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DispatchFactbookHistory

by The Free Republic of Knootoss. . 610 reads.

History of Knootoss (Prehistory-1688)

The history of Knootoss until 1688. The history from 1689 onwards can be read here.



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1. First Migrations


Knootoss lies in a river delta at the confluence of most of Eastern Transmontana’s major rivers. These include the Alfonwyn, Rede, Tyraan and Merwe rivers, which trace their origins back to the mountains of Kartlis, Leagran, Lake Moldon and from there from the arctic meltwaters in the far north of the continent. Sedimentation has gradually expanded the coastline, though it was still subject to frequent flooding until man-made interventions regulated the landscape. Evidence of indigenous hunter-gathering has been found in the area west of the confluence of the Merwe and Jardén rivers. These include Apatan stone tools and pits dug in the sandy soil near the present-day border with Laneria. The oldest archaeological evidence for permanent human settlement in the delta was found near modern-day Zeuvel, where wooden poles were driven into marshy ground around 300 CE.

Traditional national history has it that the first 'Knootians' were pagan descendants of a tribe known to the Romans as the Chamavi or Chamaboe (Χᾳμαβοί). Members of this tribe supposedly fled across the Western Atlantic Ocean after being defeated in battle by the forces of the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great in 313 CE, in the same year as the proclamation of the LinkEdict of Milan. In this telling, the ‘Chamavi’ were Germanic pagans who originally settled near the towns of Libeek and Daalen in the modern-day Duchy of Chamaven.


The oldest Knootian boat (200 CE - 600 CE)
This story cannot be literally true. The identities of people groups during the Great Migrations era were malleable, and migration usually happened sporadically and over longer periods of time. References to the Chamavii found in the 990s and beyond in early Christian documents use a Germanic root word referring to "those who dwell near the river mouth", or an early West Germanic loan word of Latin, "hamus", meaning fishhook; ie. "the Fishermen", rather than referring to the same people group recorded by Tacitus. The lands south of the river Rede, being subject to constant flooding, are now thought to have remained largely unsettled until a large wave of migration arrived from the east between 900 CE and 1100 CE. Whilst evidence of 'early migration' from the early 4th century is keenly sought after by adherents of the Constantinian Expulsion Theory, the evidence for settlement by Germanic peoples prior to 900 CE remains limited to a few scattered objects. These include jewellery, pottery shards and a silver brooch. The most famous early settlement object is a fossilised boat, cut from a tree trunk in a Germanic style, which is believed to have been made somewhere between 200 CE and 600 CE.

In this early period, the marshy north of the delta had a more favourable climate, developing separately from the rest of the region. Camveni settlers from Excalbia are known to have migrated into the area now known as Cymsrijk in the early 7th century CE. The centre of gravity for these settlements lay across the border in what is now the Tasat province of the Caldan Union, and these formed a more-or-less united polity. The city of Caerglan, believed to have once been a port city near the mouth of the Alfonwyn, is thought to be the oldest continuously extant settlement in Knootoss, though in its first centuries, it would have been little more than a village dependent on subsistence fishing and farming, functioning as a seasonal centre of trade for the region.

The genetic record settles near the end of the migration period, and the distinct heritage for people groups that can still be recognised today in a geographic, cultural or linguistic sense are traced back to this time. 21st century DNA evidence suggests that Dutch-speaking Knootians living north of the mouth of the Nivelle and south of the river Rede are an ethnic melange of Nordo-Baltic, Germanic, Frankish, Camveni, and Wapatan people groups that blended together over time. These Knootians are (much) taller than average, and are more likely to have pale white skin, blue or grey eyes and blond hair. This distinctiveness lessens as one travels further south. People from the provinces of Waterland and Hesbayeux were likely very genetically similar in this early era, but have seen more of an influx of genetic markers from French migrants from later centuries.

By contrast, the Cymric peoples have more genetic markers in common with their Caldan neighbours, being slightly stockier, and either rosy-cheeked, or darker in skin colour. They are more likely than their Dutch- or French-speaking compatriots to have black or brown hair, and tend to have blue or green eyes.

The Latturians meanwhile are a forest- and hill people who, despite being part of the delta, are genetically and linguistically distinct, though not isolated, with significantly more genetic markers from indigenous Transmontanan groups. They also have several genetic markers in common with Celtic people groups from Tasat in the modern day Caldan Union (The Resurgent Dream).

2. Feudalism and Christianity


Knights and Pagans

The oldest surviving writing was recorded by monks on vellum during the late 10th and early 11th century. These records were written in Church Latin and include a notable secular work, the Ballad of Rudolf. The Ballad details the adventures of a Knight or Petty King named Rudolf who defeats local Pagans, conquers the ‘Kingdom of the Camveni’, protects the earliest Christian Churches and saves a 'Saint Mary' from a swamp creature. Later versions of the Ballad have expanded on these stories, placing them in the Romantic tradition. Whilst the Ballad and the associated Tales of Rudolf are not very useful as historic records, they do paint a picture of early feudalism, proto-Republicanism and Christianisation occurring between 900 and 1100 CE.

Early feudalism is thought to have first been transplanted by migrating mercenaries in the Duchy of Chamaven, near the eponymous city, as well as in the Bishopric of Jonkervelde and the Rudolfsveste. Though it is presently an inland province, the area was much nearer to the sea at this time, and at this point in history solidly above sea level as a result of natural sedimentation. Duke Harold Akolutos 'The Conquerer', of the Immedinger dynasty of Hamaland, is considered the founder of the Chamavic dynasty. He was succeeded by Duke Rudolf the Great, who conquered much of the original duchy. Duke Bernhart I then founded the city of Chamaven in the early-to-mid 12th century, and made it the capital.

The Teistergouw along the Jardén and Merwe rivers was long a politically fractious polity of disunited towns and castles. Meanwhile, the Grand County of Waterland, named for the floods that used to menace it, had the literary tradition of the Epoch of Knight Roeland of Raavengat, which is known for being more linguistically sophisticated and focussed on elements of Courtly Love that are absent from the Ballad of Rudolf.

Pre-literate farmers took up a living in the swamps and floodplains of the eastern river delta. Their actions would end up shaping the country – literally – in ways that would have a lasting impact. Evidence of land reclamation goes back to the turn of the first millennium. Taking advantage of lower sea levels and the possibility of farming fertile (if dangerously exposed) land, they created artificial dwelling mounds ('dorpen') of up to 15 metres high, as well as early defences against river flooding. Many farms were built as independent units, perhaps gathered in small clusters of self-governing multi-family units. Archaeological evidence suggests that these farms remained pagan for longer than is recorded in the Chronicles of the more western provinces, and the farmers living there have been described by the monks of Chamaven as ‘base, treacherous, and savagely cunning’.

Though the chronicles cast the struggle between the feudal power-brokers of the west and the eastern agricultural communities as a spiritual one, between Christians and Pagans, the westernmost provinces were not fully Christianised either during this time. Likewise the peoples who settled on the islands and floodplains in the east did not necessarily reject Christianity. Rather the dispute seems to have taken on a secular dimension. The farmers were freemen who owned their land and had their own local institutions, and they violently rejected the imposition of serfdom and payment of tithes and taxes.

