The aftermath of An Tir's Rebellion Twelfth Night was a somber time,
filled with bickering and recriminations, and tension and ill will
between rebels and royalists. Ugly things happened. Some of the rebels
were harassed and threatened, usually anonymously. Sir Elrond Blacksabre,
I have been told, received anonymous threats on the life of his infant
son.
Some of the rebels disappeared. Some of them endured, unwilling to tamely
give in to their tormentors. The Rebel Alliance was a bit put out at the
failure of their plot, but I was told that they bowed to the will of
their lord with more grace than the Westerners had shown in their
reaction to learning of the Plot.
Though the Twelfth Night Plot had failed, the Rebellion was not dead.
Rebels continued to wear gray armbands; some of them began to fly gray
pennons and one at least made and occasionally wore a gray gown. And
discussions were held on what to do next, though for the moment there
appeared to be nothing that could be done.
The Western Great Officers and the BoD and corporate officers continued
many of the practices which had been the proximate cause of the
Rebellion.
In June of AS XIII, just under six months after Rebellion Twelfth Night,
the Kingdom of the West allowed their southern principality, CAID, to
become a kingdom. The Rebel Alliance was seriously annoyed; CAID was a
year younger as a principality than was An Tir.
But as the heat of the confrontation died down, the rebels were regaining
their sense of humor. Christmas cards were sent out to many of the rebels
that December which bore an image of Darth Vader, wearing a gold baldric
with three red mullets strongly reminiscent of Duke Paul of Bellatrix's
heraldic arms, with the message, "You are a traitor and a member of the
Rebel Alliance!" Some of those who received the cards still treasure them
and giggle about them, over twenty years later.
The members of the Rebel Alliance wrote songs about the Rebellion: At the
Rising of the Moon, O Eddie Boy, When Will We Be...? and others. And they
made it a practice to welcome newcomers, and taught them the causes and
tales and songs of the Rebellion, encouraging the newbies to see the
Rebellion as an amusing game - which, I am reliably told, was how many of
the original Rebels thought of it in the first place.
A year after Rebellion Twelfth Night, Steven MacEanruig crowned the
Founding Baroness of Adiantum, Alyanora de Vinca, Queen of the West. And
with one of the founders of a notoriously Rebel barony on the throne, the
Westerners who had been treating An Tir so spitefully grew more
circumspect.
Steven and Alyanora were followed on the throne of the West by Steingrim
Stallari and Rhiannon of the Lost Star, both An Tirians. Steingrim was a
Royalist, of the type who had had fun pretending to ignore the plotting
that was going on around him; many of his friends were members of the
Rebel Alliance.
When Steingrim won the Crown of the West, the Crier (which was edited at
that time by the crew and associates of that thoroughly Rebel ship, the
Barque) declared victory and suggested that the Crown free the Mists. I
have been told that among some of the Westerners panic and chaos
resulted. An Tirians, though, were dancing for joy!
Many overdue awards at various levels were given out, and much of the
lingering conflict from Rebellion Twelfth Night cooled. It was a fun time
for Rebels and Royalists alike, with an An Tir couple on the throne of
the West.
Trelon of the Woods, who was living in Adiantum at the time, won the
Coronet Tourney in the same month Steingrim and Rhiannon were crowned. He
and Tamsen of the Raven Tresses were crowned in July. Trelon was only
nineteen years old at the time, and he quickly received the sobriquet
"the Punk Prince." He retaliated by threatening to make himself a
tourney-legal switchblade sword.
Radnor of Guildemar and his lady Shannon Morgan followed Steingrim and
Rhiannon on the throne of the West. When King Radnor (then only 18 years
old) and his queen came to An Tir for the September Coronet Tourney at
Silver Falls in AS XIV, Radnor had been warned to expect the people of An
Tir to be uncouth, hostile and rebellious.
The King and Queen were welcomed with open arms and presented with a
multitude of interesting, useful, and humorous gifts. Radnor's goblet was
filled repeatedly with various beverages. Our Punk Prince shared with the
Kid King a special treat which he had had stashed away. And the ladies of
An Tir took the comely young King to their hearts, so to speak.
At the end of the final court of that Coronet Tourney, King Radnor stood
and spoke to us, thanking us for the warm welcome we had given him and
his queen. He ended with the statement, "I just wish ... that I could hug
every one of you!" And a happy roar went up from the crowd, and one of
the gentlemen called out, "Can the men hug the Queen?" And the queen
consenting, after court we all formed lines and went up and hugged the
King and Queen.
