Ailred, Duke of Vidaus
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Ailred Joren var Ruthern (1801 - 1854), known as “The Prevailer” and “Steel-heart” was the sixth Duke of Vidaus and the firstborn son of Duke Maric ‘The Duelist' and Anabela of Fonsi. Considered to be a gifted swordsman and commander, Ailred quickly rose through the ranks of the Haeseni Royal Army to become the Lord Marshal at the young age of twenty-four upon Friedrich Barclay’s retirement and named Field Marshal in 1851 following his own retirement. Ailred is perhaps most well known for his command of the Tripartite forces during the Siege of Southbridge, an overwhelming victory for the Tripartite forces, where he was also killed.
Contents
Early Life
Ailred Joren var Ruthern was born on the 14th of the Amber Cold, 1801, in Metterden as the firstborn child. In his childhood, Ailred experienced many tribulations and difficulties. At the forefront of these troubles was the death of his mother, a Dame of Haense who famously drank herself to death. The boy vowed not to touch the same drink as his mother did and sought a path in life of purity and temperance as he wished not to follow suit of his mother, ending up in an early grave.
It might have been due to childish delusions or a God-given gift, Ailred claimed at one point in his life to be able to heal the mortally wounded. Those who took ‘a dive into faith’, as the future Duke called it, would undoubtedly be saved and protected by the boy’s hand of God. Naturally, this was all speculation and at the word of Ailred Ruthern and a few who supposedly saw the miracles, such as Ailred’s cousin, Aleksandr var Ruthern. Some say it was the death of his mother that spurred these speculations on; he was a child in mourning.
In these formative years, he developed close-knit ties with fellow high ranking nobles within the Kingdom of Hanseti-Ruska. Chief among them was the heir to the Duchy of Valwyck, Ruslan Baruch, whom he had a shared interest in swordplay and military history and tactics. It was also at this point in the charismatic youth’s life that he met his future wife, HRH Fenika Lichte Barbanov-Bihar, who shared a juvenile rebellious streak and brought the two close to one another. Along with Fenika and Ruslan, Ailred enlisted into the Haense Royal Army ahead of the required age, being thirteen rather than the definitive fourteen, which dictated the direction of the rest of his life.
Education
Ailred, while rebellious in his youth, persisted in his studies, in which he took a particular interest in the various arts. At first, he studied underneath the Queen’s council and learned to write formally for the council, and later, he moved on to be tutored in playing the piano, a desire of his. Due to his father being widowed and recently bestowed the office of the Lord Palatine, Ailred spent the majority of his time in the city of Karosgrad, where he studied under several scholars and tutors within the Royal court. Ailred eventually learned that to be heir was to eventually be the Lord, and he knew his fated role would conflict with his desires of flippant arts. Hence, he enlisted into the military, showing a great aptitude for it, yet lacking the passion he had for his earlier studies.
Reign
Ailred var Ruthern became Duke of Vidaus at the age of thirty upon the death of his father, Duke Maric, in 1831. Ailred’s father had been an extraordinary figure within the House, serving as not only Lord Palatine for a number of years but also being returned the Duchy of Vidaus after near enough a century of it being revoked. Ailred, regardless of who he was, had a remarkably large shadow to step out from but having already served for some years as Lord Marshal and with a happy, untroubled marriage and lineage already in place it seemed Ailred was primed to follow up the late Duke.
Tragedy struck the new Duke just over a year into his reign though, as his beloved wife, Fenika, died in childbirth to the pair’s last two children, the twins Grigoryi and Boris, in 1832. Sending Ailred into a deep depression, he went absent from noble society for a number of years and began to question his devotion to the Creator. Upon his return to the public eye and his duties as Lord Marshal, he displayed a far more cynical attitude to life as well as having a new vehement and explosive temper that came out on a moment’s notice. Though he was able to maintain the Ruthern Duchy and consolidate his position as Duke, Ailred struggled immensely with his responsibilities as a vassal and father.
With a series of rather uneventful years following in relation to the Duchy, Ailred was busied with his work as Lord Marshal and the frequent Wars of Hanseti-Ruska in Almaris. These experiences, along with the sting of his wife’s death that still haunted him, began to tax heavily on the Duke’s mind and led him to develop episodes of manic anger and despondency. These culminated in an attack on the future Lord Palatine, Kaustantin Baruch, for a perceived slant against Ailred’s eldest child, Mathea vas Ruthern, whom Kaustantin was betrothed to at the time. Ailred pressed a knife to the Baruch's throat and hurled abuses, making the late teenager fearful for his life. Though the Duke later took a knee in front of Lord Kaustantin and apologised for his violent outburst, the betrothal between his daughter and the Baruch was irreparably damaged and was called off, with both parties no longer wishing for it to continue.
Career
In his younger years, Ailred, despite his age, was to have the role of secretary in the Queen’s council of Hanseti-Ruska. He resigned at thirteen from the position, shortly after enlisting into the military as an initiate.
