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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Deadguy" data-source="post: 1370760" data-attributes="member: 2480">In fairness, the general mood of England was that Harold was going to be the successor, by force of arms and weight of personality. Plus his victory at Stamford Bridge proved his skill. Then again, Harold had sworn to support William in a claim to the English throne; on the other hand, that oath was de facto extracted under duress whilst Harold was William's 'guest'. Just showing that real life is even more complex than most of the stories we imagine!   Of course, in strictness Robert was promised the senior appointment of Duke of Normandy, and William Rufus would owe him fealty for England. It didn't work out that way though, as William II demonstrated the power of holding a powerful England...  I find this one useful as a reminder that our neat little prepackaged idea of the importance of things is distorted: a Duchy can be more valuable and powerful than a Kingdom, and a King can be a very weak man, depending upon the basis of his authority.   Actually Arthur was still alive. For a while there was a tense standoff, with Norman landholders backing Arthur, and the English ones John (actually more complex than that, but I am sure you get the idea). John's strength was that he managed to seize the English treasury before Arthur did (imagine it - the King's wealth followed him around, rather than sitting in some dungeon!) With this wealth John was able to buy support... never underestimate the value of money even in these early times!   This largely because of the support of one of England's most powerful nobles and highly-regarded warrior, William Marshall. I like this story because it feels most like a classic D&D story straight out of the Forgotten Realms - William Marshall can be rendered as an almost paladinic figure of nobility... right up until you realise that he was a calculating landholder who worked out he had more to gain from maintaining the child Henry III in power rather than cutting a deal with the Dauphin and King of France! Borrowing ideas like these can be very helpful to get a more 'realistic' feel to succession politics!   And I recommend people look up what happened to Edward II! It's messy, and a curious tribute to the inventiveness of Edward's wife and fellow plotters!   Quite! As is often the case, real life is botha good guide for DMs and an indicator of how messy things might be. It does show, however that it is by no means certian that a ruler will automatically be resurrected by his grieving heir; human nature being what it is, it might well be the case that the body is destroyed and royal preroagtive exercised to forbid the resurrection of a person who has gone on to his reward! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

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