I'd like to share the story of this King that happened in my game today. Its perhaps my favorite story I've gotten out of this game in over 2000 hours of playing.



For context I began as the Capet who rules Loon and Liege in the 769 start date, with the goal of basically just being Capet Kings of France.



Fast forward to around 950 and I've managed to unite all the lands of France, Middle France, Burgundy, and about half of Aquitaine. King Henry I dies and the throne passes to his young son, Louis II. During Louis's regency the Umayyads managed to take take the independent Duchy of Gascogne, the last landed I need to secure my southern border with Hispania. After the regency ends, and after putting down a rebellion by several Dukes, Louis, now age 21 declares war on the Umayyads.



Louis leads an army and manages to capture about half of Gascogne before the Umayyads send an army to respond. During the battle Louis is maimed by a valiant foeman, a month later it is discovered that he is a leper. Within three months, Louis dies at age 22, childless.



Now Louis had a brother four years younger than him, Henry. Henry was one of those heirs that you wish you could have as your King instead, he was Strong and had several virtues, so when Louis dies and the crown passes to Henry, I was excited. Several months pass, the Umayyad army returns for a rematch, and Henry II engages them in battle. Once again the armies of France beat the Umayyads and push them back over the Pyrenees, but in the midst of the battle Henry II receives a crushing blow to the head and falls into a coma at age 18. He had been married to a Byzantine Princess, but they had not had time to have a child.



Now that's unfortunate I think, he would have made a good King. His heir is now his uncle, the 30 year old Duke Henry of Luxembourg and Lower Lorraine, also holding lands in Brabant. Duke Henry had been the result of my attempt to put those lands in the hands of the French Crown, I forget how, but that plan failed and they ended up in the hands of a close dynast instead.



This is fine, I think, my earlier plan to inherit Luxembourg and Lower Lorraine had failed, but the game had fixed my problem and now my earlier failed plan would succeed when King Henry II inevitably died within 5 years.



Except he didn't die, I think he was too strong too. Instead the realm was ruled by the council, who actually did a pretty good job, aside from a rebellion early in Henry's regency there were no attempts to increase council power, though to be fair they already had about half of the laws in their favor thanks to the regency of Henry's older brother Louis.



For the next 30 years France is ruled by the council, Duke Henry waits, content that soon King Henry II will die and he will be King of France. At about year 20 I notice a problem. Duke Henry isn't having kids, he married an old woman, aside from him the people in line for the throne are a distant kinsman, and then a man from a different dynasty. I arrange for the Kinsman to get married, and he has a child who I name Louis, and who I expect to one day be King of France.



That problem solved I continue to wait for King Henry to die, I ignore plots to kill him, but none of them go anywhere, for he was apparently a pretty charming person for being completely senseless. Most of the realms opinions of him were running into the 50s, and I didn't have to worry about rebellion because everyone was just happy under the rule of his council.



Finally, at age 48, King Henry II awakens from his coma. I imagine that was a frightening day at court. His wife enters his chambers to find Henry awake for the first time in 30 years, the man who I had consigned to death long ago. He quickly takes up the War focus. Within a month of awakening from his coma, he wins a spear throwing contest. To solve the heir Problem once and for all, I divorce his wife, as she was in her 50s, and marry a 16 year old genius instead, soon they begin have a whole bunch of sons. Duke Henry must have been so frustrated. For 30 years he stood to inherit the throne, if only the King would have died, and then he returns from death and pops out a string of heirs. Due Henry finally died at the age of 72, bitterly disappointed that the Kingdom had been snatched from his grasp.



King Henry II goes on to earn the name of King Henry Ironside, and brought the Duchy of Brittany fully under my control, as well as Crusading, beating back the Umayyads a few more times, and warring successfully against Lombardy, before finally dying at the age of 70 and leaving the Kingdom to his son Charles I.



When Charles inherit there were no rebellions, because King Henry Ironside had been so well loved that several of my vassals had +75 opinion of Charles just from their opinion of his predecessor.



And thats the story of King Henry Ironside, who slept through half of his reign, and perhaps became this worlds greatest King of France.



Though I still have about 400 years to go, so that could change.