Lord Darcy (character) - International Situation

International Situation

The Anglo-French Empire was established by the Plantagenets, which dynasty has continued to rule (and which continues to use the Palace of Westminster as a royal residence, with Parliament far weaker than in our timeline). Richard I returned to England after being wounded at the siege of Chaluz, but recovered and ruled well, whilst John Lackland never held the throne and died in exile. Richard died in 1219 and was succeeded by his nephew Arthur. Seven-hundred-fifty years later the present king is "John IV, by the Grace of God, King and Emperor of England, France, Scotland, Ireland, New England, and New France ; Defender of the Faith, et cetera".

To judge by the Irishman who has a central role in the stories, the Irish in this timeline do not feel particularly oppressed under the Anglo-French throne and have no inclination to become independent. Irish history here seems to have been spared traumatic periods of foreign colonisation and dispossession—and since everybody is Catholic, this Ireland has no problems of rival religious-ethnic communities.

The king is also Holy Roman Emperor, exercising loose sovereignty over the many small German and Italian states. However, his actual exercise of sovereignty is limited by the ability of German states to call upon the Poles for help; the chronologically first Lord Darcy story (though not the first written) takes place during a military confrontation between Anglo-French and Polish forces on the soil of Bavaria.

In Italy the King-Emperor is more of a Constitutional monarch, with an Italian Parliament seemingly holding much more power than the one in London (in a story set in Italy, a local policeman emphasizes that his oath of office is to the Parliament rather than the King). There is no mention, however, of whether the parliament is appointed or elected, and by whom.

Poland is a major power and the chief rival of the Anglo-French, and the two exist in a situation of Cold War; some of the stories are spy thrillers, where Lord Darcy is pitted against Polish agents and takes on some of the attributes of James Bond (with some magic ingredients added, such as a spell used to make him fall madly in love with a beautiful female Polish agent).

Hungary is part of the Polish Empire (the University of Buda-Pest is mentioned as one of Poland's major institutes of learning), and the empire seems to extend southwards into the Balkans. It is stated that Kiev is part of the Polish Empire, and most of the Ukrainian steppe. The Russias are no more than a set of fractious statelets, which might unify in the face of Polish aggression but as yet have failed to do so (it had been close to that situation in some periods of our own history—see Polish-Muscovite War (1605–1618)).

The main strategy of the Anglo-French is to bottle up the Poles and deny them access to the world's oceans. There is mention of a war in the 1940s (roughly equivalent to World War II, but of a much more limited extent) in which the Polish Navy was decisively beaten. Since then, an alliance with the Scandinavians at the exit from the Baltic and with the Roumelians (Byzantines) at the exit from the Black Sea denies passage to Polish warships—though they try to circumvent this blockade and build an ocean-going navy with the help of some African states.

As noted, the Byzantine Empire continues to exist and is, at least at times, an Anglo-French ally, but is a minor power corresponding to our Greece, its main importance being the control of the strategic Dardanelles. The Osmanlis rule a realm beyond it, apparently never having spread beyond Anatolia. The Kingdoms of Castile and Aragon never united into a single Spanish realm and were never of much account, and Southern Spain is still part of the Muslim world (one story features a suave Muslim from Granada residing in London).

Since the Point of Departure which set this alternate history off is the survival of Richard the Lion Heart until 1219 and his success in eliminating the Capetians and making himself King of France, presumably in this history The Fourth Crusade of 1204 which fatally crippled the Byzantine Empire never took place. And with John Lackland never taking the throne, he never had a chance to behave tyrannically as a king, and therefore there was no rebellion culminating in the Magna Carta—which may (very partially) explain the lack of any democratic institutions in this Twentieth Century. (By which Garrett may have meant to imply that the villains of history sometimes have their uses.)

Mexico (Mechicoe in Anglo-French) is still ruled by Aztecs, headed by the Christianised descendants of Montezuma, having been taken into the empire's high nobility and possessing considerable autonomy. North America (the whole of which is called "New England") is in the process of being settled by Europeans, but the process is far less advanced than in our history, with Native American tribes in the 1960s still able to offer significant resistance to whites encroaching on their land. However, there is also mention of thriving tobacco plantations, which seems to indicate that the equivalent of the US South is more thickly settled than the North.

Little is mentioned of "New France" (South America) beyond a single mention of its jungles being a punitive posting to unruly soldiers, from which it is clear that native inhabitants are far from completely subdued there, either.

There are only few references to Africa. Lord Darcy's father, who was an army "coronel" (i.e. colonel), is mentioned as having fought in a war at Sudan (which might be not exactly the same as our timeline's state of this name). In West Africa, black states are mentioned as maintaining their independence, keeping a balance between the Anglo-French and the Poles, and possessing enough technology to equip modern warships. The impression given is that Africa was not as heavily touched by colonialism as in our timeline. (Presumably, because the Anglo-French have a whole continent at their disposal on the other side of the Atlantic, and they do their best to bar Polish access.)

Lord Darcy is Chief Criminal Investigator for Prince Richard, Duke of Normandy—the brother of the king. An Englishman, he lives in Rouen, but spends very little time there. His assistant is Master Sean O'Lochlainn, a sorcerer who undertakes magical forensic work and who is highly proud of Irish magic and its superiority to those of other countries (especially to Polish magic).