In 1066, Murchad mac Donnchad was the Petty King of Munster, a duchy in southwestern Ireland. He was the grandson of Brian, the last king of Ireland, founder of the Briain branch of the Dal gCais dynasty, whose main house was by now extinct.
In Murchad's time, Ireland was not at its best. The Kingdom of Ireland was destroyed in 1022, and by 1066, Ireland was split into independent counties, with only two duchies, or petty kingdoms: Connacht and Murchad's Munster. Previous Norse invasions left a majority Norse population in the Earldom of Dubhlinn. Meanwhile, in England, a three-way war was waged for the crown between the incumbent king Harold Godwineson, Duke William the Bastard of Normandy, and King Harald of Norway. Murchad believed that whoever would win the war for English succession would inevitably turn his eyes to Scotland and Ireland, and only a united Ireland would have the chance of repelling foreign invasions.
Murchad began by finding allies to deter invaders. He married Agnes Wettin, the daughter of the Margrave of Lausitz, a vassal of the Holy Roman Empire with some 2,800 men. Then he invaded and conquered the Earldom of Desmond, which was independent from Munster while being part of its de jure territory. And then he completely changed his tactics, using his diplomacy and vast coffers to expand his realm.
First, Murchad sent a monetary gift to his Norwegian vassal, Earl Rognvaldr of Ormond, thus winning his favor. The two then approached the earls of Athlone and Ossory, and then Leinster and Dubhlinn, convincing them to voluntarily become vassals of Munster.
Murchad now had the south of the country — half of all Ireland — united. He then diplomatically vassalized the northern earldom of Oriel. Only Connacht, Ailech and Ulster remained outside his realm. On 3 September 1067, Murchad proclaimed himself High King of Ireland.
The young kingdom was immediately beset by problems. First, the de jure capital, Dubhlinn, lay outside Murchad's domain, so he stayed in his old capital of Luimneach. Second, Murchad didn't even have a crown for his coronation. He paid Ite, a young metalsmith, to forge him one, but after his considerable expenses for gathering his kingdom, this drove him into debt. Eventually, he requested money from the Pope, and his request was granted. In his new capacity as the High King, he offered vassalization to the Petty King of Connacht and the Earl of Ailech. Both agreed. All that was left was Ulster, which was involved in a war as an ally of an English duchy.
In December 1069, Murchad was finally crowned. At his coronation, he swore to return Ireland to its de jure borders. As soon as Ulster ended its war, he peacefully vassalized it, fulfilling his oath.
But he didn't stop there.
Across the strait, at the coast of Scotland, lay the petty kingdom of the Sudreyiar. Though it was outside Ireland, Murchad offered the Sudreyiar vassalization as well, and after a hefty monetary gift, this request was granted.
In addition to the Sudreyiar proper, its ruler Gudred the Arrogant controlled three counties in the de jure duchy of Strathclyde, also in Scotland, while the remaining two counties were under Scottish control. Seeing an opportunity to expand his domain (which consisted only of his three original counties in the duchy of Munster), Murchad declared himself Duke of Strathclyde and invaded Scotland, taking the earldoms of Alt Clut and Lanarkshire.
And after this, he never waged offensive wars in his life.
He did help his allies. Fearing an invasion by a strong England (which had been conquered by William the Bastard, now known as the Conqueror), he sought new alliances. One of them was with Bohemia, via the marriage of Murchad's 52-year-old half-brother Conchobar to 16-year-old Princess Judita of Bohemia. In 1072, Bohemia attacked the nearby Margravate of Meissen. The 1700-strong Irish army marched across the Holy Roman Empire to help its ally.
But Murchad never waged any offensive wars on his own again. He devoted his life to developing his realm and maintaining good relations with his neighbors.
By 1076, 49-year-old Murchad had outlived both his half-brothers: Lorcan, who died of consumption at 45, and 55-year-old Conchobar, who died of heart failure. Murchad himself had one son from his first marriage, Brian. Queen Agnes bore him a second son, whom he named Lorcan in memory of his late brother, and a daughter, Muirenn.
Meanwhile, Scotland fell on hard times. 16-year-old King Duncan II was forced to abdicate in favor of his brother, King Donald III. Donald held a coronation that went badly, with his unpopularity among his people and vassals being obvious. Soon he himself was overthrown and Duncan reinstated.
In 1078, Countess Deirdre of Ulster, whose husband had previously died of consumption, was caught in an extramarital affair. Murchad immediately seized the opportunity to revoke her title, adding Ulster to his domain, though he invited the former countess to his court and gave her a gift. He reportedly felt guilty for this revocation for his entire life, even if it was not considered tyranny by his vassals.
