Also, if the Saxon Lady and the knight had even be discussing about marriage 'once the war is over', this would have created a valid engagement between them, too.Īnyway, my point is that there is really no reason for Kay to go digging for marriage records. Edward IV comes to mind even if you don't believe Bishop Stillington (the marriage to Lady Eleanor Talbot), his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was kept secret at first. Normally the marriages are public for obvious reasons, but there have been exceptions, even at rather high level. All the more so if the knight is a Pagan, of course (I assume not, since annulment is mentioned). Make the lie into the truth by telling the knight to really marry the woman, although as far as everyone knows, they are already married by the knight's public admission! Like Atgxtg already pointed out, the Church might not even be involved: if both the knight and the woman say that they are married, then they are married. Yep, that would be pretty much what I would be inclining to do, as well. Probably force the knight to marry the Saxon woman after all, unless that would mean more land and/or titles for the knight. night watch), or sending him into exile for a year, or maybe even something worse. Punish the Knight- this could mean given him a unpouplar duty (i.e. I'd expect Arthur to do something along the lines of: If that's the case, then he might still spare the woman, as it's bad policy to createa new law and then do something contrary to it at the same time. On the other hand poor Arthur has learned his lesson and will write a law that prevents women and children from being valid war hostages in Logres, or something along those lines. All that without taking into account that marriage is a sacred institution and the PK is supposed to be religious. I don't know how he should react when he discovers that the knight has tried to deceive him. A Round Table knight has been publically criticizing his policy, has not shown any empathy towards the difficulty that surrounds the decision and has married a saxon basically just to spite him.
Arthur has promised to try to annul the marriage and Kay (or whoever handles the issue) will discover the lie soon because ¡there aren't any marriage documents in any of the realm's church and there's no marriage to annul! Arthur ought to be hurt and enraged even before knowing the truth. Needless to say the wedding is an outright lie that he invented on the spot. The player probably didn't want to anger Arthur by marrying an hostage, since he has high loyalty, but stopped caring when he saw the saxon lady he liked was gonna die. Why he decided to lie instead of actually marrying her? I don't know. One more question that I forgot to ask back then but could become relevant (and I don't think deserves a new topic): What would be the consequences for a Round Table Knight who lied to Arthur? Specifically one of the player knights claimed that he was married with one of the lady hostages and this prevented Arthur from executing her (for some reason).
I will remember this when I explain the new law. Note that there were a few exceptions- for instance bandits caught in the act, especially along the King's road, could be strung up on the spot, and killing someone in battle or fair combat wasn't considered murder. Should the whole fragment just be ignored? Are bandits supposed to pay a fine? The gruesome alternatives of William are out of question, of course. And I know that my players will call Arthur a liar if he bans death penalty but tries to execute Guinevere because they already got very mad at him for killing the saxon hostages (they believe it to be against the vows of the Round Table since I made some of the hostages to be female and/or young).ģ) Honestly I cannot think about what punishments would be a good alternative, in a medieval setting. In fact Arthur sentences his own wife to die a more gruesome death than hanging and this is presented as painful but lawful. Death penalty is mentioned several times.
Is Arthur supposed to pay a fine in full to himself?Ģ) Regardless of who gets the fine's money, Arthur would be paying it quite often. I understand that good king Arthur can't go around promoting castration and that abolishing death penalty sounds great but it presents two problems:ġ) Executing anyone is already forbidden before Arthur, at least for everyone but the king (an a very few chosen to act in the name of the king). Now in William's version what it says is that people can't be executed but they can be mutilated and in fact this is his alternative to killing them. And this command shall not be violated under pain of a fine in full to me. I also forbid that anyone shall be slain or hanged for any fault, or his eyes be put out or him be castrated.