"To deny a man your table and hearth is as good as killing him. To steal his little bit of land will end his family. We've never forgotten how to be humane to one another - how to be human. Maybe they have." - King Welyam III, upon hearing of the end of the 4th Lilac War.
Welyam III Gerwick was the King of Gawed from 1443 to 1503, ruling for 59 years. His reign was both one of the longest and one of the most impactful of the realm’s history, as he implemented the Welyamite Reforms which would end the Kingdom’s period of prolonged stagnation, such as the formation of the Magnate Council.
Early life[]
Welyam was born on the 6th of Truefrost 1427, the son of Prince Jon Gerwick and Alanna Cockerwall, the daughter of a Moorman Chief. At a young age he was shown to dislike the traditional Gawedi royal sports of dueling and hunting, instead being rather bookish. While many considered it strange for a Gawedi Prince to not engage in the martial traditions of Gawedi royalty that stretched back to Godrac the Invader, Prince Jon encouraged it. He began providing tutors and having books brought from Damescrown and even Anbenncóst to ensure Welyam never ran short of this hobby. Prince Welyam would often spend hours reading aloud to his grandfather, King Edmund II, who was often so sick in his final years that he could not leave his bed, and who often in his delirious state confused Welyam for a younger Jon.
The Young Eagle[]
Prince Jon had left Gaweton in the early summer of 1443 with his personal champions and the Cobalt Company to head to Rottenstep. In late Yshdament of that year, he had returned a corpse, with the remains of his guard stating he had been slain by Korgus Dookanson, leader of the orcs. While already devastating news for the 15 year old, it was worsened when King Edmund died soon after, with some saying the news of his son’s death was too much for him to bear.
This all left Welyam not only as a grieving son and grandson, but now needing to take up the crown as well. While his uncle Henric offered to become king in his place, the young Prince refused, saying: “The whole realm mourns, uncle, but they do not forget their duty either.” As such, Welyam was crowned King Welyam III Gerwick on the 3rd of Tearfall 1443. It is believed that his father’s death at Rottenstep is what cemented Welyam’s disdain for violence and war.
On the 23rd of Truefrost, a stranger arrived in Gaweton seeking an audience with the king. Curious, Welyam granted them this, the stranger then revealed himself to be Derek ‘Deland’. Derek claimed to have been a Reachmen merchant from the Deland family, whose business was bought out by Elves from Celmaldor. According to the scribes, he asked for a place in court, and the king, who felt pity for the man, gave him such. In the following months, Derek’s role in court would grow from a minor courtier to one who had significant sway over the King, due to both an affinity for statesmanship, and due to the fact that by all accounts Welyam greatly admired the man.
When news reached Gawed of Corin’s sacrifice to defeat Korgus Dookanson and the tenth Pantheonic Council that followed, Welyam III was a vocal supporter of Corin’s deification, with many sources at the time imply or outright claiming Welyam favoured Corin over the traditional Gawedi worship of Castellos, Falah, and Nerat. It was around this time that the king expressed his desire to reform Gawed, citing Rottenstep as a clear example of the Kingdom’s stagnation and decline compared to its height after the Interregnum. With Derek’s help, these acts would soon be drafted as the Welyamite Reforms, and prove instrumental to Gawed’s future.
In truth the growing influence of Derek ‘Deland’ over the king troubled both the king’s uncle and the king’s mother. Alanna Cockerwall, fearing that her son was becoming the puppet of this complete stranger, decided to write to her brother, Chief Irwin Cockerwall, for support in a plan to oust Derek from the court.
On the 7th of Suren 1445, 1,500 Moorman soldiers sent from Cockerwall arrived in Gaweton, let in by Alanna and Henric, and stormed the Keep, reaching the throne room. In front of the soldiers, Alanna beseeched her son to remove and exile Derek ‘Deland’, saying to the court advisor who stood by the king: “Give me my son back and leave this realm at once, you Reachman snake.” Accounts at the time suggest Alanna was merely suffering from grief over the loss of her husband, developing some form of paranoia.
