Over two centuries and three Matildas after the original Empress Matilda, there was a campaign within the World of HOOD to oust the Catholic Church and remove them from power. This helped officially install Hycathism as the dominant religion in Europe and even farther abroad.
So… where did they go? So far in the wiki, we haven’t addressed this question at all. But behind the scenes, we do have our own ideas about that very question. The Sacking happened in YE 238, which is the same as 1378 AD in the real world. This is right at the beginning of the Age of Exploration when the world powers started to look to other continents and their resources. The “new world” became the ideal place for the Catholics to go to establish a home of their own.
Some day, we hope to expand on this exciting period in the altered history in the World of HOOD, but for now…
Find out more about the Sacking of the Vatican
After the victory of Empress Matilda I at the Battle of Lincoln in 1141 AD / YE 1, which ushered in the First Age of Hycath in England, the Catholic church retreated to mainland Europe. Over the next two centuries, the power and influence of Catholicism grew to a point where it threatened other faiths, including Hycathism.
England became involved in the affairs of the French throne in YE 188, when the English Empress Ivette II protested the Salic law, laid down by the Avignon Papacy, then based in France. The Salic law prohibited female succession and thus prevented the recently deceased King Charles IV’s daughters from inheriting his throne. Ivette’s descendant and successor, Matilda V, travelled to France in YE 206 to help Charles’s second daughter and rightful heir, Blanche, fight to reclaim her throne. After a decade of war in France, they succeeded in this mission, drove the Papacy back to Rome, where they shortly began the Inquisition in retaliation.
