#robert iii

My new, sixth illustration of a fantasy knight I retouched to feature the colours and faction iconography I designed for House Lyonheart, the current and reigning dynasty of Kings of Albion in my medieval fantasy world. Both this artwork and it’s associated faction iconography were designed for a low-fantasy setting of my original conception with technology and material culture roughly equivalent to the late medieval and renaissance periods of European history. Where formations of heavily armoured and mounted, aristocratic knights in either suits of full plate armour or heavy coats of chainmail fight alongside professional armies of pikemen and matchlock musketeers. Where medieval-style stone castles are gradually being outsourced in favour of both lavish, sumptuous country estates and devoted military fortifications, or “bastions,” due to the technological advancements made in gunpowder-based, siege artillery. And where fledgling nation-states, most notably in the form of kingdoms and empires begin to look beyond the great oceans and the frontiers of The Known World in search of even greater wealth and territory.

In context to the canon lore of my low-fantasy world, House Lyonheart is the reigning, dynastic house of constitutional monarchs over The Island Kingdom of Albion, a fantasy kingdom loosely inspired by The Kingdom of England under The Lancaster, Tudor, and Stuart Kings during the late medieval to early modern periods of English and European history, while also drawing fantastical sources of inspiration from “Ulthuan,” or the land of The High Elves in Warhammer Fantasy as well as The Kingdom of The Westerlands in Game of Thrones. Unlike the overwhelming majority of nation-states based on the mainland of “The Civilized World,” as rigidly defined and interpreted by both the clergy of The Conservative Church of The New Gods, as well as the nonconformist preachers of the myriad “Reformed” and “Dissenter” Churches of The New Gods, The Kingdom of Albion under the dynastic rule of House Lyonheart has embraced a limited form of consensual government known as “constitutional monarchy,” where the executive, legislative, military, fiscal, and religious powers of House Lyonheart as the longtime and reigning dynasty of Kings of Albion have been subjected to the rule of law, as well as bounded by the consent of Albionic “parliament,” a bicameral legislative body invested with the powers of raising and passing state legislation as well as the levying of taxes with or without the consent of The Kings of Albion. Albionic Parliament as the national, legislative body of The Kingdom of Albion consists of both an upper “House of Lords” containing representatives of the greater and lesser houses of feudal aristocracy and nobility within The Kingdom of Albion, as well as representatives of both the ecclesiastical and monastic clergy of The Conservative Church of The New Gods as the official, state-sanctioned religion of The Kingdom of Albion, as well as a far more recent, lower “House of Commons” containing representatives of the country gentlemen, the bourgeoisie, and the merchant guilds with The Kingdom of Albion. The House of Lords as the upper, senior house of Albionic Parliament came into existence following a baronial revolt against Edward Shortsword as 31st King of Albion and former head of House Lyonheart following the calamitous and failed wars of Aquitainian Succession to usurp House Williamson as the lawful and legitimate Kings of Aquitaine and the subsequent drafting of “The Magna Rhetra” as a codified constitution governing the various bodies of Albionic Common Law that were first codified by Albionic court scribes and clergymen under the reign of Artorius the Lyonhearted as the culturally Southern Aquitainian grandson and heir apparent to Hengist Skullsmasher, the first King of Albion and Founding Head of House Lyonheart. The House of Commons as the lower, junior house of Albion’s parliament, by contrast, came into existence following a massive peasant uprising against Robert III as the 40th and late King of Albion and former head of House Lyonheart after a decade of brutal, extortionate taxation levied to in order to pay for the king’s ransom imposed by House Williamson as The Aquitainian Monarchy after his defeat and subsequent capture in The Battle of Tourangeau at the hands Prince Tancred Williamson Duc de Chambord in the wake of the last great Albionic Invasion of Aquitaine.

Although born of House Lyonheart’s disastrous and failed wars against The Kingdom of Aquitaine, both the constitutional monarchy and parliamentary houses of legislation that distinctly characterized the government and society of The Kingdom of Albion under the rule of House Lyonheart has resulted in a fairer, more consensual political and social system that has protected the subjects of The Kings of Albion from the brutal economic recessions and extortionate taxation that became synonymous with the perpetual warfare, cutthroat political intrigues, and brutal religious upheaval that characterized the kingdoms and empires based on the continental mainland of The Civilized World, whose hereditary monarchs and princes universally aspired to the model of House Williamson and The Kingdom of Aquitaine as the “paragon,” “exemplar,” “ideal,” or otherwise “gold standard” of a strong, powerful, and prestigious, prolific, and illustrious absolute monarchy who had finally achieved the centralization of their kingdom into a proper nation state through their ancient, carefully cultivated and manicured political alliance forged with The Conservative Church of The New Gods based in The Holy Sept in Romulus as the official, state religion of The Kingdom of Aquitaine, as well as their gradual pacification of the legislative and military autonomy of the great houses of feudal aristocracy through the superimposition of “Aquitainian Parlements,” or “royal law courts,” over the historic regions of jurisdiction of both the feudal, aristocratic legal customs and traditions of Northern Aquitaine, as well as the old Cosmopolitan, Classical Romulan law codes of Southern Aquitaine left over from the days of “The Romulan Empire” or “The Empire of Mankind Primus” during the long forgotten epoch of “Classical Antiquity” within the long and storied history of “The Civilized World.” As well as using the power and authority of “The Aquitainian Parlements” to organize a national, professional, state funded “royal” army at the expense of the feudal, private levies of the great houses of nobility and aristocracy within The Kingdom of Aquitaine.

