EU4 | The Corona Classic Ep. 5 | A nebulous Community Europa Universalis IV Game

[afric]

albert talbot, an englishman, was the catalyst for anglicanism in westphalia.... we let him in to advise our armies and he spread his heresy through the military like a flame - anglican zealots have since infiltrated the deep state and been plotting for decades

but you cant keep a good catholic down.

me to the catholic westphalian establishment

 

[Dallas]

Spoiler: THE CATHOLIC WORLD

The Vatican, rebuilt. Circa 1610

THE PAPAL STATES
Status Ecclesiasticus
Dicio Pontificia

Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overfloweth. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

Psalm 23

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

PART III
THE ERA OF REVELATION
​

CLEMENS IX
OF THE KINGDOM OF FRANCE

BISHOP OF ROME
BISHOP OF AVIGNONE
VICAR OF CHRIST
KING OF THE PAPAL STATES
KING OF NAPLES
KING OF JERUSALEM


♱

By the year 1545, Pope Clemens IX prepared for Holy War with the Mamluk-Slave Kings of Egypt. He sought to restore the Outremer of ages past, and to restore the Holy Kingdom of Jerusalem.

To ensure that he would not be undermined in his military efforts, Clemens ordered the passage of the Magister Militum Dei - a decree that expanded the Papacy's power over the military, effectively turning on the Swords of the Pious and destroying much of their influence in the process.

With Clemens, and all future Popes, now secured as commander-in-chief of the Papal armies, Clemens departed Rome in 1548 and took up residence in the cathedral at Sidon.

The 10th Crusade would come in 1551 - with the Spanish Empire launching simultaneous invasions across the Levant, and Papal forces striking directly south towards Sinai. Within weeks, the city of Jerusalem was liberated - an event met with only muted celebrations from the great powers of Europe.

After the fall of the Caliphate citadels at Aquaba, the Papal host met the Mamluks at Ma'an, crushing them and killing the Sultan Maiqa as he fled the field. Following this victory, Spanish forces crossed the Nile and laid siege to Cairo, while Clemens IX and his armies advanced south along the Pilgrimage Roads of the Red Sea. It was here, far from their Italian homland, that the armies of Christ were tested at the Arab fortress city of Yandu.

The siege, which lasted almost a year, scorched and depleted the Pope's army, and Clemens himself was deeply scarred by hunger and sickness. Eventually, a Venetian chemist named 'Crassa' is said to have invented a clear, tasteless poison from the plants of the desert scrubland. This poison was brewed in enough quantity to spike the mountain streams around Yandu, and days later the city surrendered, saving the crusade and the lives of the Papal forces.

What followed was a march south, straight through the path of the Hajj, mocking the proud Islamic tradition with butchery and inhumanity, ending with the sack of the Holy City of Makkah, the birthplace of their Prophet was razed, and their holy objects were looted, to be taken back to Jerusalem, then on to Rome itself.

In 1555, the Peace of Jerusalem saw the kingdom re-established as a direct part of the Papal States, a new state under the direct authority of the Conclave.

Pope Clemens IX returned to Rome in 1557, a conqueror and hero to much of the Catholic world. A year later, he would lend his military expertise to help establish the Holy League, which sought to defend Catholicism against heretic aggression.

Clemens IX died of natural causes 1558.

♱

MARTINUS VI
OF THE KINGDOM OF LITHUANIA

BISHOP OF ROME
BISHOP OF AVIGNONE
VICAR OF CHRIST
KING OF THE PAPAL STATES
KING OF JERUSALEM

♱

Elected by the Conclave in 1558, Martinus VI promised peace for the Papacy after many years of war. He promised healing, and a binding of the wounds left across Italy from the Italian wars of Neo-Waldesianism (increasingly known as Protestantism).

In the name of this healing, Martinus formally welcomed the vassal of Naples as a state of the Papacy, adding its rich lands to the church's power. Furthermore, Martinus struck a firmly reformist policy on internal church doctrine, ending some of the harsher measures imposed through the Council of Trent, and putting an end to witch trials within the Catholic World.

In 1566, Martinus passed the Charter of Rights for Papal Subjects - granting equal status to all Italian peoples within the Papacy, breaking the power of the Umbrian elite that controlled the power in Rome.

In 1569, the King of Venice, a despot who had seized control of the Merchant Republic, requested aid against the Ottoman Empire, promising land and riches to the Papacy in return for military assistance. The Conclave interceded and essentially sidelined Martinus, taking control of Venetian-Papal dialogue, backing His Holiness into a decision to join Venice in a war against the Ottoman Empire.

