A Rebel's Eye View of the An Tir Rebellion, Part the Second: Free At Last!

The An Tir Rebellion - Free At Last

by Sister Guineth the White/Emily SD Thompson

The aftermath of An Tir's Rebellion Twelfth Night was a somber time, filled with bickering and recriminations, and tension and ill will between rebels and royalists. Ugly things happened. Some of the rebels were harassed and threatened, usually anonymously. Sir Elrond Blacksabre, I have been told, received anonymous threats on the life of his infant son.

Some of the rebels disappeared. Some of them endured, unwilling to tamely give in to their tormentors. The Rebel Alliance was a bit put out at the failure of their plot, but I was told that they bowed to the will of their lord with more grace than the Westerners had shown in their reaction to learning of the Plot.

Though the Twelfth Night Plot had failed, the Rebellion was not dead. Rebels continued to wear gray armbands; some of them began to fly gray pennons and one at least made and occasionally wore a gray gown. And discussions were held on what to do next, though for the moment there appeared to be nothing that could be done.

The Western Great Officers and the BoD and corporate officers continued many of the practices which had been the proximate cause of the Rebellion.

In June of AS XIII, just under six months after Rebellion Twelfth Night, the Kingdom of the West allowed their southern principality, CAID, to become a kingdom. The Rebel Alliance was seriously annoyed; CAID was a year younger as a principality than was An Tir.

But as the heat of the confrontation died down, the rebels were regaining their sense of humor. Christmas cards were sent out to many of the rebels that December which bore an image of Darth Vader, wearing a gold baldric with three red mullets strongly reminiscent of Duke Paul of Bellatrix's heraldic arms, with the message, "You are a traitor and a member of the Rebel Alliance!" Some of those who received the cards still treasure them and giggle about them, over twenty years later.

The members of the Rebel Alliance wrote songs about the Rebellion: At the Rising of the Moon, O Eddie Boy, When Will We Be...? and others. And they made it a practice to welcome newcomers, and taught them the causes and tales and songs of the Rebellion, encouraging the newbies to see the Rebellion as an amusing game - which, I am reliably told, was how many of the original Rebels thought of it in the first place.

A year after Rebellion Twelfth Night, Steven MacEanruig crowned the Founding Baroness of Adiantum, Alyanora de Vinca, Queen of the West. And with one of the founders of a notoriously Rebel barony on the throne, the Westerners who had been treating An Tir so spitefully grew more circumspect.

Steven and Alyanora were followed on the throne of the West by Steingrim Stallari and Rhiannon of the Lost Star, both An Tirians. Steingrim was a Royalist, of the type who had had fun pretending to ignore the plotting that was going on around him; many of his friends were members of the Rebel Alliance.

When Steingrim won the Crown of the West, the Crier (which was edited at that time by the crew and associates of that thoroughly Rebel ship, the Barque) declared victory and suggested that the Crown free the Mists. I have been told that among some of the Westerners panic and chaos resulted. An Tirians, though, were dancing for joy!

Many overdue awards at various levels were given out, a nd much of the lingering conflict from Rebellion Twelfth Night cooled. It was a fun time for Rebels and Royalists alike, with an An Tir couple on the throne of the West.

Trelon of the Woods, who was living in Adiantum at the time, won the Coronet Tourney in the same month Steingrim and Rhiannon were crowned. He and Tamsen of the Raven Tresses were crowned in July. Trelon was only nineteen years old at the time, and he quickly received the sobriquet "the Punk Prince." He retaliated by threatening to make himself a tourney-legal switchblade sword.

Radnor of Guildemar and his lady Shannon Morgan followed Steingrim and Rhiannon on the throne of the West. When King Radnor (then only 18 years old) and his queen came to An Tir for the September Coronet Tourney at Silver Falls in AS XIV, Radnor had been warned to expect the people of An Tir to be uncouth, hostile and rebellious.

The King and Queen were welcomed with open arms and presented with a multitude of interesting, useful, and humorous gifts. Radnor's goblet was filled repeatedly with various beverages. Our Punk Prince shared with the Kid King a special treat which he had had stashed away. And the ladies of An Tir took the comely young King to their hearts, so to speak.

At the end of the final court of that Coronet Tourney, King Radnor stood and spoke to us, thanking us for the warm welcome we had given him and his queen. He ended with the statement, "I just wish ... that I could hug every one of you!" And a happy roar went up from the crowd, and one of the gentlemen called out, "Can the men hug the Queen?" And the queen consenting, after court we all formed lines and went up and hugged the King and Queen.

