Royal Crown Alliance

== Conception==

The Royal Crown Alliance traces its roots to the Tory Party, which was founded in 2913 by a group of disenfranchised aristocrats and their supporters among the clergy and the common people. For some time before that, Mordusia had been run almost unilaterally by the communist United Workers Front. A number of industrialists had expressed their discontent by forming the Elitist Super Squad in 2909, but the aristocratic founders of the Tory Party despised the greedy ultra-capitalistic yet socially liberal style of the ESS just as strongly as they disliked the hammer-and-sickle communism of the UWF. This alignment of circumstances led to the Tories coming out strongly in favor of economic centrism, social and moral conservatism, and reinforcement of Mordusia's traditional religious institutions. Primarily founded as a loose alliance of Mordusian nobles, the Tories had no clear executive structure or leader. The public faces of the party, however, were clearly the venerable and highly regarded Robert Cecil, 6th Duke of Sammodra, and Cecil Rhodes, 8th Earl of Cormorant. In their first election in 2917 the Tories won an astounding 24% of the vote. This election marked the end of the UWF and Mordusian communism and the beginning of a short-lived coalition between the Tories and the ESS.

Transformation
Following the Election of 2917 and a confrontation with the ESS over the future of the old Luthori-Mordusian monarchy, several leading Tories voiced their outrage with the behaviour of the ESS by renaming the party to the Royal Crown Alliance and adopting the restoration of the monarchy as the Alliance's greatest cause. This move further alienated republican and pro-business factions in the RCA, but greatly strengthened the central anti-industrial, conservative, traditionalist message of the party.

Collaboration with the Union for Social Change
The Election of 2928 saw a surprisingly strong performance by the moderately progressive Union for Social Change, and the RCA joined forces with the USC to topple the ESS regime. This coalition yielded extraordinary results and the two parties, led by Lord-Secretary Robert Cecil, cooperated flawlessly on social fairness legislation, a balanced budget, and other projects. In the Election of 2932, the USC candidate Sean Fitzgerald toppled Lord-Elect Mervyk of the ESS, who did not even garner enough votes to enter the run-off. The coalition continued to successfully preside over a time of stability and prosperity, but the USC soon started falling into dysfunctional stagnation, and in 2936 Mervyk the Vogon became Lord-Elect once again. In 2937, the USC fell apart completely and the RCA and ESS organized an early election, in which the RCA picked up only 5 of the USC's 43 seats, losing deeply to the socially liberal platform of the ESS. The remaining RCA ministers, including Lord-Secretary Cecil and Lord-Treasurer Rhodes, promptly resigned, refusing to serve a ESS Lord-Elect and his minions in the Assembly of Lords.

The "Church of Mordus" Affair and the war against the ESS
After the ESS took power in 2937, Lord-Elect Mervyk began an all-out war against the conservative principles of the RCA, culminating in his establishment of the "Church of Mordus" in 2946. By mandate of the ESS-controlled Assembly of Lords, all Mordusians had to convert to this invented religion or else face arrest and execution. Lord-Elect Mervyk named himself "Pope" of this cult and set out on a mission to subjugate the Christian majority of Mordusia, as well as its atheists. This power grab backfired, with the RCA openly ignoring and insulting the mandates, resulting in the RCA winning a plurality of 47% in the legislative election, even though Lord Rhodes narrowly lost the election for Lord-Elect with 49.19% of the vote against Mervyk's razor-thin 50.81%. The Duke of Sammodra immediately took charge of the Assembly of Lords and led that body in revoking Mervyk's theocracy, banning the "Church of Mordus", and banishing Lord-Elect from entering or addressing the Assembly of Lords, as well as nominally charging him with treason for his persecution of Christian and atheist Mordusians.