Martinus VI had broken his vow for peace, and the burden of that shamed him. Therefore, he took personal command to the Papal host, and sought to lead by example, to shed blood with his army, and keep them from harm wherever possible.

The war on the Ottomans was waged across the wartorn Balkans, within the mighty Austrian Empire. Victories were obtained early with battles at Hum and Herzegovina in 1570, Martinus was secure in the knowledge of a swift victory against the Sultan.

Then came the call for reinforcements at Sarajevo, where the Austrians had met a substantial Ottoman host of many tens of thousands. By the time Martinus reached the battlefield, only Austrian corpses remained - the rest of their ally had scattered north to Vienna and the northern slavic lands beyond.

In the resulting battle at Sarajevo, Martinus VI was slain.

♱
​

PAULUS III
OF THE CITY OF RIGA

BISHOP OF ROME
BISHOP OF AVIGNONE
VICAR OF CHRIST
KING OF THE PAPAL STATES
KING OF JERUSALEM

♱

Elected in 1571, via an arcane technicality, Paulus III had no practical support within the Papal Conclave, who sought his removal as soon as he was selected.

With half his Conclave in the field commanding the failing war effort, and the rest in Rome seeking his death, Paulus opted to take command of a new army and return to the Balkans to continue the war.

After winning a minor victory at Istria, Pope Paulus III fell from his horse and became gravely sick. He would die from dysentery in 1573.

Many believe he had poisoned by the man who would succeed him.

♱
​

PAULUS IV
OF THE CITY OF STASBURG

BISHOP OF ROME
BISHOP OF AVIGNONE
VICAR OF CHRIST
KING OF THE PAPAL STATES
KING OF JERUSALEM

♱

Elected in 1574, Paulus IV sought to end the unpopular and costly war against the Ottomans with some degree of honour. When an Ottoman host landed in Salerno and marched on Rome, the Pope delegated the defence of the city and led a secondary force to flank the attacking Ottoman army, defeating them in 1578.

Peace would finally come in 1579, with the disastrous Treaty of Constantinople, which saw the City of the World's desire ceded to Venice - and only minor Syrian lands, formally of the Antioch crusader kingdom, returned to Papal control.

Disgusted with the peace, Paulus pressed ahead with the partition of Mantuan-Florence, annexing the provinces of Arezzo, Pisa, and Lucca into the Papal States, leaving only the heretic city of Bologna by 1586.

Paulus sought to modernise Papal administration, abandoning many of the orthodoxies of the Corinthian faction and embracing new and radical technologies such as the printing press. Paulus also opted for closer relations with Spain, seeing the Spanish Empire as the only dependable ally of the Catholic World - condemning Austria in their inaction to tackle heresy within the empire, or even extinguishing the final pockets of Hussite cultism in their own lands.

During the 1580s, Paulus also authorised a series of raids into the lands of heretic German states, attempting (and mostly failing) to impose the church's authority on them.

In 1588, seeking retribution for the Sack of Mecca and the theft of their lands, the Mamluk Sultanate declared a Jihad against the Pope and his allies.

The island of Sicily, under Spanish occupation, was invaded by the Tunisian caliph, thus beginning the Sicilian Campaign, which would end in 1590 in holy victory at the Battle of Leonforte.

Paulus IV died the same year of natural causes.

♱
​

JOHN XXIII
OF THE KINGDOM OF VENICE

BISHOP OF ROME
BISHOP OF FRANCE
VICAR OF CHRIST
KING OF THE PAPAL STATES
KING OF JERUSALEM

♱

Elected at a time of crisis, John (Iohannes) XXIII sought to defend the land of God from invasion. The Papal Fleet was smashed at Eolie in 1591, opening the way for a second combined Tuniasian-Mamlukian invasion in the spring of 1592.

Landing at Anzio, the Islamic forces quickly overran the smaller armies of the Papal State and laid siege to Rome itself.
Pope John fled to Avignone, as Pope Paulus II has attempted to do when his church fell to Florentine invasion.

Now occupied by an Islamic power, the city of Rome was razed and sacked, just as Mecca had been by Pope Clemens IX.

The Sistine Chapel was destroyed.
Saint Peter's Cathedral burned.
The great library of the Vatican desecrated.

In the south, the Conclave fought on in a war of resistance, while the army regrouped in Avignone to the north, gathering strength to retake the Holy See. Shamefully, no help came from the Christian powers - other than Spain who now burned their way east across north Africa, destroying the city of Tunis and pressing on to meet the Caliphs on their own land, meanwhile central Italy languished under occupation and the law of Sharia.

