Skirmish of Beddington Park
| Skirmish of Beddington Park | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Approximate location of the skirmish | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 / Group of Austenasian Honorary Subjects and Britons |
British force | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
|
HIH Crown Prince Jonathan¹ |
British teenager | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 6 | 5 | ||||||
| ¹The legal title of the Crown Prince at this time was "HIH Crown Prince Lord Sir Jonathan Austen, Count of Greater Wrythe, KCJ, KOC, IKA, DSC, PM", due to a lack of regulations regarding styles leading to the Crown Prince's several honorifics and titles accumulating. For brevity's sake, he is referred to simply as "Crown Prince Jonathan" or "the Crown Prince" throughout this article. | |||||||
The Skirmish of Beddington Park was an incident that occured on Tuesday, 3 February 2009, when the future Emperor of the Empire of Austenasia, the then Crown Prince Jonathan, went with a group of friends to Beddington Park after heavy snowfall. They were ambushed by some British teenagers and attacked by snowballs. While this conflict did not involve the Austenasian Army (it hadn't even been created yet), it was the first time an Austenasian was in a combat situation with a Briton.
Prelude
On Sunday 1 February 2009, the most snow to fall on that area for 18 years hit Austenasia. The snow was much more than local, by Monday 2nd bringing much of the UK to a stand still. The London bus routes were suspended, and the majority of British schools were closed. The snow stopped late on Monday afternoon, but remained deep on the ground. With gritting and salting of roads finally underway in the United Kingdom, many schools re-opened on Tuesday 3rd, although pavements were very icy and there were severe delays with the buses. Some schools stayed closed on Tuesday - one such was the one which Crown Prince Jonathan attended. He and some friends (mostly Austenasian knights and/or Honorary Subjects) decided to go to the snow-covered park.
The Skirmish
While the Crown Prince and his entourage were exploring the area west of a grove of trees, a group of teenagers from the UK attacked and threw snowballs at the Crown Prince's group. The group of Austenasian Honorary Subjects and friends of the Crown Prince at first retaliated with snowballs themselves, but soon retreated north to a path which they followed roughly south-east, followed by the Britons.
The British attackers continued to throw snowballs at the Crown Prince's group, which attempted to have the attackers give up by ignoring them and refusing to retaliate. When they got near to a bridge crossing a stream, the leader of the British teenagers charged Crown Prince Jonathan and attempted to tackle him to the ground from behind. The Crown Prince quickly turned and performed a harai goshi (judo throw) on the attacker, whose own momentum got him thrown him into a snowdrift.
The leader of the British teenagers got up and attempted to attack the Crown Prince again, but was seen off by snowballs from the Crown Prince's friends, who then continued south and left the park. The teenagers followed them out, but then turned another way and left them alone.
