Joan of Arc Beaten

The 100 Years' War Ends

An artistic depiction of Joan of Arc's death in battle

• 4-29-1429
  • English armies overwhelm a French army led by Joan of Arc at Orleans
• 9-31-1430
  • Burgundian forces have run almost uninhibited all the way south to Narbonna, which falls on this day. Meanwhile, English forces destroy the last of France's naval and expeditionary forces, leaving England in unquestioned control over every Atlantic and North Sea province of France.
• 11-30-1430
  • The last French forces surrender to the English-Burgundian alliance. Among the captives is the Dauphin. He accepts Henry the 6th as King Henry the 2nd of France and consents to the independence of Burgundy, henceforth to be known as the Kingdom of Burgundy.

Phillip I's Reign

• 5-26-1432
  • King Phillip the Good of Burgundy summons and knights the promising young Jacques Cœur so that he may serve as his minister of trade. Now that Burgundy controls a narrow strip of land down to Narbona and Montpelhièr, the King has determined to enter the Mediterranean trade business. Cœur proves to be a brilliant manager.
• 6-4-1450
  • Jack Cade's Rebellion in Kent fails miserably, but the popularity of his radical philosophy (best summarized by the apocryphal quote, "the first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers,") shakes the English government deeply. King Phillip the Good of Burgundy recognizes that his nation, too, is vulnerable to such a revolt. He takes the "vow of the peasant", slightly increasing the number of free towns and lifting the burdens for a peasant who wishes to be come a bourgeois.
• 5-29-1453
  • Byzantium falls to the Ottoman Turks. The Eastern Roman Empire is no more. Mehmed II is quickly enraptured by the city, and soon makes it the capital of his young empire.
• 9-1-1466
  • In monetary terms, Burgundy surpasses Venice and Genoa to have the largest international trade of any European state. The King rewards the 71-year-old Jacques Cœur by retiring him with the title Count of Provence. The King had conveniently claimed the title from Rene I of Naples as the price for his involvement in the War Against John II, which leaves both John II and Rene I as newfound allies of Burgundy, but earns the King the emnity of Pope Calixtus III, who had declared the line of Aragon extinct and attempted to make both kingdoms Papal lands.
• 5-1-1470
  • Afonso V pushes the Portuguese holdings deeper into Morocco, capturing the town of Arzila. Having secured a sizable African province, he will soon turn his sights on Iberia.

