Wilde Uprising

The Wilde Uprising, alternatively called the Lithuari War of Succession or the Barons' War, was a civil war fought in the Kingdom of Lithuar in late 1020 and early 1021. The landed nobility, or baronage, rose up in revolt against King Stefan VII, backing the claim of Duke Frederick de Wilde. The proximate grievances of the baronage were capricious acts by the King's ministers and the King's ineffectual attempts to mediate feudal warfare, as well as overall perception of the King as a tyrant due to his refusal to abide by agreements with the old nobility. The deeper root of the uprising can be traced to the longstanding conflict between the baronage and the King, and conflicts within the baronage.

In Frostfall 1020, several nobles declared Frederick the rightful king and rallied behind him in revolt. They overtook the royal forces after months of hard fighting, including several sieges. After several feints and battles, the capital of Kingston-upon-Reed was captured by the Wilde army, followed by further battles that saw Stefan's heir slain. Frederick was crowned by the archpriest, and after a brief siege Steingard fell to a daring assault led by Wilde himself. Stefan was imprisoned, though his wife was well-cared for as hostages in Frederick's entourage.

After the war, Frederick cited the Empire's failure, across two monarchs, to take a stand for the law and his rights as just cause for independence. He declared Lithuar's secession from the Empire, and subsequently pursued an alliance with Skyshroud.

The war is noted for its brutality and savagery, as feuds became increasingly personal and bitter between the noble houses involved. Noble lords, who ordinarily would be ransomed, were regularly executed or slain in battle. The dead were often mutilated, fleeing soldiers were chased and cut down, and captives were often executed. A generation of the Lithuari aristocracy was almost completely wiped out, and thousands of soldiers died. The common people suffered greatly, being subject to pillaging and famine, with many towns burned and tens of thousands of civilians killed or displaced.

Ironically, despite the motivation for the war being the dissatisfaction of the nobility over the overreach of the King Stefan, the mass death of a generation of nobles and the collapse of the feudal economy led to a period of centralization under the new regime of King Frederick.

Origins
Lithuar is often remarked as the birthplace of feudalism, and early in its history saw the rapid development of the manorial and feudal system. This system enabled rapid, localized response to crises and decentralized government, but also bred tension between the royal government and the local landholders or barons, who oversaw these feudal estates. This intermittently led to armed conflict between barons, and between the baronage and the King. Things seemed to shift in favor of the nobility in the 9th century, as several dukes acquired proprietary rights over resources previously held under royal monopoly, such as silver and gold mines; at the same time, the expansion of Lithuar northward into previously-Orcish territory expanded the baronage. These "new men" granted landholdings in the north were loyal to the Crown, and dependent on royal patronage, while the old nobility retained much independence from their entrenched holdings. In the early 10th century, a bloody war was waged between the King and powerful marcher lords, leading to the consolidation of the eastern marches under Duke Conrad de Wilde after 919. The marcher lords had sided with a rising of eastern Mountain Dwarves, led by Osric of Klarhold, formerly an earl under Etusan sovereignty who was dispossessed by the annexation of land by Lithuar in the 800s. Calling himself Prince of Dwarves, he rose in revolt in 903, and evaded capture even while the marcher lords were defeated.

However, the King in turn came into conflict with the Wildes in the early 940s after Duchess Tancreda reorganized her lands and began creating her own barons; a brief war sparked from 940 to 942. Another civil war occurred from 945 to 951 and again from 954 to 961, over the Lithuari throne, ending with the House of Lys seize the throne.

The Wilde dukes continued to build up their lands' infrastructure and economy, building castles and expanding silver and salt mining operations as well as agriculture and viticulture, becoming very wealthy through trade. They also gathered a circle of allies who sought to protect the traditional rights of the baronage. The reign of Swain III was widely seen as capricious, as the Lys turned against the nobles that had brought them to the throne and arbitrarily abused royal powers. The nobles, calling themselves the Lords Appellant, presented their grievances to the King and petitioned for the removal of unpopular ministers who were seen as steering the King in a tyrannical direction. This was unsuccessful, and many dukes were threatened with confiscation of their lands and titles. Swain's nephew and successor, Stefan VII, was not much better as he allowed his ministers to mismanage the kingdom and he did nothing to prevent or mediate disputes between the factions of nobles. The Lords Appellant tried once more to impeach these ministers; in 1016, they presented a list of demands to the King, including a charter of liberties. This charter, while drawn up the next year, went unsigned as it was debated in the Parlement and stalled by royalist nobles led by House Strongbow.

