Thuggus (710 - 729)

Thuggus came to Kingdom of Lindsay in 737AD from somewhere in northern Europe. It is not clear where. He arrived in the small coastal village of Frotting-in-the-marsh (in what is now Lincolnshire) and proceeded to acquire the local pub, which at the time was called The Plough. He renamed it The Twisted Arm and told everybody that the previous owner, Godulf, had sold it to him before heading off to find his fortune on the south coast. As he told this story the villagers could not help noticing his bruised knuckles and the bloodstains by the back door. They were not entirely convinced.

Despite this rocky start Thuggus soon had all the villagers drinking in his pub, despite charging significantly higher prices than one would have expected. He even persuaded almost all the travelers who passed through the town to come and drink with him. Word quickly spread about the quality of the ale he served and rather physical nature of his invitations. Travellers began to give the area a wide berth.

Realising that this was an opportunity for expansion, Thuggus found some willing (and unwilling) business partners and proceeded to open up The Black and Blue Arms in nearby Chuntage. This is likely to have been the first franchise system set up in what is now England. He went on to open up other pubs within the kingdom of Lindsay, further up the coast into Gainas, and south towards the Middle Angles.

For a short time he was raking in a significant income. In 739 he had just opened up his latest pub, The Money with Menaces, when he realised that he was attracting the attention of some rather influential ‘businessmen’ from the Lundewic area. This looked like it would be his big career-defining break, and this turned out to be the case.

After spending a few days making enough threats of violence to ensure that his publicans did not try to defraud him of his ill-gotten gains, he headed south. Once in Lundewic he went in search of ‘Mr Big’.

He failed to find Mr Big, but Mr Big’s associates did find him. In the brief negotiations that followed he was politely informed that he had no business setting up his franchises in Lundewic. He was also told that Mr Big ‘was not happy’ and that his pubs had now been taken over and were part of the larger and rapidly expanding Bludgeon and Blackmail chain. In return for his anticipated cooperation Thuggus was offered a position in the larger organisation. Thuggus refused, thinking he could bargain for a better deal. Tragically, this proved not to be the case. His big break turned out to be that of his neck, thereby defining the end of his brief but promising career.

Thankfully for the villagers of Frotting-in-the-marsh and Chuntage, running pubs at such a distance provide to be too much of a challenge for the organised crime of the day. They soon regained control of their pubs and returned to the normal disease-ridden and miserable lives of the time.