The Commonwealth

[Esterlen 4499]

 

THE COMMONWEALTH OF KAEDRIN 

“One God, one country and one law.” 

The Maxim of St. Peter

 

CONTENTS

 

I. The Crown

II. The Constitution

III. The Cabinet

IV. The House of Electors

V. The House of Commons

VI. The Soldiery

VII. The Chronicle

 

I. THE CROWN

 

The Commonwealth of Kaedrin is a constitutional elective monarchy, whereby the king, who is entitled King of Kaedrin and Grand Duke of Ves, serves until death or abdication as head of state, with a civil governor known as the Governor-General acting as head of government and bearing the delegated royal prerogative. The monarch is elected by the House of Electors under a series of strict criteria, with the polity’s governing document known as the Instrument of Government of 1730. 

 

REIGNING KING

 

 

His Majesty, Adrian I of the House of Helvets, King of Kaedrin and Grand Duke of Ves, Duke of Cathalon, Lord of the Rhoswenii and Captain and Defender of Liberty.  

 

(1725 - present)

 

INCUMBENT GOVERNOR-GENERAL

 

 

His Excellency the Right Honorable Sir Richard de Reden, Governor-General of Kaedrin, Imperial Secretary of Intelligence, Count of Kreden, Baron of Caer Bann 

 

(1725 - 1729; 1740 - present)

 

II. THE CONSTITUTION 

 

The Commonwealth of Kaedrin is governed by virtue of the Instrument of Government of 1730, which is colloquially known as the Constitution. It establishes processes for the government as well as the election of the monarch. It can be found in full here.

 

III. THE CABINET

 

The Kaedreni Council of State, known in shorthand simply as the Cabinet (Though not to be confused with the equivalent Imperial-level body) is the governing council of the Commonwealth, who in theory serve at the pleasure of the Crown. Only three Cabinet offices are formalized within the Constitution, however, in practice the Crown may appoint others to sit upon the Council of State in the capacity of advisers. The Cabinet currently consists of:

 

Mr. Frederick Armas

Premier and Secretary of State of Internal Affairs of the Commonwealth

 

Col. Godwin de Reden

Colonel of the 2nd Regiment of Grenadiers, informal advisor

 

Lt. Col. Samuel de Langford

Lieutenant Colonel of the 2nd Regiment of Grenadiers, informal advisor

 

IV. THE HOUSE OF ELECTORS

 

The House of Electors serves as the upper house of the Diet of Kaedrin, the legislature of the Commonwealth. All peers who hold a hereditary peerage from baron through to duke are entitled to a life-long seat within the House of Electors, who elect the king from those candidates eligible under the Constitution. 

 

Unlike most other human realms, all land in the Commonwealth of Kaedrin is under the direct administrative control of the Crown, and by extension, the office of the Governor-General. Accordingly, these peers do not maintain political control over the land attached to their titles, bearing the nomenclature alone as a courtesy. This does not mean these titles are simply titular, as technically, the land to which they appertain exists. In order of precedence, the House of Electors currently consists of:

 

His Grace the Duke of Cathalon 

Adrian Helvets, concurrently King of Kaedrin

 

The Right Honorable Count of Kreden 

Richard de Reden

 

His Lordship the Baron of Aldenburg

Caius Marna 

 

V. THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

 

The House of Commons serves as the lower house of the Diet of Kaedrin, the legislature of the Commonwealth, and is comprised of elected membership from the various other estates of the realm. However, the House of Commons has been in a state of formal dissolution since 1740 with the increasing militarization of the realm. 

 

VI. THE SOLDIERY

 

 

THE SECOND REGIMENT

The Commonwealth Grenadiers 

 

The domain of Kaedrin is protected and served by the 2nd Regiment of Grenadiers of the Imperial State Army, known colloquially as the Commonwealth Grenadiers, who are sworn as defenders of the Constitution and the flag. The 2nd Regiment is divided up into constituent brigades, which each have their own nickname and utility, and can be found in greater detail here.  

 

VII. THE CHRONICLE

 

THE ORDER OF THE WHITE ROSE

(1414 - 1420)

 

The first Kingdom of Kaedrin was established as not a state with an army, but an army with a state, the army therein being the infamous Order of the White Rose of yore. This military realm was in many ways a pseudo-democracy, with the kingship tied to the office of Grand Master which was elected from among the institution’s knightly membership. 

