Mary Su Stuart

"Once upon a time, there was Eleanor, the Duchess of Aquitaine. She was bright and lively, intelligent and strong. She married King Louis VII of France and became Queen of France."

"Unfortunately, the relationship between her and her husband is not very good. On the one hand, it is because of various conflicts during the Crusades; on the other hand, it is because she and him have only had two daughters for many years, and there has never been a male heir .”

"So they applied to the Pope to dissolve their marriage, using the 'marriage of close relatives' as the apparent reason. Only six weeks after the divorce, Eleanor married Henry, Duke of Normandy."

"One year after remarrying, Eleanor gave birth to a son. This made Louis VII, who believed that she could not give birth to a boy and lost a good chance to annex Aquitaine, become a laughing stock in Europe."

"Soon, Henry, Duke of Normandy succeeded to the throne as King of England, and Eleanor became Queen of England again. They went to London proudly. Later they gave birth to the third son, Richard the Lionheart, the most famous in the history of the Crusades. .”

"Eleanor and Louis VII's eldest daughter, Marie, was loved by no one for many years due to the breakdown of the relationship between her parents and embarrassing status. She grew up in a monastery, and later obeyed the political marriage arranged by her father and became the Countess of Champagne."

"Mary's husband joined the Crusades and left her alone. Her half-brother, who succeeded the French king, was eager to invade the Champagne territory."

"Life is so rough, Mary has to find ways to find some joy for herself."

"She funded a writer, Chretien, and asked him to write five parts of the Arthurian legend. In these works, King Arthur almost became a supporting role. Knight Lancelot."

"Chretien's works weaved the love fantasy that intoxicated noble women, created a model of love triangle and knightly love, and made the legend of the round table even more famous."

"In this popular legend, the perfect knight Lancelot was raised by a mysterious elf. She is called the fairy of the lake, Ms. Vivienne."

"She has powerful magic power, she is independent and independent, she gave King Arthur the sword of the king. After his death, she took back the sword and rowed him to the Holy Land of Avalon to protect his eternal life. sleep."

"Vivian, what a nice name."

Mary caressed her sleeping daughter, and showed the sweetest smile to Francois.

He lowered his head and approached slowly, rubbing against her lips. "Vivian, what a nice name."

Although in the ancient French court, this was quite "deviant", but at the insistence of the Queen of Scots, this name, which seemed to have a Celtic legend, was still written into the royal documents.

Mary closed her eyes slowly.Her daughter is not called Eleanor, who seems too ambitious; not called Mary, who is really bad; and called Vivienne—a free spirit lord who controls destiny.

Facing his wife's wordless invitation, François completely overwhelmed him.Like a superficial touch, his forehead, eyelids, nose tip, cheeks, chin, and finally his kiss returned to his rosy and soft lips.

After completing a series of movements, the nanny beside her, who was not in a good mood, finally carried away the baby princess Vivienne under the direction of Her Majesty's eyes.

"I can still sleep like this every day." Francois muttered as he watched his daughter being put on the small bed and covered with a small quilt. "I don't know if she likes the new toy I brought."

Mary smiled and said, "As long as father comes to visit her, she likes it very much."

These are purely habitual words to make him happy.In fact, Vivienne's closest friend is the nanny, and her mother who comes to hug her and play with her every day is still behind; as for her father, whom she hasn't seen for five months-she has to put a question mark on whether she remembers.

Francois was very excited. "Well, time flies so fast. I heard you said that she can sit and crawl. She was so small at the beginning, but now she has grown to such a big..."

Mary sighed: "It's just a bit too big and too fat. The so-called crawling, the knees can't support it, the stomach is on the ground, and it keeps spinning. I'm thinking about how to let her exercise more."

Francois smiled and said: "It just so happens that there is a toy sent by the audience, the bouncy ball, it feels very interesting, you can give it to her to try."

He blinked. "New World, produced in South America."

Mary's eyes lit up at those words. "Quick, let me have a look first."

Francois turned his head and gave some instructions.So, soon, a dingy ball appeared in front of Mary.

Throwing it on the ground, it can bounce very high, it is soft and sticky to the touch, and it smells a bit weird-this should be natural rubber!

Such a good thing, how could she have missed it all these years!

"I heard that at the very beginning, Columbus discovered that Native Americans played this kind of ball game, and they managed to bring some back." Francois said. "This one is very rare. I bought it from Spain by accident." "Then do they know where it came from?" Mary said anxiously. "Did you cut open a kind of tree, find the sap flowing out of it, and then collect and make it?"

Francois shook his head. "I don't know. I'm also curious about this matter, but according to them, those Spanish navigators in the past actually didn't know anything about it."

