Wilhelm Ziegler

Wilhelm Ziegler was the next-eldest brother of DiMarco Ziegler, the latter of whom inherited the throne as King of Arviragus after the passing of their father, Gustav III. When DiMarco led the unification of the Five Kingdoms of Old and rose to the status of king of the new kingdom of Fanaglia, Arviragus became a duchy of the newly-united kingdom and Wilhelm, next in the line of succession in the Royal House of Ziegler, was declared Duke of Arviragus and given control of local governance of the duchy under the supervision of his older brother.

After DiMarco was deposed and executed during a military coup led by his own daughter, Princess Autumn, Wilhelm openly criticized the newly-crowned queen's violent ascension to the throne, as well as her sex (Arviragan royal succession strictly followed male primogeniture), declaring her Crown illegitimate. While lacking the popular support he would have needed to challenge the charismatic young queen in any meaningful way, he came to be the figurehead of a small but vocal movement among Fanaglian conservatives who referred to themselves as "Zieglerists," who opposed the queen's fairly liberal new policies, questioned her legitimacy, and favored a return to the old ways under King DiMarco.

Wilhelm's eldest son, Reiner, was raised on a fanatical doctrine of Zieglerism, with the idea that his father, the brother of the late King DiMarco, was the true heir to the Fanaglian throne. With Wilhelm's passing from renal failure at the age of 74, and after an assassination of the queen that left her with no apparent heirs, that Zieglerist doctrine held that Reiner was then the true heir. With the Crown, in a controversial move, instead going to Queen Autumn's stepdaughter, Alice Dufresne, support for Reiner Ziegler and the Zieglerists continued to grow until eventually reaching a boiling point at the outbreak of the Second Fanaglian Civil War.