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The area of present-day Knootoss in 1237 CE. Click to enlarge.
This struggle reached its zenith in 1237 during the Battle of Thrallwing. At the time the Bernhart II, Duke of Chamaven, and the Bishop of Jonkervelde had personally ridden out ahead of a feudal army, commanding some 1200 knights and an unknown number of infantry, to intimidate the local peasants into obedience. The heavily armoured knights were goaded into charging a group of peasants across a marshy quagmire of treacherous peat, sinking into the quagmire and being bludgeoned to death by the local forces.

This unlikely victory has been claimed by Cymric nationalists, Knootian republicans and even the modern feminist movement, on account of the widespread participation as female warriors. The hopeful message is somewhat undercut by subsequent events. The Duke of Chamaven allied himself with the Petty King of Caerglan, promising him great wealth, the favour of the Church, and power over his own people. The result was a decades-long low intensity war between the northern Celts and the eastern farmers that ended up weakening both sides.

Leemtrecht and Chamaven

The late medieval period was a time of development and growth in the river delta. The beginning of this period is marked by the establishment of the Bishopric of Leemtrecht in the 1220s by Bishop Wilbrand Persgheboren. Leemtrecht was founded as a center for proselytisation, claiming as its domain about two-thirds of the current Hartstad Capital Province and the northern Luwelanden. Though the institutions of feudalism would never be fully imposed in the east and north, as they would be in the west and south, the Archbishopric did accomplish the extinction of open paganism. This shared sense of religion, if not culture, brought the disparate polities into a single sphere.

Christianisation also facilitated connections with other Christian powers and the development of trade routes, both upriver in territories occupied by different Apatan tribes and across the seas, to the Excalbian Isles. Trade leagues and coalitions of seafaring cities sprang up, their populations occasionally culled by a mysterious ”swamp fever” but nonetheless growing over time.

A mingling of languages from different immigrant and indigenous groups coalesced during this time. While each city and region in the core region maintained its own distinct dialect, something close to Middle Dutch with strong Nordo-Baltic influences became a shared language of traders and merchants, even as Latin remained the shared written language of the Church and the nobility. In the south, French became dominant, as the language of the local mercenaries-cum-nobles was adopted by the local population. In the north, Celtic dialects remained predominant in what was still known as Eastern Tasat.

The period was marked by power struggles between the established Dukes of Chamaven and the rising Bishopric of Leemtrecht. These conflicts culminated in the Chamavic-Leemtrechter Excommunication Wars of 1379-1404 and 1418-1429.

The seed of discord was down by the elevation of the charismatic Bishop of Leemtrecht, Stephen IV, to the rank of Archbishop of a new ecclesiastical province that would encompass “all the lands between the Rede and the Merwe”. The Bishop believed this to mean that his province included the Duchy of Chamaven and the Lordship of Jonkervelde, though not the lands held by the Duke beyond those rivers. The Duke considered the appointment to be valid only for those lands directly administered by the Bishopric, and had his own Bishop appointed in Chamaven Cathedral. Other points of contention between Duke and Bishop included the administration of the collection of tithes, the status of the Abbey near Kerkdorp and - in the second war - the legitimacy of the marriage of Duke Rudolf VII to a daughter of the Baron of Rumsbeke on grounds of consanguinity.

Both wars saw the lands of the Bishop and the Duke ravaged by Cymric and French-speaking mercenaries, as well as two lengthy sieges of Leemtrecht by Ducal armies. Even so, these conflicts both ended with concessions being made by the Duke in exchange for absolution.

3. War of the Covenant


Gnostians and the Reformation


Greek writing coming in by way of Pantocratoria was eagerly translated into the Rederlander vernacular and read by the 'Gnostians', Knootian renaissance thinkers.

In the latter half of the 15th century, trade networks expanded and the printing press was introduced to the region. Literacy in the trading cities along the coast and major rivers was already relatively high but grew further still, and the burghers of these cities were prosperous, leading to a renaissance of new ideas.

The first mention of "Knootoss" (or rather: Gnostos - γνωστὸς) comes from a translation into the local vernacular dialect that was published in the Rederlander city of Helder. The original document was a Greek manuscript obtained from the Monastery of Saints Adrian and Natalia, near modern day Adrienople, Pantocratoria. Stemming from the root word "gnosis" (knowledge, those things which can be measured) it came to refer to "those people who desire to know everything or be known", or the adherents of the ideas of the Renaissance. The popularity of such Greco-Roman publications soon led to a self-described group of Gnostians or Knootians as it was often rendered in the Rederlander vernacular of the time.

The printing presses spread ideas about the law and the ancient past, as well as reform of the Church, all of which were seized upon by the merchants and burghers of the cities to question everything about the status quo. These people too would end up calling themselves Knootians, using ancient laws recovered from their seafaring trips to argue against the privileges of the Church and feudal lords.

The printers also spread foreign religious ideas. The Protestant Reformation spread rapidly in the coastal provinces and those cities most intimately involved in long distance trading, leading to the adoption of Lutheran, Calvinist and Anabaptist beliefs by many. Ironically, the ecclesiastical lands held in fief by the Archbishop of Leemtrecht were far more susceptible to the Protestant message than the feudal fiefs surrounding his lands. Those cities that had walls and the ability to resist repression closed their gates and expelled or defenestrated the Archbishop's representatives.

The strongest military power who was expected to defend the Catholic faith in the region at the time was Floris II, Duke of Chamaven. Far from coming to the Archbishop's aid, he delighted in the humiliation of the office that had excommunicated his grandfather and great-grandfather, and which continued to extract humiliating concessions, such as the right to appoint the Bishop of Chamaven and the right to administer the levying of tithes in Ducal lands between the Rede and Merwe. The spread of Calvinism was therefore left unchecked, even as the mace-wielding Archbishop Gregory personally led troops into battle against the heretics of Omsterdam.

The period between 1540 and 1587 is retroactively seen as a time of escalation. Reformed ideas spread from the northern trading port of Helder, in Rederland, to the city of Droogenbosch in the eponymous county. For a time, the city of Balgerhoeke was under the control of radical Anabaptists, who proclaimed the imminent ending of the world. Their world did end when the Bishop of that city laid siege to it with troops drawn from all over Waterland, retaking it after a bloody storm in 1548. Stories of the brutal pillaging and the systematic killing of all religious nonconformists by the Bishops' troops prompted the Calvinists in the city of Droogenbosch to seize control of their City Council and ally themselves with the cities of Omsterdam and Helder, each pledging to provide support in the event of a siege by any of the Papist powers.

The Archbishop of Leemtrecht, in an increasingly precarious position, called for the formation of a Catholic League to purge the Protestant heresies from their lands. Many of the southern powers, the noble predecessors to the present Princes or the Southern Low Countries, joined this coalition. Even the distant, Spanish-speaking Viceroy of Providencia would send troops. The powerful Duchy of Chamaven and the Grand Duchy of Latturia however would maintain a studious neutrality in the hopes of drawing political advantage from the religious discord.