King Murchad lived a long life. In 1088, his wife Agnes died of heart failure at age 51, and he married Stella Carrick, a very minor Scottish noble, who bore him a third son, Ioseph.
In his later years, Murchad was often invited to coronations, traveling to Norway, Scotland, England, and even Sardinia. Everywhere, he used the opportunity to spread cultural tolerance. At the end of his life, Murchad turned to the idea of founding a holy order. To demonstrate his piety, he wanted to take a pilgrimage to Rome, but the road would have gone through France, which at that time was beset by an epidemic of smallpox. He settled for a pilgrimage to Cologne and finally founded the Teutonic Order in 1100, two years before his death, which came in May 1102. He was 75 years old and beloved by his vassals and people, who gave him the nickname "the Worthy".
Because of his father's long life, High King Brian II, son of Murchad, came to power at the advanced age of 54. His wife, the talented Queen Gisela, was by then 60, and they already had two adult children and one adolescent son. His brothers Lorcan and Iosef inherited the duchies of Lenster and Meath respectively; Murchad had created these duchies, where he didn't directly control any counties, specifically to be inherited by his younger sons, ensuring that the royal domain would not be diminished on succession.
Brian lacked the diplomatic talent of his father. He was raised as a soldier and a strategist. Ironically, though, he had no dreams of conquest. Instead, he continued his father's policies of maintaining good relations with his vassals.
At his coronation, he gave the vow to keep peace. However, like Murchad, he sought defensive alliances to safeguard himself against England, and soon his ally, Carinthia, called him to war to subjugate nearby Verona. While he was helping with that, his vassal, Duchess Elisabet of the Isles (the new name of the Sudreyiar), allied with England and attacked Norway, desiring three provinces along its northern coast. Norway by then was a shadow of its former self, and the provinces fell easily. This conquest allowed Brian to peacefully vassalize the Northern Isles, a petty kingdom that had broken away from Norway, with lands in northern Norway and northern Scotland. With the new lands, Brian inherited a long war with nearby tribes, which he quickly ended by offering the status quo.
Brian didn't plan to expand into Scandinavia, but the opportunity was too good to ignore. Norway continued falling apart. In 1108, Brian vassalized the duchy of Gulathingslog, which had also broken away from Norway and consisted of its westernmost lands. Norway ceased to exist shortly after.
Meanwhile, back in Ireland proper, the royal income fell because Brian now ruled the southeastern counties indirectly, through his brothers as dukes, rather than directly like in Murchad's time. To offset the loss of income, Brian built ports in his domain's castles and founded three cities in nearby baronies.
Brian II's reign was marked by frequent wars between his vassals. Duke Fionnghall of Galloway (which had broken apart from the Isles) attacked Elisabet and conquered the northwestern Scottish isles. Afraid to anger his vassals, Brian didn't increase crown authority.
He did eventually fulfill his vow to keep peace, and like his father, was invited to coronations later in his life. However, during the peaceful years, Brian built up his men at arms, realizing that levies were quickly becoming obsolete.
In 1110, Brian's ally, Duke Hermann II of Carinthia, died of illness at age 39. Unwilling to let go of the alliance, and with his first wife dead by then, 62-year-old Brian married Hermann's 40-year-old widow Hildegard. It was obvious to both spouses that this was a purely political marriage. Chance of new children was low, and indeed, they never had any.
In 1113, Brian was dragged into another ally's war: Duke Wolfram of Nordgau made a claim for the nearby county of Passau, part of the duchy of Bavaria. The 5000-strong Irish army marched through the continent, once again joining battles at the heart of the Holy Roman Empire. While that war was still raging, a new call to war arrived: Pope Victor III announced a crusade against the Grand Emirate of al-Sarq, which ruled about a third of the Iberian peninsula in the southwest.
Brian pledged himself to the crusade and barely got the time to finish the Nordgau war and disband his army to prepare it for the crusade. In July 1115, the crusade started, and Catholic armies began gathering in the Papal Estates to set sail for Spain. Brian sent only his 1800 men at arms, not arming the levies; a tiny portion of the total 57 thousand crusader soldiers against 13 thousand Muslims.
But on 12 June 1116, with his army still at sea, High King Brian II succumbed to fatal apoplexy at age 68. He was succeeded by his 35-year-old son Rian mac Brian, who would have to finish his father's participation in the crusade.
