Scenario Backstory

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E20 Commonwealth Major PODs

1650 -- A turncoat Cavalier nobleman, George Monck, dies leading a contingent of the New Model Army at the Battle of Dunbar. His troops, doubting his loyalty, think nothing of it.

June, 1658 -- Louis XIV, the young King of France, dies of typhus. His younger brother Philip is crowned Philip VII. Rumors begin to swirl shortly after his inauguration that the nephew of the all-powerful Cardinal de Mazarin has corrupted the youth towards sodomy and perversion.

1659 -- On his deathbed, Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland, names Charles Fleetwood, his son-in-law, to be his desired heir as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth, seeking to avoid the de facto restoration of Monarchy which would follow had he named his son Robert instead. Fleetwood, with the backing of the younger Cromwell and other grandees of the New Model Army including John Lambert and Thomas Harrison, moves quickly on the Rump Parliament, which seeks to make a power grab in the chaos following the death of the Lord Protector. The men retain the confidence of the New Model Army, and an attempt by George Booth, Baron Delamer, to rise in insurrection is quickly crushed. Robert Overton, the commander of the NMA in Scotland, secures the north for the new government. A Committee of Safety is formed, as had previously occurred during the Civil Wars, to keep the peace--at the cost of ancient English liberties.

The Commonwealth enters into a new stage of retrenchment, with a new Commonwealth Parliament being called. The new Lord Protector, Charles Fleetwood, in fact has no real desire to retain the title, and enters into negotiations to abolish it While Lambert and Cromwell the Younger seek to retain the institution, Fleetwood, Harrison, and Overton ally with noted Republican Harry Vane to create a commanding party in the Commons for the restoration of the Commonwealth. However, Cromwell and Lambert’s party are able to extract the concession that the Rump Parliament itself will not be recalled. The title of Lord Protector is abolished, and replaced with that of Governor, who is in effect the primus inter pares of the Council of State, the nominal executive body of the Commonwealth.

1660 -- The Pretender, so-called Charles II, issues the Declaration of Breda in exile, declaring amnesty for all but the most culpable regicides, seeking to ignite public ardor for his restoration to the throne. There are a few spontaneous risings, particularly in Ireland, but they are soon crushed by the New Model Army. However, this is enough for the Committee of Safety to declare a suspension of numerous ancestral English rights, including habeas corpus, though assuredly only to be used in the case of suspected Royalists. Overton and other republicans, fearful of a return to Cromwellian dictatorship, make it known that they will rise in rebellion if an attempt is made to restore the Protectorate. In the ensuing debates it is settled that the Council of State will retain supreme law of the land, effectively a military junta run by the grandees, though in an effort to placate the Fifth Monarchists and other radicals, they were finally granted the demand that had been seen as so radical it led to Cromwell’s Protectorate in the first place: the abolition of the Church of England in its entirety.
1667-1668 -- As one of the key planks uniting the disparate factions of the Commonwealth is ardor and zeal for the Protestant faith, a series of naval incidents which threatened to spark war with the Netherlands is papered over by recognition of the strength of character of the Dutch Grand Pensionary, Johan de Witt. de Witt is an ardent Republican, who finds much to admire in the Commonwealth, and while less zealous than many of the most extreme Englishmen believes that England is a natural ally.

This is put to the test when, in 1667, the French invade the Spanish Netherlands. Fearing an all-powerful Catholic France to his South, de Witt mobilizes the English and Swedes to come to Spain’s aid. Under the Commonwealth Lambert had called for tactical alliances with Spain to hamper France--whose King is married to an exiled English so-called Princess--and the English agree. France is routed.

1672 -- Seeking revenge for their failure in 1668, France launches a war against the Netherlands aimed at destroying de Witt. England is summoned once again to assist the Netherlands, but de Witt is killed by an angry mob following a disastrous series of battles. William of Orange becomes Stadtholder, but England feels that it owes no loyalties to what is, in effect, a dangerous precedent for backsliding from Republicanism and withdraws from the war. The younger de Witt flees into England. France is eventually defeated by the Netherlands and her allies in 1678.

1680 -- Though the decades of “safety” have seen the Commonwealth more or less prosper, the death of many of the Grandees has left the dictatorship looking increasing frail and hollow. Though the fires of the Fifth Monarchists, Levellers, and Diggers continue to burn around the peripheries of the polity, the real center of discontent are what are newly minted the “Whigs”--radicals in the Parliaments, which continue to be elected and continue to have little power. Afraid of provoking Civil War, the Committee of Safety allows for Parliament to continue its open debates, but this only serves to exacerbate the polity. Johan de Witt the Younger has become a cause celebre for the Whigs, who hold him up as the son of a martyr and the embodiment of Republicanism in the Low Countries.