 

HIS MAJESTY, St. Peter I of the House of Chivay (r. 1414 - 1420)

 

The first King of Kaedrin, Peter the First rose from Aeldenic mercenary to sovereign of the era’s most indisputably powerful realm in a lifetime. As founder and Grand Master of the Order of the White Rose, Peter’s service (And that of his knight-brothers) to the Emperor in conquering the elven tribes of Malinor led to the formation of the kingdom from the newly settled western frontier. A policy of expansion, colonization and forced conversion followed that would establish Kaedrin in the annals of history as a quasi-military settler state. In 1420, he abdicated his throne with the Exodus, with the gentryman Edmond Brunswick (St. Edmond) becoming elected Grand Master. As he was of too low birth to accede to the throne in proper, the title of King of Kaedrin reverted to William I, who was Holy Orenian Emperor. 

 

FOOTNOTE:

 

Later, around c. 1426, the Emperor would be forced to grant the lands of Kaedrin and the west to the King of the Harrenites, Lachlan Mor Elendil, which would precipitate the Harrenite War. The defeat of the Harrenites in this conflict by Prophet Sigismund and his Karovic heirs would result in their adoption of the style of ‘King of Kaedrin’, until the assassination of Francis the Martyr in 1456. 

 

THE THIRD EMPIRE

(1456 - 1467)

 

The Kingdom of Kaedrin was restored, in part, in 1456, when Peter the First returned thirty-six years after the catastrophic Exodus to claim the title of Holy Orenian Emperor in the chaos that followed King Francis’ assassination in 1456.

 

HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY, St. Peter I of the House of Chivay (2nd. r. 1456 - 1462)

 

With the help of his nephew, Robert, and Imperial Fieldmarshal, Vibius Hanseticus de Sola, Peter cowed the quarrelsome nobility of the era, returning to the throne of Kaedrin while serving concurrently as Holy Orenian Emperor. This ushered in the Third Empire, bringing about a new age of human domination over the world with the construction of the cities of Kaldonia, Tempum and finally Petrus. Peter’s reign as Holy Orenian Emperor would reign victorious over the nonhumans who engaged him in war, falling each and every time, with those enemies he had within the Empire cowed by his domineering, charismatic presence. Already a venerable man of 96 by the time of his second ascension, Peter I died in his sleep at the age of 102, having reigned for six golden years.

 

HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY, Robert I of the House of Chivay (r. 1462 - 1467)

 

It was Peter’s nephew, Robert, who succeeded him to the throne of the Holy Orenian Empire and of Kaedrin. The son of Thomas Chivay and his half-elven bride, Robert’s status as a quadroon of elvish blood proved increasingly unpopular with his subjects, who had spent most of their lifetime fighting an eternal war against mendacious nonhuman polities. This was complicated by rumoured dalliances with pagan rituals in the deep woods of the Crownlands. When he made a humiliating peace with the nonhumans, the proverbial knives came out. Though he was not entirely uncharismatic, Robert did not bear the same imposing presence as his uncle, and after five years of rule was deposed by Vibius Hanseticus, who seized the capital city with the aid of the Duke of Ruska and Richard de Bar. 

 

FOOTNOTE:

 

The Duke of Ruska’s acclamation as Holy Orenian Emperor spelled the functional end of the Kingdom of Kaedrin as a political entity, leading to its absorption to the Imperial Crown. Successive rulers of humanity would continue to use the style, however, as an addendum upon their titles. 

 

THE OLD COMMONWEALTH

(1518 - 1543)

 

The Savoyard dynasty who ruled the Kingdom of Oren from 1498 to 1526 were descended primarily from St. Lucien, who was one of the founders of the Order of the White Rose. Having been raised on stories of the Order’s glory, in 1518 King Olivier, a known Kaedrenophile, undertook a plan to restore Kaedrin as a subsidiary realm to guard the elven frontier. This realm was ruled by a noble of ducal rank entitled ‘magnate’, who was elected for life from among the local peers, and was known as the Commonwealth of Kaedrin, known to historians as the Old Commonwealth or the Savoyard Commonwealth. 

