Excerpts from "Lessons - being an example of how politics ought to be taught to would-be spokesmen"
by Giovanni PorporaExcerpts from "Lessons -
being an example of how politics ought to be taught to would-be spokesmen"
by Piero Recioto
Chapter EighthDear pupil, today we shall have a look at the brief republican parenthesis of OBC (Our Beloved Country).
You might wonder why we should discuss of such a distant period of OBH (Our Beloved History), but, if your gifted memory doesn't fail you, you should recall that in the very first lesson I've explained you the older the facts to be interpreted the easier for us to understand why they went that way.
The following few paragraphs will show you how parties move, change, interact each other, and how they can shape the History of a Nation.
Our history begins in AC 843, when the Alphatian Wars started. As you might guess I'm not talking about those wizards of the East, but I'm referring to the very ancestors of what's now called House Silverston.
Lord Ambrosion, Count of Silverston and Alphatian representative at the Council, was the heir of the title since he had been named by his Uncle, Lord Vortram, previous Count, in respect of the Glantrian Law existing at that time. But in AC 843 Lady Mariadna, daughter of Vortram, arrived from Alphatia and claimed the title for herself. Ambrosion refused to give it up so a fight ensued between two factions.
As you might easily recall, Glantrian Laws, following the will of Lord Alexander Glantri, may he never be forgotten, were very permissive, more than today in fact, and nobles had the most complete independence in choosing their heir without any requirements. So the Parliament wasn't prepared at all to face such a problem.
Wilhelm von Drachenfels and Frederick Vlaardoen, respectively the Hattian and the Flaem representative at the Council, were hostile to Alphatians and they saw this as an occasion to weaken their rivals and, eventually, to augment their influence on that zone. They were clever enough to raise the matter first at the Council where they won with three votes (the two above plus di Sfonti) against two (Morphail and Ambrosion), Toktai abstained.
At the House of Lords they counted on the support of most of Flaem nobles, half of the Hattian group, the three Kerendans who were worried by the commerce loss a nearby war would have meant.
I shall call this group the IP (Interventionist-Party).
Some members of OBP (Our Beloved Parliament) were uncertain about what to do, but amongst these a group rouse, calling the complete sovereignty of a ruler over his fief, without any intervention of the Parliament and the Council. I shall call this group the NAP (Non-Activist Party). Among its ranks there were a great deal of nobles: Alphatians, Traladarans, Kaelics, Thyatians, some Hattians and an Ethengarian.
The Alphatians didn't wish the Council to interfere in their private matters. Lord Johan of Haaskinz was an exception, he wasn't interested in joining the war and since he didn't want to oppose its group he decided to abstain.
The Traladarans and the Kaelics were compact and they both joined the NAP, since they feared to loose their independence, something that they valued more than everything else.
The Thyatians were lead by Lady Julia di Sfonti, who feared her late husband's plans would have been overtaken (and she feared for her son). She wasn't a very good politician, but she was helped by Duke Wilhelm Muskerry and by Duke Adalbert Batril, de facto the head of the entire Party, who in turn wished to gain more power. You might notice how powerful the alliance of these three nobles was.
Soon after Lord Eberhard Wechsen and Lord Dieter Lowenroth joined the group, wishing to split from von Drachenfels influence.
Ethengarians weren't compact, as usual, Lord Humudin Tsembu abstained, and Lord Bogdo Khan joined the NAP, since he didn't want the Parliament to investigate what was going on in Tavish.
There were other nobles abstaining from the quarrel: Lord Leopold Rjevens, Lady Mina von Graustein, Lord Burkhard Schwassen and Lord Johan of Haaskinz.
Now, dear pupil, you don't even need to have resolved the problems on politics accounting I presented at the end of Chapter Five to understand that the NAP won (still I recommend you to resolve those problems if you haven't done so yet, because they'll come useful later).
So the Law rebounded to the Council and then to the Parliament, without any clear supremacy of one of the two, until a compromise was reached: a Committee would have worked on the problem. The NAP agreed, since they were very interested in slowing the process and eventually have everything forgotten: the committee was presided by Duke Adalbert Batril...
In 845 the IP proposed a new fief in Wylon, ruled by Count Alexander von Taafnen. Members of the NAP agreed, since they were convinced that the IP would have been content simply by having someone who looked after the Alphatians, thus forgetting the Committee. And in fact they were right.
Now if you have read my book, "Glantrian Political History", Chapters Two and Three (I wholeheartedly suggest you to do so), it seems that during the next ten years nothing else emerged at the light of the sun.
The Committee existed but nobody saw any results of its work, and nobody would ever have seen something if in AC 854 history hadn't repeated again. Indeed it's told History always repeats itself.
There was a quarrel between Matteo and Borso di Sfonti for the title of Viscount of Sirecchia. The risk of another internal war was high and the Parliament was divided as ten years before, but this time things were different.
The IP was no more, it was substituted by the Alliance of Wizards (AW), the faction who'd led OBC to the Light of Rad five years later. The goal of the AW was different: it wasn't to interfere with the sovereignty of dominions but to gain enough support to realise their dream, a Nation ruled by magic-users only!
But the NAP still existed so the AW set forth for a plan to weaken its foe. The first move was to propose the very same things as 10 years before. The law passed at the Council at the unanimity (remember, dear pupil, there were five members only, at the moment). At the HoL the NAP rose again but things had changed since ten years before.
