The
Difficult Issue of the Duchy of Clafouti
The Situation:
You and your group are the advisory council to the
king of Ya-Ya Land, Gloofus. Your king
is not terribly interested in running his kingdom, so he tends to take the
advice of your council. He is much more
concerned with riding horses, practicing his sword-fighting, and meeting
whatever daughters the local gentry [upper class] may have on hand. He is 43 years old, single, unintelligent,
ugly, and ill-tempered. His great goals
are to be wealthier than yesterday, to be more militarily powerful, to have a
lot of sex, and to have a son to pass it all down to eventually. He does not go to church, but he does worry
about going to Hell.
When the advice of the council does not turn out to
be good, as happened last time, he often has one of your members tried for
treason and branded with a red-hot iron.
When your council gives him good advice and he does well, he tends to be
very generous. Because you are all close
to the king, you are not popular with the people of the kingdom. Without the king you would be in danger.
The "situation at hand:"
The duke of a friendly duchy, the Duchy of Clafouti
on the borders of your kingdom, has died.
He left a 13-year-old daughter as his only heir. The duke's lands were not part of the Kingdom
of Ya-Ya. They contain valuable forest
resources and one quite wealthy town.
The duke's castle is famously strong, but poorly defended at present. A strong contingent of rich businessmen from
The Task:
You have received the advice of three specialists
on the situation at hand. You must
decide which advice to take. The king
doesn't like to study. The king has
asked your group to provide him with a report and recommendations about what he
should do. When he gets back from
hunting he'll act on your recommendations.
What to do:
I would suggest that all of your read all of the
advice, perhaps out loud to each other.
Each person in the group should write a summary of one advisor. Divide up the summaries of the advisors and
summarize each of the 3. A summary is a
condensed version of the larger text.
Try to explain the intention, main points, and tone of each advisor.
Fill out the decision matrix from the board. This matrix covers the main issues of the
situation and will help you make your decision between the three advisors.
Assign someone in the group to write your official
letter to the king. In this letter you
should tell him which advisor to go with and why. YOU MAY NOT PICK AND CHOOSE ADVICE FROM ALL
OF THE ADVISORS. Pick one advisor over
all of the rest.
Advisor
#1 - Polonius Verdado
Good King Gloofus,
there is only one
honorable course open to your illustrious self: allow the girl her freedom to
become a nun and let the good people of Clafouti to be governed by Pablo the
good.
The Duchy of Clafouti has never been an enemy of
Ya-Ya. The now-dead duke always
maintained his independence. Pablo the
Good will do the same, turning the duchy into a powerful ally. Trade with the duchy will be good if we allow
the place its independence. Pablo's
military plans should allow him to defend us from attack from the direction of
his duchy as he would certainly not help our enemies against us if we showed
our faith in him. As you have surely
read in his books, Pablo is an excellent historian and he knows how a country
should be properly run. He will give his
people their maximum freedoms and allow them to follow whatever religious
practices they desire. If we provide
them with a peaceful good example, they may return to the fold of our most
wonderful church.
It would be criminal not to allow Britney of
Clafouti her freedom. She wishes to
follow the call of God, the highest calling of any human, even if her religious
beliefs are irregular. As a woman, she
would make a poor ruler anyway. Pablo
the Good would be a just and good Duke.
The religious decisions of the people of Clafouti
are clearly mistaken, but it would not help to attempt to convert them by
force. Our best approach would be to
treat the people of Clafouti with kindness and show them the truth of our
religion by good example.
We would encounter strong opposition if we
attempted to take over Clafouti. The
people there do not speak our beautiful language and their religion, while
incorrect, is dear to their hearts. To
rule Clafouti we would have to place expensive troops there and be willing to
shed much blood. It is true that some of
the more traitorous merchants of Clafouti city would support us, but they are
clearly not trustworthy if they would sell out their own homeland.
Peaceful trade with Clafouti would benefit both our
kingdom and Clafouti itself. Clafouti's
rich forest would provide excellent timber for our new fleets. The famous iron-workers of
The issue of Clafouti will allow your royal
highness to show his good character to the rest of the world. We must prove that were are
a trusting, honorable, and kind people.
With such a fine reputation the other nations of our globe could only
treat us well.
Advisor
#2 - Melvin Ozma
The Duchy of Clafouti requires careful attention my
lord Gloofus, King of Ya-Ya. Issues of
religion, trade, and war are all seriously intertwined in Clafouti.
First and foremost, as a follower of the true
version of Christianity, you must make faith your guide in this issue. The people of Clafouti are heretics and much
pressure must be put on them to force them to relinquish the errors of their
ways.
First of all, The Duchess of Clafouti, Britney,
should be warned not to enter a nunnery.
The world needs no more heretic nuns.
Equally importantly, if she went into a convent, Pablo, called "the
Good," would become the Duke.
Britney should be warned to remain in the world and be directed to await
your approval in marriage. Her father
has died and her uncle does not have the best interests of our two states at
heart. You must act as her father, in a
very real and legally binding sense.