Rian inherited an Ireland that was about to engage in a crusade. His ascension almost caused a succession crisis, as Ireland had enough lands in Norway to declare the Kingdom of Norway, which would have been proclaimed and given to Rian's younger brother, Prince Eicnechan. However, feeling his death approaching, King Brian granted independence to the duchy of Gulathingslog, which was then absorbed by Sweden. The remaining Scandinavian lands, along the northern coast of Norway, were passed to Rian, while Eicnechan became his vassal, holding the duchy of Thraendalog.
Rian's first priorities were to boost his legitimacy and to direct his army in the crusade. The crusader armies soon reached Iberia and captured the island emirate of Mayurga, then proceeded to the mainland, where they engaged the armies of al-Sarq. Most of the other crusaders gave chase to enemy armies inland, even as enemy resistance got weaker and weaker, forgoing sieges. The small, but professional Irish army ended up capturing most of the coastal castles, ensuring a crusader victory in the war. Al-Sarq, which controlled almost a third of the Iberian territory, was renamed to the Kingdom of Valencia and given to Rian's relative, Dathal mac Ceithernach. Rian received a sizable portion of the spoils of war and was instantly catapulted to fame. The formation of Valencia also took Muslim pressure off fellow Christian kingdoms of Castille and Aragon.
Meanwhile, as the crusade went on, King Rian took care of his coronation. His father's last war and construction expenses had almost emptied the treasury, so Rian was forced to sell some unneeded court artifacts to fund a lavish coronation. It was so impressive that his uncles Lorcan and Ioseph, who had formed factions in support for their own claims to the Irish throne, dropped their claims and acknowledged Rian as their rightful king.
Rian next turned to matters of culture. Ever since northern Norway and the Northern Isles of Scotland came under the Irish crown, Ireland housed a sizable Norwegian minority. Thanks to Brian II and Rian's diplomatic efforts, they started intermingling with the native Irish, fostering cultural acceptance. Seeing an opportunity to overcome Ireland's lag in cultural development, Rian started supporting Norwegian specialists and sentiments that declared the two populations a single culture: Norelandic. Soon enough, this mingling of populations brought Ireland innovations from the more advanced Norwegian culture, including the fabled Norse huscarls, who formed the backbone of Rian's new army.
He also revoked the title of the Duchess of Ulster, who was caught fornicating. Now he had two rich duchies under his direct control. Ireland's economic foundation was secure.
And then, something happened that came to define the new direction of Irish foreign politics.
In 1122, the weak and diminishing Kingdom of Scotland, which had long been beset by civil wars, finally fell apart into the independent petty kingdoms of Moray, Albany, and Lothian. Rian immediately sent ambassadors to all three, offering vassalage; with some monetary gifts, the rulers accepted. Now both Ireland and Scotland were united under Rian's crown. By now Ireland had moved away from confederate partition, so, desiring to keep all his lands under one heir, Rian did not proclaim himself King of Scotland. The newly acquired Scottish land would simply be ruled under the crown of Ireland.
And now his ambitions lay beyond just Ireland and Scotland. He looked at England, with which so far Ireland has peacefully coexisted, and decided to unite all of the British Isles under one rule. England at that time was ruled by King Rayner, 33-year-old grandson of William the Conqueror, and its one-formidable military might was sapped. William's special corps were long gone, and England had no alliances to speak of. It was easy pickings.
But to wage war, Rian needed claims.
He started in 1126 by capturing the Earldom of Cumbraland, to which one of his knights had a claim. Then, in 1131, King Rayner was overthrown by a rebel faction that installed a claimant, King Adelard. Rian declared a war and captured the Earldom of Bernicia, to which his archbishop had fabricated a claim, and this allowed him to usurp the Duchy of Northumbria.
Thus began what came to be known as the partitioning of England.
With his army weakened, King Adelard soon found himself to be beset by invasions and civil wars. His ill-advised alliance with Sweden dragged him into wars against Ireland's vassals, which continued their conquests in Scandinavia.
But Rian had his own share of problems. He gave Northumbria to his 16-year-old middle son, Arni, but the Earl of Cumbraland began a war against Arni's tyranny. Arni was overthrown and replaced by Rian's first son Nikolaus, who took Arni as his marshal. Soon, poor Arni died in battle in a new war against tyranny. Northumbria went to Rian's third son Ketilmundr, who at last turned out to be a gentle ruler and did not anger his vassal.
In 1142, Rian conquered the final county of the Duchy of Northumbria for his younger son. Meanwhile, France started conquering the southern provinces of weakened England.
