Sir Leonhard Bosch II (TLOPO)

"To hell with your 'decisions,' Senators. I am no longer yours to manipulate!"

Sir Leonhard Bosch II (1719-1804) is a pirate in The Legends of Pirates Online, and the Captain of the Rovers of the Hague, a pirate crew that defected from the Dutch West India Company. He is married to Hannah Bluefeather, and has two children: Leonhard III and Abigail.

Leonhard Bosch is also a member of the 9th Brethren Court, serving under Pirate King Richard Cannonwalker, having joined soon after forming his own crew.

Early Life
Of German descent, Leonhard was born on January 8th, 1719 in The Hague, Netherlands, to his father, Leonhard Bosch I, and his late mother Alisha Faust-Bosch. Leonhard grew up in a pampered household. He was a member of House Bosch, a Royal Family based in The Hague for centuries. Leonhard's great-grandfather, Augstine Bosch, a revoutionary, was the King of the Netherlands from 1620, until his death in 1659. Agustine remains the earliest descendant to Leonhard Bosch to date.

Leonhard's mother died from complications during childbirth, rendering the boy without a mother from a very early age. His father was a high ranking member of the Dutch West India Company, who Leonhard idolized. A young Leonhard was known to do anything necessary to win his father's approval, no matter what the consequences. One record shows that Leonhard assaulted a rival of his father's on his own accord.

Dwelling within a humble manor built by his grandfather Johannes Bosch as a place to live out his twilight years, Leonhard was tutored extensively in order to become a well-read and intellectual man. He received the finest Dutch tutors, and one of his tutors wrote "The boy obnce read history and poetry that I had planned seven months in advance to teach him, only to surprise me with his vast knowledge of it!"

At the age of sixteen, Leonhard enslited in the Dutch military, where he was he stationed in Bali, an Indonesian island under control of the Dutch Empire at the time. He served as an officer of the law, and dealt with common criminals and insubordination among the Indonesian people. Leonhard returned to the Netherlands at the age of eighteen, with his brief military prowess under his belt.

Dutch West India Company
At the age of nineteen, Leonhard joined the Dutch West India Company, serving under his father who was at the time the Governor. Leonhard mediated trading for many years, and eventually became consumed by the politics of the Company. He often argued with his father on what was just, and what was not. Leonhard viewed the company as a monopoly, and rightfully so. Leonhard also believed that the company took too many commodities from the Caribbean, as seen by his hatred for greed within the Company.

When Leonhard was twenty-two, his father died of a stroke at the age of sixty-four. With a little bribery, Leonhard was eventually appointed as the new Governor of the Dutch West India Company shortly after his father's death. Leonhard pushed for a more liberal agenda of lassiez-faire economics and more relaxed expansion of the Company's lands. After five years of governing the Company, Leonhard was a well-respected and feared man at the ripe age of twenty-seven.

Shortly after becoming Governor, Leonhard married an Austrian maiden named Hannah Bluefeather, who he then had two children with: Leonhard Bosch III and Abigail Bosch. Leonhard neglected his children, and was distant from them due to his work.

In 1743, Leonhard was given a letter by the Speaker of the States General, Harvard Velden, elaborating on how the Dutch West India Company was far too "lenient and pusillanimous in its affairs, allowing the Spanish and Portugese and obtain a foothold in the New World." The letter also detailed that if Leonhard failed to become more bellicose in his policies, that he would be forcefully removed and replaced by another.

Arguments ensued for roughly four months between Leonhard and the States General over whether Leonhard's actions as Governor were justified or not. With an enraged conscious, Leonhard sailed to the Netherlands a final time to argue in parliament. When it was his turn to speak, he arose, and simply stated,

"I, Leonhard Bosch hereby resign from my position of Governor of the Dutch West India Company. You are all pompous swine who deserve nothing more than a plague for your corrupted gluttony and greed. To hell with your 'decisions,' Senators... I am no longer yours to manipulate!" before storming out of the States General.

On the way out of the States General, it is reported that Leonhard burned a Dutch flag before setting off on a minuscule ship, never to return to the Netherlands.

Piracy
After a few weeks, Leonhard landed in Nassau. Leonhard had decided on his self-imposed exile from the Netherlands, that he was tired of being confined to the whims of others. Leonhard renounced his Dutch citizenship, and dedicated his life to piracy. He garnered a small crew, and a meager ship that he donned the Sea Guardian. It was a sloop, and had modest firepower. The small crew that Leonhard donned "The Servants of the Blue Maiden," in regards to the mermaid emblem on his ship's blue sails.

Leonhard turned a profit from his plundering, but he eventually faced mutiny. The crew demanded more pay, and fair treatment. They took the ship in the dead of the night, throwing Leonhard overboard into the ocean. Leonhard was forced to swim to shore, and washed up on the beach of Tortuga.

TBA

Trivia

 * Leonhard's nickname as a child was "Whiny Leon" because he was prone to crying for nearly any reason, no matter how little the issue was. He eventually outgrew this behavior around eight years old.
 * Leonhard suffered an injury in Bali from a scattershot rendering him blind in his right eye. He wears an eyepatch to conceal his deficient eye.