| Herridr II | |
|---|---|
| |
| Queen of Álengiamark | |
| Reign | 3rd December, 1817 - 1st May, 1844 |
| Predecessor | Thorey V |
| Successor | Yrsa III |
| Born | 18th March, 1777 Hjörtahvíliflói, Sudervik Fylk, Álengiamark |
| Died | 1st May, 1844 Nahigavik, Sudervik Fylk, Álengiamark |
| Spouse | Prince George August of Saxony |
| Issue | Margrjet Elisiv |
| Full name | |
| Herridr Karlsdottír | |
| House | Eiriksdottír |
| Father | Karl Ludwig of Bavaria |
| Mother | Thorey V |
Herridr II ruled over Álengiamark for much of the first half of the 19th century. Her reign was utterly pivotal in avoiding a full-blown revolution, and though her own political power was closest to absolute of any modern Álengsk queen, ultimately she would cede executive power to a renewed and essentially democratic parliamentary system.
Early Life[]
Herridr was born in 1777, the eldest child of (then) Crown Princess Thorey and her husband Karl Ludwig of Bavaria. She would spend her infancy at the palace of Hjörtahvíliflói which had been magnificently and expensively extended by her mother and then on the death of Queen Margrjet the royal party moved, almost permanently, to the palace-monastery complex of Alexandría Höfðingustr in the Unamiland countryside.
Thorey V spent vast sums of money on aggrandizing the already large palace and on hosting an ever-revolving whirl of social events designed to capture the attentions of the noble class. Distanced, both geographically and mentally, from the centre of politics in St. Hafdiss the inhabitants of the palace slowly lost contact with actual day to day affairs of the country. Thorey had proved a poor student to her tutors and initially it appeared Herridr and her brother Jóhann would be seduced more by allure of the palace rather than on material matters as well. It was not to be.
On her 13th birthday Herridr was presented with an entire working farm on the Alexandría Höfðingustr estate. Here she and her playmates could play at being peasants, a folly which was fashionable amongst the nobility both in Leifia and Europe at the time. The farm was small but functional and long after her playmates had tired of it Herridr continued to manage the farm and tend to the animals, tutored by the farm manager Kristján Halldórsson. Indeed her future husband, Prince George August of Saxony, would first meet the princess 'dressed in a peasant smock and smelling of manure'. He would affectionately call her 'melkerin' or 'mjáltíþjónn' (milkmaid) throughout their marriage. The press, such as it was in Álengiamark, caught wind of the estate and made endless fun from the 'princess playing peasant'; satirical cartoons, long into her reign, almost uniformly showed her in a farmer's straw hat and had a piglet or lamb trailing after her, or under an arm, and occasionally simply calling her 'Svínnhirðr' (swineherd). However, Herridr's dedication and Halldórsson's patient instruction gave the young princess a grounding in economics, social issues and science which her ancestors could only have imagined. By her early 30s she was one of the richest landowners in the country and maintained a copious correspondence with the estate managers, gathering their opinions on a myriad different agricultural topics. Her curiosity fired, she would maintain and build up a huge library, numbering 5,000 or so books by the 1840s and was a voracious reader of pamphlets and journals. She did not however, totally eschew the extravagant court life which her mother revelled in, she would spend fantastical sums of money on dresses and jewelry, banquets for friends and massive hunting parties in Ontario Fylk.
Prince George August of Saxony
Thorey's court in the Alexandría Höfðingustr was largely insulated from the wider country. Shrewd investments, and continued payments by the Althing, had enriched the crown and nobles and they maintained a fantastically opulent court. In the rest of the country a period of sustained growth had enriched the elites and improved the lot of many but equally this wealth proved to be shallow and illusory. The Althing, under the spell of the saturnine speaker Mauguin Eríksson was almost comically corrupt and self-serving. This corruption and waste could mostly be ignored due to the general good feeling engendered by the continued success of the Cheasapeake Company which sold shares of farm and mine loans in Margirhaedeyja, Unamiland and Nanticokeland to those willing to exploit the areas newly freed from serfdom. It had proved fantastically successful, at least to begin with but by the 1810s was reliant more and more on marginal land. The crown and other shrewd investors had already moved on to other projects leaving the shares circulating around the lower classes, promising and baiting them for grand riches. Speculation was rife and consumed the savings of those who could ill afford it. Then came 1816: 'the Year without Summer'.