King Radnor left the event thinking that the Westerners who had spoken ill of An Tir were sadly mistaken. And having been told that one of the complaints of the An Tirian rebels was that Western Kingdom events were never held in An Tir, Radnor wrote and published a law that each of the principalities of the West had a right to bid on, and to hold, at least one Western Crown Event a year.

And in June AS XV, in the first reign of Strider of Duramen, a Western Crown Tourney was held in the lands of Coeur du Val. And again in June AS XVI, in the first reign of William the Lucky, another Western Crown Tourney was held in the same place. And the Westerners were not happy, and resented being forced to choose between missing the events and making the long journey to An Tir, and grumbled loudly. But what could they do? For the King's word was Law, and none of Radnor's successors saw fit to rescind that particular law.

And some of the officers of both the West and the Imperium, whose practices had seemed so hostile to the Rebels, left office. And their successors were more willing to answer their correspondence in a timely fashion, and to warrant their An Tirian underlings in a timely fashion, and to acknowledge reports.

And the chronicler who had lost An Tir event copy so frequently and whose snide comments about the apparent lack of activity in An Tir had been so grating became tired and disgruntled and gave over his office into the hands of one who did not lose An Tir event copy any more often than copy from nearer places. And An Tir events began to be more likely to be official, and thus to count toward the official level of activity in the Principality.

But the Registry was in the hands of Boncouer, who was not a bad man but was very persuadable, and possibly not as well organized as he should have been. And what with one thing and another, despite the increasing numbers of An Tirians who sent in money and membership forms, the 'official' number of An Tirian SCA memberships hung for some time at about 550, 600 being needed to form a kingdom at that time.

And it came to pass that in early AS XVI, people from far Lochac wrote to the officers and royalty of the West and requested that they be accepted as vassals of the Crown of the West, that their distant lands become part of the Kingdom of the West. And though distant and sparsely populated, Lochac has within its borders a territory larger even than all An Tir.

And also in AS XVI, a fairly new member of the Barony of Three Mountains, a lawyer, when he was told of the difficulty of getting a membership, suggested a plan, so Grane the Golden told me. Over thirty An Tirians pooled their money, and all their membership forms were sent, with a single check for the total amount due drawn on the account of Sir [[Jerald of Galloway]], to the registry. And the check was cashed, but no memberships were acknowledged, as had been so often before the case.

The lawyer had not been idle while he waited, though; he had gathered proof of well over a hundred other paid but unrecognized memberships. And with proof of 150 - 160 memberships paid for and not honored, the heroic lawyer wrote to the Registry, sending copies of his proofs. He demanded that the Registry honor the memberships, lest the SCA, Incorporated, and Boncouer as the officer directly responsible, be brought into court on charges of mail fraud. And suddenly there were more than enough memberships for the people of An Tir to become a kingdom!

A petition was promptly drawn up that An Tir be given her independence. It contained, so Grane the Golden told me, "unusual language" for a request which the King would theoretically have been within his rights to deny at that time. The people of An Tir DEMANDED the right to become a kingdom in their own right, secure in the knowledge that they could make things very hot for the West and the SCA Incorporated with the mundane authorities if their petition was not granted.

The BoD was said to be in a state of panic at the thought of dealing with criminal charges. There was certainly a tremendous uproar in the Mist-lands over the practices of the Registry. Poor "Bonkers" was an easy and logical target. He resigned in disgrace, and was replaced by the corporation's first full-time paid employee, Cleveden Chew Haas.

Moreover, the acquisition of the vast lands of far Lochac had made the retention of An Tir superfluous; I heard Westerners telling one another that with Lochac the West would still be the Largest Kingdom in the Known World even after An Tir left their control. Anyhow, travelling to An Tir every year for June Crown was too much trouble.

All Western and Imperial resistance to An Tir independence collapsed.

Yet when the BoD had acknowledged their surrender to An Tir and discussions began as to the exact details of An Tir's elevation to Kingdom status, the Kingdom of the West received a bit of consolation. Oertha, long treated as part of An Tir, elected to remain in fealty to the West.

And finally, four years after Rebellion Twelfth Night, on January 6, AS XVI, Manfred Kreigstriber, once the Rebel heir to the Rebel Prince Edward, and his lady Morag Campbell were crowned King and Queen of the independent Kingdom of An Tir. An Tir was free at last!