A year after enlisting, Ailred was sent out on his Oath Hunt and became Oathed within the Haense Royal Army. In his twenties he was promoted to the rank of Sergeant and in the following year, he was deployed to the Attenlund, with a small force that he commanded. Upon his return, Ailred’s predecessor, Friedrick Barclay, retired. Thus Lord Ruthern was offered the vacant position of Lord Marshal by King Heinrik II for the commanding prowess that he had exhibited in the Attenlund.
It was in his twenties as well that Ailred began to adopt a larger role in managing his father’s lands and role as Duke with Maric’s age and retirement. Ailred, alongside his childhood friend, the now Duke Ruslan Baruch, and other Lords formed the Ducal Union[1] in 1828. The Union consisted of many pre-eminent nobles within Hanseti-Ruska, namely Ailred on behalf of his father, Duke Ruslan and Count Jan Kotrevich, both of whom were his brothers-in-law, as well as the Viscount Isaak Amador, and Baron Hildebrand Mondblume. The aim of the Ducal Union was to express shared values and views on issues within Hanseti-Ruska, such as the rights of nobility, as a united front to the monarch. The Ducal Union proved an overwhelming success in its early years with the passing of the Voron Edict[2] in 1830 which increased the role of the responsibilities of the Lord Speaker and made changes to the Royal Duma to see its more efficient running and management as well as increase the power of the noble peers within it. The Ducal Union continues to remain intact to this day with Ailred now Duke in his own right.
Lord Marshal of Hanseti-Ruska
The second Ruthern Lord Marshal of Hanseti-Ruska, Ailred made steps even before his appointment to return to the more successful roots of Haeseni armies and orders of yore. This came properly and officially to fruition when he founded the 3rd Order of the Brotherhood of Saint Karl[3] in 1825, the first year of his tenure. The order has since emulated a more traditional approach to the working of a centralised army, with the inspiration coming from Ailred’s own successful ancestor and Lord Marshal, Rhys var Ruthern. At the start of his tenure, before his inheritance of the Duchy of Vidaus, Ailred led a notoriously successful iteration of the army with numbers of enlisted booming and being more carefully managed through his own census system being implemented which better kept track of the active participation of its members; a record number being recorded in his first year as Lord Marshal.
Ailred faced not only great issues in his personal life but also in his career as Lord Marshal, having commanded the Haeseni forces in four conflicts and wars in the space of a decade. The first of which came a year after his appointment and started with an assault on his own home, the Duchy of Vidaus. The Nachezers, a spawn of Iblees and ferocious in their attacks, descended onto the Ruthern Keep during a ball but were successfully repelled by the Lord Marshal and the BSK present. Whilst initially believed to be a relatively easy threat to deal with, even going as far as to name the conflict ‘The Nachezer Eastern Threat’, it proved in time to be a great deal more serious as a highly disciplined and numerous force successfully besieged the Baruch home of Valwyck. Now being referred to aptly as the ‘Nachezer War’, Ailred took a far more proactive approach to the Nachezers and began devising battle plans for the retaking of Valwyck alongside future stratagem to rid Hanseti-Ruska of the Nachezer. This led to a string of counter-attacks which successfully drove the Nachezer back to their home-fort and mother tree where the Haeseni forces under Ailred’s command, exterminated the Nachezer all together. In the midst of these battles, Ailred also ended the already depleted Rimeveld Trolls, an enemy he had inherited from his predecessor, in a final push to end the Rimeveld Troll Conflict.
The most impressive of Ailred’s military accomplishments came in the form of an ally’s war in 1833. The Duke marched the Haeseni forces, without receiving permission to do so, to aid the Sutican loyalists in the Sutican Civil War. Ailred thought it prudent to march the army in the early hours of the morning as the rebellion in Sutica was announced, taking the force into an unoccupied Sutican keep; the Barony of the Rhein. This was done without Haeseni or Sutican assent, though such was later approved by the monarchs Heinrik and Johanna respectively, as letters were passed back and forth between the Marshal and the Queen. When the Sutican Rebels pushed in to take the keep, the Brotherhood’s forces along with the Sutican troops prevailed decisively over them in a remarkably quick victory which left the rebellion in ruins. Subsequently, the rebellion was demolished, their leaders executed, and the civil war ended in the space of a year thanks to the sharp-witted intervention of the Lord Marshal.
Prior to the Sutican Civil War, Lord Marshal Ailred had advocated for a war against the Haelun’orian High Elves after they had ignored the Haeseni ultimatum. Seeing no other options and for armed conflict himself, King Heinrik II declared war on the Silver State of Haelun’or in 1832. The war, which is still ongoing, has been known to be stagnant, with no war-esque excitement or tribulations. The highly elevated Haelun’orians keep the Haeseni at bay, save for the occasional patrols along their roads.
