Chapter 1: Long Live the Protector!
Hello Everyone! For those readers of my previous timeline, Into the Unseen Era, I’m sorry to report that I’m putting that on ice because Microsoft Word ate the entirety of my notes for the timeline. That basically broke whatever will I had to keep working on it as those notes contained effectively all of my research and plans. Instead of dwelling on the past however, I’ll be moving forward with a new project and using Google Docs this time to keep my stuff from vanishing into nothingness.
I hope you all can enjoy my new timeline, Going in the Name of God. I’m hoping to incorporate a story along with the timeline, an idea I had intended to eventually bring into Unseen Era, and I hope you all enjoy that as well!
===<(1)>===
Chapter 1: Long Live the Protector!
Truro, Hyperboreal WCR, Federation of Worker's Council Republics. Present Day.
In the third story of the headquarters of the Hyperboreal People’s Herald, Joseph Young listened to the radio with annoyance. The news broadcaster plodded on in sonorous syllables telling of the resignation of the local Party Chairman, Donald Osborn. While Young was privately quite happy with Osborn’s resignation, the propaganda-filled broadcast was not to Young’s taste. When one professionally wrote such pieces for the entirety of one’s career, no amount of Revolutionary zeal could make Party slogans or jargon-filled statements appealing.
The problem only worsened when one’s zeal was burnt out, as Young’s thoroughly was. Regardless, he resisted the urge to turn off the radio. The FWCR was no longer as bad as it had been during his childhood when the “Rekindling Campaign” would see Red Guards beat, arrest, or even murder people for the crime of being insufficiently enthused about the Revolution; nevertheless it was not quite wise to provide an opening for the busybodies to begin snooping into his actions. Such types might find a reason to report him to the Popular Guard, whether real or imagined, and it would only be a lucky coincidence that it would also be a benefit to their career.
Shaking his head, Young focused on the article in front of him. He was almost finished with today’s work as one of the HPH’s editors, and with a few strokes of a pen he made his last corrections to the article. Reading it once more, now with corrections properly noted and nodding his approval, Young pulled out a stamp and slapped it down on the paper. In bright sea-green ink, the words APPROVED BY JOSEPH LONG-LIVE-THE-WORKER'S-REVOLUTION YOUNG 14/11/95 stood out on the thick, pulpy paper.
Young scowled upon seeing his ridiculous middle name. It was the kind of thing that only a true dyed-in-the-wool Revolutionary zealot could give to a child. In his heart Young had never forgiven his father for giving it to him, and even though he now played the part of an otherwise well-accepted and quite properly orthodox Fordist, Young still found ways to explore his own personal counter-Revolutionary beliefs. Currently this manifested in a thoroughly improper interest in pre-twentieth century history.
Glancing at the clock, Young swore. This was no time for self-pity or moping, he needed to get to the University soon if he wished to hear a lecture on Louis XIV’s France. It was one which Young had been eagerly waiting to hear for weeks, and he wasn’t about to let his service to the State get in the way of his hobby. Snatching several other papers, all with identical sea-green stamps, Young dashed out of his office and down the hall before whipping into another office. Much to his further annoyance, the resident of said office was seated at his desk.
George Weiss, the HPH’s Censor, looked up at Young. “You could knock, Editor.” Weiss said, his pinched, close-set eyes glaring daggers through Young from behind round, wire-frame glasses. Young didn’t particularly worry about such trivialities however; the hatred Weiss had for him was mutual.
“Sorry about that Snips. Just wanted to get these to you as quick as possible.” Young said before setting down papers on his desk.
“You can also drop that idiotic nickname.” Weiss growled. “I am a member of the Standing Committee for Prevention of Dissemination of Misinformation and Counter-Revolutionary Sentiment. I believe I deserve some respect from you.”
Young bit his tongue and gave a noncommittal gesture before walking out of Weiss’ office. He had never met a more pathetic individual than Weiss even among all the Party hacks Young had the lack of fortune to meet. It took a truly wizened soul to be able to say the full names of the various committees and bureaucratic institutions of the FWCR in full seriousness. To then demand respect for being a member of one of the useless paper-pushing creations required a total lack of self-awareness.
But that was enough thought to Weiss, the Party, the Revolution, his job, all of that flotsam of modern life. Young had a lecture to attend, and yet another chapter of human history to escape the horrors of modernity in. And nothing was going to get in the way of that.
