[Discuss] Oaths of fealty and their confliction with other orders

[John P. Murphy]

On Mar 4, 2008, at 2:20 PM, Rob McDonald wrote:

> There is a debate and argument going on in Eston at the moment  
> about a conflict of orders, and what supercedes what.
> <snip>

> This is wrong, isn't it? We are trying to become more duchy- 
> dentric, so a knights loyalty is to his duchy above his realm,  
> hence a king's marshal does not have more control over you than  
> your lord does, as far as I understand. I want to step in and set  
> things straight here, because confusions like this are only going  
> to set up bad habits that need to be stopped. If I can get some  
> consensus on this it would be much appreciated.

The king's marshal (what, no Duchy armies?) only has power over  
knights because the region lords dispatched those knights to the  
army.  Orders from the marshal are given by the authority of the  
knight's region lord.  The Duke is telling them to ignore actual  
orders that are given under his own authority, which is stupid.  The  
Duke or someone else should have formed a new army with a new marshal  
specifically for this purpose, and then withdrawn the knights from  
the old army and dispatched them to the new army.  And really, when  
the campaign is over, he should think seriously about whether he  
really wants his knights in an army controlled by the king.

Now, the political fallout is another thing entirely, but that's part  
of the game.

John