Pamphlets suggesting that the new Pope was the antichrist circulated in the region. One of these declared that the Pope was preparing to proclaim a false Crusade against all the lands where there were Knootians. Other pamphlets suggested that the Archbishop of Leemtrecht was conspiring with Jews and the nobles of Tasat to plunder these rich trading cities and sell all those who professed True Christianity into slavery. This led to pogroms in 1555 and 1556, and the expulsion of many Jews from Protestant-leaning areas.

Creed of Kommerdijk

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The political situation in 1586 CE. Click to enlarge.
Widespread unrest in Leemtrecht forced the Archbishop to flee to Chamaven in 1586. The Duke, after making the Archbishop do homage to him for his lands, rode out at the head of an army to reinstate him. Whilst the religious nonconformists of the city intended to put up a stout defence, the city was unprepared for siege, and the gates were opened after three days and nights. Calvinist pamphlets would later claim that Leemtrecht was surrendered to the Duke and Archbishop by a Jew in the pay of secret Papist loyalists, though there is no evidence for this theory. Though the Dukes’ armies held back from sacking the city, all those who were suspected of heresy were either killed or expelled and their goods were confiscated. Much of the surrounding countryside was less fortunate, and many farms and villages were pillaged by the Ducal armies during their foraging expeditions.

Those who could fled to walled cities that welcomed Protestant and Reformed refugees. These included the cities of Haag, Omsterdam, Balgerhoeke, Droogenbosch and the cities of Rederland and the Luwelanden. From these refuges, the religious nonconformists began to agitate for a Christian Covenant to counter the movement that would become the Catholic League. These efforts would culminate in a Synod in the city of Kommerdijk. This Synod called for the formation of an "alliance of True Christians" to "resist Papist tyranny" and then went on to argue over a theological framework that would bind them. A charismatic Kommerdijker butcher turned preacher, Piet van Vliet, believing himself to be especially endowed with the Holy Spirit, proved especially influential at the Synod. While destruction descended on the rest of the world, he preached, True Christians would survive behind the walls of those cities that embraced the Creed of Kommerdijk.

A Reformed Baptist creed won out over the caution of High Church protestant delegates and the clamour of radical anabaptists. The Creed of Kommerdijk (1587) affirmed the traditional teachings on the Trinity and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It further established that humanity is on its own incapable of following God, born as it is in sin. According to the Creed, it is by God's grace that people achieve salvation, which is attained by Faith alone and is decided by God, who chooses the elect whom he knows will accept him. The creed further rejected the sacraments or sees them as symbolic, maintaining holy communion and (adult) baptism only as symbols of the faith. It was seen as an affirmation of the Calvinist Reformed Faith with Knootian characteristics.

While the Creed of Kommerdijk united Calvinists, moderate Anabaptists and anti-Ducal forces, it was rejected by many other Protestants, as well as the remaining Catholic populations in the coastal cities. Efforts to form an alliance were further hampered by traditional rivalries over trade between the different cities, with each Protestant city fielding its own merchant navy and civic militia.

The informal Kommerdijker coalition proved unable to agree on a united effort on land, so Ducal and Ecclesiastical armies joined forces and advanced unimpeded. The city of Haag was stormed in 1587 and its walls were torn down, never to be rebuilt. Many of the locals were driven to exile, with many ending up in distant Westenberg, where they joined non-Calvinists protestants and Jewish exile communities.

In 1590, many of the Protestant refugees from areas overrun by the Ducal and Ecclesiastical armies settled in Pantocratoria, near New Constantinople. After confiscating their ships, the Emperor Constantine XV Angelus gave them until Christmas to abandon the Reformed religion. When they did not, the settlers were massacred. The event is remembered in Pantocratoria as the Christmas Conjuration.

Ducal and Ecclesiastical moved on from Haag to lay siege to Omsterdam, intending to cut off the head of the snake. The siege saw the surrounding townships and villages sacked, with many driven to flight. The siege of the city itself, though, made little progress, owing to supplies being brought in by water from Droogenbosch and Helder. The siege of Omsterdam persisted for seventeen long years, as the conflict drew in more and more of the local powers, ultimately uniting all of the resisting cities into a single alliance. Even so, the balance of power remained uneven, with the cities’ navies dominating at sea and the Catholic League armies retaining the initiative on land.

When Droogenbosch found itself threatened by a Catholic army in 1601, the city sent out representatives calling for a conference of ‘All Good Knootians’ to form ‘A New Covenant’. This formal alliance of the cities of Omsterdam, Uitdam, Helder, Kommerdijk, Balgerhoeke and Droogenbosch adopted the Creed of Kommerdijk and became known as the Knootian Covenant.

Pamphlets spread the idea of a special covenant that existed between the people who had received the Word (the Knootians) and the LORD. Theories about the Constantinian Expulsion speculated upon by Renaissance thinkers were now used to argue that the Chamavii were an elect people, spared the Popish and Greek corruptions of the Church brought about by Constantine and his successors. The Chamavii had secretly witnessed for the true Christian Faith of the early Church, until it was suppressed by Papal emissaries and the bishops of Leemtrecht, who took away the reading of the Holy Scriptures from the people.

With military unity achieved under the guidance of elected military leaders, the proponents of the Reformed cause continued to press for spiritual unity, seeking the convocation of a formal church council. The Council of Westervelde or Covenanter Council of 1605 CE dissolved all Holy Orders and disestablished the Archbishopric of Leemtrecht, as well as all Roman Catholic bishops, priests and inquisitors within east-central Knootoss. Instead, the Church would be run by Church Elders along presbyterian lines, with representatives sent from all of the major cities having a vote on matters of religion.

The Council leaned towards more radical theological and political positions. It proclaimed that God had chosen Kommerdijk as the "New Jerusalem" and the Knootian Covenant as the "New Israel". This justified and mandated the seizure of all Roman Catholic Church property in cities loyal to the Covenant, sanctioned the destruction of graven images, commanded the conversion of all Roman Catholic Churches and synagogues to worship in accordance with the Creed of Kommerdijk and prompted the expulsion of the Jews from many cities.

Bonds raised jointly by the Covenanters allowed the hiring of a mercenary army, led by Gelimer Timrja of the Valdrician Condottiero, which defeated the League forces in the field for the first time at the Battle of Kokkengen in 1605. Cavalry raised in present-day Anahuac (Uncle Noel) outflanked a joint Chamavic-Waterlander force and set it to rout, allowing a roaming army to harry Catholic lands in the south and centre. Fortunes were reversed during the next fighting season, in 1606, when Duke Bernhart VI of Chamaven rode south and defeated the Covenanter force, notably employing Apatan mercenaries from present-day Laneria as cavalry, in addition to infantry raised from League-controlled lands.

The fifteen years that followed were a complex series of manoeuvres and counter-maneuvers, sieges and counter-sieges, as well as the occasional naval skirmish. While the Covenanters were stronger at sea and able to resupply their cities by water, the League had more manpower and was unassailable on land.

Conversion of Duke Lodewijk


Duke (later Prince) Lodewijk the God-fearing (1590-1644)
The turning point of the war occured in 1621, when the aging Duke Bernhart VI of Chamaven and his primary heir of the same name were ambushed by Covenanter forces near Leemtrecht in what was otherwise a minor skirmish. He was thus unexpectedly succeeded by his 31-year old son, Lodewijk, who would become known as Duke Lodewijk the God-fearing of Chamaven (Dutch: Lodewijk de Godvrezende).

