen Cellach. Several generations ago, the Irish empire converted to the state religion of Catharism to allow for a more equal representation of power, allowing women to take leadership positions. The High Queen Cellach is the first beneficiary of this religion and power shift, and takes the throne as the first female leader of the Irish empire and matriach of the Briann dynasty.
Unfortunately, she has an incredibly shy disposition... preferring the company of study, books and meditation over the social intrigue of staying in power and the politics of the court and great nations. This will prove to be a difficult reign, as the Irish empire needs a leader who can tame the unruly domestic court of powerful vassals and the attention of the Catholic empire who are wary of the growing influence of the Catharian sect of Christianity.
She also has a dark secret... when she accidentally killed a courtier on a royal hunt with an arrow. The crime was covered up by her father, the last High King. But it is a source of constant guilt and a potential weakness to her political enemies who might discover this shameful past.
True to form, the Catholic world marks the opening years of Queen Cellach's reign with a crusade against the Cathar faith. Thankfully, this crusade is primarily focussed upon the Nordic bastions of the Cathar world and so it is possible for the Irish empire to take a less active role in the defence of the faith. However, as the dominant nation state of the Cathar world, the Irish would be amiss in their clerical duty if they completely abandoned the defence of the Cathar word.
Instead of challenging the Catholic forces directly in the Nordic battlefields, Queen Cellach approves of a plan to take the war directly to the Papal States, laying siege to the Vatican itself! With the rest of the Cathar world holding their own in the Nordic homelands, the fall of the Papal lands makes for a successful defensive war against the Catholic hordes. They are sent back to the mainland of Europe with their claims on the North revoked.
The previous King Donn's machinations in destabilising the Francia empire continue to bear fruit. The Spanish lands have now completely succeeded from the Francian influence, and the main empire has fractured into various counties, dukedoms and earldoms as various factions and powerful vassals continue to take advantage of a decapitated empire.
On the home front, a rebellion by the most powerful vassals of Ireland is being put back down with the forces returning from the successful defence against the Catholic Crusade.
These battle-hardened troops make short work of the rebel vassals and their leaders are quickly rounded up and imprisoned. The Irish Empire is back to a semblance of peace and it will be time to start on breaking the power of the more powerful lords to prevent such a rebellion in the future.
Taking a quick glance over at the mainland shows that the Francian empire has completely collapsed. Several targeted killings by the former Irish King have relegated that once powerful empire to the history books.
Meanwhile, with Ireland in a state of steady peace, the High Queen turns to her beloved pursuits of book study and inward reflection. She prioritises the study of Medicine and Scholarship which brings an era of enlightenment to the green isles... however, the study of Theology beckons the inquisitive mind.
In her choices, she is constantly challenged by the Cathar church who suggest that the general population are not ready for too much knowledge. Every step of the way, she makes decisions to release knowledge to the wider public, refusing the entreaties for the Church to safeguard certain texts that are deemed too dangerous for public reading.
However, that doesn't distract her from her attempts to discover more about the tenets of the Catharian faith. To be spiritual, but still on the side of scientific enlightenment are not opposing concepts for her mind.
Meanwhile, the slow breaking opf the powerful vassals continues apace. Rebels who were imprisoned or had intrigue hooks were forced into strong partition feudal contracts for succession. This would mean that their holdings would be split equally amongst their children and heirs rather than concentrating in the hands of a single powerful heir. This would hopefully have the effect of diluting their power... at the expense of losing potential powerful allies in the court and on the battlefield.
The intense study of the medical fields gave the Queen Cellach a rough knowledge of how strong her body was. Roughly a year ahead of her passing, she could feel that her body was slowly failing and that it would be time to start to put in train preparations for the transition of power to her designated heir, her daughter Princess Muirgel.
Unfortunately, the single minded focus upon scholarship and the defence from Catholicism and the rebellions have taken their toll on the treasury. War had created a gigantic debt that needed to be repaid, but it has taken a lifetime of gold repayment to come within striking distance of the black line. Still, it was on a knife edge... there wasn't much difference in the balance of payments coming in against the payments going out each month!
At the last minute, tragedy strikes! The heir, Princess Muirgal is brutally murdered in unknown circumstances. There is no trace of who is responsible... although, one can imagine that the previous King Donn left many enemies with long held grudges against the Irish Empire after his long reign of slaughtering Kings and children!
So, in the her twilight years... Queen Cellach passes away with her dark secret only known to a few. Who struck from the shadows to murder her beloved daughter at the time when she should have been most pride? She will never know... and the world is never likely to know. Was it vengeance for vile deeds committed by her father, was it retribution for breaking the power of the local vassals or was it retribution for a fatal mistake in her teenage years?
She is succeeded by her grandson, King Scellan, who will have the mundane but necessary task of bring the treasury back into stability and balance after years of neglect.
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