"We must get to the bottom of this, and find out." Mary's cheeks flushed because of excitement. "First collect finished products, find plants, and then collect seeds..."

My God, rubber, what an important industrial raw material!

They make so many, many important parts that they are literally everywhere in modern life.After Mary came to this time and space, she fantasized about entering the steam civilization in advance—after all, the principle of boiling water to do work is so easy to understand.But the books she read taught her that the sealing of the cylinder is a big difficulty in making a steam engine!If, in the future, there are rubber pads and rubber rings... the first industrial revolution seems to be getting closer and closer to her!

"Open up a colony, or set up a plantation in the local area to specialize in rubber." Mary grinned from ear to ear. "If it's suitable, you can just spend money to buy a garden in South America. There should be a lot of suitable land in the hands of the Spaniards..."

François did not question his wife's belief that the bouncy ball came from some South American plant.He is thinking about very real problems. "Dear Mary, our relationship with Spain is not very good now. It is not easy to find this source through official channels."

Mary woke up instantly. "Uh, yes, that's right, it's not easy."

Since last autumn, the hostility between Spain and Britain and France has gradually become serious.

Two years ago, Dudley, Duke of Clarence, secretly funded the mob "beggars at sea" and attacked the Netherlands. Under diplomatic mediation, it temporarily subsided.Unexpectedly, the maritime incident just settled down, and the land incident started again—in August 1570, Coligny, the governor of Picardy in France, joined forces with the brothers William and Louis of Orange-Nassau, and brought a large number of Hughes without authorization while the king was staying in London. The Nordics, joined with the German mercenaries, joined the Dutch rebels.

Accompanying him was Prince Condé, who had successfully escaped from prison.

In the absence of the king, the Queen Mother and the Duke of Orleans look after the house, which seems to be somewhat insufficient at the moment-Lobitard is getting older, the Duke of Guise is a little immature; the Cardinal of Lorraine stares at the little Montmorency, and then at Henry, Duke of Vendôme, was also concerned about the Duke of Langeville who had to rest at home while hunting and falling from his horse during his wedding leave. A negligence caused Prince Condé to escape.

After François returned to his country, he immediately publicly condemned his ministers' treason, and wrote a letter to Spain, stating that their offense against the Dutch government was purely personal.

However, Duke Alva, Governor of the Netherlands, didn't think so.Facing the "wanted documents" of Coligny and Condé, he sneered three times: "Pretentious, extremely hypocritical. The Valois court is clearly opportunistic."

The reason is that Alva recently led his army to fight a sea rebel.Although our own losses were not small, we also wiped out many enemy troops.In the process of chasing the fleeing ship, they killed a "big man", John Knox.Later, they found some strange clues beside the Calvinist mentor.

Following the clues and trying their best to track them down, they uncovered a big secret that probably the Protestant priest himself was not aware of: the benefactor who funded Knox was related to a certain French Catholic aristocrat; Commission of the Sovereigns of Scotland and England.

What an evil plot!

Of course, their guess was wrong: all along, Mary has been deviously seducing Knox, in fact, she only wanted to deport him, and never used his intention to target Spain; Religious waves...

Alva's reply deeply stimulated Philip II.The King of Spain has just married his uncle's granddaughter, that is, his niece, Princess Elizabeth of Austria; he is also busy suppressing the rebels in the country; Something more serious happened in the Netherlands!

Could it be that the Anglo-French alliance is waiting for an opportunity to start a war against Spain? !

The emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Philip's cousin and father-in-law in Austria would like to help - but the Ottomans on the eastern front had taught him to be nervous, and facing the German Protestant princes in the west also gave him headaches, so he could give Philip support Really limited.The King of Spain ordered angrily: the warships closed the port and dispatched troops. Even if the Netherlands was flattened, the Anglo-French alliance would not be able to take advantage of it!

"The recent diplomatic letter sent by Spain is very warning; they have also invested heavily in the Netherlands, and even Don Juan, who is preparing for war in the Mediterranean, has been affected... So, I really want to look for the 'rubber' you mentioned , it is best to start directly from overseas." Francois said.

"Yeah." Mary frowned. "Then let England and France's expedition to South America spend more energy and focus on searching; or let them find a way to make a deal with the local Spanish governor... By the way, you just said, preparing for war in the Mediterranean Who is it—Don Juan?"

The author has something to say: I have thought about the name Little Princess for a long time... at first it was Frances, but later I felt that I should let myself go...

For the legendary experience of Eleanor of Aquitaine/Aquitaine, please refer to Du Niangpedia.

The history of rubber discovery, refer to "Story of Civilization 7"