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The Patrician who came to power after Lord Winder. During his reign, he was considered "eccentric" rather than mad by the upper classes, but he is now known by most Morporkians, including the nobles, as the Mad Lord. He was sadistic, and extremely fond of torture, much like his predecessor. Mad (sometimes Psychoneurotic) Lord Snapcase was succeeded by Lord Vetinari. There are very few historical records of Lord Snapcase's Tyranny, but one documented case is that he called for the killing of John Keel / Sam Vimes.

Political history of the following period is almost non-existent. If the rough chronology starting with Night Watch to the "present" (i.e. thirty years later) offers any clues, then at some point after the end of those events chronicled in Night Watch, Fred Colon and Nobby Nobbs performed their respective military service. The books make explicitly clear that this was done in formal uniform as part of an army, as opposed to being part of a Watch. (ref. Samuel Vimes to a hapless Burleigh in Jingo - "I am not a military man"). This, in Colon's case, could only have been achieved by his leaving the Watch, serving for an unspecified length of time with a Regiment, where either here or shortly after returning to the Watch he is promoted Sergeant. Nobby, on the other hand, was of an age in Night Watch to have gone directly into a Regiment as a boy soldier - presumably he would have joined the Watch afterwards. As Nobby is known to have served in the Pseudopolitian army, which is expressly stated to have lost all its wars because of the extent of pilfering from the stores - and Nobby is named as a quartermaster during this time - then the question arises - who was Pseudopolis at war WITH during this period? Ankh-Morpork, perhaps? Maybe this is yet to be seen, but those few facts can be deduced with certainty. Wars happened during Snapcase's Patricianship, and if they involved the smaller city states of the Sto Plains, they would almost certainly have involved Ankh-Morpork. The wars involving Borogravia, Zlobenia and their neighbours would almost certainly have been in full spate at this time, having the potential to disrupt and destabilise their neighbours. This may explain why both Samuel Vimes and Vetinari are adamantly against war as a continuation of diplomacy by other means - as younger men they would have seen and witnessed the results. Vetinari, in both Jingo and Making Money, is horrified by the prospect of war and does everything he can to halt it.

In fact, in Jingo, Fred Colon confirms that there were wars between Ankh-Morpork and Pseudopolis.

The lack of factual information - dates, events, people - about his time as Patrician may be because of Snapcase's mental disorder, which caused him to be very secretive while trying to spy on everyone else. Also, his obsession with his own security left him little time to govern or affect history: although there is only inferential evidence for it (Fred Colon would only have joined a regiment if a regiment was there to join - and why was recruitment, or, even conscription, needed?) Ankh-Morpork may have been drawn into war by default or by Snapcase's obsessive paranoia poisoning A-M's foreign policy. His overthrow, and the election of Lord Vetinari are still undocumented and even the date is in doubt.

Annotation

Like Gaius Caligua, Snapcase elected his favorite horse as an advisor. In Men at Arms it is mentioned that this was one of his better choices, as the other advisor at the time was a flowerpot.