| Sir Roger Kyriell, Earl of Monmouth and Viscount Kyriell | 
Age: 38 (born 18 October, 1443)
Spouse: Anne Woodville (43, b. 1438)
Traits: 6 pts
+5 Charisma (base 3, -1 from 'Reserved' trait, +3 from 'Empathic' and 'Sociable' traits)
+2 Battles ('Empathic' and 'Reserved' cancel each other out)
+1 Logistician
+1 Wealth (8% income bonus, +3% total from 'Austere' and 'Sociable' traits on top of the 5% base)
-1 Personal Combat (from 'Empathic')
Temperaments:
Phlegmatic - dominant:
- Empathic: This character is strongly attuned to the emotions of others and cares for them, making them great friends or kinsmen to have - but poor warriors and generals. +2 Charisma, -1 to battle/joust/duel rolls.
- Reserved: This character is a stoic who generally keeps to him/herself and exercises strict control over their emotions. While this means they're not likely to make reckless moves in court or on the battlefield, they can come across as unfeeling robots to others. +1 battle rolls, -1 Charisma.
Sanguine - subservient:
- Sociable: This character is an extroverted social butterfly, capable of making friends left and right. However, they have little time for 'boring' matters like finances, and are more interested in buying flashy things to show off to their friends than managing their wealth. +1 Charisma, -2% income.
Roger is the second son of Sir Thomas Kyriell and Cecily Stourton, and thus younger brother to Edmund. Unlike his uncouth brother who preferred to spend his childhood days fighting dummies and the servants' sons, the more contemplative and reserved Roger paid attention in church, struggled mightily to learn how to read, and - though he also likes to talk a lot - can generally remain coherent when agitated or excited. He learned how to fight as well of course, as only befits a son of a knight, but was routinely clobbered by his bigger and stronger brother in their sparring matches, and maintains that his true weapon was inside his skull rather than any tool in his hand. When the sons of Kent were called away to fight in the Wars of the Roses, Roger dutifully followed at the age of thirteen and killed his first man a year later in a minor skirmish, to the approval of his more bloodthirsty brother Edmund and zealously loyal father Thomas. He was knighted at the same time as Edmund for his service at Mortimer's Cross, and like him was not present at 2nd St Albans, thus mercifully avoiding the miserable sight of his father's death. He continued to follow the Yorkist army to London, where their master Edward of March was acclaimed King, and together with his brother awaits an opportunity to avenge their father.
Roger has profited greatly from his and his brother's loyalty to the House of York, which saw him elevated to first Viscount Kyriell and now Earl of Monmouth - setting him on equal footing to Edmund, who had been named Earl of Cambridge all the way back in the aftermath of Towton. Being based out of White Castle in Monmouthshire and using a white-tinted variation of the traditional Kyriell arms, his junior branch of the family would in time be known as the 'White Kyriells' to differentiate them from the senior line under Cambridge. In the late 1460s he married Anne Woodville, second eldest of the 1st Earl Rivers' daughters, which proved mighty convenient when Anne's elder sister Elizabeth challenged Margaret Percy for the position of Queen not long afterwards. Naturally Monmouth took the side of his sister-in-law, spending many a night riding across London and the countryside to secure allies and spread rumors of Margaret's supposed dalliance with a Flemish artist to all who could hear while his elder brother secured a key witness for Woodville's party. Their efforts paid off, as Elizabeth and her chief legal representative Thomas Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury went on to crush Percy and her attorney, Archbishop Francis O'Neill of York, at the 1469 Council of Bishops in Lincoln.
Roger's reward following Woodville's victory was an advisory position on the King's council, where he continued to put his diplomatic finesse to use in various overseas missions for King Edward: most importantly, a jaunt to Italy which saw him bringing enough money home to strengthen Edward's royal army ahead of the war with France. Though not nearly as capable a warrior as Cambridge, Monmouth nonetheless dutifully accompanied his brother, liege and soldiers to France in 1475 and served as best he could, typically overseeing sieges or commanding his men from the rear instead of raring to lead assaults or fighting on the front lines as Edmund preferred. Feeling more relief than anything when the war came to its conclusion, Monmouth headed home in 1480 to reunite with his family, including an astonishingly quick-witted son conceived right before he departed for France. |
| Monmouth's family |
- Anne Kyriell, née Woodville, Roger's wife - 43, b. 1438
- Elizabeth Kyriell, Roger and Anne's daughter, betrothed to Thomas Neville (son of John Neville Marquess of Montagu) - age 11, b. 18 February 1470
- Cecily Kyriell, Roger and Anne's daughter - age 9, b. 8 May 1472
- Catherine Kyriell, Roger and Anne's hunchbacked daughter - age 8, b. 6 July 1473
- Gwyn Kyriell, Roger and Anne's daughter - age 6, b. 25 May 1475
- Richard Kyriell, Roger and Anne's gifted son - age 5, b. 16 June 1476
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White Castle and the estates of Kyriell of Monmouth
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...for once I might be bringing the larger army of the two of us, he realized as he finished.
Originally Posted by Barry Goldwater
