Trouble at home, holy war abroad, King Arzhul II, 827-845

Reprieve was granted quickly for the old King.  He passed comatose in this delirium in 827.  His son and heir Arzhul II ascended to the throne while his younger brother Leri was named heir until a son was born of Arzhul and his young Castillian wife.

  

Arzhul II was quiet and reserved.  While he was kindhearted, his distance from the world drove him to plot against his enemies.  The young boy was unskilled in diplomacy and his older, more experienced vassals felt they could walk all over him.  As the young boy-king spent time practicing plots on the cook's wife and playing small pranks on the ladies of court, his vassles conspired and plotted over issues of actual importance.
While the king and queen celebrated the birth of their first son Bohemond in 827 disaster struck.  The count of Leon had been ordered detained by royal degree for plotting against the crown.  When the royal escort arrived to bring him before the King's justice they found the bannermen of Leon waiting.  The royal army was surrounded and crushed, an event immortalized in the song: "the fields of Kemper."

The same day as new arrived of the grand defeat word came from the east that Count Meldroc of the Maine de la Mer's had also raised his banners.  he claimed pushing out the French had been a farce.  The crown had distanced itself from its mission to decentralize and the Bretons had exchanged one tyrant for another.  With his army of barons and knights he marched on Monkontour with every intent to roll back the power of the crown.  The siege was long and hard and Arzhul's wife died from squalor created when food and supplies were cut off from the castle.  

      Arzhul was at a complete loss, his levies had been depleted far too much for a two front war.  Fortunately, the King of Middle Francia, an old friend of Arzhul I arrived with a sizable host which swept through the countryside.  The both armies were smashed promptly, but count Meldroc hid himself away in his castle to wait out the Germans.  Unfortunately, invading barbarians in the east drew the Franks back home.  Not all was bad in the kingdom Breizh.  Arzhul had married a young, beautiful Green woman.  She was a distant relative of the Greek Emperor, and was delicate and sickly in termperment, but said to be one of the most beautiful women in the known world.  The two were married and she gave Arzhul a son, named Arzhul

Queen Zoe Krateros was beloved by all in the kingdom, her husband loved her, but what of the others? 

.Unfortunately men folly in war and Arzhul had begun an affair with his brother Nikolaz's wife as she had been there to comfort him in the grief over his previous wife's passing.  This drove the brother's to fight, but all was kept secret from the young queen.  She was already sad in temperament and even bitter Nikolaz thought too highly of her to bring such grief upon her.       

Meldroc had created a stalemate and so while the count of Leon pleaded to keep his title, Meldroc was able to draft up a punishing white peace.  The king's younger brother Leri was granted the county of Leon in return for being further displaced in the line of succession.  The cost of the kingdom was involvement in the German-Pagan wars of 827.  The King of Germany defended bravely against a rekindled Saxon kingdom, while the King of Middle Francia defended the coasts against Norse invaders.
As the wars in the east wrapped up, the hordes of the north retreated to the icey hell from which they came, the kingdom found itself stable once again.  Newly appointed counts kept local barons in line.  Years of plotting and scheming unsuccessfully had earned him little but trouble.  It was time to cast such endeavors aside.  He would rule more justly from now on and take on just pursuits.  For too long the kingdom had been focused on the problems at home when the real enemy lay outside the realm.  The Cathar King had grown and it was rumored he filled his court with supple young men and boys, neglecting his wife.  As Arzhul crafted war plans a his marshal

Nikolaz arrived with a woman in tow.  It was claimed she had been casting horrible curses upon the crops in the name of the the French king.  There was no choice for her fate.  

  As the witch burned, Arzhul proclaimed in a rousing speech that he would rid the world of this French King, finishing his father's mission.  He would build a safe Kingdom for the Bretons, restoring Catholic glory!  
The invasion of Orleans began in 835.  Breton forces marched across the border and crushed the Cathar army outside Chateauroux in July.

The battle had be fierce, with some Cathar priest leading forces against Arzhul himself.  On the hot summer day Arzhul felt reborn in his mission.  The French were the real enemy.