Mary I's Reign

• 9-2-1472
  • The 15-year-old Mary rises to the Queenship of Burgundy on her father's death. Eager to avoid a war of Dutch succession, she agrees to allow her cousin, Phillipe of Charolais, to become Duke of Flanders. This temporarily avoid a war with England and The Holy Roman Empire over the legality of a girl's succession to the throne. Angered that her rule should be questioned by her fellow monarchs, she resolves to consolidate her hold on power through diplomacy and nation-building.
• 9-21-1472
  • Portuguese navigator João Vaz Corte-Real is granted the title "discoverer of the Land of Bacalao". This stirs up excitement among the naval community; this "land of the codfish" is a larger and more distant Atlantic island than any previously discovered.
• 2-14-1473
  • Queen Mary of Burgundy marries the aged King John II of Aragon and Navarre. A single Franco-Basque nation now extends as far West and South as Galicia (bordering Castille, Portugal, and the Atlantic), as far North as La Rochelle and Sens (bordering English France), and as far East as Provence (bordering Nice and Monaco).
• 3-15-1473
  • Using their combined treasury, Queen Mary sets about assembling a bureaucracy. Although small at first, her ambitions are clearly to have the largest and most talented collection of scholars, financiers, generals, and clerics in Christian Europe.
• 1-20-1479
  • With the death of John II, Ferdinand II of Aragon succeeds to the crown of Aragon. The lands under the Crown of Navarre, however, remain with Queen Mary of Burgundy.
• 1-22-1479
  • King Abu l-Hasan Ali takes advantage of the splitting of Burgundy-Navarre and Aragon to attack Castile in a series of stunningly swift cavalry charges known as "The Winter War". Without its Spanish allies, Castile is at a decided disadvantage.
• 1-24-1479
  • Al-geciras and Gibraltar on the coast and Jaen inland fall in rapid succession the Grenadans.
• 2-5-1479
  • Cadiz falls to Grenada. Sensing their chance, Portugal enters the war and advances on Heulva.
• 2-6-1479
  • Aragon and Castille construct an alliance in the quickest way that they know how: Ferdinand marries Isabel. It is a Queendom, in deference to Castille's still-superior power.
• 2-9-1479
  • Burgundy-Navarre declares war on Portugal in defense of Aragon-Castile. They march on Barganca.
• 2-10-1479
  • Seville falls to Grenada; they rush across the Guadalquivir to meet the Portuguese forces.
• 2-15-1479
  • Portuguese forces are overwhelming the Burgundians, and seem poised to capture Galicia, when the Portuguese attempt to enter Santiago de Compostela. The Knights of the Pamplonan Order rally the Queen's troops with an impassioned call to defend the Queendom's holy city. The result is one of the greatest routs in Iberian history -- the Burgundians kill every last Portuguese soldier.
• 2-18-1479
  • Portugal sues for peace. They ask for a diminished border, only 10 miles north of the Duero.
• 2-27-1479
  • Fighting has ground to a bloody halt on the Guadalquivir river in the north and Segura river in the east.
• 3-15-1479
  • Recognizing that a feeling of nationhood, rare in Europe since the collapse of the Romans, gave the Burgundians their advantage in war, Queen Mary redoubles her efforts to increase the national bureaucracy. She founds the Scholars of the Pamplonan Order, whose task is to develop a national language that is pleasing to the ear of the wide range of Romance and Basque dialects spoken throughout her land.
• 3-18-1479
  • Castille-Aragon, which has restyled itself as the United Queendom of Spain, reaches peace terms with Grenada. Huelva will be an independent duchy, so that while Spain has no access of its own to the Atlantic, it should be able to negotiate such access through the Grenadans, Portuguese, Burgundians, or Huelvans. Spain cedes Seville and Cordoba to Grenada, but Grenada withdraws its forces from Murcia.
• 4-1-1479
  • Queen Mary marries Maximilian I, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. A strong-willed woman with a powerful kingdom of her own, she is able to make Maximilian consent to signing a rejection of Salic Law as part of the royal prenuptial. The act is uncontroversial in their homelands, but it is almost an act of war in English France: it reaffirms Queen Mary's disputed claim to the titles of Flanders, Artois, Rethel, and Nevers.
• 6-28-1479
  • Queen Mary takes advantage of her position of power and offers to mediate a solution to the War of the Roses. She accomplishes little in terms of settling the civil war, but wins many concessions for herself: both aspiring monarchs waive their claims to all the territories claimed by Burgundy that they had been formally protesting, and both sign treaties of friendship with Burgundy. Duke Phillipe of Flanders, recognizing his diplomatic isolation, invites the Queen to come to Flanders to perform a knighthood ceremony on him. The Burgundian Queendom becomes the first empire since Charlemagne to have undisputed, unbroken sovereignty from the North Sea to the Mediterranean.
• 3-26-1482
  • Mary of Burgundy is slightly injured in a horse accident; she miscarries.
• 1-31-1483
  • Joy throughout the Queendom and the Empire: an heir is born! The couple name their son Felipe. Relations between Queen and Emperor, which had been formal, adopt a much warmer tone.
• 12-31-1483
  • A second son is born to Mary and Maximillian; they name him Silvestre to honor the patron saint of December 31.
• 12-25-1484
  • Through the work of the Scholars of the Pamplonan Order, the first printing presses have opened across the Queendom, in Santiago de Compostela, Pamplona, Montpelhièr, and the capital Lyon. Today, at Christmas Masses across the country, the people are in for a treat -- the first public readings from the first book published on the press: "Bibli Pyréné", or "The Bible in the Pyrenee Language", as the Scholars have dubbed their amalgalm of Basque, Navarese, Occitan, Provencal, Walloon, Bourguignon, and other languages that make up their diverse nation. Pyréné is a rough language, full of contradictions and unfamiliar words. For the vast majority of the churchgoers, though, it is easier to understand than Latin. Bishops across Burgundy look up after struggling through the strange book to see audiences beaming with the glimmer of recognition as they piece together a deeper understanding of scripture. In the coming months, the Pope will try to crack down on this deviation from standard mass protocol, but it is too late. Burgundy is in the throes of a religious awakening.
• 12-15-1485
  • The fourth and final child of Queen Isabella, Catherine, is born.