Lodewijk had not been expected to rule, but had nevertheless been given a renaissance education that prepared him for the complexities of early modern diplomacy and warfare. He quickly recognised that he had much to gain from switching sides in the Covenanter War, which had been dragging on for three and a half decades, allowing for the seizure of Church wealth, territorial expansion and outsized influence in a new state, turning the position of his Duchy from a precarious one into a position of strength.

His conversion to the Creed of Kommerdijk was a brilliantly stage-managed affair, which saw much of the old nobility converted or purged. His appointment as Captain-General of the Covenanter Armies secured his de facto leadership over the Covenanter forces. He used these forces to help quash a local peasant revolt and enforce the new order in his own domains.

Under his direction, the Council of Chamaven convened in 1623. This council expanded the dictates of the Creed of Kommerdijk and the Covenanter Council to the Duchy of Chamaven, but forbade the destruction of graven images, calling instead for their removal from the sight of worshippers. It also forbade the persecution of Jews and allowed for the reopening of synagogues and the protection of Jews within certain established limits. It dissolved Roman Catholic church offices in the Duchy of Chamaven and occupied territories, and justified the seizure of property of the Roman Catholic Church and other 'heretical' Churches in those places. At the same time, the Council extended official toleration towards the beliefs of private individuals, so long as they did not agitate openly for their beliefs.

This council also laid down the organisational structure of the Church in more detail, and established the Duke of Chamaven and his heirs as ‘Protectors of True Christianity’, though this role was not further defined. It was however believed to include the (possibly exclusive) right to call further Church Councils.

It was further established in this Council that the government of the Res Publica must serve God, thus excluding those who do not abide by the Creed of Kommerdijk and the Councils of Westervelde and Chamaven from playing any official role in government. It further stipulated that in such areas that lack a sufficient number of believers, ‘Godly men’ would be appointed by the Estates-General of the Covenant to lead them in their stead, establishing the precedent for the 'Generality Lands' in predominantly Catholic areas of the south, and later on in Eastern Tasat.

The Pantocratorian Marriage

On 17 September 1625, the 35-year old Duke Lodewijk married the eighteen-year-old Pantocratorian Princess Helena Comnena, Porphyrogenita, who thus became Duchess Consort of Chamaven. Helena had initially been betrothed to Lodewijks’ elder brother, who had been killed alongside their father in an ambush by Covenanter forces.

The engagement was transferred from the elder brother to the younger one for dynastic political reasons, and Lodewijk’s conversion from the Roman Catholic faith had only only been made public after the betrothal had been confirmed. Helena was permitted to retain her faith, provided that her children would be raised in the faith of their father.

Although it was a political marriage, Lodewijk and Helena Comnena turned out to fit well together and their marital life was harmonious. The perspicacious Helena assumed her spouse's domestic responsibilities when he was on military expeditions, elevated the standing of his family and gave him a much-coveted son and heir.

While her husband was away on military campaigns (see below), Comnena moved the court from Chamaven to the city of Haag, which had been stormed in 1587 and was still a shadow of its former self. The location had the advantage of safety, being located safely behind the Dwalm river and deep inside Covenanter territory. It also allowed her to mould the city in her own image.

The mediaeval hall of the local count, which lay on one of the sandy dorpen, had lain abandoned since the sack, as well as the surrounding hunting grounds were enclosed and rebuilt, combining elements of the original mediaeval brickwork structure with the new baroque style. Redubbed the Helenahof, it became the most splendorous court outside of New Rome.

The private residences of Helena and Lodewijk included magnificent apartments with a view of the gardens.

Helena was not satisfied that her spouse the Duke was only endowed with the elected post of Captain-General of the army and Stadtholder of the Covenanter provinces, rather than the status of a Sovereign. She ambitiously used her influence to raise the stature of the House of Chamaven. Having already been declared hereditary ‘Protector of True Christianity’ by the Council in the 1623 Council, her husband would be styled Prince on account of his marriage to her, and would claim the title of Megas Doux after being appointed chief of the Covenanter Navy in 1629. This title was translated into Dutch as Groothertog or Grand Duke, even though the Duchy of Chamaven proper was not so elevated.

Impressed with the artistic and cultural energy of 17th century Knootoss, so vibrant and different from the Pantobyzantine artistic style of her homeland, she surrounded herself with the best examples of early baroque art and fashion. She established a court etiquette, lavishly arranged the rooms of its palaces and dressed herself with precious jewels. Thanks to the judicious management of the capital of the family into trading ventures, they could afford to build superb new palaces, which were turned into places of music, dance and poetry. The Golden Age spread a brilliance which drew nobles from other nations to Haag.

When the princess gave birth to the small prince Johannes in 1626, the Covenanters were frenzied with joy. The petit prince was baptised in the Grote Kerk, and after him came Christine (1630) and Anthoon (1631). Her son the heir would maintain the title of Prince of Chamaven, and he was furnished with other elective titles as he matured.

Lodewijker Campaigns

Lodewijk first took the field against the Catholic League in the campaigning season of 1624. A Covenanter force composed of militias of the Kommerdijker creed, Apatan mercenary cavalry and the Ducal House Guard of Chamaven routed the Ecclesiastical armies of Leemtrecht, which was principally composed of mercenary infantry, near Kerkdorp. The Duke advanced on Leemtrecht, which was blocaded on all sides on the Dwalm and Omster rivers and soon surrounded on the landward side as well. Now isolated in hostile territory, Leemtrecht surrendered to the Duke without a fight after a promise that the city would be spared a sack. The defending army was permitted to walk out, keeping their flags and arms.

The Duke and his armies next turned their attention towards Teistershire, determined to wage the war on enemy territory, where he could forage his troops with plunder from the countryside. The Shires was a transitional area, predominantly Dutch-speaking but still loyal to the Roman Catholic cause. For many years it would be a battlefield between the Catholics and Protestants, Dutch-speaking and French speaking citizenry. The violence of war, famine and depopulation of the countryside is believed to have diminished the population of the Shire by as much as 30% by the wars’ end.

More rapid progress was made in the north, when Duke Lodewijk led a force against the Lordship of Twinloo in the 1628 fighting season. The Lord of Twinloo had long ago converted to a Protestant creed, though not the Creed of Kommerdijk. It had remained neutral in the War of the Covenant, trading with both sides and guarding the northern gate to Tasat. They had not expected a Covenanter force under the personal command of the Duke to neglect the Teistershire for the season to claim their territory. The unwalled cities of Zeuvel and Twinloo were quickly overrun, and Rudolfsveste would fall after a three month siege, which was settled by the use of modern cannon on its ancient walls. The entire Lordship would be annexed into the Duchy of Chamaven, converted to the Kommerdijker creed, and taxed heavily to fund further military conquests.