King Radnor left the event thinking that the Westerners who had spoken
ill of An Tir were sadly mistaken. And having been told that one of the
complaints of the An Tirian rebels was that Western Kingdom events were
never held in An Tir, Radnor wrote and published a law that each of the
principalities of the West had a right to bid on, and to hold, at least
one Western Crown Event a year.
And in June AS XV, in the first reign of Strider of Duramen, a Western
Crown Tourney was held in the lands of Coeur du Val. And again in June AS
XVI, in the first reign of William the Lucky, another Western Crown
Tourney was held in the same place. And the Westerners were not happy,
and resented being forced to choose between missing the events and making
the long journey to An Tir, and grumbled loudly. But what could they do?
For the King's word was Law, and none of Radnor's successors saw fit to
rescind that particular law.
And some of the officers of both the West and the Imperium, whose
practices had seemed so hostile to the Rebels, left office. And their
successors were more willing to answer their correspondence in a timely
fashion, and to warrant their An Tirian underlings in a timely fashion,
and to acknowledge reports.
And the chronicler who had lost An Tir event copy so frequently and whose
snide comments about the apparent lack of activity in An Tir had been so
grating became tired and disgruntled and gave over his office into the
hands of one who did not lose An Tir event copy any more often than copy
from nearer places. And An Tir events began to be more likely to be
official, and thus to count toward the official level of activity in the
Principality.
But the Registry was in the hands of Boncouer, who was not a bad man but
was very persuadable, and possibly not as well organized as he should
have been. And what with one thing and another, despite the increasing
numbers of An Tirians who sent in money and membership forms, the
'official' number of An Tirian SCA memberships hung for some time at
about 550, 600 being needed to form a kingdom at that time.
And it came to pass that in early AS XVI, people from far Lochac wrote to
the officers and royalty of the West and requested that they be accepted
as vassals of the Crown of the West, that their distant lands become part
of the Kingdom of the West. And though distant and sparsely populated,
Lochac has within its borders a territory larger even than all An Tir.
And also in AS XVI, a fairly new member of the Barony of Three Mountains,
a lawyer, when he was told of the difficulty of getting a membership,
suggested a plan, so Grane the Golden told me. Over thirty An Tirians
pooled their money, and all their membership forms were sent, with a
single check for the total amount due drawn on the account of Sir Jerald
of Galloway, to the registry. And the check was cashed, but no
memberships were acknowledged, as had been so often before the case.
The lawyer had not been idle while he waited, though; he had gathered
proof of well over a hundred other paid but unrecognized memberships. And
with proof of 150 - 160 memberships paid for and not honored, the heroic
lawyer wrote to the Registry, sending copies of his proofs. He demanded
that the Registry honor the memberships, lest the SCA, Incorporated, and
Boncouer as the officer directly responsible, be brought into court on
charges of mail fraud. And suddenly there were more than enough
memberships for the people of An Tir to become a kingdom!
A petition was promptly drawn up that An Tir be given her independence.
It contained, so Grane the Golden told me, "unusual language" for a
request which the King would theoretically have been within his rights to
deny at that time. The people of An Tir DEMANDED the right to become a
kingdom in their own right, secure in the knowledge that they could make
things very hot for the West and the SCA Incorporated with the mundane
authorities if their petition was not granted.
The BoD was said to be in a state of panic at the thought of dealing with
criminal charges. There was certainly a tremendous uproar in the
Mist-lands over the practices of the Registry. Poor "Bonkers" was an easy
and logical target. He resigned in disgrace, and was replaced by the
corporation's first full-time paid employee, Cleveden Chew Haas.
Moreover, the acquisition of the vast lands of far Lochac had made the
retention of An Tir superfluous; I heard Westerners telling one another
that with Lochac the West would still be the Largest Kingdom in the Known
World even after An Tir left their control. Anyhow, travelling to An Tir
every year for June Crown was too much trouble.
All Western and Imperial resistance to An Tir independence collapsed.
Yet when the BoD had acknowledged their surrender to An Tir and
discussions began as to the exact details of An Tir's elevation to
Kingdom status, the Kingdom of the West received a bit of consolation.
Oertha, long treated as part of An Tir, elected to remain in fealty to
the West.
And finally, four years after Rebellion Twelfth Night, on January 6, AS
XVI, Manfred Kreigstriber, once the Rebel heir to the Rebel Prince
Edward, and his lady Morag Campbell were crowned King and Queen of the
independent Kingdom of An Tir. An Tir was free at last!
--- Just the Beginning ---