The eruption of Mount Tambora in April 1815 in distant Sunda wrecked agriculture around the world and Álengiamark was not spared. There was a 'dry fog' which persisted through much of the spring and summer of 1816, snow fell in June, and frost was frequent through the summer months. Crops rotted in the fields and 'wasn't even worthy of animal feed'. Overall crop yields were about half of what they should have been on a normal year. The farms on marginal lands defaulted on their loans and the Chesapeake Company collapsed, taking the savings of a large section of the public, and the wider economy with it. With shortages looming food prices rose dramatically. A typhus epidemic ran through the coastal cities in the winter, compounding the misery.
To this calamity the authorities appeared to have no solution and by mid 1817 the country was being wracked by serious riots and rebellion. The 'Houst Heykkand' (Autumn Rising) saw the country's largest city, Kristjanaborg, seized by a revolutionary clique in September, after a pamphlet Certain Papers Pertaining to a Fairer Country had already been widely circulated, outlining many of the revolutionaries' aims (see Álengsk Revolutionary Crisis). Herridr had no doubt read the pamphlet at Alexandría Höfðingustr and it seems she was at least sympathetic to many of the concerns. Her letters to George August, in the field against uprisings in the Unamiland, dangerously close to Alexandría Höfðingustr, make references to it and discuss concerns over the general plight of the poor and desperate. It is unknown if any copies of the 2nd version, with its calls for the trial and execution of the royal family, ever reached the court. The army of course was sent to retake Kristjanaborg but as it settled in for a winter siege against the city, Thorey V died.
Averting the Revolution[]
Despite the court's mourning Herridr gathered together the royal council on the 5th and patiently listened to the arrayed counsellors' descriptions of the state of the country. With her extensive property portfolio and extensive correspondence with all the estate managers she was well aware of the desperate situation in many parts of the country and the appalling state of charitable provision. She made note of those courtiers who told her plainly and those who tried to sugar-coat the current situation and held a second session later that day with those counsellors she felt could be trusted not to spare her from the truth. Here she was told about the impending action against Kristjanaborg. She instinctively recoiled from the thought of bloodshed yet she understood very well the potential danger to herself and family, and friends, should the revolution in its current form spread outside of its current confines. It was too late to stop the planned military action but she tried to moderate it and sent an urgent message to the general in charge of the siege, Marshall Garðarsson, telling him to 'take food to the city, and give it liberally'. Simultaneously she authorised a substantial payment from the royal treasury to the army, enough to settle a couple of months' of back-pay and get the army commanders firmly on her side.
As the city fell and the immediate revolutionary danger passed, Herridr made plans to move her court to St. Hafdiss for the coronation, at least that is what the Althing assumed. En route she would stop at the manor house at Mamaronecby on the Margirhaedeyja/Sudervik border where she would meet with various reformist politicians and economists and then travel to visit the newly freed Kristjanaborg. Speaker Eríksson supposedly spied on her to try and gauge her thoughts and outlook but ultimately dismissed her activities as well-meaning fantasy. Despite the fact she was 40 years old by this point she had had very little direct dealings with the Althing yet and there was a firm belief that she was a product of the Alexandría Höfðingustr court. Eríksson believed that bribing her with the usual spoils of tax would be enough to get Herridr to go back to her gilded apartments and 'her little farm'. He would be wrong.
On 14th March 1818 Herridr arrived in St. Hafdiss, escorted by an army group and took up residence at Hollenskahúsið. Eríksson and various other members of the government visited, showered her with gifts and flattery, and spoke endlessly about how the danger to the country was now over. On 18th March she presided over a tense Althing session. The session was simply meant to ratify her succession and set a date for coronation but it soon became a debate about the state of the economy as Herridr asked increasingly probing questions about taxation and the debt and received increasingly patronising responses from Eríksson's allies. Eríksson himself stayed silent on these matters but eventually stood to make a planned speech gloating that the rebels were defeated and country could return to normality. Herridr replied that 'normality' was the reason the Houst Heykkand had been so well-supported by some members of society. Humiliated, Eríksson made his excuses and left the Althinghus. The session broke up in acrimony soon after.