Simultaneous to this was a generational enmity between the Strongbow and Ironfist families, who held territory in both the north and southlands, and had frequently come to standoffs over claims on castles, land, and serfs. Competition for royal appointments, and their attendant incomes and prestige, came to define this and other feuds between noble clans The Stronbow-Ironfist feud first came to violence in 953, and continued throughout the civil war; it abated for a period of time, then tensions were enflamed anew in 1013 when Strongbow was given vacated lands that legally should have defaulted to Ironfist holdings, sparking a violent encounter that led to court proceedings and Confessor attempts at mediation. House Ironfist came to be partisans of de Wilde and the Lords Appellant, which in turn drove Strongbow further into an alliance with the House of Lys.

Duke Tancredo de Wilde died in 1017, leaving the inheritance to his only son Frederick IV. Frederick was an accomplished warrior, who had achieved fame fighting in the eastern borders of the Empire, alongside other knights of his generation like Imperial Prince Octavius Mallynzair. His daring raids into Ucral earned him the nickname the Ferocious. However, he set his sights on the loftier goal of imperial immediacy.

Prelude
In 1019, Duke Frederick had petitioned the Imperial Court for release from his feudal obligations to Stefan, and requested recognition of imperial immediacy, citing the original grant of dukedom to his ancestor, Adhemar as having come from both the King of Lithuar and the Imperial Assembly. Evidence arose during discovery which indicated that Frederick had a superior claim to the throne of Lithuar through his mother, Vivian de Stamkirk's line. His mother was the direct descendant of Queen Lilian II, of the previous House of Stamkirk. Lilian's son Stefan V succeeded her; his own son predeceased him and he was succeeded by his infant grandson Stefan VI. The boy-king had a mental breakdown in 944 after a series of badly-managed feudal wars, and was deposed in 961; he died childless in 971. Had the throne not been usurped by the House of Lys, the succession would have shifted to Lilian's second son, Godfrey (750–900), and his descendants culminating in Vivian (b. 930, d.1015).

He filed a new suit in 1020 claiming the throne, with an ultimatum that if the issue was unresolved by the winter, he would press his rights by force of arms. The matter was still not settled, owing to the death of Emperor Owyn and a large-scale international crisis in Tethar.

In Frostfall 1020, several dukes and prelates assembled in secret and declared Frederick king, or anti-king according to the Lysard partisans, and called up their feudal levies and knights to support an uprising. Many had maintained armies of mercenaries for years, and they began a march towards the capital.

First phase
In the first phase of the rising, the rebellious barons raised their forces and engaged in hit-and-run raids on opponents. Many used this opportunity to bring long-standing feuds into the open, taking revenge for generations of lynchings, assassinations, and injuries. Initially Stefan VII remained in Kingston-upon-Reed, attempting to keep order, but his position was very precarious. He sallied out of the city with a retinue of 50 knights and 1,000 men-at-arms, riding for the royal fortress of Steingard. He summoned Parlement to meet at the fortress to discuss how to raise funds to suppress the revolt, and likely to issue bills of attainder against the Lords Appellant. Lord Ironfist, at the head of 100 knights and 6,000 men-at-arms, rode ahead to intercept them at Tonsdale, a small town in the hills north of the river Reed that had to be passed through on the fastest route to Steingard.

