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Electing an Emperor

Elben

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The New Palace
Eschenbach, Elben


The final preparations were underway for the king and his entourage to travel to Chagny. There, they would take part in historic happenings: the election and elevation of a new emperor in the North. Karl Maria stood in his study looking at a large globe. It was several centuries old. He slowly rotated the sphere, noting some parts that were "unknown" and other parts that bore names now relegated to history. One of them, in Gallogermania, was that of the Holy Tiburan Empire.

"A name retrieved from where it was put aside."

"What's that, sire?" Count von Schlabrendorff was across the room, having just finished drafting some documents. The nobleman's place as foreign minister had been made obsolete by recent appointment of a new imperial minster by those temporarily overseeing the empire in its embryonic stage. But he had a new job, taking over as chancellor of the kingdom of Elben.

"Oh, just thinking. It is not often one is at the center of history, even when one is a king."

The count nodded as he studied his master. There's certainly been a change in him since this imperial business began. Coming over, he bowed deeply and said aloud, "May you have a safe journey, Majesty. God be with you and all your fellow electors."

Karl Maria smiled confidently and then departed the room.

@Gunnland
 

Gunnland

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The queen stepped into the railcar, where the Archbishop Woodstone was already sitting, an amaranth subbirettum on his large, close-shaven head. Julian glanced at it as he made a slight bow, and lifted his head with a broad smile.

"I should have a red one by now, Your Majesty. Doffing to the prelates of Elben and Bourgogne...!"
"I do not pity you, Your Grace. Remember, I shall have to bow for the first time in my life, and to an Elbener!"
They both chuckled. Julian was pleased by the Elbeners' patience in the Bourgogne situation; they lacked the hot temper of the Gunnish. Although Gunnland was still mobilizing for war, Julian secretly hoped that the Pax Germanica conference would be fruitful, and she could return to Weissenfels and her studies at the Robert Koch Universität in the autumn. She missed her friend and longtime confidant Maddie, and sometimes regretted securing her a promotion to imperial ambassador to Ivar.

Karl Maria was the favorite to win the imperial election, since he controlled two votes, and was presumed to have the support of the cardinal-archbishop of Eschenbach, Von Eberstein, and the cardinal-archbishop Chagny, Simon Donnet. Four of seven. The wily old Donnet had been dean of the college of cardinals at the election of John XXIII, so one could only infer... But the only Gunnishman at that conclave, Henry Cardinal Stewart, had been dead almost a year.

And then there was the last voter, and the most colorful. Prince Dalmar was the taboo subject that was not mentioned in the royal traincar headed to Chagny. Archbishop Woodstone had annulled Countess Mary's marriage to allow the match to take place, but his hand had been forced, and the idea of a Nethian Muslim as the highest-ranking Gunnish nobleman was still a shock to the people, and not only the people...
 

Elben

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Chagny

The great chamber where the election was to take place had been properly outfitted for the event. It had been a great hall of the old emperors and then the grand dukes of Bourgogne. Tapestries hung against the walls with great windows in between allowing in the Gallian summer light. In these modern times, the chamber and its appointments had been swept by several different intelligence agencies for all manner of surveillance devices and been declared clean.

Once that had been done, the ceremonies had begun, starting with a procession of all involved in their robes of state headed by the senior members of the clergy surrounded by acolytes bearing a great crucifix and lesser clerics incensing all in their path. The chamber and all taking part in the proceedings had been properly blessed and then the electors had taken their places and gotten down to business. Unlike a papal conclave with oaths of secrecy and smoke signals, the assembled were far more at ease in this secular setting.

At the head sat Donnet by virtue of being the oldest man in the room along with his office of archbishop of Chagny. "Eminences," he nodded to his young colleagues von Ebenstein and Woodstone, "Majesties," a nod to Karl Maria and the queen, "Your Grace." Dalmar got a nod as well, not as low or as respectful, but courteous enough. "Let us begin."

OOC: I don't remember if Woodstone was elevated at the last consistory or not.
 

Gunnland

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A bishop could not become an emperor, and he was not going to vote for a Moslem. Edmund's expectation was that everyone would vote for their liege lords, though he looked a little suspiciously at Prince Dalmar. Would he vote for Julian? And he remembered the rumors from Coemgein Gallagher at the last conclave about Simon Cadinal Donnet. Would he vote for Karl Maria? Or Mireille? It had crossed his mind that Mireille might become empress, with the king of Elben only an imperial consort.

"I vote for Julian, queen of the Gunnish, to take the purple. Though young, she is the longest-reigning sovereign among the candidates. She has come around to the idea, I believe, that a sensible imperial marriage could secure the Empire a valuable ally."

The archbishop sat down.

OOC: I'm under the assumption that the Archbishop of Windhaven has not yet been named a cardinal, and that the Gunnish are bristling at the fact that we have zero cardinals, while we should have three, like Eiffelland. Perhaps John XXIII will surprise him at the coronation.
 

