Part 20: Crimes and Pardons

We decide on what to do with the Gent and continue with some more justice across Stonebridge.



This episode’s image is from my personal stash, and depicts Charles VII’s entry into Paris in 1437, from Bibliothèque nationale de France 5054, folio 93v. It requires a bit of explanation but I’ve got little else to add so let me go off on a bit of a historical tangent. Full version is over here.

In medieval and early modern times it was customary in France and the Low Countries for a new king to visit the cities in his realm as a sort of local inauguration. It was an opportunity for the city’s right’s to be confirmed or expanded, but it was also an opportunity for criminals to request a pardon from the new ruler.

Not surprisingly, municipal councils saw it as in infraction on their own power and tried to control the procedure of a ‘royal entry’. Sometimes kings were a bit too eager with spreading around pardons as a show of their grace. And sometimes this led to rather stunning feats of determination, such as when a certain Claude Cleppoing travelled 600 kilometres to be pardoned in Fécamp for a murder he had committed during a fight earlier that year in Lyon. Upon arrival, he promptly handed himself over to the Fécamp authorities, received a letter of pardon soon after, and was allowed to return to Lyon.

It probably sucks for Stonebridge to have some random Legion assholes appear out of nowhere and suddenly interfere with everything, and although we are definitely helping, and firmly maintain that we respects people’s decisions, I must say we’ve become awfully good at ‘accidentally’ stumbling into situations where it’s either join us or face certain death. ‘Wouldn’t want something to happen to your kingdom/city/friends, now would we, things can break’.