It is in this environment that one Titus Oates, a rabble rouser and rake, reveals to an agitated populace the existence of a “Popish Plot” to restore the Whore of Rome and the Stuarts to the throne of England in one fell swoop. The Grandees of the Committee of Public Safety, he extols, let the Netherlands fall to monarchy--that evil manifestation of Popish values--and continue to subvert the will of the people. Though more discerning observers note that Oates himself was under investigation for ties to the Jesuits and the Royalist underground, his lurid tales bring the country to the brink of boiling over.

Now-Governor Lambert, consulting with Fleetwood, recognize the volatility of the situation, and are desperate for an opportunity to to distract from the news of the day. The opportunity presents itself when Johan de Witt the Younger makes another of his periodic appeals to the Parliament for aid in his quest to restore the Republic to the Netherlands. Used to his appeals falling on attentive but powerless ears, he is shocked to find that Governor Lambert takes up his call, and exhorts the Parliament to fund an expedition to restore the true government to the Netherlands.

1680-1683 -- The Commonwealth of England launches the Second Anglo-Dutch War, which consists of the mobilization of the English fleet and the New Model Army en masse and an invasion of the Netherlands itself to restore de Witt as Grand Proprietor. William III’s armies, and indeed country, are exhausted from the recently ended war, and the English are able to take Zeeland, North, and South Holland in short order. In the New World, the English overrun New Netherlands, while across the seas the English fleet keeps the Dutch on the back foot. By mid-1681, the Dutch are already in dire straits. However, William is able to raise the specter of English resurgence in the courts of Europe. He notes that many of Europe’s most radical thinkers have fled to England, and that if England is able to establish a pliant regime of their model in the Netherlands, the contagion could well spread. The Emperor of Austria is thus swayed to answer the call of his ally from the Franco-Dutch War, as are the Spaniards.

France requires another voice to be motivated to join the war. Though his first English wife, Henrietta, had undermined his intense love affair with the Chevalier de Lorraine, she had borne him his son and heir. Additionally, the elder pretender Charles remains a figure at court, bringing soothing words of conquest and aid. Finally, England was at war with the other powers of Europe, with none at her back. She had alienated Spain and the Netherlands, her fair-weather friends on the continent, and was embroiled in a war in the Low Countries. The opportunity to strike, and to crush England, is too much for France to ignore, and she too joins the fray.

1683-1686 -- As the Hapsburgs are distracted by war in the Low Countries yet again, siphoning off the core of their armies, the Sublime Porte sees an opportunity to secure their hold on the Balkans by inflicting a crippling blow on the Emperor. Austria is able to call Venice to her side, as they similarly fear the Ottoman menace, but the overtures to Poland are rebuffed--the Polish szlachta are sympathetic to the Commonwealth of England, and while are unwilling to come to their aid recognize that a weakened Austria buys England more time. Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha besieges the imperial capital at Vienna and is able to crush the meager relief force that the assembled German states attempt to send towards Vienna. All hope lost on the battlefield, the city surrenders to the Sultan’s armies. A combined Venetian-Austrian army tries to move north to again liberate the city, but the force is swept away by the Ottomans, who in turn set their sights on the Most Serene Republic. Ultimately, the Ottomans manage to invade and sack Venice itself, and return the Horses of Saint Mark in triumph to Constantinople.

The Ottoman Empire is thus overextended, and the Austrians and their allies are able to eventually eject the Ottomans from Northern Italy. The Ottomans, however, still hold Vienna, and are able to bring the Emperor to the negotiating table. The losses for the Hapsburgs are, all told, quite slight--they recognize Ottoman control of Royal Hungary and Croatia, but lose none of their direct lands in the Archduchy of Austria itself. The Ottomans also seize all of Venice’s holdings in the Balkans, but in return recognize Austria as the rightful controllers of Venice’s territories in Italy--a de facto state of affairs, as the Most Serene Republic’s mechanisms of state were wiped out by the Ottoman’s and the area was under Austrian military rule.

The expanded Ottoman frontiers are controlled by a series of new vassal states, as the Sublime Porte’s administrative state cannot handle the direct integration of these new areas, but the show of force encourages the Zaporizhian Host in the lower Ukraine to swear fealty to the Sultan as well, following their brothers in Right-Bank Ukraine who are already vassals. However, even as Constantinople’s nominal reach hits unprecedented heights, the cracks in the fealty system are becoming ever more apparent.]

1684-1690 -- The English expedition in the Low Countries, buoyed by the devastating blow the Austrians and granted a reprieve by their disarray, is able to hold on for a few more seasons, but by 1684 the English are holding on to Zeeland by their fingertips alone. Meanwhile, in the colonies, France moves south into Maine, while Spanish fleets conquer the Caribbean outposts one by one. In 1685 the Old Pretender, Charles, dies in Paris, and his son James declares that now is the time to liberate his kingdom. He convinces Philip to land him with an army in Ireland, and this touches off a war of liberation. The still-Catholic Irish, seething after decades of brutal occupation and colonization by the New Model Army, clamor to his banner. The English occupation, at its bare minimum due to its campaigns in Europe, is forced to rely on levying local Scots colonists for brutal warbands. In the colonies, New England is engulfed in religious fervor but the Mid-Atlantic and Southern colonies recognize that they have everything to lose by continuing the fight.

