Lord Glosfordshier

I think that after the lapse of more than two and a half centuries, the true story of Lord Fredrick Paul Glosfordshier can finally be told. The early investigatory work of Rancticirchiretic, while useful as far as it went, has now been definitively superseded by the hitherto-suppressed manuscripts of York of Brahang, which enable me to tell the full story of the so-called "Lord".

First of all, both his name and his territorial title "Lord of Alezan" constituted brazen falsehoods employed by him for propaganda purposes. His true parentage is unknown, but York of Brahang's documentary evidence proves that he was born plain Paul Glosford -- the name which will be used for him in the remainder of this article -- in the year -280 EC. He was brought up in Treadleville, one of the constituent settlements around the Old City of Iganefta that later merged with it to form the Belly-Jewel of the South as we know her today. He rose to power at the age of 14 in one of the many criminal organizations of that place and time, the Dead Crabbits, due to his unparalleled ruthlessness and viciousness.

Within six years, he had transformed the Dead Crabbits from a mere teenage gang into a well-organized and well-armed group of thugs-for-hire, at which time he changed its name to the grandiloquent "First Iganeftan Mercenary Company". He was quite successful in obtaining contract work both within and without Iganefta, and was generally known as a man of his word, at least in matters of business. During this period he also began, without any shadow of right, to call himself "Lord" and add the pseudo-noble suffix "-shire" (characteristically misspelled) to his family name.

With the backing of his goons and his hired fifth-columnists, bearers of the Furious Apple, Glosford was able to seize control of the Iganeftan Council in -260 EC with no significant opposition other than scattered and ultimately ineffectual protests. (It is quite anachronistic to call it the "Council of Lords", a term first used some sixty years after Glosford's time. It is true, however, that he was the first to call himself "Lord-Mayor of Iganefta", an entirely extra-constitutional and dictatorial office, though reduced in the course of time to a mere sinecure whose only duties at present are those of opening the Iganeftan Free Fair every summer and presiding over municipal banquets.)

Nor was Glosford truly responsible for the construction of Iganefta-on-the-Sea. In fact, he merely officially renamed the existing Wakanpantricist fishing village of Thungerbarg, at the same time upgrading the road connecting it with Iganefta Old City, and built for himself a summer palace there -- entirely with embezzled public funds, of course. The palace has long since fallen into ruin, and the few remaining fishermen call their quarter of town "Thungerbarg" to this day.

In the usual fashion of illegitimate and tyrannical rulers everywhere, Glosford passed from mere shakedowns and corruption to the wanton murder of the citizens and the outraging of their sons, daughters, and wives. After eight years of relentless misrule, he was finally assassinated by the ad hoc Committee of Public Safety, which installed Lord Wapsipinicon of Aghquabamticook (a legitimate aristocrat and landowner this time) as his successor under a revised constitution. Shards of Glosford's body were displayed in the various settlements of Iganefta for more than a year, and his head long remained on view in the Council Hall as a warning to would-be despots.

Citations: Iganefta, Wapsipinicon of Aghquabamticook, York of Brahang.

--John Cowan 16:50, 3 Dec 2004 (EST)