noblesse

19TH OF JULY X273 --- Queen Liliane’s rule was too short for any of her plans to come to fruition and it ended violently when she was murdered by an assassin not long before her 24th birthday. As the assassin’s employer was a Peregrandian noble, the country was at the verge to another war, so shortly after the last, but though heartbroken, her mother urges Lilian’s younger sister  not  to seek vengeance, not to gamble the well-being of the entire country for the fleeting feeling of satisfaction revenge promises.

19TH OF AUGUST X273 --- Princess Carine had never wanted to become Queen Carine I, but her country needed a leader and her mother was too old and too sad to be the pillar. Thus, Carine  ( the firecracker, the wild child )  swallowed down her anger and set out to be what the country needed and proved far more successful at this than she had anticipated.

27TH OF DECEMBER X309 --- after 46 years of continuing what her mother had began and what her sister had wanted as well, Queen Carine  ( aged 70 )  did not wake one morning, leaving behind a grateful kingdom, a husband, two sons and a daughter: Béatrice.

27TH OF JANUARY X310 - 5TH OF JUNE X338--- the reign of Queen Béatrice would be overshadowed by the  Stella Situation,  a topic few Icebergians like to address, even today. Once, Stella was a duchy that was allied with the domains that  ( after the Independence War),  but it did not gain independence alongside the others as they had not participated in the war, despite having had far more soldiers and better weapons. The end result was that Stella became essentially the cousin that is not mentioned during family dinners. Queen Béatrice  tried  to create a better understanding between what had once been once people, but she had to accept that Iceberg’s people no longer wanted to have anything to do with Stella, and accepting her citizen’s will, her efforts ceased later in her life.

16TH OF JANUARY X312 --- Stella becomes independent from Peregrande.

5TH OF JUNE X338 --- Queen Béatrice’s death was hardly a surprise, she had been well in her forties when she had taken the throne and she had not been dealt an easy hand, but the suddenness with which she died shocked the country. She had been a beloved ruler and was laid to rest in the crypt only two months after her death as her only daughter wanted to give the people time to pay their respect and to say goodbye.

5TH OF AUGUST X338 --- former Princess, now Queen Éliane is given a thankless job; being the direct successor to a ruler as popular as her mother is never easy and after having spent most of her life in the shadows as she never enjoyed the spotlight, she is almost unknown to the people who now need her. She makes do, continuing her mother’s work and keeping her head down for the most part.

17TH OF OCTOBER X362 --- while never popular as other queens, most citizens would have wished for Queen Éliane to have the same peaceful death her mother had found, but this instead, she dies when her morning tea is poisoned. While many conspiracy theorists have written about who killed the queen, there has never been a trial as there has never been a suspect. Of course, as these things tend to go, Peregrande has always been mentioned in this content, though many contemporaries agree that others would have benefitted more from this particular death.

17TH OF NOVEMBER X362 --- Éliane’s young niece Queen Adeline is crowned queen and like her grandmother before her, the challenge ahead of her is not an easy one as Iceberg’s society has reached a tipping point as craftsmen rally against mages as they are able to offer the same goods at a much lower price

5TH OF FEBRUARY X376 --- after fourteen years of hard work to negotiate a deal between craftsmen and mages, something she neglects her private life for fully, Queen Adeline suddenly falls ill and does not recover  

5TH OF MARCH X376 --- her niece, Myléne Martell, is formally crowned queen but as she is only six, her mother, Princess Alana, acts as regent for ten years. Alana has gone on to become a popular figure in Icebergian stories as she is said to have been the water mage who extinguished the Great Fire of May X370, something that is in fact true.