The two armies camped on opposite ends of the town, attempting to negotiate. Ironfist issues their demands: Stefan and Parlement ratify the Charter of Liberties, then immediate abdicate in favor of Duke de Wilde, as well as the handing over of Lord Euric de Strongbow and the royal chancellor, the Earl of Northmarch, for justice. The King's party refused, and the two forces engaged; Ironfist's cavalry charged instantaneously, and his infantry swept into the town streets to take the royal party by surprise. The Battle of Tonsdale would be the first pitched battle of the war, and while it saw few casualties it was a devastating blow to King Stefan's faction. The King's army was routed, scattering to the eastern countryside; Stefan was captured, Northmarch was incinerated by a firebolt, and Lord Strongbow was pulled from his horse and killed in the fighting.

However, Stefan escaped imprisonment with the help of defectors the next day, and made it under cover of night to Steingard. The fortress' inhabitants were armed, and the castle was well stocked, for a long siege. Parlement, however, refused the summons and did not meet; many shire-knights had been called up into the armies of their feudal lords, and most nobles thought it unsafe to leave their castles as warfare spread. The mercenary armies of the Lords Appellant began sieges of key royalist forts throughout the realm, while Ironfist's vanguard continued to march toward Kingston.

The new Duke of Tannenhold, Richard de Strongbow, led a counteroffensive in the northeast, tying up Frederick's army. Ironfist's forces surrounded Kingston and acted as a screen, but were told to wait as it was imperative that Frederick himself capture the city and enter it under the invitation of the Archpriest. The slowed pace of his advance made Ironfist restless, and his army began pillaging nearby towns and many men deserted to return to their arms as winter became colder. By the end of the year, hundreds had been killed with no clear end in sight, and the realm's senior Confessor met with Frederick to implore him to seek peace and end the fighting. She offered to sponsor a peace conference to mediate the dispute, but it was to no avail. Frederick's demands were ironclad. She contemplated taking the issue to the Mother Confessor, but after word reached her of the sack of the Abbey of Tethar, she committed to remaining in the country to continue to mediate smaller disputes within the wider war. The junior Confessor in the country openly sided with King Stefan, joining his court. At the same time, royal fortresses in the north had to contend with Skyshroudian raids, as Queen Iliana had declared independence from the empire and her soldiers took to border defenses with great zeal. A truce was reached between Skyshroud and the Lords Appellant, however, and Wilde's allies were exempted from raiding.

Second phase
Early the next year, the tide turned sharply in favor of de Wilde. While Frederick continued to advance on Kingston, his ally Lord Godwin led a force of 11,000 armed men to raid royalist lands in an attempt to feint and distract Lord Strongbow, who had thus far failed to intercept Frederick. A pitched battle was fought near Tannenhold, the home castle and patrimony of House Strongbow, on 9 Yearborn. The city was defended by Richard de Strongbow's younger brother Carlton, who was inexperienced, though he had the benefit of an army of some 18,000 men-at-arms garrisoned at the fortress. However, rather than wait out a siege, he rallied his forces on the field in the middle of a snowstorm. The resulting Battle of Tannehold was a brutal slog; Godwin's archers and war mages launched ranged assaults through blinding snow and fog. A team of nature mages whipped up even harsher storms on the battlefield, controlling the movements of Strongbow's forces. With the castle and town itself undefended, a mage cavalry wing swept in and put the town to the torch. Over 2,000 civilians died in the burning, and the rest were forced to flee into the harsh winter storm, many dying of exposure. On the field itself, poor visibility turned the hours-long fight into a grueling melee. Some 9,000 Strongbow men were killed in battle, and Carlton himself was beheaded in a duel. Despite being badly outnumbered, Lord Godwin lost less than a thousand men, then turned his army back to rejoin Frederick's advance, holding up the rearguard. The Battle of Wycliffe had been the bloodiest and largest battle on Lithuari soil since the Second Orc War. No quarter was asked or given, and the Strongbow men that did not flee were captured and executed in a massacre of another 6,000.