A naval campaign, featuring the earliest recorded use of marines or naval infantry in Knootian history, saw to it that the counties of Balgerhoeke and Droogenbosch were secured for the Covenant, and the cities themselves put beyond the possibility of an unexpected siege. This gave Covenanter forces a solid base from which to campaign in the Waterland, culminating in the capture of Waerbrugge in 1629. The county would ultimately be divided between Covenanter and Catholic forces, the border being the river Brandewyn.

The coastal cities’ navies, under the command of Admiral Coenraet de Vaart, took advantage of the improved situation on land by expanding raids on coastal areas in the Southern Low Countries and using marines to take poorly defended areas, providing the threatening prospect of an outright invasion of the Catholic Leagues’ heartland. With the risk of overextending his forces, the Grand Duke ended into peace negotiations with his opponents.

Peace of Leemtrecht

A cease-fire between the League and the Covenant was agreed after the conclusion of the 1630 fighting season, which saw both sides positioning themselves for advantage in the upcoming negotiations. This cease-fire was observed on land, though Covenanter privateers continued to harass trade of southern and Providencian shipping at sea.

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The political situation after the Peace of Leemtrecht in 1633 CE. Click to enlarge.
The final borders agreed to in Leemtrecht in 1633 CE would look much as the cease-fire lines had suggested, with the covenant in control of lands north of the Brandewyn and east of the Nivelle rivers, and the Counties of Waterland being preserved as a semi-independent buffer state under the influence of the north, but self-governing in religious matters. The shire and the northern Waterland would be transformed into Generality Lands, as the Council of Chamaven had demanded ten years earlier, to be ruled by ‘Godly men’ appointed by the Estates-General of the Covenant. The treaty made no provisions about the status of Latturia, which had remained neutral during the war, and thus became a tempting target for the Covenanter forces.

The treaty left the new state in a strong position from which it could consolidate within reasonably secure borders and the ability to expand in the future in wars of choice, with the Latturians and Tasatians as tempting targets on the border, while distant lands such as Epheron and further afield might prove valuable sources of wealth for Knootian burghers.

4. A Crowned Republic


From Covenant to Republic

Following the Peace of Leemtrecht in 1633 CE, the victorious Covenanters entered into negotiations about the shape their future state should take. Among the strongest factions were the city councils of the trading cities like Omsterdam, Uitdam, Helder, Kommerdijk, Balgerhoeke and Droogenbosch, who advocated for a decentralised policy along the lines of the presbyterian lines of the church, whereby each locality should be governed by a Council of Elders, in line with local traditions and interests.

They were opposed by now-Prince Lodewijk and his faction, who favoured his own personage as a centralising force in whom offices and powers should remain united in the interest of the state. This faction would draw upon the popularity of the House of Chamaven with the common people, especially in times of national crisis.

The governance structure that emerged from the years of wrangling that followed had characteristics of both systems: the Free City of Omsterdam, the Province of Rederland (including Uitdam and Helder), the Luwelanden under the guidance of Kommerdijk, and the Waterlander County of Balgerhoeke and Droogenbosch would each maintain their own navies and civic militias, whose command might be delegated to the Prince of Chamaven and his successors on an elective basis.

Taxation would remain a local affair, and the Prince was expected to live within his own means, though an Estates-General comprising representatives of the country nobility and the burghers of the different cities might be called by the Prince to levy War Taxes and pass general legislation. The Estates-General would also be responsible for appointing so-called Godly Men for the governance of the Generality Land, most especially the city of Waerbrugge and the fortress of Loohoeke. Much of the Teistergouw was also under the theoretical purview of the Estates-General but usually considered to be within the jurisdiction of the Prince of Chamaven by right of conquest.

Lodewijk would use these powers between 1638 and 1642, when the Estates-General funded an invasion of the Grand Duchy of Latturia from the Teistergouw, using old Chamavic claims to the lands between the Merwe and Jardén as a casus belli, having first ensured the neutrality of the former members of the Catholic League. Obesant fell to the Covenanters through a lure, and the cities of Jardénbourg, Rouveroy and Ardoye were each taken through a series of brilliant sieges conducted with modern artillery and cutting edge infantry tactics carried out by professional, hardened soldiers. The Grand Duke of Latturia surrendered in 1642 and was allowed to maintain his nominal title, even as his former lands were incorporated into the new Republic as a Generality Land governed through men appointed by the Estates General.

Duke Lodewijk died on June 3rd 1644 at age 54 of an unknown illness, plunging the country into mourning. He was succeeded as Prince and Duke of Chamaven by his eldest son, Johannes I, who was then just eighteen years old. He had been raised in the Creed of Kommerdijk and was thought to be a true believer, and a peaceful man at heart. He was also very fond of his mother, Princess Helena Comnena Porphyrogenita, who was only 37 years old. She continued to wield significant influence through her son, much to the chagrin of members of the nascent 'Republican' faction, which included members of the local mercantile elite who resented the Prince’s centralising power, as well as the more radical and anabaptist-leaning elements of the state church, who saw the Princess as a corrupting influence who must be removed for the state to truly become a New Jerusalem, free from the taint of ‘popish and womanly plots’.

The Twelve Fat Years


Prince Johannes I, Megas Doux, Duke of Chamaven, Captain General of the Army, Stadtholder of Rederland and Governor-General of the Teistergouw (1626-1656)
While the death of Lodewijk would set the new Republic up for an inevitable conflict over the nature of the state, the twelve year reign of Prince Johannes I would be marked by prosperous exuberance. This time is also known as “the twelve fat years” (Dutch: Twaalf Vette Jaren), which is attributed either to the economic prosperity of this era or the Princes’ considerable girth.

The Prince was voted Captain-General of the Army and Grand Duke of the Navy, as well as Stadtholder of Rederland and Governor-General of the Generality Land of the Teistergouw. These martial titles did little but add lustre to his personage, since he was fundamentally a lover of peace, art, music and the courtly protocol that his mother so enjoyed.

Helena arranged dynastic marriages for Johanness and his siblings, intended to strengthen the legitimacy of the Chamaven dynasty’s fledgling status as sovereign rulers. Prince Johannes was betrothed to Princess Ligita Kristina, a woman his own age. She was of Royal Blood, from Excalbia across the Sea of Insolence. Her mother was Princess Liene, third daughter of King Alsgood the Great, and her father was Baron Dainis of Dienvidsala. Her mother had been a converted Pagan, and her father had seen to it that she was baptised in the Anglican faith. She accepted the creed of Kommerdijk before they married in de Groote Kerk in 1646. In the same year, sixteen-year-old Christine (1630) was married into another Western Atlantic Royal Family.

Trade, science and the arts flourished during this time. The Knootians started large-scale overseas trade in this period — hunting whales in Ziemelu Jura, trading spices and setting up trading missions and ports where ships might resupply in various colonies, including Kaap Chamaven in South Epheron. The coasts of modern day Ajuba and Zamimbia would also begin to see Knootian settlers during this time.

