Methos is deeply engrossed in a book that has no title on the cover, and looks handwritten. On the white board behind him is written:

FINAL EXAM
Essay Question: What have you learned in this course?
No set minimun/maximun length, but terse entries are unlikely to have the depth needed.
Leave your paper on the desk, and you're free.

[OOC: Wait for ocd threads... OCD up, go ahead!]

Right. So, when we last left England, baby Henry VI was on the throne.

( Henry, Henry, Edward, Edward, Richard, Henry, Henry )

This is our last lecture. Thank you for being here. Your test is coming up.

[[OCD threads up. Go ahead.]]

So, one day in the 1340s, a rat jumped off a ship in Genoa harbor and started a plague.

Okay, it's not that simple.

( The Black Death in England )

OOC: Wait ye for OCD threads. Go ahead.

Methos lectures on Edward III and his claim to the French throne through his mother (poetically known as the "She-Wolf of France"). The French claimed that French law dictated that inheritance couldn't be passed through the female line. Edward claimed that he had a lot of soliders who would be willing to kick their asses. This leads to warfare, broken up by interludes of devistating plague.

Welcome back from your break. Everyone who was in England, I hope you enjoyed yourself. You certainly never called on me for help, so I assume everything went swimmingly. Everyone who stayed here or went home for the break -- welcome back to learning.

Our lecture today is on the consolidation of power within the British Isles.

( Edward I and an Island Empire )


[[OOC: OCD threads are coming up!!]]

Simon de Montfort and the Bare Beginnings of Representitive Government

Simon de Montfort was a thoroughly aristocratic nobleman. He married the daughter of King John -- which is either a romantic love story or a shockingly inappropriate alliance, depending on who you ask. And yet, somehow he managed to become the champion of the common people.

Crediting him with creating the modern representative government is a huge stretch; it never would have occurred to him that God did not place people in their appropriate status, and he firmly believed that the nobility existed to care for and rule over the lower classes. He did, however, also firmly believe that the lower classes deserved a voice in their governance. One might say, "No execution without representation."

Simon's crusade was helped along by the fact that his king, Henry III, was indecisive and given to petty rages. Henry resented that his sister had married so far below herself, and that he'd been manipulated into allowing it. Accordingly, for the next twenty years, he alternately depended on Simon and reviled him. The final blow to Simon's loyalty to the king was when Henry put Simon on trial for failing to subdue a rebellious Brittany -- which was outside of Simon's control entirely.

Simon and various nobles who remembered the provisions of the currently-defunct Magna Carta, fought back. But they also enlisted the common people. Among them, well-educated and wealthy London businessmen, who wanted a voice in the taxes and laws that governed them.

At his height, Simon held the king captive and made him a figurehead, and summoned the first proto-Parliament in English history. But at his worst, in 1265 at the Battle of Evesham, Simon lost to a brilliant battle commander -- his teenage nephew, Prince Edward, the heir to the throne. Simon was killed in battle, his body desecrated, and, after it had been buried in holy ground, Edward caused it to be dug up and thrown away.

But, much as with the Magna Carta, something had been brought up that the people of England weren't going to forget. Representative government was centuries away, but the idea of limiting the king's power remained in the collective consciousness.

[[OOC: OCD threads are coming up!!]]

Now we reach a portion of the class that actually lives up to the hype. So on, Henry II dies, so forth, Richard the Lionhearted and Stupidheaded goes on Crusade, and leaves his kid brother John at home minding the country.

Despite what every Robin Hood legend has told you, John was not evil. ( Or, at least, not any more evil than any monarch with power in the Middle Ages. )


And don't forget to sign up for your role in the mock trial If you haven't already. I'm looking at you, Adama and Evans.

[[OOC: OCD threads are coming up!!]]

Methos greets the students that come in. "Welcome, all. So proud of you that you made it into class on Valentine's Day. Because, really, what's more romantic than an elderly celibate priest?

"I have your tests. The less said, the better. Actually, Ms. Mal Doran, please see me after 7th period. The rest of you got the grade you assigned yourself, or an A if you did not can pick up your tests after class.

"And so we begin our next section: Family Infighting, and Why We Care."

( Lecture behind cut )

[[OCD threads are up. Class is open.]]

All right, class. First exam on Thursday. The exam will consist of three one hundred word sections on what we have discussed so far in this class.

If you have any questions, please address them now, or forever hold your peace.

[[OOC: OCD threads are coming up!!]]

"Last week we discussed the Battle of Hastings. This week, we're going to discuss the aftermath of the battle... the fact that England was politically and culturally taken over by another country."

( Trying something new: short lecture )

"While there is absolutely nothing wrong in the abstract with a Queen Regent -- to wit, Elizabeth, Victoria, etc. -- to try to enforce one's will beyond the grave on a bunch of fractious nobles was not the smartest thing. Plus, Henry might have considered that Matilda wasn't exactly a pleasant personality to begin with; she wouldn't lead by devotion. Which basically set England up for a generation of really nasty civil war, which we will get into after our exam next Thursday."

Homework is due here and the mun sincerely apologizes for the suckiness of the initial website.

[Poll #663890]

[[OOC: OCD threads are up!!]]