12TH OF JUNE X386 --- on her sixteenth birthday, the young queen takes over from her regent and after years of having been considered a non-issue, as a child that could easily be ignored, Queen Myléne sets a first exclamation mark when she proposes to her not-so-secret crush, a kitchen aide, a week later --- ignoring the council when they tell her she should marry according to her station

12TH OF OCTOBER X426 --- Queen Myléne steps down, preferring to enjoy the autumn of her life away from the capital and its schemes

12TH OF NOVEMBER X426 --- her youngest daughter, Noèmi Martell, becomes queen and while she does not enter the history books as the heiress to her mother's stubbornness, Queen Noèmi has been reported by contemporaries to be quite willful in her own right. Under her rule, Iceberg attracted many of the finest scientists of the time as she greatly supported the universities of the country and thus made them interesting for those in need of financial support for their inventions.

8TH OF OCTOBER X437 --- pneumonia takes the queen before her time, leaving behind only one son and a very specific will: that her son is to inherit her throne, her title. While this goes against all kinds of tradition, her will is to be respected and thus, two months after her death, Iceberg crowns a king for the very first time.

8TH OF DECEMBER X437 --- Iceberg’s first King, Edgard Martell, knows that his rule goes against all traditions, but he tries to make his peace with it, marries the sixth daughter from a well-respected family, does not do anything drastically different from the women who sat on the throne before him. He has two daughters, the older who dies in a tragic death and one heiress, and four sons who can be described as almost devoted to their little sister, Rozenn.

13TH OF SEPTEMBER X484 --- King Edgard is very old when he steps down after forty-seven years at the helm of the country and in comparison, his daughter Rozenn is almost ridiculously young when she is crown queen at the tender age of seventeen. The expectations for her are high, and perhaps, she broke on them early, though the records about her have been partially erased.

11TH OF NOVEMBER X501 --- after a rule of seventeen years, Queen Rozenn dies in childbirth and her husband becomes regent for their daughter, Crown Princess Aline.

UNTIL X518 --- Regent Casimir Martell is responsible for decisions that are still hotly debated in Iceberg as many questionable laws originated during his reign.

11TH OF NOVEMBER X518 --- despite Aline's coming-of-age, her father refuses to hand over the throne, fancying himself to be the rightful king. It is a choice he regrets dearly when his daughter gains the support of some of the most powerful families, the Renauds for example, and quickly ousted the former regent from his throne and into a dungeon cell.

16TH OF JULY X524 --- Queen Aline's announcement that no, she would not marry and in the event of her death, her cousin's oldest daughter would inherit the crown, was initially met with confusion, though the queen's obvious fondness for Aurore Renaud  ( and the titles that were piled on the fourth Renaud daughter )  eventually explained things.

24TH OF JUNE X546 --- just as sudden and surprising is her announcement that after twenty-eight years, she wishes to retire to the summer residence with Aurore and that her younger cousin, Prince Lucien, should be king until his daughter would come of age. The speculation about this has lasted to this day and a theory that does not seem to die is that she placed her cousin on the throne to spite her father, but it is not certain if Casimir was still alive in X546 or if he had died long before.

24TH OF JULY X546 --- in later years, King Lucien would be called the Dove King for how his older cousin seemingly made him appear from her hat when she had grown weary of the royal lifestyle, but on the day of his coronation, no one could resist pointing out how dreadfully pale he was. Though this should not come as much of a surprise; Iceberg has never been gentle with its male rulers. Part of why he stepped up instead of his oldest daughter as it had been originally planned is that his oldest daughter had expressed that she would rather seek her fortune in science than in politics.

31ST OF DECEMBER X552 --- after almost six years, King Lucien abdicates. He has never wanted to be king, has only ever stepped up because he was needed, and he is more than happy to let his youngest daughter Mylène be queen.

31st OF JANUARY X553 --- Queen Mylène II would later say that the day of her coronation was the last truly happy day of her life for one day later, her husband is murdered. She throws herself into the duty to her kingdom, never remarries and wears black for the rest of her life. 

SUMMER X559 --- after only six years on the throne, Queen Mylène II is excommunicated from the Church, as the highest clerics have not enjoyed her response that as long as her country is at war with Peregrande, she has bigger things to worry about than to make sure that her subjects are obediently following the religious canon dictated by the Bellumese clerics. Later on when the war is won, she would buy herself back into the good graces of the church by having a grandiose church built, but while her excommunication lasts, she does not care very much.

