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The Treaty of Peace was the peace treaty that ended the War of the Four Kingdoms.
It was negotiated, agreed and signed by four nobles representing the nations Gallantaria, Brice, Femphrey and The Northlands.[1] The official signing took place in Royal Lendle[2] and the ceremony was therefore hosted by Tantalon, the regent of Gallantaria at the time.
Tantalon after signing the Treaty of Peace
The fact that a Treaty was signed at all was down to Tantalon's expert handling of Gallantaria's forces in the war, following his assumption of the regency on the death of King Constain. By the time he had signed the Treaty, the war had all but exhausted Tantalon. The window of peace that this Treaty opened, enabled Tantalon to turn his attention to home affairs and to design a grand adventure quest, to be known as the Tasks of Tantalon, which in turn would unearth a successor to the throne of Gallantaria. His aim was to do this within a year of the Treaty, because his experience suggested that would be the lifetime of the Treaty.[3]
The Treaty was not universally accepted as a triumph for Gallantaria. After the war a speech was given at Ranters' Corner where a antagonistic orator said:
“ We waste too much time trying to appease our neighbours. It was they who started the War of the Four Kingdoms, yet it is we who must go crawling to them for trade. We should seize what is rightfully ours. Now our great nation is eclipsed by the barbaric Femphrey. We are clearly superior and should have won the war, were it not for that old fool Tantalon, who sold us, his people, down the river. Traitor! We must demand recompense from Brice, Femphrey and those rats in the north. Northlanders and sorcerers! Pah![4] ”
This type of opinion was generally agreed to have been ill-informed and deliberately aimed at upsetting the uneasy alliance between the four kingdoms.
The Treaty of Peace, despite Tantalon's reservations about Brice not sticking to it, did in fact last considerably more than a year. Even years after the war, it was described as a fragile peace[5] Whether this is a happy side-effect of a successor being found through Tasks of Tantalon, or whether it is due to the Treaty being a more effective instrument than it was given credit for, is a matter of historical debate.
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References[]
- ↑ Please see the War of the Four Kingdoms article for more details about the participants and the role of Lendleland
- ↑ The Tasks of Tantalon - p.4
- ↑ The Tasks of Tantalon - p.7
- ↑ Legend of the Shadow Warriors - 137
- ↑ "The War of the Four Kingdoms – Gallantaria, Femphrey, Brice and the Northlands – almost tore the Old World apart, but the four sides turned away from the abyss and made a fragile peace ...”: Moonrunner - p.??