Then something happened that eased the task of absorbing England. In 1144, Swithelm, the Duke of Lancaster and Mercia, broke away from England in a populist rebellion and was immediately vassalized by Ireland. In 1145, Duke Odo led a rebellion and overthrew King Adelard, becoming the new king. Adelard became the independent earl of Lincolnshire, which Ireland also absorbed. This rendered England's armistice with Ireland void, and in 1149, Rian declared war on England for the Earldom of the West Riding.
The 70-year-old Irish king was now just two counties away from usurping the Kingdom of England. However, as he waged war with England, another matter demanded his attention. In 1151, Pope Marinus III called for a crusade against Batalyaws, a small kingdom in southwestern Iberia and one of the last Muslim footholds on the peninsula.
Quickly achieving victory over England, Rian led his armies resupply on Irish territory and immediately made them set sail to from England to Iberia. Thanks to the crusaders' overwhelming advantage in numbers, the crusade was once again successful, and one again, Ireland made the greatest contribution. Rian's nephew Flaithri mag Eichenhan was installed as the King of the new Christian kingdom of Badajoz. Valencia, meanwhile, by then had shrunk to a small petty kingdom, most of its territory conquered by the also-Christian Duchy of Cordoba.
In 1154, High King Rian died of heart failure at age 73. He was succeeded by his 33-year-old eldest son Nikolaus, a craven, but capable diplomat and scholar. Rian's acquisitions in Scotland and conquests in England paved way for Ireland's soon-to-be transformation into an empire.
Nikolaus was not expected to be a great king. For his cowardice, he received the nickname "the Timid". However, his detractors turned out to be wrong.
He began his reign, as usual, with a coronation, where he vowed to keep peace for five years. During his coronation, his wife Margrethe, who had become Queen of Denmark, asked him for military aid against a vassal rebellion led by her three sisters. Nikolaus obliged, securing a powerful ally.
Immediately after his coronation, he broke expectations by declaring war against England — or rather, the rump state that was left of England — for the Earldom of the East Riding, the last county of the Duchy of York still under English control. The war was a success, and Ireland now fully controlled York.
For five years, Nikolaus obeyed the truce with England, thus fulfilling his vow. In the meantime, Wales conquered Normandy from England, and Lotharingia, between France and the Holy Roman Empire, was strengthening itself. King Josselin Longshanks had begun a dynasty of conquerors in Lotharingia, achieving independence from the Holy Roman Empire, and now his son, King Rorgon, took Brittany and vassalized the Earldom of Hampshire, which had broken away from England. Now any would-be conqueror of the British Isles would have to deal with both France and Lotharingia.
During the five-year truce, Nikolaus had his archbishop Ognjen fabricade a claim to the Earldom of Oxfordshire, and immediately after the truce expired and he fulfilled his coronation vow to keep peace, he declared another war against England — and won it quickly. Oxfordshire was now Irish.
Now Nikolaus controlled enough of England's territory that he could proclaim himself King of England, and he did. The remaining English rump state broke into the duchies of Essex and East Anglia and the Earldom of Whitshire, which Ireland peacefully absorbed, and the earldoms of Maine and Wight, which were claimed by France and Lotharingia respectively. With his newfound territorial games, in 1165, 44-year-old Nikolaus proclaimed himself the emperor of a new empire that claimed the entirety of the British Isles, which he named Great Hibernia.
There was an obstacle, though. As an emperor, Nikolaus was expected to be anointed in Rome, but the 82-year-old Pope Marinus III refused to give his approval for the anoinment. A monetary gift changed his mind, and at the splendid coronation in Rome, the emperor and the pope became friends.
Nikolaus then turned his attention to conquering the rest of the British Isles. His first target was Wales, which was a strong independent kingdom since William the Conqueror's death, and was allied with Poland and Lotharingia. Nikolaus waited for an opportune moment when Lotharingia was at war. He found a claimant to the Welsh throne, Odo de Normandie, whom he married to a courtier of his to bring him to the Hibernian court, then invaded Wales on this claim in 1167. Odo was installed as the new King of Wales, now a vassal of Great Hibernia, and Stefen the Troublemaker, the previous king, became Duke of Gwynedd and was understandably angered at both his new lieges.
Meanwhile, France did something that complicated Nikolaus's plans to reclaim Britannia. Using the legend of the Heirs of Charlemagne, French king Philippe III claimed the Duchy of Kent in southeastern England as de jure territory of France. Now Great Hibernia couldn't press its de jure claim against Kent. Undeterred, Nikolaus forged a claim on the Earldom of Surrey, part of Kent, with the intent of waging war against France.