2ND OF NOVEMBER X575 --- a poisoned drink is what tears Queen Mylène out of her life before help can be found, and Iceberg is furious. The pressure to find the responsible parties is high, and although the trace points towards Bosco  ( and this is a scandal as the countries are  allied ),  the whispers that this time, it has to have been Peregrande cannot be silenced fully.

2ND OF DECEMBER X575 --- Manon Martell has been a child when her father was killed and now, as an adult, she has lost her mother to a complicated murder, too. The young queen is said to have been almost frantic regarding her security and her family’s safety, something that led to the nickname Queen Hare. Despite her constant fear, it was Manon who safely steered Iceberg into the next century.

3RD OF JANUARY X608 --- one month after Queen Manon’s death, her youngest daughter Célia is crowned queen and although she tries to maintain the stability of her country, it eventually slips from her fingers. The recent incidents  ( one dead queen, Peregrande’s military building uncomfortably close to the border, among other things )  are still fresh and slowly, Iceberg turns into a powder keg.

24TH OF JUNE X665 --- the powder keg almost explodes when Crown Princess Odile is killed with the same poison that was used to kill Queen Mylène II. The same belief - that surely, it was Peregrande - quickly spreads and this time, an escalation can only be stalled, it cannot be prevented. Later on, Célia will be praised for having tried to fight off the inevitable by tirelessly trying to calm her country and her council while  also  grieving for her daughter, but her efforts would be in vain.

9TH OF APRIL X687 --- some would say that it was a mercy that Célia dies shortly before the war breaks out, leaving her granddaughter Cornélie on the throne, but most agree that Célia had known very well what was coming and that she clung to the crown for so long  because  she had hoped she could lead the country through the war. Instead, this falls to Queen Cornélie who has only been the ruler for a few months when the situation escalates.

SUMMER X687 --- what had been predicted to happen for decades now finally does happen, and it is every bit as ugly as it would have been expected. The war is not constantly fought on the various battlefields along the border --- and this time, Iceberg is trying to regain ground lost in a previous war --- it is also fought in the palaces where a political solution is desperately sought, initially with little success.

WINTER X697 --- the Third Peregrandian War changes the way Iceberg functions in ways few would have deemed possible beforehand. While many agree that Queen Cornélie should not have ignored the parliament the way she did, just as many think that the punishment --- being stripped of many royal privileges and the crown being locked away --- has been too harsh. This incident also marks the shift from a monarchy to a constitutional monarchy, something many Icebergians consider to be a . . . flop.

2ND OF JANUARY X698 --- the war ends after ten bloody, bloody years with a peace treaty and although her power is now limited, Queen Cornélie throws herself into the service to her country. She wants Iceberg to recover quickly from this tragedy, wants to keep up with the other countries on the continent that have begun to thrive whereas hers is still  hurt  from a war no one wanted.

4TH OF OCTOBER X731 --- the Queen wants to peacefully enjoy the years she has left in her and thus, she steps down and allows her daughter Carine to step up. The crown princess has never been much of a public before, but the long years of her reign would quickly become an essay on how far the laws that limit the monarch’s powers could be bend, something that did not only make her friends.

16TH OF SEPTEMBER X756 --- despite the council’s protest, Queen Carine II puts her son on the throne and retires to the old winter residence with her husband. This is by far her most unpopular political decision, but has always gotten what she has wanted and this would not be an exception. Her son is  not thrilled  to be king. He knows that his country would have preferred any of his female cousins over him, that his country has perhaps even hoped that his wife would be crowned and he would be consort, but he never complains. Instead, he grits his teeth and gets to work. And there is still a lot work to be done.

4TH OF MAY X769 --- after three sons, after three princes, Iceberg witnesses the birth of the long awaited Crown Princess: Annabelle Marie Martell is born on the first sunny day after weeks of rain.

14TH OF APRIL X794 --- King André Martell steps down from the throne, thus allowing for his daughter, Crown Princess Annabelle Martell, to ascend