Excerpt from The Last Kings of England: A Brief History of the Protectorate by Neil Coldwell.
Published 2064. Banned in the FWCR 2064.
When Oliver Cromwell fell ill in August of 1658, some around the Protector were afraid he was moribund. George Fox, visiting the Protector in Hampton Court, would remark that “Before I came to him, I saw and felt a waft of death go forth against him, and when I came to him he looked like a dead man.” This was in ironical contrast to the state of the Protectorate itself which, by the estimation of both internal and external observation, was in a stronger position than it ever had been. The pretender Charles II had abandoned any serious prospect of seizing control of England by force and resorted to petty plans of assassination to oust the “mechanic fellow” of Cromwell.
When the Protector’s illness took a serious downward turn on the night of September 2nd-3rd, the titan who so held the British Isles in his ironclad grasp seemed to be finished and a fever would do what the best offers of the exilic King could not. But Fate weaves her lines in strange ways, and as the sun rose on the 3rd, Cromwell’s fever would break. Weakened as he was, the Protector would remain alive.[1]
It shouldn’t be presumed that the Protectorate remained the same as the 1650s came to a close; Cromwell’s health had already been in decline and while the Protector would gain a sort of second-wind following his brush with death, the Protector never fully regained the vigor of his days of the Civil War. In truth, the strong and domineering nature of the earlier Protectorate wasn’t entirely necessary during this period; most of the significant military opposition to Cromwell had been ousted and the pro-Cromwell faction of the Protectorate Parliament was strengthened by the elections that December.
Even the perennial problem of finances which the Commonwealth had long struggled with would improve the following year as the Treaty of the Pyrenees, of which the Commonwealth was one of the three negotiating parties alongside France and Spain, [2] finally brought peace to the Commonwealth. This peace allowed for the extremely high military spending to be lowered, and the Commonwealth to finally be in the black once more. England’s gains certainly did not make matters worse either, as the Commonwealth was ceded the town of Dunkirk from the Spanish Netherlands, and several territories in the Caribbean including Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. The final Spanish concession to the Commonwealth was initially the least financially useful, but the most prestigious in the eyes of the English people; a slice of the northeast coast of Hispanolia that would be dubbed Drakia in honor of the explorer-admiral Francis Drake. The population of the Hispanolian northeast was still recovering from the Devastations of Osorio a half-century earlier, so while the new colony was initially largely an on-paper construction, the native Espanolphone population was relatively easily drowned in the subsequent waves of immigration which saw Drakia firmly secured in the hands of the Commonwealth by the 18th century.
With peace abroad and internally, the Protector would turn to internal matters that had long been considered but neglected due to the pressing external issues. Parliament would once again issue an offer of the Crown to Cromwell in June of 1659, which Cromwell would once more turn down. A third and final Constitution would be adopted in 1660, the Basic Statutes of the Commonwealth, which walked back a few of the additional powers the Protector had gained under the Humble Petition and Advice. This was largely thanks to the growing strength of the Parliament over the Protector that came as a consequence of Cromwell’s perpetually-ill health. Most notably, the Protector’s right to appoint his successor was eliminated; many historians believe that this reform may have saved the Protectorate as it prevented Cromwell’s incapable son Richard, his chosen successor, from succeeding him.
Despite losing power, the Protector was able to see several reforms of English law passed which spoke to a slightly different personage than the cold brutal dictator his early reign is often remembered as. The abolition of the death penalty, excepting in the case of murder, was reinforced (something unfortunately abandoned by future regimes), court fees and fines were once more lowered, and the partial system of public schools already implemented was transformed into a more substantial system. Most curiously of all, at least by modern historiography, several of the religious prescriptions were relaxed and freedom of religion was mostly guaranteed. Cromwell had, despite heading a quasi-theocratic government and being a member of a fire-eating sect, believed quite heavily in personal freedom of religion for all Christians barring only Catholics. While this policy did alienate some hardline Puritans, prompting an uptick in immigration to New England, it dramatically improved the regime’s relations with the less pious elements of the Commonwealth, and those dissenters who were still grumbling under the religious policies of the regime.