Dependence on international commerce, the large Roman Catholic minority population and good foreign relations forced a certain tolerance of different cultures, religions and ideas. Reformists within the Kommerdijker church stressed the importance of individual conscience, given that there was no fixed clerical hierarchy to enforce them. Cities run by Kommerdijker counsellors would sometimes sell permission for communities to observe Roman Catholic and other religious rites. This made it easier for foreign traders and refugees to settle. Scientists and other thinkers travelled to the new Republic, leading to the refinement of international and commercial law. Hydraulic engineers gained important victories in the battle against the sea by converting several large lakes into polders. Book publishers flourished, and many books about religion, philosophy and science that might have been deemed controversial abroad were printed in Knootoss and secretly exported to other countries.

Artists, deprived of the church and the nobility as major patrons, turned to the newly emerging merchant class instead, influencing the themes they depicted and their pictorial style. Baroque was popular with the court but did not gain much influence elsewhere, as its exuberance did not fit the austerity of Calvinist sensibility, and paintings intended for the mass market often had a moralistic message hidden under the surface.

Wealthy merchants bought themselves into nobility as aristocrats mixed with members from other classes in order to be able to support themselves as they saw fit. They married their daughters to wealthy merchants, became traders themselves or took up public or military office to earn a salary. As a result of this, divisions between classes were less sharply defined than elsewhere in the region. This development was underlined in 1656, when Johannes’ younger brother Anthoon was married to Agnes Coenraetsdochter, the daughter of Coenraet van Uitdam. The family had been of Rederlander patrician status, though her father did purchase an estate in the Duchy of Chamaven that came with a title of landed nobility before the betrothal was formally settled.

Coenraet's power had come from his massive wealth, as well as his position as Raadspensionaris (later translated into English as 'Grand Pensionary’) of the Estates of Rederland, and later on the Estates-General of the Republic. This position had originally been conceived as one that would provide legal advice and summarise the decisions of this proto-parliament in exchange for a regular stipend. The well-connected and charismatic Coenraet van Uitdam had turned it into an alternative centre of power that was, at least for the moment, neutralised as a source of Republican and Theocratic agitation by his personal connection to the House of Chamaven.

Johannes died on June 3rd 1656 at age 30 due to complications related to "diarrhoea of the kidneys". He had nominally reigned for twelve years, though in his latter years his mother had taken over many of the governing duties, on account of his failing health.

The Regency


Prince-Regent Anthoon, Duke of Chamaven (1631-1663)

The early death of Prince Johannes caused a potential succession crisis. On September 3rd 1650, four years into her marriage with Prince Johannes, Princess Ligita Kristina had given birth to a daughter, a little Princess christened Anna Catharina. There were rumours at the court that the child was not the Princes’, but absent a male heir or evidence of fornication, Princess Anna Catharina was the heir presumptive.

There was initially talk of a regency council that was to be formed around the six year old child, consisting of Prince Anthoon, Johannes’ younger brother, Princess Mother Ligita Kristina and Princess Dowager Helena Comnena. This suggestion proved to be extremely unpopular, and a coalition emerged around Prince Anthoon, pushing for him to be the sole regent or the Sovereign.

Popular objections to Princess Anna Catharina were theological and political in nature. Many Kommerdijker Christians believed that it was inappropriate for an unbaptised woman to rule. Had the Council of Chamaven, established by Lodewijk, not specified that governing was the preserve of Godly Men? The Princess was neither a man, nor had she yet been baptised, on account of the Church's tradition of adult baptism.

On the political front, there were pamphlets which agitated against the ‘court of women’. These imagined the wild feasts, debauchery and secret Papism that must have gone on in those golden chambers of the Helenahof. There were calls for the nation to be governed in the same way as the Church, by a Council of Elders. The Estates-General, in the view of Republican pamphleteers, should be Sovereign. A small minority of radical pamphleteers even dared go further and suggest that these Elders must not be drawn from the nobility and wealthiest burghers, but chosen from among the most pious adherents to the Creed of Kommerdijk.

Prince Anthoon ended up accepting the sole regency as a compromise between those who supported Princess Anna Catharina’s legal rights and those who wanted him to seize the title for himself. He took the title of Prince Regent of Knootoss, which was the first time that 'Knootoss' was used in a formal way to name the Republic. Lodewijk and Johannes had been Grand Dukes and Princes in their own right, relying on national titles that joined their status as the feudal lords of Chamaven to elected Republican positions. Anthoon, by contrast, would not be a Duke, nor would he be voted Megas Doux or Captain General of the Army during the first years of the regency.

Prince-Regent Anthoon would rely on his close alliance with Grand Pensionary Coenraet van Uitdam, his father-in-law through his marriage to Agnes Coenraetsdochter. The Estates-General was called frequently, passing legislation favourable to the wealthy merchant class, including several legal reforms, statutes on the enforcement of bonds by the state, and sumptuary laws restricting what sort of clothes the poorer classes would be allowed to wear. The remnants of the standing army that Lodewijk had built were dissolved, as the defence of the realm could - in the opinion of the Estates-General - be best left to civic militias. The navy was merely neglected, and no new warships would be commissioned for any of the provincial navies until the outbreak of the First War of Insolence.

With the government effectively captured by mercantile interests, trade and foreign settlement flourished. The process whereby Knootian settlers established trading posts and whaling stations on the northern coast of Excalbian Isles intensified, and settlements on the Tartevs Islands off the southern coast introduced the Kommerdijker Creed of Christianity to those lands.

The Anthonian faction would only move against Princess Anna Catharina and her mother after the death of Princess Dowager Helena Comnena on 29 October 1662. After the period of mourning, Princess Mother Ligita Kristina was accused of adultery by anonymous pamphlets that failed to be suppressed by the civic authorities. Members of the Estates-General then repeated these accusations in session, leading to an official Commission of Inquiry that was initiated by the Prince-Regent. This Commission swiftly found evidence, obtained by torturing a former Captain of the Guard, that the Excalbian princess had committed fornication and adultery. This finding made the twelve-year old little Princess, though she was now a baptised Kommerdijker Christian, illegitimate and therefore unable to rule.

The Estates General passed an Act of Exclusion in January of 1663, banishing mother and daughter from the Republic. They fled to the Duchy of Southport in Excalbia, where the nobility had already been converted to Christianity, and stayed there as a guest at the residence of the Duke of Dienvidu Osta. From there she would eventually move to Saxmere, convert to Roman Catholicism and be married to Grand Duke Patrick I of Saxmere, whose children would thus have a claim to Knootoss.

In Knootoss, Prince Anthoon took the reins as the first to be titled 'Prince of Knootoss', and was voted Megas Doux by the Estates-General. He would only have 70 days to enjoy his position as Sovereign Prince. On Easter Sunday, March 25th, 1663, he fell off his horse whilst riding towards the Grote Kerk to attend a service. He would linger for another week before succumbing to his injuries. His death is most likely the result of an infection, though the reports conflict on the precise medical causes, and many of his opponents saw it as the judgement of God. He was only 32 years old, and was survived by his wife Agnes Coenraetsdochter and their two surviving daughters, Princess Maria (b. 1659) who would inherit the Duchy of Chamaven, and Princess Constance (b. 1660). The direct male line of the House of Chamaven died with him.

Absent an adult male member of the House of Chamaven ready to claim the role of Sovereign, the Estates-General took on the burden of governance for itself, dividing up the responsibilities and titles that had once been held by the Prince between their most senior members.

