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Chapter 61 - Assembling the militia

 "Your Majesty! A letter from the Lord Duke of Somerset in London!"

 In the fall, the year's barley and rye had long since been harvested, and it was now a good time for plowing. So Edward was busily directing the serfs on how to implement the three-bed system and how to water with piles of farmyard manure.

 At that moment, from the distance came the cry of the maid Luna.

 Edward couldn't help but look for the source of the sound and turned his head, only to see Luna staring at the ground, jumping from time to time with a heartbeat.

 It looked close, but Edward actually waited almost five minutes for Luna to come to Edward's attention, panting and panting, her lovely puffy breasts alive and kicking.

 "Luna! Something is wrong slowly, catch your breath first!" Looking at Luna coming up for air, as her master, Edward expressed his heartache.

 "Your Majesty! A letter has come to you from the Lord Duke of Somerset in London."

 Luna slowed her breath, organized her breathing, calmed herself, and looked at Edward with her own watery eyes.

 "Oh? I wonder what that uncle of mine is up to again!"

 Edward flipped through the letters quite breathlessly, full of disinterested attitude.

 Halfway through, Edward realizes that he's actually the protagonist of a war, a war to be fought in his name, and he's only the last to know about it.

 And to top it all off, he had a loli fiancée, a historically voluptuous queen, Mary I, a wife five years older than himself.

 As a king, one's marriage cannot be left to one's own nature. Too bad it's a loli than her own, by the time she's sixteen, I'm afraid I'll already be an uncle.

 But it would be nice to come over for a loli raise and give her a complete makeover. What a tantalizing idea to transform a latter-day fluffy, slutty, ambitious, low-political-competence queen into a well-behaved, beautiful, bird-dependent loli.

 Edward thought, immediately turning the disadvantage of his marriage into an advantage, and sure enough everything was much better.

 On the side, Luna stayed next to Edward, looking at her master with a good-natured expression as she gawked, causing a pang of embarrassment in the heart of Edward, who had just reacted to the situation.

 "Okay! Luna! I'll follow you back first!"

 Edward remembered something important, as if that uncle of his had failed to catch Lori who was hiding in Mohomme Abbey, and had once again come back with a bad taste in his mouth. Although recovering his wife for himself is just an excuse, but this excuse has to come true ah! Otherwise it would be a joke.

 So Edward returned to his study in hot pursuit to write a friendly reminder to the Lord Duke, who was in London, or else his plans to raise a loli would be in vain, and his plans to unite the British Isles would be difficult.

 At this time, our Duke Edward was issuing decrees in the Privy Council, and giving edicts of muster to the magistrates throughout England.

 To this point it is necessary to talk about England's army at the time, which, apart from the navy, had no standing army.

 So where did the army come from? England at that time inherited the order of arms from the year.

 Much like Chinese military service, the English were forced into military service by the king and had weapons for themselves according to their means (sometimes when you visit their wife's hidden closet ------ there's only a silk petticoat, but it holds a light cavalry outfit!) , for example if you had a horse then you were a cavalryman, and if you had a bow you were an archer.

 In the current century, this system has not been eliminated, and the effects of its continuation can still be seen.

 At certain moments, all eligible Britons are forcibly summoned for inspection and reassignment (which may rise to twice a year in times of crisis), and this system is enforced on a county-by-county basis by sheriffs. Normally, the sheriffs would also have some standing militia at their disposal to fight riots and whatnot. Priests, nobles, and their privately owned soldiers had a similar system of forced mustering, enforced separately from the regular militia.

 At this point, the militia should have totaled, at least theoretically, a million men.

 Initially these militiamen would return home at the end of the muster unless there was a threat of invasion to keep them mobilized ------ Henrys used to keep mobilized, number of foot soldiers all summer long.

 Engaging in overseas duties took on considerable importance in the last years of the century, and the soldiers who accomplished such tasks were no doubt paid by expenses, although these soldiers, collected from the various county militias, were often required to prepare all of their own weapons and defenses (and often those who least wanted to do so ended up being sent overseas!) .

 During the century, the militia system began to decline, although until the beginning of the English Civil War, both Cromwell and Charles I tried to pull the militias from all over the country for their own use.

 And Cromwell's ability to win had a lot to do with the fact that he had collected a large number of local militias.

 The Lord Duke was at pains to sign the decrees sent to various places, and as he was both a minister of the Council of Regents and one of the Ministers of the Privy Council, it was both a pleasure and an agony for him to do so.

 "My dear steward, give these edicts to the men of the Privy Council, and have them speedily transmitted to the magistrates everywhere!"

 Duke Edward spoke without lifting his head, and the waiting butler quickly took it and stepped out of the door, again instructing the manservants who stood to the right and left of the gate.

 Afterward, he came back and spoke vocally to the Duke.

 "Sir! His Majesty the King, who is far away in Berkshire, has written you a letter which must be delivered into your hands! Do you see?"

 "Bring it! Let me see what instructions I have from His dear Majesty the King!"

 With that, the steward took the letter to Duke Edward, and the Lord Duke took it in his hand.

 The entire letter was not much, just a few hundred Latin words, but the Duke's Excellency read it very carefully, and he could not help but frown.

 Although he was unimpressed with the information Edward had gotten, the Duke-sama took it to heart, after all, he didn't fully understand the power of the royal family, so maybe it was true.

 At this time, England's northern border area, since the outbreak of the 'Riot of Seeking Grace', Henry VIII set up in the border area directly under the London's Northern Committee, which has full authority over the northern counties, to completely remove the northern local nobles of the cut-off state.

 York, a major northern town, which was not only the seat of the Northern Council, but also the base for England's invasion of Scotland.

 At this time, the normally empty barracks were welcoming important people, the Lord Baron Vitellio Lysander, Minister of the Northern Council, was inspecting the maintenance of the barracks, accompanied by several Yorkshire magistrates and judges, after all, word had spread all over England that a war was going to be waged between London and Scotland.

 "Your Excellency the Minister! I have listened to your advice, and I have been asking the officers under my command to endeavor to maintain the entire barracks, who know that the Scots have always provoked us."