The Order of the Crown

A Marran army, when the whole nation goes to war, is fundamentally the retinue of the king - it is his great lords and their vassals, and the vassals of those people, and so on down to the Marran Select Levy drawn from the peasanty. But the king can only call upon these forces for a set period throughout the year, and that is usually 60 days, no more. There is a need for the king to keep a standing force for his own protection, and that is the Order of the Crown, also known as the Crown Guard.

Organisation

The Guard are drawn from the sons of favoured nobility, usually second and third sons who would not inherit. It consists of a Knight Captain (Ritterkapitan), who leads it in the abscence of the king and is responsible for its organisation, three Knights Excellent (Ausgezeichnetritter) who are each responsible for four other knights and subordinate the captain, and sixteen Honoured Knights (Geehrteritter) who make up the core of the guard. The knights excellent are also called knights distinguished or distinguished knights, depending on translation.
Each Geehrteritter leads a group of four others, with the captain leading the remaining four. These form units that can be detatched from the guard when a small group is called for, and make administering it simpler.

Duties

The Crown Guard go wherever the king does, and the Knight Captain is responsible for seeing to his defence. In addition to the knights of the guard, the captain is also traditionally given command of the king's select levy - a portion of whom are kept in service at all times, to fulfil whateveer duties require soldiers, usually guarding palaces - when not at war (where the king himself would take a direct hand in their operation, but would generally still delegate much of the duty to the knight captain). Knight Captains are also responsible for the security of the king's household, meaning they must organise large numbers of people from cooks to servants to footmen and valets. The position of Knight Captain has quite extensive administrative demands, not a quality of the post many have been happy with, and is also responsible for the training of the Guard. The Knight Captain trains with his four subordinate knights, and sometimes with the Ausgezeichnetritter.
Ausgezeichnetritter are responsible for overseeing the four Geehrteritter assigned to them, which means ensuring they are kept in practice, that their equipment is maintained, and that they know what their duties are and that they are carrying them out. The Ausgezeichnetritter's squires are usually those who would be invited to the Order but are not yet knights, so they are also responsible for ensuring those young men are ready for the challenge.

Rights and Privileges

With important work comes great rewards, when you are nobility with a direct line to the king at least, and knights of the Order of the Crown can expect to accrue an array of honours, titles and, most importantly, lands and money. For valour in battle, for great achievements, for saving the king's life, and for much anything one can be acclaimed the king may award any or all of these things. Typically, members of the Guard are granted some kind of land early on in their careers, usually manors that have returned to the crown, which they slowly expand over their careers. By the time they retire, they usually have a few manor towns in their possession, and a reasonable fortune. Land is important for marriage prospects as well, and the king may arrange favourable matches for knights who distinguish themselves. Many noble families who today send their young sons to squire for the Guard can trace their ascent to prominence back to an ancestor who was themselves a member of it.

Type

Cavalry