The Princeling’s Revolt is a name given to the revolt by the former King of Estion, King Khomandar II.

Khomandar’s father, King Aethalmenis III was the last reigning absolute monarch of Estion. His predecessor, King Aethalmenis II (Khomandar’s great-uncle) had managed to wrest power from the Barons and parliament early in his reign.

He purged the nobility and parliament, creating a puppet parliament that existed only to pass his laws and decrees.

Both kings were widely unpopular, but using their personal wealth and the taxes of the state, had managed to maintain control by hiring several mercenary companies that would rival even the armies of the Barons.

Despite their unpopularity, the threat of the king’s mercenaries breaking into your house at night to kidnap, murder, torture or disappear you and your entire family and anyone who’d ever sold you a pint kept the people in line, and heavy taxation on the Barons limited their ability to maintain standing armies of their own to rival the king’s mercenaries.

Wealth poured into the royal coffers, and out of the hands of the Barons for the first time in three centuries.

But as King Aethalmenis III aged, his sanity waned. In his later years he became known as King Aethalmenis the Mad, or King Goat-Fucker (he had developed an unfortunate proclivity for non-consenting ungulates).

The money slowly dried up, as years of heavy taxation on the Barons, and the people, had worn on them, and droughts and famines wrecked the crop yield and economy.

The people were starving, and could not afford food, let alone the taxes they were required to pay semi-annually, or on all of their purchases. The Barons were angry, and had had enough of being told to dance at the whim of a mad king.

The Barons and the people rose up, but when faced with the choice to protect his father and the Crown or join the Barons, Crown Prince Khomandar joined with the rebellion. To this day, no one is certain why, but it has been credited by several historians to have been what saved the Crown at all in Estion.

Khomandar soon came to lead this rebellion against his father, and within six months had shattered the backs of the mercenary hordes, cut them off from their supply of loot, plunder and payment, and had killed his father in cold blood to take the throne for himself.

Khomandar’s first act as king was to round up any of his father’s advisors, staunch allies, and the mercenaries who had not been smart enough to flee after the death of their patron, and nail them to the trees along the King’s Road to the capital.

It was said five-thousand trees were used to make an example of King Aethalmenis III’s supporters. Their bones still lay scattered at the root of these trees to this day.

While Khomandar did not rule as an absolute monarch, he ruled instead as an oligarch. He gave a large portion of the ruling powers to the Barons, whom he kept close at his side. He would help them, and they him. The king carried out symbiotic, if corrupt, relationship between himself and the nobility.

The people, unfortunately, were lose in the shuffle.

When parliament was reconvened in 999 Ruin under Khomandar’s new reign, any of the elected commoner positions had been cut from the proceedings, and only nobility were allowed to participate.

Taxes were reduced, though in actuality, Khomandar found other ways to maintain the same tax income for the Crown by implementing dues and fees in other places.

Barons were given their fair share of the tax money, but Khomandar ensured the Crown grew equally wealthy.

King Khomandar II is a controversial figure of recent Estian history. Despised by the people as a despot and an oligarch who was no better than his father, but loved and worshipped by the military and the Barons that control them.

When King Khomandar II stepped down as king in 1028 Ruin and passed the Crown to his son, he left his son with an uneasy kingdom that was peaceful on the surface, and lavish to the wealthiest of people, but reaching a boiling point beneath, and harsh and brutish for the common folk.

It did not help that his son, the now King Anducaerleonis, was only thirteen at the time he ascended to the throne, and was surrounded by eager oligarchs who would love the chance to control a boy-king to keep the status quo, or even increase their own power.

Yet despite the odds being stacked against him, Anducaerleonis has shown himself to be a strong leader, unyielding and uncompromising in his beliefs. He has staved off the control of his father’s advisors, replacing them with his own, and the control of the greedy Barons.

He has become a man of the people, who love him (as he cares for their plight and lot in life, and seeks to ease their suffering), but he is not so popular among his father’s old supporters. He has reinstated elected positions for commoners, and even created a separate House of Commons to juxtapose the House of Lords in his government.

He is, however, disliked by the military and Barons both, who see him as a bleeding heart who seeks to drain their power and rule absolutely. In truth, Anducaerleonis rules with less direct power than his father or grandfather before him, as all laws he drafts must now pass both houses before he can declare them ratified.

He is also a peace-loving king, who seeks to reduce Estian military might and thus, has passed several laws that reduced the size of the Barons’ armies in pursuit of peace in Enayra, and to distance himself from the Imperial/Gerovian past of Estion.

Whether his actions will jeopardize or harm the Crown and the stability of Estion remains to be seen. Only time will tell.