In 1593, a vast Islamic host marched on Avignone - John decided that the army would leave Papal lands, and cross into Spanish Gaul, rather than be obliterated by another costly battle. This unpopular decision proved to be the correct one, as the Papal forces were able to sail from Barcelona to Jerusalem, cross south and meet the Spanish army of Africa, to fight the Caliphs at the Battle of the Nile.

During the battle, the Egyptian Sultan was captured - his host scattered. He was tortured until he signed a humilating peace, and the Islamic forces withdrew from Italy without a fight.

The Sultan, however, was brought back to the ruins of Rome and publicly executed in the tradition of the old Church, burned at the stake.

By 1594, peace had come and the capital was to be rebuilt. Francesco Granacci, a student of the late Michelangelo, was commissioned by the Holy See to restore the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's.

In 1598, the Conclave was outraged by Ventian violation of the Alpine Agreements of 1455, a series of informal treaties that divided realms of influence in Italy between Venice and the Holy See. The northerners has invaded Switzerland, contesting if any such agreement had been signed.

The Papacy was unable to produce the exact document - as it had been lost in the Islamic sacking of the Vatican library.

In response to this violation, John XXIII ordered an invasion of the Franco-German lands north of the Avignone concession, pouring his forces into the northern frontier of the heretics. These would yield treaties in 1602 and 1604, adding French, German, and Swiss lands to the Avignone Concession.

In the year 1609, at a ceremony on the banks of Lake Geneva, Pope John XXIII accepted the loyalty of the Swiss Guard, and welcomed their protection of the Pontiff in perpetuity.

It was around this time that Papal scholars began referring to Avignone as 'Papal France' or 'Papal Gaul' - with John XXIII issuing a Papal Bull declaring himself to be the spiritual protector of the French people, and the restorer of the Christianity to their lands.

In 1610, the Council of Trent finally ended after 78 years of doctrinal debate. The end result was hardly surprising: Catholicism was the only accepted religion within the Holy Roman Empire. Neo-Waldenism (Protestantism), English Waldenism (Anglicanism), and Calvinist Heresy (Reformism), were sects, cults, and spiritual abominations.

Yet, one needed to only look at a map of Catholic lands, where the Church still held authority, to know that their world was shrinking. And in 1610, the Westphalian elite - staunchly Catholic allies of the church - had lost control of their country to an English Waldenist revolt.

Action must be taken to save the north, and banish heresy from the European mainland once and for all.

He who opposes us shall stand with evil. We hold the light of the LORD. There is only one path to his mercy.





END OF PART III​

 

[Oxy[Morons]]

.mp3
​

We draw our legacy from Albert Talbot. A man who hailed from England decades ago. Who served two Westphalian Archbishops for over sixty years until his peaceful passing. Who was not shamed for his pride in Anglicanism, who advised the armies and leaders of our nation’s military with compassion, rigor, and genius.

Talbot’s legacy stands ready before the castle of Köln, where the oppressed Dutch have bribed the last Colognian Cardinal to abandon his duties.​

Talbot left a lineage among the highest echelons of free thinkers in the Westphalian government. Who were unseen by the Pope’s Cardinals that, for a time, were steadfast in their hunts for heresy. Many followed in his wake, yet many more opposed their likeness. When Talbot’s legacy was faced with movements to strengthen Religious heads, they achieved partial Secularization instead. Catholics may have continued to rule over Westphalia, but they would see their time.

Talbot’s legacy stands ready at the rivers of Berg, where Westphalian and British Anglican merchants offload the means of our vision.​

Napoleon II von Assel had been the first Archbishop to establish open elections following his death, and his successor would be the first to abuse that power. As their Pope rejoiced in victories against French Anglicans and celebrated their plunder among their Catholic rabble, Napoleon III von Leiningen joined their ranks against reformists.

Talbot’s legacy stands ready before the castle of Coblenz, where their garrison joins our banners.​

In a campaign surrounded with persecution, vilification, and executions of Anglicans and Protestants, he pillaged Napoleon II von Assel’s vision by re-establishing Church and State as one. None would question their holy word.

Talbot’s legacy stands ready before the castle of Münster, where their garrison runs to their wives.​

But as the candle’s wick crumbles to the flame of the people’s will, the wax shall too melt away to nothing.

Talbot’s legacy stands ready before the castle of Bremen, where devout Catholics lay down their arms before us.​

Where they will be replaced one by one with the candles of The Prophet, Bethlehem’s, The Shepherd’s, and The Angel’s.

Talbot’s legacy stands ready before the castle of Hamburg, where the pious lay down their lives at the tip of the Anglican pike.​

When they too have gone, there will stay Christ’s Candle through every church in the land of Westphalia.

Talbot’s legacy stands ready at the battle of Dithmarschen, where the loyal shed the Lord’s blood.​