On 11 Yearborn, Frederick arrived and entered the city of Kingston, ostensibly on the invitation of the Archpriest; the city meanwhile was suffering starvation from the siege, as Lord Ironfist's troops had been intercepting trade caravans and seizing supplies for themselves. On Frederick's entry, supplies were brought in to feed and clothe the populace, and the Lord Treasurer gave him control over the royal treasury. A barebones Parlement, composed of those lords and representatives who had remained in Kingston, held a session on the 15th and ratified Frederick's claim to the throne. The senior Confessor for Lithuar gave in to political pressure and consented to the accession, acknowledging that Stefan's reign had not been conducive to justice. Frederick was crowned swiftly in a solemn ceremony by the Archpriest of the realm two day later. He garrisoned his soldiers in the city, and set about recruiting more to replenish their losses. He planned to besiege Steingard once the frost melted, but in the meantime he dismissed Lord Ironfist to his chief fortress in Cuthford to oversee justice in the west and south.

However, this would end in tragedy. Lord Strongbow diverted from Kingston, crossed the River Reed further downstream and rapidly advanced on Cuthford, seeking revenge for what the burning of Tannenhold. For reasons still unclear, Lord Ironfist sortied from Cuth Castle, perhaps in response to a ruse or acting out of his own brash nature to charge and attack. He was outnumbered two to one by Lord Strongbow, who outflanked him and turned a bridge crossing into a chokepoint. Ironfist and his knights attempted to dismount and ford the river on foot, but most were swept away in the rapids or drowned in water that was deeper than expected. Ironfist himself was dragged from the river and captured; Strongbow had him tortured, tied to a stake, and burned to death.

This provoked Frederick's ire, and he dispatched an army of 8,000 men-at-arms and 2,000 knights under the command of the Duchess of Arbory to pursue Strongbow and bring him to open battle. Strongbow's army was dwindling in size, unable to replenish losses from disease, wounds, desertion, or starvation as the marched through the land. Further, the populace had turned sharply against King Stefan and Lord Strongbow due to their harsh measures and pillaging, which continued long after Ironfist had ceased his reaving of the capital district. By the time Arbory's forces met up with Strongbow on 6 Frostmelt in the vicinity of Knockville, the latter's army had withered from 16,000 to 8,000. She outnumbered him significantly, and the battle was a slaughter. Thick mist that morning made fighting difficult, just as it had at Tannenhold; when elements of Strongbow's army attacked friendly troops in the blinding fog, panic ensued and the army broke and routed. Richard de Strongbow's pride and burning anger prevented him from fleeing when he should have, and while his army disintegrated all around him, he was dragged from his horse and butchered. The Battle of Knockville is seen as the truly decisive battle of the war, as the loss of Richard de Strongbow and his army was a critical blow to the Lys cause. Frederick was able to extend his rule across most of Lithuar now, with only Steingard as the last redoubt.

Final phase
Frederick continued to recruit from the capital for the next two months, all the while closing his grip around the lands on which Steingard depended. On 1 Raintide, Frederick began to march from Kingston at the head of an army of 11,000 knights and men-at-arms, with accompanying supply lines and siege weaponry, towards Steingard. King Stefan had launched raids from his fortress, but their range was gradually constricted until they could only safely forage for a few miles outside of the castle walls; their foraging produced diminishing returns, as the war-torn landscape was stripped bare. Stefan saw one last, desperate chance to stave off total annihilation, and sent his son Raymond to intercept the advancing force with the castle's main garrison of 7,000 royal soldiers and 1,000 knights. Raymond attempted to cross the River Reed at the castle town of Stamkirk, but the town refused safe passage; while Stefan held the lordship of Stamkirk, the castellan Rou de Vere switched sides and proclaimed loyalty to the Stamkirk bloodline that flowed through Frederick de Wilde. Faced with the decision to either lay siege and force the crossing, or proceed further upstream to cross elsewhere, Raymond took the latter option and moved on. Frederick's spies alerted him to Stamkirk's defiance, and he shifted the bulk of his army to stop Raymond's crossing, while leaving a rearguard of 3,000 men to defend the supply train and siege engines still moving towards Steingard.