The new situation was seen as evidence of divine providence by some radical Calvinists and Anabaptists, who were more fond of the Creed of Kommerdijk than the Council of Chamaven. They preached that God had provided for a Republic that would be ruled by the most Godly of Men. One of the prominent members of the Estates proudly declared that "Knootoss is now building a Christian empire across the seas that will outlast the pagan Roman Empire by a thousand years," making an un-subtle dig at the House of Chamaven’s Pantocratorian connections.

5. A Godly Commonwealth



Commercial Empire

Following their unification under the Reformed creed, coastal cities from Helder to Droogenbosch had seen the reach of their trade increase. With most of the land hostile to them, they had turned naturally to the sea, acting as pirates, privateers and merchants as circumstances dictated. Each city, and later each province, would maintain its own navy under the control of councils, in addition to those ships which were outfitted for trade or raiding by individual burghers and collectives of burghers forming companies to fund the construction of ships and their outfitting for missions. Following the Peace of Leemtrecht (1633 CE), Knootoss came to grow rapidly as a commercial power, and the same energy was extended into voyagers of exploration, trade and exploitation.

The town of Landval had been established on the largest of the Knootian Gulf Islands as early as 1619, serving as a resupply depot, dockyard and market. Its strategic location allowed it to control access to the narrow gulf between Ambara and Pantocratoria, as well as the Vasconian gulf and allowing naval raids on the coast of the Southern Low Countries and trade sailing from Gand and Namen, as well as any help that might be sent from the island state of Providencia. The city grew rapidly, drawing in peoples from many different nationalities, and gaining a reputation as a pirates’ nest.

After the peace, attention was diverted to the coastal regions that bordered the Vasconian Gulf and the Strait of Ambara. The coast of modern-day Marlund, not yet having been claimed by a Christian power, saw the establishment of Knootian trading posts and settlements of woodcutters, with some expeditions moving up the river and penetrating as deeply as modern-day Zwingli. The coast of Marlund also became a place of settlement for Protestant nonconformists in search of a new Promised Land, and mercantile companies in search of hardwood and fertile land established a permanent presence to grow cash crops.

Knootian merchants established trade links with the Snefaldians of Iriantuk in August of 1639. A representative of the Ambaran Company of the city of Helder struck a deal with the Prince of Iriantuk. Tarhun-pãi-suppaya. A Knootian envoy was permanently stationed at this court thereafter, and the beginning of Snefaldian-Knootian relations is often dated to this encounter.

The Zuydergouw, a fluyt at the head of a flotilla commanded by Captain Pieter van Moolenbrugge, was the first to travel further south, sailing beyond the realm of Tarhun-pãi-suppaya in 1645 and mapping the remainder of the Snefaldian coast. The expedition sailed past the area where the Hightop Mountians plunged into the warm waters of the Ambaran strait, and began mapping the lands that came to be known as Epheron. The initial encounters with the tribes were friendly, and the expedition traded for gold with the natives.

Eager to find the source of the gold, the Zuydergouw continued mapping the coast until they had cleared a ‘second cape’, which is believed to be the southernmost point of modern-day Ajuba, and the Aerion strait. Finding only bare mountains and open seas beyond, the expedition returned to Knootoss with tales of a land of great riches, where gold could simply be scooped from the ground by anyone with a shovel.

The 1645 expedition caused a wave of popular enthusiasm for this new land of Epheron, and a multitude of expeditions were mounted in the following years. The 1646-1665 period saw Knootian settlements established in the north (Grootrivier, Vuurhoek and Waterzij). The most promising point of contact for the gold trade was at the mouth of a river leading towards the ‘Golden Mountains’. The settlement there was claimed in the name of the regency of Princess Anna Catharina by the Prince-Regent Anthoon, and renamed ‘Cape Chamaven’. The lands so claimed and chartered became known as the ‘Prinsehoek’, and most of the trade for gold with natives would end up flowing from this port city.

Other settlements were established as well in the coastal lands south of the Hightop Mountains, including the religiously inspired Nuwverbond colony and trading posts in present-day Zamimbia and Ajuba.

First War of Insolence
The ascent of Knootoss was increasingly viewed with fear and alarm in Pantocratoria, for which maritime trade was central to any future prosperity. Pantocratorian merchants had long agitated both for more support and protection from their own navy, and for some action against their foreign rivals. They lobbied for tolls to be imposed on foreign shipping throughout the Pantocratorian Archipelago and stretching well into the Sea of Insolence, seeking a competitive advantage over their foreign rivals and using the potential of lucrative tolls as a policy lure for the Emperor and his ministers. After the death of Prince Anthoon, this lobbying became more intense, as the common wisdom in Pantocratoria was that without a Sovereign Prince, Knootoss would not be able to coordinate its military and would capitulate easily. The Pantocratorian Emperor Manuel III Comnenus declared war on Knootoss in January 1665. Some accounts (likely apocryphal) involve courtiers goading the Emperor, who suffered from a muscle wasting disease which left him physically powerless, into demonstrating that he was not weak and powerless in front of the insolent republican shopkeepers of Knootoss. The Knootian Estates-General in turn declared war on the Empire on March 4, 1665.

Privateers began to attack Knootian merchant ships in the Sea of Insolence that lay between them, capturing about 200 of them initially. While the Knootian provincial navies had been neglected during the long peace, the merchants in the Estates-General had plenty of funds at their disposal, and they were more than willing to approve taxes to protect their trade. Eighty new warships were ordered even before war had been formally declared, greatly expanding the Republic’s naval power. Lacking the ship building capacity of the perfidious Knootians, Pantocratoria could only build a dozen, which were technologically inferior, especially as they did not use modern navigation techniques at the time. For every warship the Pantocratorians built, the Knootians' wharfs would turn out seven for the duration of the war. The outbreak of war was followed ominously by the Great Famine of 1665 in Pantocratoria.

The first encounter between the nations was at sea. The war started with the Battle of the Spices, where the Pantocratorian main fleet hunting for a convoy returning from Tanah burung stumbled right into the mainstay of the Knootian fleet heading for their homeland. They achieved complete surprise, gained a great victory and ruled their part of the Sea of Insolence and the Atlantic Ocean for over a year. The Pantocratorians failed to take advantage of this however, and the Spice Convoy that they had been hunting managed to return home safely.

Manuel III Comnenus attempted to fund a Catholic uprising in the southern provinces of Latturia and Waterland, bribing Knootians into rising up against their Kommerdijker Calvinist overlords in the north. But the ragtag peasant army was more of a nuisance than a real threat and it was quickly crushed by hastily organised mercenary forces. In the spring of 1666, the Knootians had rebuilt their fleet with much heavier ships. A new confrontation was inevitable.


Admiral Johannus Hendrykxx
This new confrontation came in the huge Battle of Demetriopolis in 1666, which was one of the shortest major naval engagements in history. The Knootian admiral Johannus Hendrykxx led a massive fleet to harass Pantocratorian coastal towns with the objective of drawing out and destroying the Pantocratorian main fleet in the port of Demetriopolis. After engaging at long range the admiral retreated quickly, sinking forty three Pantocratorian ships (and drowning thousands of sailors) and leaving parts of Demetriopolis burning while losing only two ships himself. Both sides claimed victory in this battle, since the Pantocratorians drove the Knootian fleet away, but the Knootians inflicted terrible casualties on the Pantocratorians in the process.