England is ejected from the continent by 1686, and the main theater of war becomes Ireland. England’s overseas colonies outside Mainland North America have all fallen to the Coalition, and the Royal Navy struggles to keep both Britain and Ireland’s coasts secure. James’ army in Ireland is able to push the Commonwealth forces back to the Western coasts and Ulster, when in 1688 he wins a tremendous battle over the elderly Governor Fleetwood, who regained the post after the death of his old ally Lambert. The Battle of the Boyne marks the destruction of the last English army in Ireland, and James is able to conquer the rest of the island by the beginning of 1689. When news of this victory reaches the Colonies, Virginia, Maryland, and the Carolinas declare for the King. An attempted French invasion of England follows in early 1690, but the English fleet is able to sink the invasion force.

The powers thus exhausted, a peace is negotiated at Westminster in 1690. England is broken, but her power remains enough to dissuade any attempts at regime change on the island itself. No power is willing to forcibly occupy a million fanatical Puritans, either, and thus New England remains an English colony, though the French expand Acadia’s borders south (in effect annexing northern New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine) and the French don’t care to take Newfoundland, as it is a mere few acres of snow and fish. The Dutch colony of New Netherlands is restored and even expanded (New Jersey, Pennsylvania east of the Appalachians, New York up the Hudson River), while England’s Caribbean colonies are split between France (taking the Lesser Antilles) and Spain (taking Jamaica and Mainland Central America). Some of England’s lesser colonial possessions were, in fact, seized by a group of enterprising Courlanders during the chaos of the war--including the island of Trinidad, the small factories at Bombay and Surat, and the English factory in Sumatra--and these colonies thus fall into the peculiar hands of the Baltic vassal of Poland.

Most radically, the Stuarts are restored to the throne--of Ireland alone. The Kingdom of Ireland is declared restored, with James II as her King, and the colonies of Virginia, Maryland, Carolina, Bermuda, and the Bahamas as her possessions, with the primacy of the Catholic Church restored as well. The Commonwealth of England continues her existence, but the elderly Fleetwood is deposed. The Committee of Safety is abolished, her members discredited, and the army dispirited. Decades of Republican rule, however, and the fires of war have made an indigenous restoration of the monarchy appear unlikely, and thus the Governorship passes to Robert Cromwell, now and elderly man, who swears to usher in a new era of constitutional reform. It is in this milieu that John Locke, a rising member of parliament, begins to publish in earnest, but many of the old radical tracts--diggers, levellers, and Fifth Monarchists especially--also begin to find more earnest resonance once more.

1698 -- Charles II of Spain lays on his deathbed, and the crowns of Europe worry about what it would mean for the balance of power. Some fear that the crowns of France and Spain may even merge, which would touch off a terrible war. However, the crowns of France and Austria--the two most likely to clash over this issue--come to terms in the Treaty of Partition. The First Partition Treaty, signed by the Duke of Tallard and the Archbishop of Vienna on 26 September 1698 and ratified on 11 October, allocated Naples and Sicily, the Tuscan ports, Finale, and the Basque province of Guipuzcoa, to the Dauphin of France; Leopold I's second son, Archduke Charles, would receive the Duchy of Milan and its dependencies and the Spanish Netherlands, as well as the Spanish Caribbean colony of Jamaica, while France would transfer their nascent colony of Phillipia (around the mouth of the Mississippi) to the Hapsburg crown in return for recognition of France’s de facto control of Lorraine. However, the bulk of the empire – most of peninsular Spain, Sardinia, and the overseas territories – would transfer to the Bavarian prince, Joseph Ferdinand. The enfeebled French King--no doubt wracked by Lover’s Pox due to his sinful transgressions--himself appears on his deathbed, and thus quickly consents to ensuring his heir’s patrimony. This pact seems endangered when Joseph Ferdinand almost dies of illness, but the boy recovers. When Charles II dies in 1700, the treaty is put into effect. As Joseph Ferdinand is a minor, the effective rule of Spain passes to his father, the Elector of Bavaria in a de facto union of the two.

1701 -- As the first year following the Spanish Succession dawns, Europe seems both at peace but on the cusp of further conflict. Though the Empires have successfully navigated the succession and partition of the Spanish Empire, the no-doubt imminent death of Philip VII will present a new issue for the established European order. Meanwhile, England’s constitutional evolution is at its latest crossroads--Governor Cromwell retains his seat only by dint of the disorder of the competing factions in the Commonwealth, and anything from a slide back into Dictatorship through to the most radical reforms imaginable appears on the table. The Stuarts, enjoying the trappings of power once more after decades in exile, must also face the choice between embracing their new, wholly Irish identity and colonies, or continuing on their long march back to London.