The next day Althing members found themselves locked out of the Althinghus by the army. They were told the Queen had dissolved the Althing and new elections would be held 'when the country was at peace'. The actual legality of this move was quickly questioned; due to the historical weakness of both institutions neither the crown nor the Althing had presumed any innate rights over the other. Herridr and her advisors would argue that the Althing had proven its inability to deal with mounting revolt and the climbing debt and therefore had no authority to govern any longer. Althing apologists could probably level the same accusation at Herridr; her mother and grand-mother had stepped away from government and left it to the professionals, what authority was there for this princess to weald? A standoff quickly emerged.
The Althing had no written rules of conduct, whatever rules it followed were 'by tradition'. In its first medieval incarnation the assembly was held for a few weeks every year in midsummer as that was generally all that was needed before its members would return home for the harvests. As the country rapidly de-centralised during the reign of Thorey II the Althing became devalued and thereafter sat erratically, mostly at the behest of the Mayors of the Palace who managed the Royal Domain and whose interests generally meant it sat in a continuous session. Elections were certainly held within the Royal Domain but representatives from elsewhere tended just to be appointed (if they attended at all). Herridr I's reforms spread elections for the Althing to all of Álengiamark but, elections tended to only occur on the death or retirement of an incumbent and as a result the Althing never dissolved itself for 'new elections' because it never had any reason to. So, on Easter Sunday, 22nd March, assured of the legal right to assemble, Eríksson reconvened the Althing at the Máluðháll in the old Royal Palace, and sought protection from the Sudervik militia. Debate swiftly moved to reining in Herridr.
Unlike in Vinland the Álengsk Althing had never had election rights over the monarchy, this had always been in the hands of the nobles until Herridr I had secured hereditary succession. Whilst some decided the uncrowned queen could be removed and replaced with a more 'agreeable' relative, others felt that simply withholding her coronation would deny her authority. Garðarsson thought the assembly should just be broken up by the army but Herridr believed in was imperative the problem should be defeated legally rather than by force. A trial to judge the limits of royal and Althing power vis-a-vis each other began in the Althing's upper house made up of nobles and clergy. Herridr and her ministers made sure to curry favour with the bishops and at the trial's close a small majority found in favour of Herridr. In effect they gave Herridr permission to become an absolutist monarch.
Herridr's favoured economist, Mika Pyykönen Oskarsson, a Finnish-born Lutheran, was meanwhile busy raking over the Althing's taxation and spending policies, publishing his findings, a long list of those figures who claimed exemption from taxes and in-depth analysis of many of the abuses he could find, to the wider public. It certainly riled up anger but it was directed at the corrupt Althing rather than Herridr and this further underminded Eriksson's position. Meanwhile another trusted advisor, the lawyer Axel Eyþór Egillsson was busy drawing up a 'Bill of Rights'.
With the Althing powerless but entrenched and her ministers busily planning a renewed Álengsk state, Herridr simply got on with the business of government more or less on her own. As she had no elected government to fall back on this was dealt with by issuing royal proclamations which were meant to be ratified by the Upper house (nobles and clergy) which still sat. Support for her was rapidly ebbing from the Upper House however. Both the nobles and clergy took a dim view of losing their tax privileges and many felt threatened as whatever personal patronage leverages they had over Lower House members looked to be disappearing too. Pyykönen, as promised, published the accounts for 1811 at the end of June. Again, the public lapped up the chance to delve into the government's dealings but this time there was a staunch push-back from more established public figures. As a Lutheran, Pyykönen was technically banned from holding any state office but Herridr's continued support for him was a large point of contention. As the chamber dug its heels in more and more, often over trivial items, Herridr was forced more and more to simply issue laws without any oversight, a state of being which had never existed in Álengiamark before.