The forces met near Bendwick, the county town of Bendshire and the patrimony of Lady de Estrid, an ally of de Wilde, on 6 Raintide. Raymond's troops were exhausted from constant marching, while Frederick's had taken a more steady pace and was able to rest the night before the ambush. While their numbers were matched, Raymond had more heavily-armored knights and his soldiery were mostly archers, giving him an advantage both at range and in a charge. However, Frederick arrayed his troops with a column of men-at-arms along the bridge, and spearmen in staggered rows at his end of the bridge; he also positioned a small force of mounted lancers in a nearby wood on the other side of the river. Should the armored column fall, the spearmen would act as a solid defense, and his lancers could act to strike the rear of the enemy formation at a signaled moment. If Raymond's army retreated to find another crossing, there was a strong chance Frederick would attack their rear, possibly with reinforcements from Stamkirk. Despite seeing the obvious trap, Raymond charged with all of his knights, and fighting on the bridge became a bloody slog. Corpses were tossed over the edge of the bridge to make way for more troops, and the Reed ran red with blood. While the column collapsed, the spear lines did not, and pushed Raymond's knights and soldiers back across the bridge. The knights were mostly slain, and the lightly-armored archers were suddenly vulnerable; Frederick gave the signal for his lancers to strike, and they poured out of camouflaged positions. Raymond's army broke, fleeing for high ground in the northern hills, where they were pursued by Frederick's knights and cut down. Raymond sought sanctuary in a nearby abbey, but found the doors locked; he was dragged from hiding in the stables, and summarily executed personally by Frederick despite pleading for his life. This decisive battle ended the Lysois' power projection, though it blackened Frederick's reputation as being utterly merciless.

The army rejoined the baggage train and continued onto Steingard. Frederick laid siege starting on 12 Raintide; the garrison was now much smaller, which meant its supplies could last longer, but also meant it could not withstand an assault. Frederick set up a court in his tent to administer the kingdom while supervising the siege, which dragged on another month. The walls were at last broken on 15 Flowertide by a combination of saboteurs, siege engines, and war mages. Frederick was the first over the walls with his knights, who slaughtered the defenders. Stefan, heartbroken and weary, was taken captive and later imprisoned in the hilltop monastery of Hochmont in Dorcaster. The army occupied the city, leading to a week of looting, pillaging, and massacre. The war was, at last, at an end.

Aftermath
King Frederick set about restoring the royal systems of justice and the courts, along with deploying his army to keep the peace and maintain order in the countryside. The treasury had been depleted from the massive expenditures in the war, along with the need to bolster the frontier defenses against potential encroachment by the imperial legions. On 30 Flowertide, Frederick gained the assent of Parlement to unilaterally declare independence. He issued an edict listing the failures and abuses of the Empire, namely its failure to uphold his rights, its failure to resolve the civil war, and its failure to defend its own borders or keep its member states within its grasp. By this point, Tethar had seceded to join Gestrin, Skyshroud had declared independence and was at war with the Empire, the Abbey of Tethar had been sacked, and Gestrin had occupied parts of the Empire's southern frontier in an undeclared border war. Lithuar formally seceded from the Empire, and Frederick sought an alliance with neighboring Skyshroud as an extension of the wartime truce.

More long-reaching would be postwar reforms undertaken by Frederick. Despite the baronage rising up against royal power, many assented to a new form of centralization under the new regime. After the war, King Frederick filled many extinct dukedoms and counties with loyal supporters, created new earldoms, and attempted to align the feudal domains closer to the shire boundaries to improve royal administration. He strengthened royal provosts and reeves to administer justice, and abolished the feudal levy. Most abruptly, the abolished the practice of livery and maintenance, whereby dukes and lords maintained private armies of loyal supporters. In its place, he established scutage payments as the new standard for feudal dues, allowing the royal government to raise its own army as needed, maintain a small but well-equipped standing army, and prevented the lords from maintaining private forces that could destabilize the regime. Many of the young lords who now ascended to their baronies were horrified and exhausted by the war, and wished to move past the carnage and instability. They placed their trust in these centralizing reforms, and Frederick's new foreign policy, in the hopes that it would put an end to the constant conflict.