 

HIS GRACE, Cantonus Chivay (r. 1518 - 1543)

 

To aid him in his plan, Olivier recruited one of the last living dynasts of the House of Chivay, Cantonus, as the inaugural Magnate of Kaedrin. With Foltest Helvets (The Count of Hengtfors), Adam de Gleveisen (The Count of Redmark) and later Ingrid de Wett (The Baroness of Wett) as his aristocratic subsidiaries, Cantonus directed the Kaedreni settlers towards loyalty to his royal benefactor in the catastrophic Duke’s War. A competent administrator, an almost omnipotent spymaster yet a most disagreeable man in his personal life, Cantonus developed a deadly rivalry with the commander-in-chief of the royalist forces, Augustus de Sola, which would later be exacerbated when the general was awarded with the former territories of rebellious Adria, which bordered his land. Though Cantonus was an initial supporter of John I, who came to the throne in 1526 with the demise of the Savoyard dynasty, the Emperor’s closeness to Augustus drove him away from court and into bitter obscurity. He died some time in 1543, and John I issued the Act of Merger which awarded the lands of Kaedrin to Augustus, who was by then Duke of Lorraine, thus spelling the end of the old Commonwealth. 

 

FOOTNOTE:

 

The Act of Merger of 1543 merged the lands of the former Commonwealth into the estate of the Dukes of Lorraine, who from that point onward employed the style of Duke of Kaedrin in a form of real union. On paper, Kaedrin persisted under them, however, in practise it was dissolved as a polity, with no serious historians or chroniclers considering the Archduke of Lorraine to have ruled over a contiguous Kaedreni entity in this period. After the end of the Fifth Empire in 1595, most successive emperors claimed the title of King of Kaedrin.

 

THE NEW COMMONWEALTH

(1725 - present)

 

The New Commonwealth was forged in the crucible of the Troubles, established in 1725 by Adrian Helvets, a descendant of the Count of Hengtfors, and the Captain-General of the Caer Bann Company, Richard de Reden, a fearsome condottiero. Rising from the ashes of the old Republic of Ves, to whom Kaedrin had a connection through Lorraine and Adria, this Commonwealth is a legal personal union between the two titles of King of Kaedrin and Grand Duke of Ves. The polity is intentionally modelled off a blend of the Order’s realm of yore, the Old Commonwealth and the Republic. It is a constitutional monarchy as well as a quasi-military state with specific democratic elements. 

 

HIS MAJESTY, Adrian I of the House of Helvets (r. 1725 - present)

 

Born under the name of Helton Hadrian Helvets, Adrian I began his life as an exiled noble from an old, prestigious yet impoverished Kaedreni house. As a young adult he owned and operated a successful winery, however, with the War of Two Emperors it fell on hard times and so he emigrated to the Republic of Ves. Forging an alliance with the condottiero Richard de Reden and his Caer Bann Company of Kaedreni mercenaries, Adrian subverted the decaying republic and became undisputed sovereign of the territory, establishing in its wake the restored Commonwealth - a constitutional monarchy based on old Kaedreni principles. For four years, he enjoyed indisputable success as the foremost power in the Empire, however a controversial officer’s purge in 1729 amid rumours of a coup led to Count de Reden’s resignation and the slow diminishment of the realm in the ensuing decade. In 1740, Count de Reden was finally returned to the office of Governor-General with the king surrendering the royal prerogative to him under the terms of the Constitution. 

 

[Tirenas 677]

“ Though Cantonus was an initial supporter of John I, who came to the throne in 1526 with the demise of the Savoyard dynasty, the Emperor’s closeness to Augustus drove him away from court and into bitter obscurity. ”

 

Cantonus died far before John I (poisoned by his enemies). Perhaps you mistake the support with that of Grand King Uldar Irongut?
 

 

[Esterlen 4499]

1 hour ago, Tirenas said:

“ Though Cantonus was an initial supporter of John I, who came to the throne in 1526 with the demise of the Savoyard dynasty, the Emperor’s closeness to Augustus drove him away from court and into bitter obscurity. ”

 

Cantonus died far before John I (poisoned by his enemies). Perhaps you mistake the support with that of Grand King Uldar Irongut?
 

 

 

Ah, a possibility. Who, then, was his successor as magnate of Kaedrin?