In the reforms passed in 1659-1660 by the Protector and Parliament, one matter would prove far more destructive than the rest: the matter of Ireland. As a bone to the religious hardliners, a previously rejected policy saw all Catholic Irish, not just landowner Catholics, ordered expelled from Ireland east of the River Shannon. This policy was unrealistic and dramatically de-stabilized Ireland. Cromwell’s son, Henry Cromwell, the current Lord Deputy of Ireland recognized the looming trouble and repeatedly attempted to stall the implementation of the eastern Expulsion.
Henry Cromwell would hold on to the reigns of Ireland until January, 1662, when he was replaced by his predecessor, Charles Fleetwood. Fleetwood’s previous removal from power seven years prior due to his ineffective radicalism was forgotten as Fleetwood carried out the Expulsion policy with vigor. Through 1662, approximately a quarter-of-a-million Irish Catholics were expelled from the east, and at least eighty thousand more were deported as indentured servants overseas. The flux of Irish indentured servants to the New World was so heavy that the importation of African or Indian slaves was out-right banned, with the demand being totally replaced by Irish indentures.
The first rumbles of restlessness in Ireland would not come from the Catholic population, but the local moderate Presbyterian population. When Fleetwood was first removed from office, it largely was due to his policies which also oppressed the Presbyterians, and his second tenure saw a resumption of those policies. This time however, Parliament did not respond favorably to the Presbyterian petition to oust Fleetwood for a second time. Protests in King’s County would violently escalate out of control in late 1662, accumulating in the Tullamore Massacre where fourteen protesting Presbyterians were gunned down.
Horrified by the Massacre, and fearing that they may be the next target for Expulsion, swathes of the Presbyterian population in Ireland unfurled the old banners of rebellion and rose up. This revolt escalated rapidly as Catholics under the leadership of John Skerrett rose up as well. The Presbyterians and Catholics soon forged an alliance dubbed in retrospect “the Irish League.” This uprising overwhelmed the forces of Lord Deputy Fleetwood across most of Ireland; within only a few months, Fleetwood only remained in command of the old Pale and little else.
General George Monck and most of the garrison in Scotland would be transferred over to Ireland in 1663, with Monck replacing Fleetwood as Lord Deputy of Ireland. Monck and his reinforcements arrived with no time to spare as a League army was marching on Dublin upon his arrival. On May 11th, the Battle of Dublin (actually fought twenty-three miles outside of the city) would see the Protectorate forces halt the advance of the League, but with perilously little room for retreat or maneuver. Morale among the Protectorate soldiers remained high however, with Monck writing that the sentiment among his soldiers was that “Dublin is behind us, we need not to worry about matters other than to advance!”
This overly optimistic view of the fight against the League quickly crumbled however. Irish satyrs [3] proved to be far more than a thorn in the side compared to previous engagements, with the satyric conflict coming to be known as the “War of the Knife.” This resistance on top of the conflict between the soldiers of the League led to the Protectorate being bogged down in trying to enforce control outside of the Pale. Catholic villages and settlements were regularly razed by Protectorate forces in a pogromic campaign that only further drove the Catholic population to satyric resistance.
Monck’s campaigns of 1663 and early 1664 would successfully smash the organized revolt of the League; Protectorate soldiers were dramatically assisted by a split between Presbyterians and Catholics as the War of the Knife saw Catholic satyrs frequently attack Commonwealth loyalists and Presbyterians indiscriminately. Despite this, Commonwealth control of Ireland was entirely ephemeral and highly unstable. While most Presbyterians were able to be re-integrated under the more moderate rule of Monck, over half of Ireland remained the domain of garrison-towns and satyr warlords. All thoughts of continuing the Expulsions were abandoned under Monck, however pogromic violence continued to be the policy of the day during this period.
Nevertheless, the fighting in Ireland was only about to resume as on August 15th, several ships sailed into Limerick. The local Protectorate garrison, already almost annihilated by satyr attacks, would abandon the city without a fight. Seven thousand soldiers would seize control of the city in the name of Charles II. And above the tower of King John’s Castle of Limerick’s King’s Island, the banner of the Duke of York flew proudly. Duke James, the brother of the claimant King, had come to Ireland at the head of an exilic Irish and Spanish army with perfect timing to dramatically escalate the war in Ireland.
[1] Our POD. IOTL, this fever killed Oliver Cromwell.