Administrative difficulties in the Pantocratorian Navy continued whilst a fleet of 80 ships under Strategos Taticus Chrysoloras set sail at the end of May 1666 for a retaliatory strike. He detached 20 of these ships to intercept a Knootian squadron on the 29th of May, known to be passing through Pantocratorian-controlled waters, presumably to join the main Knootian fleet of Admiral Hendrykxx.

Leaving New Constantinople with the rest of his fleet, Chrysoloras came upon Hendrykxx himself with a fleet of 85 ships at anchor near the Seven Islands of the Luwelanden in what became known as the Battle of Kommerdijk, named after the very town from which the Knootian interpretation of the faith derived its name. Eager to achieve glory he immediately engaged the nearest Knootian ship before the rest of the fleet could come to its assistance. The Knootian vanguard under Hendrykxx set upon a starboard tack, taking the battle toward their own shoals, compelling Chrysoloras turn about, to prevent being outflanked by the Knootians rear and centre, culminating in a ferocious unremitting battle that raged until nightfall.

When the sun rose again on the 2nd of June, Chrysoloras' strength was reduced to 44 ships, but with these he still renewed the battle, eager for glory, by tacking past the enemy four times in close action with the intention to board and capture Knootian ships. Unfortunately for him his fleet was in too poor a condition to continue to challenge Hendrykxx and he finally had to retire towards the coast with the Knootians in full pursuit. The following day he ordered the damaged ships forward to cover their long retreat to Pantocratoria. He finally turned around when his 20 detached ships rejoined the fleet after being unable to find the Knootian squadron. On the 4th the undamaged ships attacked in line together in an attempt to drive off their pursuers but they were heavily damaged and almost encircled. Gradually they fought windward through the Knootians, finally managing to break off the action as the Knootian fleet had to return home for lack of gunpowder.

After this the Imperial Navy was forced to reduce their operations due to the expense of continuing to outfit ships for war. Manuel III Comnenus laid up his fleet to lick its wounds and effect repairs, intending to sue for peace. The Knootians however, were still enraged by the destruction of their merchant ships during the earlier year and the Staten-Generaal decided to repay their insolence first.

In June, 1667, Hendrykxx launched a daring raid on New Constantinople. After landing units of the Knootian marines and capturing the fort at Galata, they went on to break through the massive chain protecting the entrance to New Constantinople harbour and, on the 13th, attacked the Pantocratorian fleet which had been laid up there. The daring raid remained Pantocratoria's greatest military disaster since the First Pantocratorian Crusade. Many of the Imperial Navy's remaining ships were destroyed, either by the Knootians or by being scuttled to block the entry into New Constantinople. Three ships of the line were burned: the Bulgaroktonos, the new Basileus Manuel and the Theotokos. The Pantocratorian flagship, Constantine the Martyr, was abandoned by its skeleton crew and captured without a shot being fired. It was towed back to Helder as a prize. Its coat-of-arms is now on display in the Knootian parliamentary complex.

The Knootians' success had a major psychological impact throughout Pantocratoria, with the Empire's largest city feeling especially vulnerable after the raid. The psychological impact and the expense of rebuilding its fleet to prolong the conflict meant that the Pantocratorians were keen to sign a peace treaty. On July 31, 1667, the Treaty of Helder sealed peace between the two nations.

Age of Expansion

Duchess-Regnant Maria I of Chamaven, Protectress of True Christianity
The half century between 1667 and 1713 is commonly known in Knootoss as the 'High Republican Period' or the 'Age of Expansion'. Later writings would often refer back to this age as an ideal one, exemplified by the marriage of Grand Pensionary Cornelius Simonides and Duchess-Regnant Maria I of Chamaven as the symbolic marriage of the States and Noble factions. During this time, the pair were also said to have come into the possession of the ‘Light of the West’, a silvery crystal ball of elvish origins which shone brightly and was later said to inspire greedy impulses in men.

Colonial efforts that had begun during the Twelve Fat Years were expanded, and previous gains consolidated. A large South Epheronian colony was established, with hardwood from Ajuba and gold from Goudbergen as the most valuable exports. These holdings expanded into present-day Zamimbia as well, mostly taking the form of coastal trading posts, which would see the beginning of the Knootian trade in enslaved persons.

Having secured the continued neutrality of most of the Southern Low Countries, the Estates-General declared war on the Grand Duchy of Latturia in 1671, using the pretext of Latturian support for “Popery” in the Knootian Generality Lands, dangerous alliances with native groups of the Apatan Confederacy and a refusal to pay tolls for trade going along the Jardén river.

The 1671-1692 War of Latturian Annexation proved to be a remarkably one-sided affair, with the Latturians receiving support only from their allies in Hesbayeux. An army of mercenaries funded by the Estates General invaded Hesbayeux from the Teistergouw, pillaging much of the countryside and laying waste to the unwalled towns of Focourt and Orroir. Nivelet surrendered without a siege, after a the Chamavic Duchess-Regnant Maria I promised in writing that she would be spared a sack and granted religious liberties if she surrendered peacefully. The city was thereafter garrisoned by Chamavic Ducal forces, and all territories north of the city would be annexed by the Republic.

Latturia proved a tougher nut to crack. Though the city of Obesant surrendered and Tioû fell after a relatively short siege, the Grand Ducal capital of Jardénbourg and the Fortress City of Ardoye had more modern fortifications, holding out for many years. Rouveroy in particular was situated on high ground and had access to a wellspring and large food stores. Its siege lasted over a decade, and would ultimately be concluded by diplomatic means, through a treaty between the Grand Dukes of House d’Oreille and the Republic. The 1692 Treaty Jardénbourg turned the Grand Duchy into a vassal state of the Republic, with self-governance and certain specified linguistic and religious rights. In return, the Grand Duchy was forced to abandon all pretence of sovereignty to be heavily taxed, forced to supply manpower to the Republics’ armies in times of war, and to have laws imposed as decided upon by the Estates-General.

The 1692 treaty with Latturia and Hesbayeux was concluded on generous terms, because the Republic had been drawn into another war on land. It needed the Latturians as a source of revenue and manpower, rather than as an expensive burden on the treasuries of the Republic.

A peaceful transfer of power occurred during the Latturian annexation war. On the 28th of August 1688, Grand Pensionary Cornelius Simonides died unexpectedly at age 49 after a short period of sickness. He was survived by his wife, the then 29-year-old Duchess-Regnant Maria I of Chamaven, who as the eldest daughter of the last Sovereign Prince bore the title of Protectress of True Christianity.

Whilst her first marriage had been arranged by her parents to secure a political alliance with the most important factions in the Estates-General, Maria would choose her second husband on her own. elected to marry the forty year old Willem Hendrik van Ruijven, who would be elected Grand Pensionary in the same week as their marriage. The wedding was seen to symbolise a renewal of the alliance between the Republican and Chamavic factions, with the Republican faction playing the dominant role.

((Continues here.))

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