Phillip II's Reign

• 2-1-1490
  • Queen Mary dies in childbirth; her final child is a daughter, whom the Emperor names Izrail, after the Angel of Death. Emperor Maximillian, honoring his beloved wife's request, installs his 7-year-old son Phillip as King of Burgundy, and appoints a Burgundian man whom he trusts as Phillip's regent. Aware that the seemingly weak Kingdom of Burgundy is backed by the bureaucracy -- and military -- of the Holy Roman Empire, King Edward resists the temptation to expand his French holdings and instead pledges to uphold his friendship with Burgundy.
• 4-29-1490
  • Christopher Columbus sails for the King of Burgundy, who has determined to expand his territory.
• 8-27-1490
  • Columbus lands at Florida's coast and claims it for Burgundy.
• 9-2-1490
  • The native Tequesta, having recently suffered heavy casualties to the Calusa, refuse to go anywhere near the pale, hairy explorers, assuming them to be Calusa mystics. Columbus and his crew find clear signs that humans once walked this land, but find no one to talk to -- just acre after acre of the lushest groves that they have ever seen. He resolves to request that the King send a mission to this "Florid Land", which seems to be so sparsely populated as to be easy to conquer.
• 1-23-1491
  • King Edward the 4th dies and is succeeded by his cousin Henry Tudor, the Earl of Richmond, who becomes King Henry the 7th. Henry, a lifelong bachelor, arranges to wed the daughter of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain- Princess Catherine. She is not yet old enough, but he agrees to wait until her majority.
• 6-1-1492
  • The Creek tribes of Florida welcome Columbus to the shore as his second voyage lands. It quickly becomes clear, though, that Columbus is here to wage war and control the territory. Unlike the more pacifist tribes in the Caribbean, though, the Creek prove to be worthy adversaries. Columbus and the vast majority of his crew are killed in a quick series of battles. A skeleton crew abandons all of its equipment and weapons and desperately sails north.
• 6-3-1492
  • A terrible illness falls upon the Creek people. Many warriors find themselves covered in painful pockmarks.
• 6-5-1492
  • A Creek medicine man, noticing that the warriors were the hardest hit, determines that the Burgundians have poisoned the equipment that they left behind. The Creek burn it all -- except for a few mice, which go unnoticed, and the abandoned horses, which have fled north.
• 6-18-1492
  • Captain Johanne de la Cosa lands the remainder of Columbus's crew outside a Lenape village. The tribes tell them that the land is called "De La Ware". In exchange for some spare articles of the Burgundian's curious clothing, the Lenape give the sailors all the food that they need to continue their voyage home.
• 6-20-1492
  • The Lenape chief and his family fall ill and become covered in pockmarks. Many who were allowed to touch the chief's fancy new clothes also find themselves ill.
• 11-22-1492
  • The remainder of Columbus's ill-fated expedition returns to Burgundy. Johanne de la Cosa advises the King that the natives are strong and wealthy people with languages and customs unlike any ever found. Noting their total ignorance of Christianity, but also their friendliness unless provoked, de la Cosa compares the Creek and Lenape to the people of Eden. Soon all of Burgundy is abuzz with the discovery of "l'Edenites".
• 3-24-1493
  • The two strains of smallpox infecting the Native Americans cross paths at the Great Mound City of Cahokia, where the Ohio and Illinois rivers meet. The devastation is total: the Cahokia civilization, already on the decline, is wiped out in a matter of weeks.
• 3-8-1494
  • Burgundy sends its third voyage to the New World, captained by Johanne de la Cosa. In response to de la Cosa's descriptions of the natives, the crew is almost totally unarmed. Among its complement are a Catholic and a Jewish theologian and a Royal historian, to gather information on the natives and test de la Cosa's Eden theory; and several Catholic missionaries, who look forward to the chance to convert new souls.
• 8-22-1502
  • Charles, the first son of King Phillip of Burgundy, is born.
• 5-20-1503
  • King Henry finally weds his Spanish bride, to whom he has been betrothed for 12 years.
• 2-28-1504
  • Catherine bears the king twins- a son named Arthur and a daughter named Mary.
• 3-21-1509
  • King Henry dies and is succeeded by 5 year old Arthur. Archbishop Warham of Canterbury is regent.
• 5-25-1522
  • King Arthur assumes control of his own government, at the age of 18. His mother Catherine has less influence on him than on his sister Princess Mary.

Charles I's Reign

• 6-30-1525
  • King Arthur decides to condemn the ideas of Martin Luther and William Tyndale. He bans the English translation of the Bible made by the latter.
• 10-22-1527
  • King Arthur arranges a marriage between his now widowed sister Princess Mary and King Charles the 8th of Burgundy.
• 1-26-1530
  • William Tyndale and 6 other English Protestants are burnt at the stake by order of King Arthur, who insists on England's loyalty to Rome. Among the dead are the Duke of Northumberland and his young wife Anne Boleyn.