House of Rothborne

House of Rothborne

Coat of Arms
Parent House:	House of Ravaillac
Country	Caputia
Founded (AN)	1653 AN
Founder	Queen Elizabeth I
Current Head	Edgard III
Seat	Bellesea Palace, Zalae
Connected houses	House of Carrillo Waffel-Paine

The House of Rothborne is the royal house of the Kingdom of the Union of Caputia. It was founded in 1653 AN, the first year of her reign, by Queen Elizabeth I, born Regina Ravaillac, and descends from the House of Ravaillac, the Queen's own family.

Elizabeth I held the headship for seventy years, longer than the kingdom itself lasted. The house outlived the state it had been created to reign over: after Caputia was destroyed by the White Plague its crown passed into exile, and the Royal Caputian Government in Exile still derives its authority from the monarch of Caputia and the Head of the House. Her eldest son Edgard III succeeded to the headship on her death in 1723 AN and holds it as of 1758 AN. Because Elizabeth's children were reckoned to their father's House of Carrillo, the Rothborne descent passed into the Alexandrian, Natopian and New Alexandrian royal houses rather than continuing under that name.

History

The House of Rothborne was established by Queen Elizabeth I in 1653 AN, the first year of her reign, as the reigning house of the Kingdom of the Union of Caputia. It descended from the House of Ravaillac, the Queen's own family, and comprised the Sovereign, her heirs and successors, her family, and such other persons as she named by letters patent, all of whom were to bear the name Rothborne. In 1661 AN the Rothborne Family Pact, adopted by order in council, gave the house a written constitution: it named the Queen Head of the House, with the dignity passing to her legitimate heirs, defined the Royal Line as her direct marital descendants and the Royal Family as the descendants of her father, Donat Ravaillac, and constituted a Family Council to govern the dynasty's affairs.

Through Elizabeth's marriage in 1661 AN to Emperor Francis Joseph IV of Alexandria, her children were reckoned to their father's House of Carrillo, joining the house to the Alexandrian imperial dynasty. Elizabeth I headed the house from its foundation until her death in 1723 AN, through the collapse of the kingdom and the years of the Royal Caputian Government in Exile. She was succeeded as Head of the House by her eldest son, born Edward Albert Louis Carrillo Rothborne, who succeeded to her titular Caputian and Hamland crowns and from 1737 AN reigned as titular Emperor of the Alexandrians under the name Edgard III.

Court and honors

The house was seated at Bellesea Palace, in the Royal District of Zalae, a deliberately modest building that was the principal residence of Elizabeth I and the home of her court. The phrase the Court at Bellesea Palace denoted the sovereign's official establishment for the whole life of the kingdom, and the letters patent conferring peerages and knighthoods were given there.

Elizabeth I established the Church of Caputia by act in 1654 AN as the state church and the institutional form of the Melusinian faith, and took its supreme governorship among her styles. That office did not descend with the headship of the house: Edgard III is an Alexandrian Nazarene.

In 1654 AN she also founded the Most Noble Order of the Melusine as the senior order of chivalry of the kingdom, the reigning sovereign of Caputia serving as its Sovereign and Grand Master and holding the sole right to enroll members. Its motto, Vincit Semper Veritas, or "Truth Always Conquers", takes up the theme of truth from An veritas, an nihil, the motto of her father's house.

Fall of the kingdom and the exile

The kingdom did not survive the White Plague, and Caputia was dissolved in 1669 AN, sixteen years after its founding. Those who lived through the collapse left Keltia or settled in the Wechua Nation, and the remnants of the kingdom were reconstituted as the Royal Caputian Government in Exile with Elizabeth I at its head, based at Nivardom in Constancia and maintaining offices in Constancia, the Wechua Nation, Alduria and Ransenar.

