The Commonwealth of Kaedrin

[Draeris 3124]

 

THE COMMONWEALTH OF KAEDRIN

”One God, one country and one law”

- Maxim of St. Peter

 

 

TABLE ON CONTENTS

I. The Commonwealth Covenant

II. The Crown of Kaedrin

III. The Royal Cabinet

IV. Chambers of the Commonwealth

V. Constitution & Charter of Rights

VI. Members of the Commonwealth

VII. Kaedreni Ethnicity & Minorities

VIII. The Chronicle

I. THE COMMONWEALTH COVENANT

 

 

Whereas other Imperial Subjects find their hierarchy in mere feudalism: Kaedrin on the other hand stands as a construct of different political, ethnic and feudal entities, each autonomous and bound to Kaedrin to different degrees. What earns the Commonwealth its name is their mutual agreement to prioritize the collective interests of the realm and its people as a whole: transcending feudal obligations, municipal citizenship or ethnic collectives.

 

This is vested in The Commonwealth Covenant, an oath that all citizens and subjects within the Commonwealth of Kaedrin are automatically bound by: “Under one God, one Country and one Law: I bind myself to manifest the destiny of a free Kaedreni folk, under His Imperial Majesty. My colors are to be red, white & gold: my identity Kaedreni. Below me stands nothing, above me the Empire and God.”

 

The Commonwealth Covenant is universally binding, in that all of Kaedreni are expected to adhere to it. Although each Kaedreni citizen is by definition a signatory of this Covenant: an election of His Royal Majesty the King of Kaedrin prompts the realm’s prominents to ceremonially sign the covenant with the new royal signature. 

 

II. THE CROWN OF KAEDRIN

 

INCUMBENT KING 

HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY,

Peter III

Holy Orenian Emperor

King of Kaedrin and Grand Duke of Ves

 

Has mandated his esteemed representative to execute the daily governance of the Commonwealth of Kaedrin and its subsidiaries to:

 

INCUMBENT GOVERNOR-GENERAL

HIS EXCELLENCY

Henry Frederick Helvets

Governor-General of Kaedrin

 

III. THE ROYAL CABINET 

 

The Council of State of Kaedrin, known in shorthand as the Royal Cabinet or just as the Cabinet, is the governing body of the Commonwealth of Kaedrin. It carries the mantle of daily governance on behalf of His Royal Majesty the King of Kaedrin. 

 

His Excellency the Lieutenant Governor of Kaedrin

Richard Helvets, Count of Rochefort, represents the Governor-General in the Cabinet and ensures his will is properly executed.

 

His Excellency the Premier of Kaedrin 

Laurence August Pruvia, is entrusted with presiding over general government affairs within the Commonwealth, while also serving as its spokesperson. He is simultaneously Solicitor-General of Kaedrin, and is tasked with enforcing Imperial law as well as serving as the Cabinet’s chief lawyer and regional prosecutor.

 

Her Excellency the Minister of Internal Affairs

Mariana Dubois, is entrusted with managing the domain of the Commonwealth and its economic development. She is the representative of the Commonwealth Government in the City of Owynsburg: ensuring that the municipal government adheres to the Commonwealth Covenant. 

 

The Royal Cabinet is seated in Varoche Palace, who in turn is located in the capital city of Owynsburg. The capital is a separate polity within the Commonwealth however: separating the central government from its local variant. The mayor plays a double role, representing the polity that is Owynsburg and the Commonwealth government simultaneously. The incumbent is:

 

His Excellency the Mayor of Owynsburg, Edmund Bren
 

IV. CHAMBERS OF THE COMMONWEALTH

 

The Commonwealth boasts two organs that preside over governmental affairs and grant assent to the central government, on behalf of the people or the bourgeoisie. The House of Commons is an open assembly for all citizens and legislates on behalf of them. The House of Electors assents the establishment of new peerage in Kaedrin and the succession of its King.

 

HOUSE OF COMMONS 

 

Presided by His Eminence

The Premier of Kaedrin

Speaker of the House of Commons

Archbishop of Albarosa

Cardinal Ves

Laurence August Pruvia

 

HOUSE OF ELECTORS

 

Presided by His Excellency

The Lieutenant Governor of Kaedrin

Magnate of the House of Electors

Count of Rochefort

Richard Victor Helvets

 

V. CONSTITUTION & CHARTER OF RIGHTS

 

The Commonwealth of Kaedrin is governed by virtue of the Instrument of Government, which is colloquially known as the Constitution. It establishes processes for the government as well as the election of the monarch. Accompanied with that is the Charter of Rights: a legal document establishing the unique liberties and rights of Kaedreni citizens.

 

VI. MEMBERS OF THE COMMONWEALTH

 

The Commonwealth consists of multiple polities, each being different in nature and importance. They are bound together through the covenant and adhere to the established central government. The members of the Commonwealth are:

 

The Kingdom of Kaedrin

The Duchy of Cathalon

The Duchy of Ves

The Archbishopric of Albarosa

The Bishopric of Ves

The County of Rochefort

The County of Kreden [In Abeyance]

The Viscounty of Rillsworth

The Barony of Aldenburg [In Abeyance]

The Barony of Guise [In Abeyance]

The City of Owynsburg

 

House of Helvets

House of Pruvia

House de Falstaff

House of Károly

House of Dubois

 

The citizens of Owynsburg admire the art in Varoche Palace, 1764.

 

VII. KAEDRENI ETHNICITY &  MINORITIES

 

The Commonwealth embraces a variety of polities who in turn, house different ethnic groups of different origins. For the sake of citizenship procedures and to separate ‘foreign’ from ‘native’, certain subgroups are considered woven into Kaedreni society. 

 

The Rhoswenii are all who descend from the first generations of Kaedreni in the White Rose, and are currently the most prevalent both in government and the populace. They proudly boast ethnic kinship with the likes of Chivay and Helvets, and are deemed the founding fathers behind the Commonwealth.  

 

The Adrians came to live in Kaedrin due to the temporary overlapping with Adria in the annals of history, and are the biggest minority in the Commonwealth. They de facto migrated into Kaedrin after the Duchy of Adria was rendered derelict by the Lord-Protector: and have stayed ever since. 

 

The Carnatians migrated to Kaedrin in the late 16th Century after a long diaspora from Haense, and have since been a minority actively involved in governance. They are the newest minority to achieve this particular recognition.

 

The Lodenlanders also came into Kaedrin through Adria and were prominent during the Ves era, although they had now faded into relative obscurity. Remnants of them live on through houses such as Haas or de Ruyter, who now are native to the Crownlands. 

 

Anyone from these four ethnicities are presumed to have ancestry within the Commonwealth and will not be forced to follow procedures of integration.

 

VIII. 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 - 1760)

 

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 - 1750)

 

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. He died in consumption in 1750.

[[with special thanks to @Esterlen, @duscur & @edelos for aiding in writing this post.]]

[Sliw 226]

“God Bless Kaedrin!” Edmund preaches!

[BigMacMoMo 214]

Bishop Erasmus signs the Kaedreni cross