Due to the executive, legislative, military, fiscal, and religious restrictions imposed on House Lyonheart as the hereditary, dynastic Kings of Albion through the combination of the unique political and social system of constitutional monarchy and parliamentary legislature, The Kingdom of Albion under the hereditary rule House Lyonheart has remained relatively aloof from the perpetual warfare, cutthroat political intrigues, and brutal religious upheaval that came to characterize the aspiring absolute monarchies based on the continental mainland of The Civilized World. However, under the reign of Edmund IV as the 41st and reigning King of Albion and the current Head of House Lyonheart, The Kingdom of Albion has been officially declared both a political and religious asylum for religious subscribers to The “Reformed” Faith of The New Gods derived from the theological reforms preached and published by Karl Von Luxembourg at Die Universität Wörtzburch in The Empire of Mankind, as well as religious subscribers to any of The “Dissenter” Faiths of The New Gods that either directly or indirectly descend from The “Dissenter” Theology of the Aquitanian vagabond and theologian Cassyon Dufresne as originally preached in “The Cathedral of Les Œillets” in “The Borderlands Confederacy” of culturally “Austere” or “Northern Imperial” states strategically situated between Der Reichstaat and Die Markgrafschaft Brannenborg within The Empire of Mankind. Despite The Kingdom of Albion’s international status as a political and religious asylum for all religious subscribers to both the multitude of “Reformed” and “Dissenter” Churches of The New Gods fleeing from religious persecution and marginalization at the hands of religiously Conservative monarchs and aristocrats, the fourteen year old Edmund IV as the 41st and reigning King of Albion and the current Head of House Lyonheart has already been officially proclaimed as “Defender of The Faith” by elderly Archpatriarch Vexillarius IV as the 299th and reigning Bishop of Romulus and the current Head of The Conservative Church of The New Gods for his written thesis’ openly condemning both the theological reforms of Karl Von Luxembourg as the leading and titular “Great Reformer” to The Conservative Church of The New Gods, as well as Edmund IV’s own maternal grandfather Friedrich I, “Der erster und herrschend König von Middenland” und “Der Gründungschef von Hohenrotbart” and Albrecht Von Biermann, “Der herrschend Markgraf von Brannenborg,” “Der momentan Chef von Hohenbiermann,” und “Kurfürst Des Selbst Kaiserreich der Menscheit” for their actions in officially confiscating the lands, property, and treasuries the ecclesiastical and monastic clergy of The Conservative Church of The New Gods based in Das Königreich Middenland and Die Markgrafschaft Brannenborg, respectively, as the first and second hereditary, dynastic rulers in both the recorded history and the enormity of The Known World to officially renounce The Conservative Faith of The New Gods in favour of The Luxembourgian Reformation on behalf of both their houses and subjects. 

Outside of his affairs concerning the religious upheaval surrounding both Karl Von Luxembourg’s and Cassyon Dufresne’s respective reforms to The Conservative Church of The New Gods on the continental mainland of The Civilized World, Edmund IV as 41st and reigning King of Albion and Current Head of House Lyonheart has used the restrictions on any continental military, political, economic, and religious ambitions in The Civilized World imposed by The Kingdom of Albion’s unique system of constitutional monarchy and parliamentary legislature to develop a new, and enduring policy of overseas colonialism and mercantilism devoted to the production and acquisition of luxury goods and natural resources by granting legally exclusive “letters of marque” or “colonial charters” to “trade companies” of merchants, traders, and professionals willing to use their own capital to establish trade posts and colonies in overseas trade theatres in order to export luxury goods and natural resources harvested and produced in “virgin lands” back to The Kingdom of Albion in return for generating a handsome profit from their corporate ventures. In addition to being granted legally exclusive monopolies over certain trade theatres with these “letters of marque” or “colonial charters,” these “trade companies” created by the 41st and reigning King of Albion and the current Head of House Lyonheart would also be given unrestricted political and military autonomy over any acquired and developed colonies and territories established in overseas trade theatres, with the most prominent and lucrative Albionic colonial possessions being established by “The King’s Landing Trade Company” in “New Albion,” and “The World’s End Trade Company” in “Arcadia.” To accommodate his ambition of colonialism and mercantilism, Edmund IV as the reigning King of Albion and the current Head of House Lyonheart has diverted The Kingdom of Albion’s annual, national budget in favour of a powerful, professional, state-funded “royal” navy over a strong standing army, in contradiction to the traditional and historic policy of all historic Kings of Albion before him, and to “subsidize” or otherwise “invest in” the business and industry of trade guilds devoted either to the construction of seafaring vessels or the production of maritime goods and resources on an industrial scale, as a means of bolstering both his ambitions to develop The Kingdom of Albion’s mercantile trade through the establishment of overseas colonies and territories in different trade theatres, and to give his growing professional navy the necessary assets and resources needed to secure the maritime trade lanes established between any overseas colonies and territories with The Kingdom of Albion.