That government does not seek to recreate the kingdom, acting instead as steward of the Caputian diaspora, and a census conducted under its authority recorded 89,533,376 persons with claim and proof of Caputian citizenship. The records and archives of the Caputian state passed into its keeping, and the Declaration of Nivardom is its charter. Most of the forms of Caputian administration were carried into its structure, on the principle that all of its authority flows from the monarch of Caputia and the Head of the House of Rothborne. The cadet Ravaillacs, the line of Judith Ravaillac, passed into the diaspora with the rest of the kingdom's people rather than surviving as a titled house.

On the admission of New Caputia to Nouvelle Alexandrie in 1722 AN Elizabeth I became its first Regional Governor, sitting as an independent and declining to seek election to a full term. She held the office until her death the following year and was succeeded by Frederick Landry, son of Christophe Landry, her first prime minister.

After the collapse the Most Noble Order of the Melusine was maintained in the diaspora as a devotional and honorific society of the Melusinian Faith, its investitures performed by the Matriarch of New Zalae rather than by the head of the house.

Later generations

Edgard III holds the titular crowns of Caputia and of Hamland and succeeded to the titular Alexandrian imperial title on 2.V.1737 AN. His other dignities include sovereign duke of Anglien, Duke of Triegon in Natopia and Baron San Juan in the Imperial Peerage of Shireroth. The Petropolis Compact of 1734 AN placed him in the succession to the imperial throne of the Imperial State of Constancia. As of 1758 AN he is in his tenth decade and has delegated the day-to-day administration of Anglien to its Council of Ministers, and his eldest son Prince Edgard Nathan was recognized by the Diet of Anglien as Duke-Apparent in XI.1754 AN.

The marriage of 1689 AN to Vadoma I, Empress of the Natopians, carried the line into the Natopian imperial house of Waffel-Paine, where Rothborne and Carrillo are reckoned connected families rather than the reigning dynasty. Their eldest daughter Adelaide served as Regent of Natopia from V.1752 AN and acceded to the Natopian throne on 20.XII.1752 AN at the death of her mother, taking the regnal name Clara. She had married the future King Sinchi Roca II of Nouvelle Alexandrie in 1721 AN and became queen consort there on his accession in 1735 AN.

The two crowns are not to be held together in the next generation. Under the Treaty of Dynastic Separation of 1721 AN, Clara's eldest son Nathan is to succeed in Natopia and her eldest daughter Sayari in Nouvelle Alexandrie. Through Sayari the line reaches Inti, Duke of Vilcabamba, born 23.XII.1755 AN, second in the line of succession to the New Alexandrian throne and the fifth generation in descent from Donat Ravaillac.

Family tree

• Elizabeth I (born Regina Ravaillac), founder and first Head of the House (b. c. 1636 AN, d. 1723 AN), m. 1661 AN Francis Joseph IV, titular Emperor of the Alexandrians, of the House of Carrillo (d. 1737 AN)
  • Prince Edward, b. 1664 AN, Head of the House from 1723 AN, titular King of Caputia and of Hamland from 1723 AN and titular Emperor of the Alexandrians as Edgard III from 1737 AN, m. 1689 AN Vadoma I, Empress of the Natopians
    • Princess Adelaide, b. 1694 AN, Empress of the Natopians as Empress Clara from 1752 AN
    • Princess Guinevere, b. 1697 AN
    • Prince Edgard Nathan, b. 1699 AN, Duke-Apparent of Anglien from 1754 AN
    • Prince John, b. 1702 AN
    • Prince Ferdinand, b. 1705 AN
  • Princess Carla, b. 1664 AN (twin of Prince Edward)
  • Princess Andrea, b. 1665 AN
  • Prince Lewis, b. 1669 AN
  • Prince Felipe, b. 1671 AN
  • Prince Donat, b. 1673 AN

Elizabeth I was the daughter of Donat Ravaillac; for the house's origins and its cadet line, see House of Ravaillac. Her children were reckoned to their father's house: for the senior line after 1664 AN see House of Carrillo, and for its Natopian and New Alexandrian descent see Waffel-Paine and House of Inti-Carrillo.

See also

• Rothborne Family Pact
• Hammish Civil War
• Declaration of Zalae