Konrad Hesk

Konrad Hesk was a Schwartzistani statesman who served as the first Grand Chancellor of The Grand Chancellery from 12 April 1804 to 30 April 1811. He was among the signatories of the Compact of Vellmar, by which the seven Founding Wardens established the state of Schwartzistan, and he presided over the Assembly at Ostrabruck for the whole of his tenure. His chancellorship ended with his resignation in the month following the Assembly's declaration of a state of war with the Kingdom of Hichistan, a resignation he attached to the view that the office thereafter required a soldier rather than a signatory.

Early life

Hesk was born on 11 February 1758 at Ostrabruck, in the region known as The Ostrand. The record is silent on his parentage, his schooling and his occupation before 1804. Nothing survives in the public record of his life prior to his appearance among the Founding Wardens, and no document places him at any other town before that date.

Career

Hesk's public life, so far as the record shows it, begins and ends within a single span of twenty-five years. He appears first as one of the seven Founding Wardens who gathered at The Assembly Hall to sign the Compact of Vellmar on 12 April 1804, an act by which Schwartzistan was founded as a state and Hesk was elected its first Grand Chancellor. He held the chancellorship for seven years, the longest tenure of the office attributed to him in the surviving registers, though the record does not detail the routine business of the Chancellery under his direction.

The chancellorship ended in the aftermath of the Assembly's resolution of 9 March 1811, when the Assembly, sitting again at The Assembly Hall, resolved by sixty-one votes to nought that a state of war existed with the Kingdom of Hichistan. Mobilisation began at once, and the War Ministry was created in consequence of the same sitting. Hesk, as chancellor, is recorded as having declared the war before the Assembly. He resigned before the month of April was out, on the twenty-eighth day short of a full month after the declaration, on the ground, as the record has it, that the office now needed a soldier. No successor's name appears in the packet before him, nor any account of Hesk's activities after his resignation.

Portraits of Hesk from his chancellorship show a heavy-set man with white side-whiskers, customarily posed with both hands resting upon the head of his cane, an attitude repeated in nearly every likeness that survives of him.

In the record

• 12 April 1804, The Assembly Hall: the Compact of Vellmar is signed by the seven Founding Wardens; Schwartzistan is founded and Konrad Hesk is elected first Grand Chancellor. Report.
• 9 March 1811, The Assembly Hall: the Assembly resolves, sixty-one votes to nought, that a state of war exists with the Kingdom of Hichistan; mobilisation begins and the War Ministry is created. Report.

Family

No relations of Konrad Hesk are recorded.

Legacy

Hesk's name stands first on the register of Grand Chancellors maintained by the Chancellery, and the Compact he signed at Ostrabruck remains the founding instrument of the state. He died on 30 July 1829, at the age of seventy-one, eighteen years after leaving office; the public record offers no account of the intervening period, nor of the circumstances of his death.