Azraq

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Sat in the palatial halls surrounded by the portraits of past Burgundian Grand Dukes and Holy Tiburan Emperors, Prince Dalmar remembered why he had left Himyar for the northern reaches of Gallo-Germania, to lands considered barbaric even today by many Azraqis.

Sat by the Prince were bishops of a Church thousands of years older than his own country, and royals who could trace their lineages almost as far back. The Dawamalian dynasties who shared the Ivory Throne could boast no such pedigree: most were prominent merchant families who had grown wealthy and powerful selling spices, slaves and silk to white men at the birth of the modern world - Dalmar's own relatives included.

Dalmar was here not to muse over history however but to make it. The men gathered - and it was mostly men - were to elect a new Emperor for the restored Northern Tiburan Empire. Kadikistani expansionism in the Three Seas region and more recently Engellexic aggression in former Burgundy had spurred the Catholic kingdoms into recreating a historical power.

Partly by design but mostly by luck Dalmar now had a seat at the highest table in this emerging imperium. To his peers around him, it was clearly a shock - and not a good one. The elector, and potential candidate, who was also in line for the Azraqi Ivory Throne, was afforded only the most basic courtesies, despite his nominal prestige and potential clout. On one level the Azraqi noble understood why: he was a Nethian Hajari Muslim, of an alien faith and traditions to the majority of the peoples who inhabited the lands his title laid claimed to. The fact his wife, Countess MacLeod (Molly to him and her close friends), was considered a bigamist by many for divorcing her ex-husband and marrying him instead didn't help either.

Yet if man had been content with sticking with his fellow own there would have been no progress. Parochialism would not save the Gunns, Elbeners and Burgundians from Communism, the Engellkin, libertinism and other assorted evils the reformed Holy Tiburan Empire would no doubt face. A more cosmopolitan, forward-thinking sovereign however might.
 

Elben

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Mireille looked around at those present. Oddly enough, she was the only representative of a Gallian noble house present. Though the king of Elben had inherited the grand duchy through its own ties, her own house's claims were just as strong in the opinion of her family's genealogists. Sex had more to do with it than anything else.

Now though there was a chance... When the marriage had been arranged, her mother had hoped and dreamed that an attachment to a house with an actual throne would lead to greater things and what could be greater than an imperial throne?

Mireille though looked at Karl Maria and felt a tug of loyalty to the house into which she had married. There was a chance... She looked around at the other electors and waited to see how it would play out.

As the Serenien had been contemplating all this, Cardinal von Ebenstein of Eschenbach had been declaiming on the worth of his king. "All this is why I as archbishop and primate of Elben vote for His Majesty King Karl Maria."
 

Elben

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Donnet wasn't going to cast his vote for any of the Gunnish candidates. The Serenien woman was Gallian, but... The family feud between the grand dukes and the Trier branch of the Serenien royal house would not easily be forgotten. The aged cardinal turned his gaze from Mireille to Karl Maria and said, "Another vote for the king of Elben." He nodded to von Ebenstein to express his solidarity with his fellow prince of the Church.

Mireille watched and listened as the old man voted and her eyes closed briefly, her hopes dashed. It was doubtful there were any votes to be had from Julian or the Azraqi. Karl Maria wasn't going to vote for anyone but himself. The Serenien thought then of her son who would one day be Elben's king and would eventually sit at this table. Yes, I must think of my son...

"And another for Karl Maria."

Karl Maria kept his cool as Donnet intoned, "Three votes for His Majesty. One for Her Majesty."

All eyes turned to Dalmar. Karl Maria could end the voting, but it seemed by unspoken agreement all had decided to save the royal persons from having to speak for themselves.
 

Azraq

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It was clear now that the vote had come down to between Queen Julian of Gunnland and King Friedrich Maria of Elben, as many had predicted. As he stood to speak, dressed in the more understated garb of Gunnish nobles rather than the outrageous patterns of Azraqi royalty, Prince Dalmar knew he only had one choice if his marriage to the Countess MacLeod was ever going to mean anything.

"I too vote for Julian, queen of the Gunnish, to take the purple. While agreeing she is young, she is - as mentioned - the longest-reigning sovereign among the candidates. If she has come around to the idea that a sensible imperial marriage could secure the Empire a valuable ally then all the better."
 

Elben

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He knew his doing so would leave a bad taste. Kings casting a vote for themselves... Of course, Karl Maria knew his history, knew that in centuries past, thrones were bought and sold and killed for. That he should cast a simple vote for himself in order to secure an imperial throne was harmless compared to everything else. But still...

"Another for the king of Elben."

Donnet nodded and looked around the table. "That is four votes." The words that followed rolled off his tongue by instinct. "Habemus Caesar, we have an emperor."
 
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Gunnland

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Julian had been about to vote for Karl Maria, seeing the handwriting on the wall, but thought she should let Dalmar vote first, and then things had happened rather quickly. But she was the first to stand, even before the eyes of the room turned to her, and kneel before Karl Maria so that he took her small hands in his folded hands.

"Allow me to be the first to congratulate your imperial majesty, Carolus Maria, and pledge my kingdom and its subjects to your service. Vivat imperator in aeternam."
 
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