Lord Adalbert Batril, Lord Alexius Glantri and Lord Julius Kern backed by Duke Muskerry now led the NAP.
Lord Kern wasn't the only one who switched to the NAP: there were L. Fulvina and L. Costanza (for the same reasons Alphatians had ten years before), and there was L. Vantte.
Kaelics were still part of it, but they had lost one member.
There were other nobles who weren't part of the NAP anymore: the three Alphatians weren't in need of protect their independence anymore (Bias abstained, other two joined the AW), L. Christos Capostria (the Kerendan who substituted L. McAllister) abstained because he was far away, and Aleksei Markovitch, who had inherited the fief three years before, joined the AW. Traladarans were surprisingly divided. Even today there isn't unanimity on L. Markovitch's goal, but I think we should wonder why the other two Barons remained with the NAP, since they'd have switched side few years after.
The AW had four members less than the IP but had 6 more, in fact Monsieur le Grand Magicien (MGM) Etienne d'Ambreville, Lord Gilles Grenier, L. Alexander von Taafnen, who joined the Republic in 845, were all members of the AW.
Yet the AW lost the voting session at the HoL, and proposed to give Kerendans three months, after this period the whole Parliament would have voted the heir.
Here Alexius Glantri made his first mistake, accepting, along with Duke Muskerry. They hoped that by choosing the heir of Sirecchia, Alexius would have been able to become the representative of the Thyatians/Kerendans. Kerendans agreed too, for the same reason, as well as all those nobles previously abstaining (they felt a compromise sufficed). Duke Batril's and Viscount Kern's rage grew even more when the period elapsed without di Sfontis reaching a solution: for the first time the whole Parliament voted upon a private matter of a fief!
We aren't interested on how things went on during that voting session, except for a very important one: the winner, Lord Matteo di Sfonti, made a pact with other members of the Council and promised to support them in future.
Meanwhile Lord Glantri lost the election as representative at the Council.
Soon after the Council approved at the unanimity a Law that gave more voting power to the members of the Council, and at the same time, the Council members had to be elected by the Parliament.
Their goal wasn't to have this law approved, but to stir once more the NAP strength.
Alexius Glantri was very doubtful, the temptation of trying to gain support to depose L. di Sfonti was great, because this, and not to keep alive his father's ideals, was his main goal. However other members of the NAP made him change his mind thus he sided with the rest of the NAP. But the AW's move wasn't unsuccessful, indeed. Humudin Tsembu sensed this was his occasion to remove Virayana without any recourse to a duel. L. Capostria, L. Lowenroth and L. Wechsen thought the same thing. If Lord Franz von Drachenfels hadn't feared for von Drachenfels' supremacy, voting as the NAP, the AW would have won!
Now, dear pupil, if you were the leader of the AW, what would have you done next?
I'm sure your sharp logic suggested you the easiest thing was the worst. Yes, the AW could have tried to gain the support of one more noble thus winning, but this involved a risk that NAP would have retrieved its lost unity. So which was the best thing to do? It was to make the NAP unity crumble once and for all.
The occasion arrived soon after, when in AC 855, Lord Ernst Batril succeeded his father Adalbert as Duke of Fenswick. As you might recall, L. Batril was one of the leaders of the NAP, but his son wanted more power for him, and he wanted it quickly.
MGM Etienne d'Ambreville approached him and they made a pact: L. Batril would have supported the AW if the AW had supported L. Batril's request of augmenting the voting power of higher nobles.
Duke Batril made his proposal at the HoL and the results were devastating for the NAP: the more powerful nobles approved the law, L. Muskerry, L. Bogdo and L. Glantri himself (who couldn't resist). This was too much for other members of the NAP, and they decided to form a new party under the guidance of Lord Julius Kern. I shall call the Party JFK, "Join and Fight with Kern".
L. Vantte, L. McDougall, L. McGregor, three Hattian Barons (except L. von Graustein) and L. Kviepoly (I do suspect this was part of some elaborate scheme of Lord Morphail) composed it
Of course L. Batril didn't reach the majority, because some of the lowest ranking members of the AW rejected his proposal, but the NAP was halved.
The AW reached its goal; moreover it kept its unity since an AW's member hadn't proposed the law.
The AW was very near it's own goal, but, as you'll learn during your life, sometimes fate isn't that good. Matteo di Sfonti died and a new fight ensued between di Sfontis.
This time things were fixed faster and by the end of 855 the whole Council was again in the hands of the AW.
I think it was then that they fixed AC 858 as the year of the LoR, so they started thinking about how to divide the Principalities and which problems they would have faced.
In 856 the AW definitely won the trust of the two Dukes, by promising them more voting power and the freedom to mint coinage by themselves (under the Council control, of course). Then L. Friedrich von Drachenfels convinced Lord Franz to join his cause by naming Franz's son as heir.
The members of the AW were more and more convinced by the project, all they had to do was to convince those perpetually abstaining: L. Costanza, L. Bias, L. of Haaskinz, L. von Graustein, L. Rjevens. Lord Gorevitch-Woszlany was terribly convinced that all Traladaran nobles would join the AW later...
In AC 857 Lord Francesco Costanza and Lord Johan of Haaskinz died. The heirs were close friends of L. Borso di Sfonti. Then during the rest of the year the other three were slowly convinced to join along with the Traladarans.
In 858 during the LoR voting session, the AW obtained 73% of the HoL votes, the JFK 22%, the NAP 5%: Lord Glantri's votes.
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