Translation of a letter from Annabella Drummond, Queen of Scots to Richard II of England, 1394.

The late fourteenth century was a time of increased border warfare between Scotland and England, when conflict between the two countries took on a very different aspect from the Wars of Independence earlier in the century. Often the Scots were the aggressors, and both sides had had notable victories (including the famous Battles of Otterburn and Homildon) but truces were also frequent, if not always kept. During 1393-4, Robert III and his queen appeared interested in peace, and two friendly letters from Annabella dating from this year refer to a planned marriage between one of the children of the king of Scots and a relative of the English king’s. This was not to occur but the letter is interesting for other reasons too.

Firstly is that correspondence of Scottish monarchs during this period is rare, and queens even more so. This is a real pity in the case of someone like Annabella Drummond, as she played an important role during her husband’s reign. Annabella, the niece of a previous queen of Scots Margaret Drummond, had married Robert III back in 1367 when he was still John, Earl of Carrick, and a few years later her husband’s father, Robert II, inherited the throne as the first king of the Stewart dynasty in 1371. By the 1380s her husband had become lieutenant of the realm for his ailing father, but in 1388 he was sidelined from government, ostensibly after being kicked by a horse (which physically disabled him) but also possibly due to a failure of his government. Though he succeeded to the throne as Robert III in 1390, the business of government was largely discharged by his younger brother the Duke of Albany, while the king suffered from bouts of depression (allegedly, Annabella once asked him about plans for his tomb and he replied that he should be buried in a midden, as the ‘worst of kings and most wretched of men’) though he seems to have been popular with the people as a kind man. Annabella, however, was not so ready to let the Duke of Albany handle everything, and backed her eldest son David, Duke of Rothesay, to become lieutenant of the realm, shoring up his position and curbing some of his more feckless behaviour. Unfortunately, Annabella died in 1401, not long after the bishop of St Andrews, leading Walter Bower to comment in his Scotichronicon some decades later that:

“it was almost a proverbial saying then that with the deaths of the queen of Scotland, the earl of Douglas and the bishop of St Andrews, dignity departed, honour withdrew, and the integrity of Scotland died away”.

Her death left the position of her son David exposed, and the next year he was arrested by his uncle Albany and his brother-in-law the earl of Douglas, and imprisoned in Falkland, where was reputed to have died of starvation. 

Lastly, an offhand comment in this letter stands out and makes it particularly interesting- Annabella’s remark that she was sorry she hadn’t answered Richard’s letters sooner, as she had been rather preoccupied, having been delivered “of a male infant named James” a little while before. Annabella had been married for 27 years by the time she wrote this letter, and the child she bore would have been considerably younger than her other offspring- of whom four had survived infancy, Margaret, Elizabeth, David, and Mary. Nonetheless, this is our only directly contemporary reference to the birth of the future James I of Scotland, which seems to have occurred in late July 1394 (possibly St James’ Day), probably in the guest house of Dunfermline Abbey. He may have been raised in his mother’s household during his early life and would have been seven when she died. He became heir to the throne upon the death of his brother the next year, and in 1406 was forced to flee the country himself after the political climate got too hot for his guardians. The intent was to have him educated in France, but his ship was captured off the coast of Yorkshire by English pirates, who brought him to Henry IV of England. Upon hearing of his son’s capture, Robert III allegedly gave up all hope and stopped eating, dying three weeks later. The eleven year old James- now King of Scots- was to remain in English captivity for the next eighteen years. He returned to Scotland in 1424, with an English bride at his side- Joan Beaufort, niece of the Cardinal of Winchester and granddaughter of John of Gaunt- so in the end one of Annabella’s children did sort of end up marrying someone ‘nearly allied in blood’ to Richard II, though long after both Richard and Annabella’s deaths, and much had changed in both England and Scotland.