The majority of these laws were uncontroversial; updating medieval legislation concerning purity or standards of food and drink, or confirming inheritances of various individuals. Much of it was appointing crown representatives to maintain public roads, bridges and water courses rather than allowing them to be controlled by private individuals. A few laws would be long-lasting or influential, such as the Factories Act which established a base level of safety in mills and workshops and would be considerably built upon in future generations, or the Merimáká Pensions Chest Act which extended pensions to all sailors in the royal navy (rather than just those from Sudervik). There were laws concerning whaling in Greenland, updates on import duties on various items like cinnamon and rum, and laws tightening the requirements to become a judge or notary.
Despite her executive and legislative power Herridr never attempted to push through the Bill of Rights or Pyykönen's tax proposals. These she wanted to be embraced by the Althing: legitimising them and making them potentially harder to take away. And she steered firmly clear of any religious laws. She would hold long sessions in the Hollenskahúsið, usually flanked by one or more of her trusted advisors, which were open for anyone to attend and petition the Queen. These kind of sessions had long been in use in Vinland, but thanks to the Álengsk crown's long period of uselessness, had fallen firmly out of fashion in Álengiamark. As word of these personal hearings got out the numbers of ordinary folk making the pilgrimage to St. Hafdiss to see her grew larger and larger, turning the originally short sessions into punishingly long ones. A modest office of civil servants were employed to track down the relevant legislation for each of these cases so they could be updated or rewritten there and then, or shelved for future debate. Of course it wasn't the content of her laws which many objected to, it was simply the fact she was writing these into law by herself. Even at the height of Aniyuwiyan dominance in the 13th century the noble council still sat and debated law. This of course opened her to even more accusations of tyranny and there were protests, most notably in Kristjanaborg and Nahigavik, which were carefully watched for signs of revolutionary rhetoric.
However the nobles and clergy were generally lumped together as anti-reform by more progressive elements and characterised as such in the press. On 6th June, with public opinion mostly behind her and her advisors, Herridr announced there would be elections for all Althing seats (even for those technically still filled by those refusing to budge from the Máluðháll) on Saturday 1st October. On the 7th she narrowly evaded an assassin's bullet, the first of numerous assassination attempts over the course of her reign. The culprit was Björn Davíðsson, a radical republican who had escaped from Kristjanaborg and, like many committed republicans, was aghast that the queen was attempting to co-opt the ideas and ideals of the revolution and make them compatible with the monarchy and aristocracy. Shaken, she now more than ever needed the democratic authority of the lower house behind to take up legislative power.
On 10th-12th June there was a conference of the Speakers of the various Fylkthings in Reyrvatnstadh. There Herridr secured written agreement that they would abide by laws set by a new Althing and that the chamber had authority over fiscal matters. At the same time she conceded that she would not attempt to change fylke rights (aside from taxation) for 7 years. This finally convinced Sudervik to withdraw the militia still protecting the outlawed Althing members. On 15th June an amnesty was extended to the 74 Althing members now unprotected but still refusing to vacate the Máluðháll: formally give up your seat or face the wrath of the courts. 40 took up the offer but the remainder had to be dragged out by the army. Garðarsson personally saw to the arrest of Eríksson. Trials for those arrested were planned for December. Eríksson would escape justice however. He died in Raeðrgleð prison on 7th November of natural causes.
The elections of October 1818 were initially full of optimism, but proved to be a disappointment both for Herridr and the many reformist societies which had been founded out in the Fylke. In many places the same corrupt politicians who had just been ousted were re-elected thanks to ingrained control of the political process by 'their men'. Far from being a bold and stridently reformist Althing, instead the assembly was deeply divided and once more Herridr was forced to push through law by decree. She was burdened by a new speaker, Hjalti Ingólfursson, who appeared more interested in clinging to fragile power than meaningful work but at least he never tried to deceive her. Again she did not try to impose any constitutional or political shifts, determined that these be embraced by the people and not imposed upon them, and never tried to remove Ingólfursson (although she did toy with the idea), preferring to work with him rather than do away with any kind of parliamentary process. Further elections in 1819 and 1821 barely shifted the political scene and it was only in 1825 when a decent reformist majority was elected did the pace of reform begin to pick up and Herridr could ease back on her direct involvement. The Bill of Rights would be accepted, piecemeal, and reform of elections and Althing counties took a decade to complete. Much of the Althing's energies were sapped however, by attempts to rid the cities of corruption, by foreign events, and by paranoia over revolutionary ideas.