After a tense standoff where Alanna grabbed a soldier’s spear and hurled it at Derek, narrowly missing him, Welyam managed to calm her down by saying that while he wouldn’t dismiss Derek ‘Deland’, he would appoint her as a second advisor to counter Derek’s influence. With this decree, Welyam ended the standoff and sent most of the Moorman soldiers home, save for a small retinue Alanna instated as Welyam’s personal guard along with the remnants of his father’s and grandfather’s.
But during a feast a month later, one of the servants surged forth and stabbed Alanna in the heart before being cut down by Welyam’s guard as they attempted to escape. According to famous though apocryphal accounts of the event, when Welyam pushed guards out of the way only to find his mother already dead, he nodded and went to leave the room. When asked by a guard why he wouldn’t stay and ensure no one else would be attacked, he simply replied: “I assure you, when the gods come for those I love, my presence means nothing.”
While the motive for the killing was ultimately blamed on a minor clan near Cockerwall due to the presence of a dagger from their chief and their longstanding feud with the Cockerwalls, resulting in a crackdown known as Welyam’s Reckoning. Rumours persist, however, that it was Derek who ordered it.
The Welyamite Reforms[]
In Teysuren 1446, Welyam held a meeting with the Great Lords, where he announced the beginning of the Welyamite Reforms, a system of changes to the Gawedi state meant to repair its century of stagnation Gawed had been mired in. When asked how he was meant to pay for all of this with the poor state of the king’s finances, Welyam replied that he was going to create a council of merchants and burghers known as ‘The Magnate Council’, which would supply the king with access to capital as well as serve an advisory role. This, as well as several other reforms designed to reign in the wealth and power of the Great Lords, infuriated Welyam’s vassals, beginning a year and a half where the Kingdom verged on the edge of revolt.
Welyam spent the next year and a half quelling this dissent. First he spent months appealing to the more reform minded lords of the Lower Alen, who had more to gain from empowering merchants due to the profits they would reap from such endeavours than maintaining the status quo. Then he began to meet with more moderate lords such as the Ramsgate of the Westmounts and his cousins, the Gerwicks of the Alenic Expanse. These talks made many lords, if not join his side, at least stay neutral in the threat of rebellion, which led to the crown now having an advantage if such tensions were to spiral out of control.
But there still remained the most staunch and traditional of the nobility: Houses such as the Dires of the Greatmarch, and the Oudesckers and Balvords which guarded the border with Escann remained staunchly reactionary to the idea of the Welyamite Reforms. Eventually in 1448, to gain their begrudging approval, the Aldvord Conference was held at the other side of the Alen river from Gaweton, where various political concessions were given, eventually allowing the reforms to pass, the threat of civil war averted.
Middle Reign[]
In the summer of 1450, as the tension within the realm subsided and the crown once again had a more stable revenue source, Welyam III finally became betrothed to Karina Deland, the ‘niece’ of Derek ‘Deland’, the now leader of the Magnate Council. Some again protested not marrying into any of the ancient Great Lord families of Gawed such as the Oudesckers, Dires, or even one of the Moorman Clans. Welyam’s choice of Karina was unshakeable, and many chroniclers conclude the reasoning was political: to bind the new ties between the Magnates and the Crown and further ensure this new class of merchants and Burghers would be firmly tied to the royal family. Other Chroniclers, however, opt for a more simple explanation: That the betrothal was born more out of genuine affection than political machinations.
By all accounts the marriage was a happy one, Karina’s gregarious and bright presence seemed to sooth Welyam’s more melancholic and stern nature, often described as the only person capable of making the king smile. Additionally, she would often lend a hand in terms of running the state, taking an active role as Queen of Gawed to the point that despite being a foreigner, Karina was very much beloved by both the nobility and the people of Gawed.