[2] IOTL England was excluded from the negotiations due to Cromwell’s death and the subsequent chaos.
[3] Guerilla soldiers. The term is being used anachronistically, it won’t be coined ITTL until the 18th century.
I hope you all can enjoy my new timeline, Going in the Name of God. I’m hoping to incorporate a story along with the timeline, an idea I had intended to eventually bring into Unseen Era, and I hope you all enjoy that as well!
===<(1)>===
Chapter 1: Long Live the Protector!
Truro, Hyperboreal WCR, Federation of Worker's Council Republics. Present Day.
In the third story of the headquarters of the Hyperboreal People’s Herald, Joseph Young listened to the radio with annoyance. The news broadcaster plodded on in sonorous syllables telling of the resignation of the local Party Chairman, Donald Osborn. While Young was privately quite happy with Osborn’s resignation, the propaganda-filled broadcast was not to Young’s taste. When one professionally wrote such pieces for the entirety of one’s career, no amount of Revolutionary zeal could make Party slogans or jargon-filled statements appealing.
The problem only worsened when one’s zeal was burnt out, as Young’s thoroughly was. Regardless, he resisted the urge to turn off the radio. The FWCR was no longer as bad as it had been during his childhood when the “Rekindling Campaign” would see Red Guards beat, arrest, or even murder people for the crime of being insufficiently enthused about the Revolution; nevertheless it was not quite wise to provide an opening for the busybodies to begin snooping into his actions. Such types might find a reason to report him to the Popular Guard, whether real or imagined, and it would only be a lucky coincidence that it would also be a benefit to their career.
Shaking his head, Young focused on the article in front of him. He was almost finished with today’s work as one of the HPH’s editors, and with a few strokes of a pen he made his last corrections to the article. Reading it once more, now with corrections properly noted and nodding his approval, Young pulled out a stamp and slapped it down on the paper. In bright sea-green ink, the words APPROVED BY JOSEPH LONG-LIVE-THE-WORKER'S-REVOLUTION YOUNG 14/11/95 stood out on the thick, pulpy paper.
Young scowled upon seeing his ridiculous middle name. It was the kind of thing that only a true dyed-in-the-wool Revolutionary zealot could give to a child. In his heart Young had never forgiven his father for giving it to him, and even though he now played the part of an otherwise well-accepted and quite properly orthodox Fordist, Young still found ways to explore his own personal counter-Revolutionary beliefs. Currently this manifested in a thoroughly improper interest in pre-twentieth century history.
Glancing at the clock, Young swore. This was no time for self-pity or moping, he needed to get to the University soon if he wished to hear a lecture on Louis XIV’s France. It was one which Young had been eagerly waiting to hear for weeks, and he wasn’t about to let his service to the State get in the way of his hobby. Snatching several other papers, all with identical sea-green stamps, Young dashed out of his office and down the hall before whipping into another office. Much to his further annoyance, the resident of said office was seated at his desk.
George Weiss, the HPH’s Censor, looked up at Young. “You could knock, Editor.” Weiss said, his pinched, close-set eyes glaring daggers through Young from behind round, wire-frame glasses. Young didn’t particularly worry about such trivialities however; the hatred Weiss had for him was mutual.
“Sorry about that Snips. Just wanted to get these to you as quick as possible.” Young said before setting down papers on his desk.
“You can also drop that idiotic nickname.” Weiss growled. “I am a member of the Standing Committee for Prevention of Dissemination of Misinformation and Counter-Revolutionary Sentiment. I believe I deserve some respect from you.”
Young bit his tongue and gave a noncommittal gesture before walking out of Weiss’ office. He had never met a more pathetic individual than Weiss even among all the Party hacks Young had the lack of fortune to meet. It took a truly wizened soul to be able to say the full names of the various committees and bureaucratic institutions of the FWCR in full seriousness. To then demand respect for being a member of one of the useless paper-pushing creations required a total lack of self-awareness.
But that was enough thought to Weiss, the Party, the Revolution, his job, all of that flotsam of modern life. Young had a lecture to attend, and yet another chapter of human history to escape the horrors of modernity in. And nothing was going to get in the way of that.
Excerpt from The Last Kings of England: A Brief History of the Protectorate by Neil Coldwell.
