Empress Agnès of Francia, 1304-1325 AD

(Previously on Royal Dispatch.)

As I did with Bavaria, I’m holding on to the newly-won kingdom title of León in order for my heir to anoint some grateful future vassal. Always need to have funds on account at the lackey bank.

My actual bank refills with somewhat alarming speed, and since I have nothing else to do while those churches get built, I may as well take a few more bites out of Spain. I decide to swipe a page out of Dad’s book and declare three holy wars at once: one for a single county currently controlled by the Sultanate of Man, another owned by the Jyadid Grand Emirate, and then for the entire Emirate of Badajoz.

Like clockwork, the onset of conflict brings on an indecent proposal, from none other than my archbishop.

Really I should get with the times and call him Patriarch and not Archbishop, as that cultural change happened awhile ago. Whatever he’s called, I’m not gonna bone him.

In less creepy news, my daughter Eve comes of age. With no interest in alliance or particular stake in her offspring, I marry her to a Mogyër swordsman named Lázár Balassi.

The trio of holy wars proceed apace. Several local Muwalladis join in, but even all together their armies are much, much smaller than mine. I begin to siege and take over the target lands while a few of my own castles are also occupied, but with little consequence.

But then some good news—it’s time for a Crusade that I’ll actually join for once!

And then, as if the devil senses an opening:

Now I’d be tempted to really mess things up by becoming a witch if I wasn’t on the verge of consecrating the bloodline to Christ. Some other time, Satan! Meanwhile I select Eve as the beneficiary of my crusading, which means she’ll be allocated conquered lands based on my war involvement. Kinda wish I’d set her up with a matrilineal marriage to keep those titles in the family. Oh well.

The Jyadids are the weakest and the first holy war to fall my way. A couple more battles, and my accumulation of piety is through the roof—enough that I can pull the bloodline trick already!

Ahhhh, the light of God, it burns! Kidding. Feels great to be awesome at being good! In the sense of being a religious maniac.

The Crusade kicks off just as the second my two personal holy wars concludes, rather expensively on my part but all a piece of the grand Spanish Plan. My forces manage to slay the emir of Badajoz on the field, it turns out his heir is already in my dungeon. So that’s over as well. And taking these miscellaneous Spanish bits is just enough to let me create the Empire of Hispania. Much more satisfying than that debacle with Germania.

Unfortunately, while I was distracted by mashing up Spain and handing out all these newly confiscated lands, I failed to notice I’m on the brink of two massive rebellions. One is a Liberty faction with most of the sovereigns of Britain agitating for freedom. I narrowly manage to avert that war by buying off a couple king and betrothing an infant daughter to another, creating a faction-proof alliance.

There’s another faction that’s not so easily placated. Apparently my lightning takeover of Spain does not sit right with the peasantry.

That’s a lot of rebels! I quickly consolidate my armies into clumps to deal with all these massed yokels. When the rebels declare their war, they’re scattered into a bunch of smaller armies and a few larger masses. I steamroll some of the little guys on the way to the first major showdown, and Captura, the goddess of enemy-catching, smiles on me yet again.

Poof, no more rebellion. Now I can finally get crusadin’ over Jerusalem way. How is that crusade going anyhow?

Hmm. Not great Bob! Warscorse is at -9% currently, even with a slight Catholic numerical advantage. Time to join the meat grinder.

I send my compressed army all the way to Arabia where we take a castle at landing. What fun. But then.

It seems my Spanish dalliance lasted just long enough for the Muslims to organize a route of the arrived Catholics, meaning they’re in full retreat and I’m abruptly surrounded by converging forces deep in Egypt with no safe path out. I vainly attempt to retreat across on of the rivers, and, well…

Half my army destroyed and a number of nobles and knights killed and captured. The crusade warscore drops to -60%. I do not think we will be dining tonight in Jerusalem.

Once my bedraggled army recovers itself, I dance around the fringes of the war while the massed Muslims pummel what remains of my poor Catholic brethren. Even though we have slightly more troops in total committed realms, clearly other rulers (such as myself, ahem) did not commit their entire armies.

And so, the crusade for Jerusalem ends thus.

Oh well. See, this is why I never get involved in these things. Let’s just pretend none of that even happened. I still end up with a ton of prestige and piety, despite my late arrival to the war and inability to affect the outcome in any positive way.

Back home, apparently the faltering path of Christianity emboldens heathens to the north.

Usually when I get this event I just pay for replacement priests, but for once my ruler is good at war stuff. So we manage to fight them off. Take your wroth somewhere else punks!

Otherwise I plan to spend some time doing no wars while I spiff up my military and civil infrastructure. It’s always Infrastructure Week in the late medieval period.