Clash of light infantry at the battle of Chateauroux

With the main Cathar host crushed and routed, the Cathar king was trapped within his own capital.  The Breton armies circled Blois in August and by September the castle fell.  King Sunnegsil managed to escape with his priestly wife and four children in the chaos of the battle, while his pleasure palace of young men was put to the sword. There was no doubting that Orleans was Breton-Catholic clay.

 The holy war left left the French without a viable military and it quickly descended into civil war and strife.  In Paris a council of nobles met to discuss the future of the French kingdom and whether it was worth following their decadent boy-king and the wife some claimed was a witch.  Content that the threat had been adequately dealt with for the time being, Arzhul returned to Domnonia to host a large feast.  He awarded the counties of Orleans and Blois to a general who had proven himself in the taking of the city and a merchant who had helped fund the war.



Those internal problems which had seemed so trivial before the war were had only festered.  As it turns out ignoring problems does not mean they go away or cease to exist.  The repercussions of his previous attempts at cloak and dagger diplomacy were coming back to haunt him.
A daughter was born of his infidelity with his brother's wife and it came of light that the cook's wife had been detained for no reason.  In an effort rule with the same conviction as he had gone after the Cathars, he admitted the child as his, released the cook's wife and set out to bring order to the countryside.
   


Arzhul had grown to love his beautiful wife, but she spurned him from his bed.  To make it up to her he promised to wipe all evil from the land.  The corruption of his own land had clearly led to the corruption of his own soul, a bastardization of his mission to conquer.  He made war upon the raiders, pushing them back to their boats each time they arrived at the shores.  This took him away from court for two years.

Raiders arrive outside the capital

In 837 the Vikings landed just outside of Monktontour.  They had heard tales of the beautiful queen left alone while he husband fought abroad to win back her favor.  Arzhul rushed home to fight the barbarians on the beaches north of the castle walls.  The vikings were crushed as they came upon the beach.  Arzhul's tactics were praised and he famously claimed:

"Nothing from the sea can hurt us, we are of the sea!"  

 Though the Bretons found themselves the victors, Arzhul did find himself harmed by these men from the sea.  An axe was lodged in his thigh, leaving him maimed and unable to walk without help from a cane for the rest of his days.

 Arzhul spent the next two years in his castle recovering.  Fevers came and went and there were times when it looked as though he would not pull through.  It was not until he was visited by his wife and forgiven that he began to recover.  The kingdom was stable during his recovery, and with no amries to pay and wars to fight the royal coffers overflowed.  The King's son Bohemond came of age and returned from his training with Nikolaz.  He had a sharp mind for military matters, but was content and social preferring the life of an armchair general to actually studying histories and strategies.  


Upon fully recovering from his injuries, Arzhul announced a grand Christmas feast to honor the prosperity of the kingdom in 845.  All of his vassals attended and the fires burned as snow piled up outside the city walls.  When the court was well in their cups Arzhul stood from his throne and quieted the assembly.  He had not been seen in nearly two years, but even with his cane he exhuded far more confidence and command than he ever did in the years after he took his father's seat.  He had a court of loyal bannermen surrounding him now and he had overseen the expansion of his kingdom and the breaking of the French.  No longer would Breizh be mocked by the Germans and Lombards as a "petty kingdom" like the irrelevant Saxon kings across the channel.  Arzhul placed upon his head a golden crown and declared himself the King of Armorica.  He claimed the right to all land between the Seine and Loire rivers as sacred celtic-Catholic land.  As the great hall erupted in cheers and song Arzhul II of Breizh became Arzhul I of Armorica.  He sent forth letters around Europe, so that those who claimed celtic lands might know of his coming and tremble in his wake.

Arzhul, wearing his new crown, commands news of his coronation be sent out across Europe.

  The letters were sent with sprigs of lavender from the gardens of Morvan the Gardener to prove their origin and authenticity.  After 845 the Breton kingdom is always depicted as a shade of lavendar on the map.