King Gaelin the Bloody

King Gaelin Hesphus III, better known as Gaelin the Bloody, or Red Gael, was a king of Estaria who reigned from 1587 SE to his ousting in 1594 SE. His legacy is tainted with accusations of madness, paranoia, tyrannical religious persecution, and rumors of regicide.

History

Early Life

Gaelin was born to King Olaf II in Solgrad in the year 1542 SE, where he received an early education in etiquette, history and warfare. He was raised under Atovism, and taught to value religious devotion from an early age.

Early Adulthood

In 1567, he married his first wife, Mary Avadine, a duchess of the western Estarian province of Lockford, who would remain with him until her suicide in 1588. During the twenty years marriage before Gaelin's ascent to the throne, Mary never sired a son, but he is said to have had three daughters.

Kingship

Gaelin was inaugurated as king in 1587 SE, at the age of forty-five, when his father, Olaf Leonidas Hesphus II, died of a sudden stroke. Gaelin was previously second in line for the throne, but the first in line, his cousin Daniel Veilin of Hedgewall, was killed in battle against Dredges a year prior.
During his reign, Gaelin sired his first and only son, Jonathan Hesphus, who died of flu in his infancy. Mary Avadine committed suicide on the second of Sol, 1588, by throwing herself from the Don Jon of Lonir Point Keep.
Shortly after Mary's death, Gaelin married his deceased wife's sister, Catherine Avadine, who is speculated to have been romantically involved with Gaelin long before her sister's death.

Religious Persecution

Gaelin was an Orthodox Atovist during the years following The Gateway Summit, when the Atovist church was in its early years of division, having split into Renewist Atovism five decades before his rule, and The Church of Penance. This put him in power at a time of tremendous religious tension in Solgrad.
The Orthodox establishment still held tremendous power in Estaria, but the population of Solgrad was increasingly split between Renewists and Orthodox practitioners. Gaelin's father had maintained a tenuous alliance between the two new factions, but Gaelin took a far harsher approach. On the forty-third of Sol, 1591, he passed the Treatise of Religious Purity, and ordered the ousting of all Renewist priests from Solgrad.
Subsequent to this, Renewist supporters revolted, lead by religious leaders who refused to leave the city. Gaelin responded to these initial uprisings with increasingly draconian measures, by publicly executing Renewist priests, demonstrators, and supporters. Citizens who supported the Renewist church were rounded into hastily constructed mass-prisons by his royal guards and taken out for mass-spectacle public hangings. In 1593 SE, Gaelin even had his own cousin, Mary Veilin, executed for sedition for continuing to practice Renewist rituals.

The Renewist Upheaval

(Main article: The Renewist Upheaval)
In the winter of 1594 SE, King Gaelin executed Mollinel Reeves in a public beheading. This ignited the already-discontented Renewist population of Solgrad into a riotous fury, and a surge of revolts broke out throughout the city. Armed revolutionaries stormed Lonir Point Keep, killing Catherine and forcing Gaelin to flee the city.
By the following spring, King Saul of Hedgewall was inaugurated as king of Estaria by a collection of Renewist bishops in Solgrad, officially ending Gaelin's reign. However, nobles loyal to the Hesphus line refused to recognize Saul's authority, and Gaelin acted as a regent over Estaria's northern territories.

Exile

In the fall of 1595, the Estarian Regency- acting under pressure from King Saul and displeased orthodox bishops angered with the loss of Solgrad- stripped Gaelin of all his remaining titles, his regency, and his dutchy over Lockford, and exiled him from Estaria's territories.
Gaelin took a contingent of three hundred men still loyal to himself and the Hesphus line and fled north to the land that is now the Enclave of the Free Peoples. It's believed that they made a now-lost settlement in the Blue Bog, and many Auklan in Narr claim to know its location.

Death

Gaelin died of infection in the spring of 1604 SE. His death marked the end of the Hesphus line, which remains the longest serving royal line in Estaria. Though many have claimed to be descendants of his unnamed daughters, no direct descendants can be proven, and the line is believed to be dead.

Name:

Gaelin Leonidus Hesphus III

Title:

King of Estaria

Reign:

1587 SE - 1594 SE

Family:

Father:

King Olaf Leonidus Hesphus II

Wives:

Mary Avadine (1567 - 1588)
Catherine Avadine (1588 - 1594)

Children:

Jonathan Hesphus (1587 - 1588)
Three daughters

Life:

1542 - 1604 SE (age 62)