He was confident that he could beat France, but he didn't want to fight strong Lotharingia, which controlled two earldoms in England. To avoid a war with Lotharingia, he had his steward, Mayor Bodil, enter negotiations to hand the Earldom of Hampshire over to Great Hibernia — negotiations that ended up taking six years.
After conquering Wales in 1169, Nikolaus turned to internal affairs. He now ruled a multicultural realm consisting of Norelanders and Anglo-Saxons, as well as less populous cultures: Gaels, Scots, Norman-Welsh, Corns, and Norwegians. Norelanders and Anglo-Saxons had heavily intermixed and become friends over the years of Irish rule in England, so now Nikolaus annouced that the two peoples formed one joined culture: Hibernians. The new cultural identity quickly spread across Ireland, and Nikolaus hoped that in time it would take over England, too.
With the cultural change, the new Hibernian people now had a mix of Irish, Norwegian, and Anglo-Saxon names. The emperor and his family changed their names too. Nikolaus became Columb, and his eldest son, also Nikolaus, became Colman.
King Odo didn't rule Wales for long. In 1170, Duke Stefen started a rebellion against him, returned himself the Welsh throne (though now as a vassal of Great Hibernia), and, as an enemy of Emperor Columb, began a feud against the houses of Briain and his own house, Normandie-Cardigan. Columb could do nothing but accept this.
Wales hardly interested him in any case. In 1172, he began the first of his wars against France, for the Earldom of Surrey. France at that time was fighting Lotharingia, and the Hibernians never even met the French army in battle. After enough captured castles, the French king acquiesced to Columb's demands.
Lotharingia eventually peacefully ceded Hampshire to Great Hibernia, and in 1178, Columb began another war with France, this time for the Earldom of Sussex. The war was again a success, but the clashes between the Hibernian and French armies in Normandy started an apocalypse-level epidemic of smallpox that swept through Normandy, Brittany and southern England, laying waste to entire counties and killing Earl Skuli, the appointed new Hibernian earl of Hampshire. With the conquest of Sussex, Columb usurped the Duchy of Kent.
Finally, in 1183, Columb fought France in a war for the three remaining de jure territories: the earldoms of Maine, Dorset, and Kent. He quickly won this war too. Immediately after, Great Hibernia was dragged by one of its allies into a war in Italy, during which Lotharingia peacefully agreed to cede the last remaining foreign province in Britannia, the island earldom of Wight.
After finishing the war in Italy by 1187, Columb announced that his task was complete: Britannia was fully reclaimed and ruled by Celtic peoples. Hibernian national identity began to spread like wildfire, and Columb himself, once known as the Timid, now received a new moniker under which he went down in history: Emperor Columb the Tuatha De Danann.
Having reclaimed Britannia, Columb instituted deep reforms into his newly united empire. He did away with old feudal customs, instead adopting a centralized administration in the manner of the Byzantine Empire. The King of Wales became a viceroy, dukes became governors, and counts became magistrates. Instead of partitioning the realm between sons on succession, the empire would now hold elections for the next ruler.
In 1189, Pope Stephanus X the Honest called for another crusade, this time against the Grand Emirate of Africa. Great Hibernia answered the call and, once again, contributed the most to the war effort, earning the right to place Columb's nephew Suni mac Ketilmundr on the African throne. However, during the crusade, Columb suffered a personal tragedy.
In 1191, Columb's wife, Queen Margrethe of Denmark, died of old age. She was succeeded by her and Columb's second son, King Uilliam, who left the Hibernian court. Columb's first son Colman got three earldoms in Denmark and also left his father's court, which meant that by the newly drafted succession laws of Great Hibernia, he was ineligible for the imperial throne. Suddenly, Columb's heir became his 16-year-old grandson Eldmund, the second son of Columb's daughter Aedammair. Eldmund's education was neglected and he was not raised in diplomacy like the previous groomed heirs of House Briain. The elderly emperor, panicking, found him a wife with the best diplomacy skills he could find: Melisende, a lowborn woman who was the court jester of the duchess of the Northern Isles. She was, understandably, very excited to suddenly be elevated as the wife of the heir to the imperial throne.
Finally, in 1192, Emperor Columb, the greatest of House Briain, living legend and religious icon, died at age 71, passing the realm to the young Eldmund, whom nobody had foreseen as an emperor.
And that's all, folks! I'm now playing as Eldmund, but I don't see any more significant events happening in my remaining playthrough, for however long I end up playing, so I see no point in writing this up any further. It certainly was a wild ride!