So begins a round of feasts from my many vassals, in this time of relative peace. I’m pleased to see that my heir Guiges has fathered a couple kids of his own, and his own heir Hélie is a Herculean Genius like his dad (though Hélie is only Comely, versus his father’s Handsomeness). Nevertheless I persuade Guiges to let me take Hélie on as my own ward so I can guide the education and upbringing of my grand-heir. This is important since it’s always possible I’ll outlive Guiges, and Hélie might become my new heir.

But otherwise … what now? The closest empire I could attempt to create would be that of Italia, but that’s currently split between the kingdom of Italy (ruled by long-independent branch of the Thouars family) and the Byzantine Empire. I could use family connections to create a claim on Italy, but I can always do that later. Plus I kind of like having relatives ruling stuff out there in the world.

Instead I begin the process of claim creation on the empire of Carpathia.

Why not! I already have 7 of the 66 counties required, so might as well get the ball rolling for future generations. I’m already in my mid-50s but I also have a ton of health bonuses due to my Learning lifestyle. There’s life in the old girl yet.

So while the Carpathian project is cooking, time for a little mopping up in Spain, which still has pockets of Muwalladi and Ash’ari Muslims holding territory that is rightfully mine. It’s not quite up to dad’s 16 simultaneous war declarations, but I do declare five holy wars—for the duchies of of Navarra, Cantabria, Portucale, and the counties of Asturias de Santillana and Viseu.

I summon the hordes—now numbering almost a hundred thousand French troops in the imperial army—and of course my lovely Knights Templar to boot. Cantabria falls immediately, with Navarra close behind. After some chasing and scrapping, Portucale capitulates. The counties are individual territories controlled by realms with scattered lands, so even though it’s for less gain, it’s going to take a beat more to beat them down.

My namesake daughter Agnès comes of age, marrying her betrothed Prince Jean Karling-Montereau of my vassal kingdom West Francia. This was one of my rebellion-quashing alliance marriages from a few years back. But it’s a good enough match all the same.

The county of Viseau collapses, leaving only Asturias de Santillana, which requires me to subdue the far-flung Spanish remnants of the Sultanate of Man. I can only whittle that bogus entity down one county at a time, since it’s much more difficult to usurp titles from those of a hostile faith. Of course I could have just declared wars to vassalize all of these rulers—I am empress of Hispania after all—but this way I get to clear out the infidels and hand the titles to new subjects.

Finally, my pal Sultan Fadl III ibn Fadl coughs up Asturias de Santillana. Those Fadls must really hate me, seeing as I’ve drubbed three generations of their Sultans now. Anyhoo, with all that territory divided among eager Thouars kin along with new titles created, Spain is looking very pleasantly blue-er.

While I buy shiny things for the people and soldiers and make the rounds of feasting, my patriarch has been hard at work on the Carpathian project. After fabricating claims on a few counties, he scores a claim on the whole principality (a.k.a. duchy) of Visegrad, one of the building blocks of the kingdom of Hungary, which is one of three kingdoms that make up the empire of Carpathia.

Nice grab. So to war! Visegrad has no allies and an army too small to threaten (me). In fact it only takes a handful of battles and sieges before I capture the local princeling and strip away his titles and lands. Off with my patriarch to begin his fabrications in the next Hungarian duchy, name of Bacs.

I’ve barely gone back to a cycle of upgrading buildings and feasting with vassals before my patriarch returns, once again managing to make a claim on a whole duchy rather than a single county. So I go ahead and declare war on Bacs, as well as a loose county called Sopron deeper in my own lands that somehow gained independence.

Wee Sopron collapses immediately and is duly digested back into the Empire. Bacs follows close on the heels when I loot their capital and capture the duke’s heir. Next up in the patriarch’s forgery to-do list is the Hungarian duchy of Temes.

I turn my attention back to Spain and declare a couple baby holy wars there, for the counties of Aveiro and Coimbra. The latter falls first, somewhat surprisingly as it represents one of only three counties remaining to the much-reduced Sultanate of Man. Incidentally, capturing the county of Coimbra allows me to found another university there. I’m so scholarly! Aveiro is (or was) an independent county that manages to hang on a little longer. But not much longer.

I spend a couple of years attending feasts and spending gold on shiny new provincial buildings while my patriarch fabricates claims to four counties controlled by the duchy of Temes, as well as the independent county of Szbolcs. These five counties should give almost me enough territory to create the kingdom of Hungaria, significantly advancing the project of creating the Carpathian empire.

In both little wars, I capture the opposing ruler in the early battles, ending them quickly. Now I just need one more county to create Hungaria, so the claim fabrication machine rumbles back to life.

Next: Rime of the Ancient Empress.