Due to the constant pressure put onto the Haleun’orian leadership by their new protectorate the Principality of Savoy, the Silver State of Haelun’or agreed to surrender to Haense in the war in 1844. This peace was donned as ‘The Silver Peace’, in which 10,000 mina was conceded, alongside apologies given for their previous transgressions to the Kingdom. Ailred, now in his early forties, saw that this would be an opportune time to retire from his Marshalship. He officially stepped down during the Haeseni court before the King in 1845, in which he promised to forever protect the Kingdom wherein he asked to renew his vows and be inserted into the Marian Retinue in place of the Knightly Crow Order and have a seat as Royal Advisor to the Monarch, Sigismund III. The King agreed and listened to his council and years of wisdom.
Field Marshal
With tensions between Urguan and the Empire of Oren rising, the Kingdom of Hanseti-Ruska was forced to answer due to a long standing alliance with the dwarves and thus the Haeseni people were drafted into the Urguani-Orenian War in 1850. In the following year, Ailred was appointed as Field Marshal of the Brotherhood of Saint Karl by His Majesty in the ‘Appointment of the Prevailer’[4] As such, Ailred was incharge of the Haeseni army during raids and battles during the conflict with Oren. This came to a close in the Siege of Southbridge where Ailred was in charge of the entire Tripartite forces alongside a handful of other commanders which resulted in decisive victory for the Tripartite Accord members.
Death
During the aforementioned Siege of Southbridge, Ailred var Ruthern met an unfortunate end for it was not in the heavy fighting or by siege equipment that finished off the proud warrior. Ailred was killed after the Keep had been taken and the last of the few remaining Orenian troops driven out where one such fleeing soldier shot an arrow indiscriminately at the Tripartite forces. This arrow found its way through the Field Marshal’s eye after he’d lifted off his helmet in victory, killing him on the spot. He died in the arms of fellow Haeseni soldier, Edmund Barclay who returned his body to Ailred’s son, Rhys, in Vidaus. Ailred var Ruthern was given a large state funeral and hailed as a hero by and large by the Haeseni people.
Marriages
Ailred married HRH Fenika Lichte Barbanov-Bihar in 1820, having been a mutually arranged marriage between her father HRH Franz Barbanov-Bihar, now Franz Bihar-Morovar, and Ailred’s father, Maric var Ruthern. Ailred during their courtship presented King Heinrik II with a goat for the hand of his cousin, which was graciously accepted and soon after, the pair were officially bound in holy matrimony in St. Henrik’s Basilica. While only friends in their childhood, their marriage developed between them a love which unfortunately ended early as Fenika would pass away in childbirth in 1832, leaving behind the last two of their children, Grigoryi and Boris, in her place. This, unlike his mother’s death, deeply affected the man and he was seen in contrast to his youth, drinking his sorrows away at any local tavern and developing a cynical mind.
Later, in 1843, he would marry Baron Halcourt’s youngest daughter, Madalene Sophia Halcourt. The union was unexpected and the two wed soon after their announcement of courtship. The pair were remarked upon to keep to themselves, especially since Ailred’s retirement from Lord Marshal where he spent a majority of his time in Vidaus with Madalene and their infant daughters, Angelika and Stefaniya. The union was condemned by Ailred’s eldest three children by Fenika with the Duke’s son and heir being the most vocal about his distaste for it.
Titles, Styles and Honors
- 1815-1825: The Right Honorable, Ailred var Ruthern, Count of Metterden
- 1825-1831: His Excellency, Ailred var Ruthern, Lord Marshal of Hanseti-Ruska, Count of Metterden
- 1831-1845: His Excellency, Ailred var Ruthern, Lord Marshal of Hanseti-Ruska, Duke of Vidaus
- 1845-1851: His Grace, Ailred var Ruthern, Duke of Vidaus
- 1851-1854: His Lordship, Ailred var Ruthern, Field Marshal of the Brotherhood of Saint Karl
Full title as Duke of Vidaus
The titles of Ailred were: His Grace, Ailred II Joren of House Ruthern, Duke of Vidaus, Count of Metterden, Viscount of Greyspine, Baron of Rostig, Protector of the South, Lord of Helmholtz, Lord of Ivans Hall, Lord of Druzstra
Issue
| Name | Birth | Death | Marriage | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mathea Yekaterina vas Ruthern | 1824 | 1851 | Kaustantin Baruch | Firstborn daughter of Ailred. |
| Rhys II, Duke of Vidaus | 1828 | Alive | Marie Ludovar | Firstborn son of Ailred, successor to the Duchy of Vidaus. |
| Sofiya Antonina vas Ruthern | 1831 | Alive | Unwed | Secondborn daughter of Ailred. |
| Grigoryi Demitrius var Ruthern | 1833 | Dead | Sylvie Elara de Rosius | Secondborn son of Ailred. Twin to Boris. |
| Boris Sigmar var Ruthern | 1833 | Alive | Zerlina Amador | Thirdborn son of Ailred. Twin to Grigoryi. |
| Name | Birth | Death | Marriage | |
| Angelika Irena vas Ruthern | 1846 | Alive | Unwed | Thirdborn daughter of Ailred. |
| Stefaniya Joanna vas Ruthern | 1847 | Alive | Lucien I, Prince of Savoy | Forthborn daughter of Ailred |