Published 2064. Banned in the FWCR 2064.
When Oliver Cromwell fell ill in August of 1658, some around the Protector were afraid he was moribund. George Fox, visiting the Protector in Hampton Court, would remark that “Before I came to him, I saw and felt a waft of death go forth against him, and when I came to him he looked like a dead man.” This was in ironical contrast to the state of the Protectorate itself which, by the estimation of both internal and external observation, was in a stronger position than it ever had been. The pretender Charles II had abandoned any serious prospect of seizing control of England by force and resorted to petty plans of assassination to oust the “mechanic fellow” of Cromwell.
When the Protector’s illness took a serious downward turn on the night of September 2nd-3rd, the titan who so held the British Isles in his ironclad grasp seemed to be finished and a fever would do what the best offers of the exilic King could not. But Fate weaves her lines in strange ways, and as the sun rose on the 3rd, Cromwell’s fever would break. Weakened as he was, the Protector would remain alive.[1]
It shouldn’t be presumed that the Protectorate remained the same as the 1650s came to a close; Cromwell’s health had already been in decline and while the Protector would gain a sort of second-wind following his brush with death, the Protector never fully regained the vigor of his days of the Civil War. In truth, the strong and domineering nature of the earlier Protectorate wasn’t entirely necessary during this period; most of the significant military opposition to Cromwell had been ousted and the pro-Cromwell faction of the Protectorate Parliament was strengthened by the elections that December.
Even the perennial problem of finances which the Commonwealth had long struggled with would improve the following year as the Treaty of the Pyrenees, of which the Commonwealth was one of the three negotiating parties alongside France and Spain, [2] finally brought peace to the Commonwealth. This peace allowed for the extremely high military spending to be lowered, and the Commonwealth to finally be in the black once more. England’s gains certainly did not make matters worse either, as the Commonwealth was ceded the town of Dunkirk from the Spanish Netherlands, and several territories in the Caribbean including Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. The final Spanish concession to the Commonwealth was initially the least financially useful, but the most prestigious in the eyes of the English people; a slice of the northeast coast of Hispanolia that would be dubbed Drakia in honor of the explorer-admiral Francis Drake. The population of the Hispanolian northeast was still recovering from the Devastations of Osorio a half-century earlier, so while the new colony was initially largely an on-paper construction, the native Espanolphone population was relatively easily drowned in the subsequent waves of immigration which saw Drakia firmly secured in the hands of the Commonwealth by the 18th century.
With peace abroad and internally, the Protector would turn to internal matters that had long been considered but neglected due to the pressing external issues. Parliament would once again issue an offer of the Crown to Cromwell in June of 1659, which Cromwell would once more turn down. A third and final Constitution would be adopted in 1660, the Basic Statutes of the Commonwealth, which walked back a few of the additional powers the Protector had gained under the Humble Petition and Advice. This was largely thanks to the growing strength of the Parliament over the Protector that came as a consequence of Cromwell’s perpetually-ill health. Most notably, the Protector’s right to appoint his successor was eliminated; many historians believe that this reform may have saved the Protectorate as it prevented Cromwell’s incapable son Richard, his chosen successor, from succeeding him.
Despite losing power, the Protector was able to see several reforms of English law passed which spoke to a slightly different personage than the cold brutal dictator his early reign is often remembered as. The abolition of the death penalty, excepting in the case of murder, was reinforced (something unfortunately abandoned by future regimes), court fees and fines were once more lowered, and the partial system of public schools already implemented was transformed into a more substantial system. Most curiously of all, at least by modern historiography, several of the religious prescriptions were relaxed and freedom of religion was mostly guaranteed. Cromwell had, despite heading a quasi-theocratic government and being a member of a fire-eating sect, believed quite heavily in personal freedom of religion for all Christians barring only Catholics. While this policy did alienate some hardline Puritans, prompting an uptick in immigration to New England, it dramatically improved the regime’s relations with the less pious elements of the Commonwealth, and those dissenters who were still grumbling under the religious policies of the regime.
In the reforms passed in 1659-1660 by the Protector and Parliament, one matter would prove far more destructive than the rest: the matter of Ireland. As a bone to the religious hardliners, a previously rejected policy saw all Catholic Irish, not just landowner Catholics, ordered expelled from Ireland east of the River Shannon. This policy was unrealistic and dramatically de-stabilized Ireland. Cromwell’s son, Henry Cromwell, the current Lord Deputy of Ireland recognized the looming trouble and repeatedly attempted to stall the implementation of the eastern Expulsion.
