Chapter 10

There's a lot of divergence now happening in my story from actual history. For one thing, the Prayer book rebellions of 1549 never happened in Devonshire, so Eli has taken all the rebels in and trained them to be part of his army. Additionally, due to the quick death of Edward Seymore, the famous Kett rebellion in Norfolk never happened, which is the battle that helped elevate Earl of Warwick, John Dudley, to fame with victory to Duke of Northumberland. However coincidentally, Robert Dudley's first wife Amy Robsart's land holdings was in Norfolk county, so he should have been part of John Dudley's supression campaign in history, but there's no history of what happened here.

As for Edward Seymore, the 11-year-old son of Edward Seymore, I am only half embellishing his antics. Elizabeth I was frustrated by this kid for getting in the middle of sex scandal after a sex scandal. He was married 3 times in our history, which even for Elizabethan England was a lot. Of course, he does serve her administration well and was appointed as an ambassador. Think of him in this universe as a pansexual Casanova, trying desperately to prove his worth. Sometimes comedic, sometimes fascinating.

As for Bristol Castle, I used John Leland as my source again as he was one of the few people who had documented what the original decaying castle looked like. It was a perfect symbol of a declining dynastic monarchy, so renovating it and modernizing it outlying defense for Bristol would be the perfect counterpoint. It is also where a new type of administrative government is created, so the Bristol System seems astute.

For this week lesson, 11th law of power “Learn to keep people dependent on you”, the concept is simple, make sure you are needed and indispensable for what people desire. One reason why Eli setup his government administration and tax system under mutual companies and cooperatives with 33% government ownership stakes is to keep the people of Wales, Gloucestershire, Somerset, and Devonshire dependent on his government to keep the balance. Without the favorable taxation practices and profit sharing system of these organizations, they would have to return back to the medieval administrative structure where you have hereditary servant/slave, crushing taxes on local industry, and lack of transparency in terms of pricing. In principle, this is a form of taxation akin to a flat tax rate, but it is far more realistic. Instead of taxing the average consumer on spending, the taxation on all productive businesses, farms, and organizations on profit by share of profit incentives everyone to work for a common profit.

The concept of Mutual companies and cooperatives were considered the middle ground as a solution to the excess of Capitalism and unproductive Socialism. However, this system in the modern world has fallen into disuse and is despised by Conservatives and Liberals alike due to its smaller profits and less representative equitable outcome as can be seen in Mutual insurance and cooperative farming companies in the US Western states.

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Notes:

We're diverging on many points of history with what happened in the last chapters, so I'll start noting some things to keep in mind.

1. Devonshire has traditionally been impoverished throughout this period in history due to various local issues and its rough land. Being part of this trade network with the other western regions will change their fate.

2. I did not forget about Cornwall, which sits at the edge of southwestern England. I just have different plan for it in my story and who Eli will encounter there.

3. Pillboxes and bunkers are features in modern defensive fortifications. Large static defenses like castles and fortresses became obsolete with the invention of long range artillery and aircraft, so smaller defensive structures were better.

4. Keep an eye out for Robert and Eli's next encounter....just saying