It was after his marriage that Welyam began to soften in his approach to rulership. Seeking to reconcile with the nobility to balance the Gawedi factions, he would marry several of his family members with the Great Houses of Gawed, thus preventing a long term dissent with his vassals, and increasing the centralisation of the state under the king. Additionally Welyam would appoint various lords to positions within the court, one of the instances where he publically went against the wishes of Derek ‘Deland’, in order to avoid accusation of the Magnate Council overreaching their position.
Late Reign[]
In the autumn years of his reign, King Welyam took on a more diplomatic role, beginning to host feasts and hunts internally within Gawed. The largest of them by far was the Great Hunt of 1470, an event that saw parties from across Cannor attend, from nobles from across southern Cannor, to even members of the Corintar. This was Welyam’s attempt to end Gawed’s diplomatic isolation, and allow it to gain both allies, and combat its enemies such as Lorent without resorting to warfare.
The results were a firm success for the kingdom, with diplomatic ties between Gawed and the rest of Cannor reaching a state of normalisation not seen since the aftermath of the War of the Sorcerer King. While no alliances were reached with any nation at the hunt, the event established Gawed as a potential diplomatic partner, ally, and a figure on the world stage that seemed more reasonable than their reputation as the fearsome Northern Eagle.
Another great diplomatic success for Gawed was when King Welyam and Queen Karina attended an Esmari river party in 1481, the first time a Gawedi king had left the Kingdom for reasons unrelated to war in over two centuries. Accounts from others at the party claim Welyam was shy, drank and ate little, and had a hard time speaking in crowds and open spaces, with Karina doing most of the talking for him. Nevertheless, a Gawedi monarch attending events such as this further served to frame Gawed not as some northern barbaric state, but one that could appeal as an ally and neighbour.
In 1490 however, at a feast in Gaweton, an aging Prince Henric walked up to the king and whispered something. It is unknown what he said, but Welyam was stone-faced the rest of the evening, and when he got up to leave, his hands were allegedly splintered from gripping the arms of the oak throne too hard. Two weeks later, Derek ‘Deland’ was retired from his positions in the Gawedi court, and sent to a newly purchased manor in Norleigh, replaced by Karina’s brother, Frederik. It is unknown if these events are related, but many believe the retirement was in fact both a punishment and a way of ensuring Derek could no longer interfere with politics in Gawed.
Death[]
On the 7th of Silversight 1503, Welyam was reading to his great grandson, Edmund, when he suffered from a heart attack that left him bedridden and dying. At the age of 75, King Welyam III Gerwick passed away surrounded by his family after nearly 60 years of rulership, his last words said to be: “Spring is upon us, at long last, I have done my duty.” He was buried within the Crypt of Gaweton's Keep, beside his grandfather and the other kings of Gawed. Upon his request, a feast was held the week after, and his son was crowned King Jon II Gerwick two months later.
Legacy[]
Welyam’s legacy is a controversial topic, with chroniclers divided on the matter. Some claim he was a just, compassionate, and temperate king who reigned in the corrupt and lazy Great Lords of Gawed, implemented much needed reforms to the state, and ensured Gawed could function as a great power of Cannor for the next two and a half centuries. Others claim he was a king who failed to ensure his heirs could carry his policies and reforms forward, and whose greatest achievements arguably would go on to doom his descendants. Many a debate has raged in circles of scholars on the legacy of such a pivotal Gawedi king.
Regardless, his physical legacies remain in the form of the Magnate Council he formed and the Northern league it went on to found from the ashes of the Magnate Uprising, as well as the copious amounts of writing he did across his long reign. Most of these writings are banal; diplomatic letters and drafts of various reforms, but some of them betray the deeply personal nature of an infamously stoic and stone-faced monarch.
It is from these writings that the poets have formed their own legacy for Welyam: one as a tragic reformer, who laboured for his entire reign to reform Gawed into a realm that could have saved his father from his doom at Rottenstep. This has led to the modern perception of King Welyam being remarkably humanised in terms of historical figures, with a myriad of songs, plays, and books written on this more dramatised version of his reign and character.