Henry Cromwell would hold on to the reigns of Ireland until January, 1662, when he was replaced by his predecessor, Charles Fleetwood. Fleetwood’s previous removal from power seven years prior due to his ineffective radicalism was forgotten as Fleetwood carried out the Expulsion policy with vigor. Through 1662, approximately a quarter-of-a-million Irish Catholics were expelled from the east, and at least eighty thousand more were deported as indentured servants overseas. The flux of Irish indentured servants to the New World was so heavy that the importation of African or Indian slaves was out-right banned, with the demand being totally replaced by Irish indentures.
The first rumbles of restlessness in Ireland would not come from the Catholic population, but the local moderate Presbyterian population. When Fleetwood was first removed from office, it largely was due to his policies which also oppressed the Presbyterians, and his second tenure saw a resumption of those policies. This time however, Parliament did not respond favorably to the Presbyterian petition to oust Fleetwood for a second time. Protests in King’s County would violently escalate out of control in late 1662, accumulating in the Tullamore Massacre where fourteen protesting Presbyterians were gunned down.
Horrified by the Massacre, and fearing that they may be the next target for Expulsion, swathes of the Presbyterian population in Ireland unfurled the old banners of rebellion and rose up. This revolt escalated rapidly as Catholics under the leadership of John Skerrett rose up as well. The Presbyterians and Catholics soon forged an alliance dubbed in retrospect “the Irish League.” This uprising overwhelmed the forces of Lord Deputy Fleetwood across most of Ireland; within only a few months, Fleetwood only remained in command of the old Pale and little else.
General George Monck and most of the garrison in Scotland would be transferred over to Ireland in 1663, with Monck replacing Fleetwood as Lord Deputy of Ireland. Monck and his reinforcements arrived with no time to spare as a League army was marching on Dublin upon his arrival. On May 11th, the Battle of Dublin (actually fought twenty-three miles outside of the city) would see the Protectorate forces halt the advance of the League, but with perilously little room for retreat or maneuver. Morale among the Protectorate soldiers remained high however, with Monck writing that the sentiment among his soldiers was that “Dublin is behind us, we need not to worry about matters other than to advance!”
This overly optimistic view of the fight against the League quickly crumbled however. Irish satyrs [3] proved to be far more than a thorn in the side compared to previous engagements, with the satyric conflict coming to be known as the “War of the Knife.” This resistance on top of the conflict between the soldiers of the League led to the Protectorate being bogged down in trying to enforce control outside of the Pale. Catholic villages and settlements were regularly razed by Protectorate forces in a pogromic campaign that only further drove the Catholic population to satyric resistance.
Monck’s campaigns of 1663 and early 1664 would successfully smash the organized revolt of the League; Protectorate soldiers were dramatically assisted by a split between Presbyterians and Catholics as the War of the Knife saw Catholic satyrs frequently attack Commonwealth loyalists and Presbyterians indiscriminately. Despite this, Commonwealth control of Ireland was entirely ephemeral and highly unstable. While most Presbyterians were able to be re-integrated under the more moderate rule of Monck, over half of Ireland remained the domain of garrison-towns and satyr warlords. All thoughts of continuing the Expulsions were abandoned under Monck, however pogromic violence continued to be the policy of the day during this period.
Nevertheless, the fighting in Ireland was only about to resume as on August 15th, several ships sailed into Limerick. The local Protectorate garrison, already almost annihilated by satyr attacks, would abandon the city without a fight. Seven thousand soldiers would seize control of the city in the name of Charles II. And above the tower of King John’s Castle of Limerick’s King’s Island, the banner of the Duke of York flew proudly. Duke James, the brother of the claimant King, had come to Ireland at the head of an exilic Irish and Spanish army with perfect timing to dramatically escalate the war in Ireland.
[1] Our POD. IOTL, this fever killed Oliver Cromwell.
[2] IOTL England was excluded from the negotiations due to Cromwell’s death and the subsequent chaos.
[3] Guerilla soldiers. The term is being used anachronistically, it won’t be coined ITTL until the 18th century.
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