Hopefully, you will be able to find a trusted member of your own family,
such as your cousin Flip, to marry her.
In five years Flip will turn 13, and thus be of
age to marry the misguided Britney.
Through this marriage, the duchy can be folded into the kingdom of Ya-Ya
peacefully. You need only be patient my
lord.
Pablo is a dangerous heretic [disbeliever]. He is not even committed to his own
religion. He proposes to allow the
citizens of Clafouti to worship as they choose.
He also plans on strengthening his army.
To pay for this army, he will tax your best friends in the duchy, the merchants. Pablo must be gotten out of the way one way
or the other.
However, to conquer Clafouti militarily would be an
expensive mistake. Instead we should
move troops to the border, intimidate the weak girl, and find some enemy of
Pablo's to put him out of the way. He is
said to study fish in his heretical scientific experiments, and perhaps it
would be best if ended up sleeping with them, the fishes. We should demand tribute from the Clafoutins
in exchange for our protection. We
should also demand that they allow missionaries from our great and true version
of Christianity to go amongst them and inform them of the error of their
ways. We will not force them to convert,
but we must be allowed to tell our side of the story. If they do not agree with our demands, then
we can make war on them with a clean conscience.
This solution is not perfect, but it is
workable. It would be best to conquer
Clafouti or hand it over to a trusted man, such as the departed Duke. Neither of these is an option at present. Conquest would be difficult, expensive, and
risky. There is no trusted person at
hand to hold the duchy in our interests.
As a result, we should do as much good as we can, with missionaries, but
defend our interests as well. The Duchy
of Clafouti is weak at present and it is in our interest to keep them so. They will bow to firm pressure. You, Great King Gloofus, are perfectly placed
to press them onto the correct path.
Advisor
#3 - Karloff Rove
Most illustrious and honorable Gloofus, King of Ya-Ya,
defender of the one true faith,
Clafouti is a dessert just waiting to be eaten my
lord. Scarf it down! Britney of Clafouti herself is young,
beautiful, and would likely bear you many sons.
Young and ignorant as she is, she would likely leave you your freedom to
pursue those desires that are to be expected in a powerful king such as
yourself.
If not swallowed, the Duchy of Clafouti is a
disaster waiting to happen. Pablo the
"Good" is a doddering old history teacher. He's an idiot at best and a threat at
worst. He plans on raising taxes on our
only friends in the Duchy, the good merchants who support your interests
there. More importantly, he plans on
turning those taxes into cannons, guns, and soldiers on your very border. The old Duke of Clafouti was a
non-threatening nobody, and thus could be ignored. Pablo is a schemer who will build the duchy
into a dangerous threat to Ya-Ya Land.
How long before he decides to invite in foreign armies to attack us in
exchange for a piece of our pie? Who knows
what treachery he learned while studying in the schools of our enemies.
Bluntly put your majesty, you need an honest
wife. Your adventures amongst the
daughters of the gentry have proved you to be very much a man, but you have no
legal son to take over the Kingdom should you be incapacitated or, God forbid,
killed by an enemy. It would be a shame
to see the glorious kingdom you have built with your own sweat and genius fall
to ruins, obliterating your name for history.
Britney is reported to be beautiful; she's got huge tracts of land. Her good family and youth ensure that she
would bear you the best children. She is
of marriageable age and could be taken.
I'm sure you could convince her to convert from her detestable religion
and treat you with the respect and discretion that you would demand from the
woman who would carry your children.
The priests of Ya-Ya seem to want you to force our
wonderful version of Christianity on the Clafutans. While it would be a wonderful thing if the
people of Clafouti ended their religious errors, I think it would be a mistake
to worry too much about this issue. To
attack the religion of the duchy at the same time you attempt to absorb it into
your kingdom would be a recipe for disaster.
Let them keep their wrong-headed religion for now. When they are firmly in your grasp you can
take more severe measures to end their heresy [wrong belief].
Conquering Clafouti would be simple, but holding it
might be difficult if not handled correctly.
The merchants of Clafouti and the marriage to Britney will provide us
with most of the aid we need to take the place.
The castle is poorly defended. If
we struck quickly and with much force, we would be saved a great deal of effort
later. Move in powerfully, execute
Pablo, make examples of a few other expendable Clafoutins,
and the place will be yours. True, you
will have to garrison the duchy for some time, but taxes and the rich forests
of the land will practically pay for themselves. In time the people will accept the legality
of your marriage to Britney, no matter what unfortunate circumstances may have
occurred to secure the wedding.
In times like this, it is useless to worry anything other than the interests of the Kingdom of Ya-Ya, which are nothing other than your own interests. You are Ya-Ya Land my absolute lord. In one short sharp blow against rich Clafouti you can win yourself a docile wife, a rich land, and the glory of conquest. If you fail to do this, you will leave a dangerous territory on our border ruled by a man you will not be able to control. A few quick months of brutality followed by religious toleration and a firm hand will turn the Clafoutins to Ya-Yoids in short order.