Yesan-Susquehanock War[]
In 1821 Yesanland would invade Susquehanockland. The Yesan economy had been utterly ruined by the effects of the 'Year without Summer' and the economic fall out. Its government fell to radicalism; executing their royals and ramping up rhetoric against their neighbours. Susquehanockland had been laid equally low by the crisis though their monarchy muddled on. In supposed support for their fellow revolutionaries Yesanland invaded its northern neighbour swiftly occupying the capital Conestoga. The aggression against Álengiamark's neighbour potentially threatened the southern borders and Garðarsson was swiftly dispatched to liberate Susquehanockland. The Álengsk army was humiliated though in the 1st and 2nd battles of Pequea. The army was ill-disciplined and badly paid; there had been no time to implement the promised reforms before the war started. Garðarsson was frequently drunk and as the army camped, directionless on the borders, he was removed from command. It would take several years and vast sums of money, to reform the army, and pay for mercenaries, all the while subsidising Powhatanland's faltering government, before the Yesan could be decisively beaten and Susquehanockland freed.
The relative failure of the war reflected badly on Herridr. Attempts to argue that this was the legacy of the Althing's corruption did not completely ring true. Herridr had not distanced herself from the war council's dealings and indeed, as per the civil laws, almost all decisions ran through her first. In many towns and Fylke the press became hostile, certainly satirical cartoons of her and her more prominent ministers increased.
It would also mean Álengiamark would stay out of the Hispanic Revolution engulfing Europe even though it threatened her cousin Robert VII of Aquitaine. It is often thought that had there been some Álengsk intervention in the war then Aquitaine (or at least its colony of Xaymaca in the Carib Sea) may have been awarded to Herridr instead of France in the subsequent peace talks.
As taxes were increased to pay for army reforms including, for the first time, an income tax, the backlash finally made Herridr drop Pyykönen Oskarsson. His Lutheranism had been a constant bugbear to many of the Álengsk elites. He would resign from all offices and emigrate to Abernakriga.
Other Foreign Ventures[]
In 1837 Catawbaland invaded Dasamongueponkland for trumped up reasons, expecting a swift capitulation. Dasamongueponkland was weak, it economy based entirely on cash crops but importantly had long been an Álengsk protectorate of sorts and many historians cite the long dysfunction of the Álengsk state as the only reason it had not annexed it long ago. The Althing quickly condemned the Catawba actions and moved an army southwards. Importantly the army fought under Dasamongueponk colours, although much of the command structure by necessity was Álengsk. Faced with stiff resistance Catawba withdrew and sued for peace. Álengsk investment in the years to come would help build infrastructure and a less dependent economy, as well as providing economic opportunities back home.
In 1840 Herridr inserted the title of 'Defender of Soqotra' as a pretext to meddle in local politics in the Red Sea, especially well-timed as the Isaaq state on the Horn of Africa was in a state of collapse. Álengsk marines seized the Somali port city of Berbera in 1840 to 'protect its trade'. This would form the kernel of the future Somaliland.
The island of Nýljóneyja off the Mane coast of West Africa had been run by the Royal African Company as a private enterprise but its own debts soon became unsustainable. The island was therefore taken over by the crown in 1842.
In 1843 Herridr would play host to Elizabeth of Hordaland. The first crowned head of a European Kalmar state to visit Leifia, Elizabeth had married Herridr's grandson Vilhjálmur two years earlier. The visit was designed to help promote cross-Atlantic co-operation and trade deals and indeed several Álengsk-Hordalandic agreements to share African trading posts were signed.
Death and Legacy[]
Thanks to her role in averting, and indeed co-opting many republican ideals, Herridr was subject to multiple assassination attempts. The threats did not ease up even as she handed power back to the Althing and stepped back from absolutism. She maintained a special bodyguard of grenadiers but even so, it was almost guaranteed that one of these bullets would eventually find its target. In 1844 she would be assassinated by a Sudervik farm labourer, Jóhann Axelsson, protesting the putative abolition of regressive anti-Lutheran laws.
Herridr and George would have eight children. She would be succeeded by her third daughter, Yrsa.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||