(Seventeenth century copy of an earlier likeness of Robert III)

On the 14th of August, 1390, the coronation of King Robert III of Scotland took place at Scone. His father, Robert II, had died at Dundonald Castle back in April but it was several months before his eldest son was crowned. Several important developments occurred during that period, such as the attack of Alexander, Earl of Buchan on Elgin cathedral. Buchan had been Robert II’s third surviving son and a favourite of his father, who had built up his power in the north and frequently took matters there into his own hands, settling scores annexing land and uplifting customs without deferring to the Crown. His attack on Elgin cathedral was precisely timed, coming as it did between the death of the old king and the coronation of the new. The second son of the late king, the Earl of Fife- also named Robert- had also been busy in the months since his father’s death. He had become de facto ruler of the realm, during the old age of his father, and due to the incapacitation of his older brother, and he would have wanted to ensure that this was not going to be threatened in the new reign.

The eldest of the late king’s sons- John, Earl of Carrick- had come to an important point in his life, and yet at first it may have looked like not much would change, with the exception of one very obvious detail. You would be hard pressed to find a John II of Scotland in the history books: this is because John had gained permission from the Three Estates in May 1390 to change his name to Robert, in order to avoid the negative associations of his birth name as used by John Balliol. So John, Earl of Carrick, became Robert III of Scotland. Perhaps Robert III felt he had good reason in considering the name John unlucky, as the last few years had not been particularly fortunate for him. After being physically disabled due to being kicked by a horse c.1388 (and possibly also due some unlucky political choices as lieutenant), he had been sidelined from the government from the realm and throughout his reign his younger brother Robert, Earl of Fife would continue to act as the real power in Scotland. He was also prone to severe fits of depression: one famous anecdote relates how, when asked by his queen what kind of tomb he would have, he answered morosely that they ought to bury him in a midden with an epitaph reading ‘Here lies the worst of kings and the most wretched of men in the whole kingdom’. Unfortunately, changing his name to Robert did not have particularly auspicious results. By the time of the king’s death in 1406, his elder son had died suspiciously in the care of his uncle the Earl of Fife (now Duke of Albany), while his younger son, who had been sent away from Scotland for his own safety, had been captured by English pirates and would be held in captivity in the neighbouring kingdom for eighteen years. Upon hearing of the last calamity, Robert finally gave up in late March of 1406, refusing to eat and dying only a few weeks later.

However, for all that he was far from the greatest of Scotland’s kings, Robert has gone down in history as one of its most gentle. Mediaeval chroniclers recorded several anecdotes about his affable nature and concern for his individual subjects, even while the realm at large was in disarray. Though these anecdotes must be taken with a pinch of salt there may also be a degree of truth in them, and, since it is the anniversary of his coronation, it seems particularly appropriate to refer to one which took place as a result of that event.

As stated above, Robert III was finally crowned at Scone on 14th of August 1390, the second of the Stewart kings. As was customary, the new king’s younger brother the Earl of Fife installed him on the throne. The next day Robert III’s queen, Annabella Drummond, was crowned in turn, and then on the day after that the new king received the fealty of his subjects, with the celebrations lasting for some time afterward. A coronation was a rare occasion, and a good excuse for festivity, so large crowds of people assembled to witness the procession of the new king and queen. 

(Modern impression of how Scone Abbey and the Moot Hill, where Scotland’s kings were crowned, may have looked at the time of the coronation of Robert III’s father in 1371- found on this site, by artist James Lindsay, will remove if required)

Not everyone was quite so thrilled however. In particular the men who looked after the agricultural side of things on Scone Abbey’s lands were not best pleased when they discovered that the dozens of horses belonging to those attending the coronation festivities had trampled and chewed and altogether thoroughly ruined the crops on the lands belonging to the monastery. It was harvest time, which probably made this careless damage to crops even more frustrating. The Abbey’s granger, a canon named Robert Logy, was sent with a petition to the king but he was continually refused an audience by the king’s servants, who claimed that their royal master was busy with other things. But Robert Logy was not put off and eventually decided that in order to secure some kind of compensation from the destruction of his Abbey’s harvest, he would have to go about things rather differently.

On the morning of the last day of the coronation festivities, the ears of the new king- who had just woken up- were suddenly assaulted by the blare of a trumpet, and then a dissonant cacophony of noise. If the king looked out of his window on this occasion, he would have seen a whole crowd of labourers- men and women employed on the Abbey estates- each holding a basin and a stick and banging them together to create the awful din. At the head of this musical army a man bore as their standard a rapegyrne, or corn dolly, such as were typically made at the end of the harvest. 

It was soon realised that Canon Robert Logy was behind the whole noisy affair and the granger was promptly summoned to explain himself. Upon being interrogated as to the reason for the rabble, he calmly replied that they had come cheer the king in gratitude for having for saved them upwards of thirty pounds in the costs of bringing in the harvest. As it had all been trampled and eaten, they no longer needed to expend time and energy in gathering the crops. They could now announce the end of the harvest and so, Logy finished, ‘I have therefore come to tell you about it.’