The Courtier From The 21st Century Who Would Be King : The King Behind The Throne : King Henry VIII (Alfred the Great II) : Ch.3 by Alfred Muggins (himself) My Kingdom For A Pen!

18/2/21 / (some editing 13/02/23)

   Alfred, styled still as Henry VIII, has learned from Henry’s historical mistakes, and with modern knowledge and perspectives tries to rule Auld England with a truly enlightened set of principles, while his true Master, the real King Henry is taking a break, and hopefully a repair job and rejuvenation in the 21^st Century, while in Alfred’s erstwhile shoes.

    He tries to rule England with his enlightened principles. He is truly trying to become auld Henry’s brother who should have been King (if he hadn’t died of the sweating sickness in 1502) – namely Arthur – a name which also had connotations towards that even more famous King (who might indeed never have even existed, but we all wish he had, then even life today might have been even so much better – the Great King Arthur of Legend, of Britain, before there was even an England as we came to know and love it. It is well known, or certainly was at the time that young Auld Henry himself, did verily model himself upon that great figure of a King of the legendary past, and wished to be a great King in his shadow or style.

     And so after the body swop of the real Henry with his eminent courtier and Minister Sir Alfred Muggins of Sheffield, while the real Henry was transported to the 21^st Century to take over Alfred’s identity and get himself fixed by the glorious (and incredibly free!) National Health Service, (and well worth the moneys the modern Taxpayer paid for it!) sought to live up to the great Arthur’s image and dream, and be the King that Auld Henry could or should have been, without the indignities and complications of his leg ulcer and garter mistakes, or that nasty bang on the head in his jousting accident, and his unfortunately largely insufficiently capable of male childbearing wives.

13/3/23

    Alfred finds he is successful in persuading the Court that he is the real Henry. In truth the real Henry had been very grumpy in recent times, particularly since his execution of poor Catherine Howard, and, knowing himself to have become unattractive to women, he rarely flirted in his old ways. He had spent most of his time scheming against the French and planning to wage ever more ambitious campaigns against them in order to win back the lost domains of the Plantagenets. After the accidental, unimaginable, and impossible to understand, sinking of the Mary Rose, his magnificent proud new flagship, on campaign against the French in the Solent, he had become even more depressed, opening the door yet further for Alfred’s persuasive suggestions. It had seemed as if all his hopes and ambitions were being shattered! Henry had even vowed never to set foot on a ship ever again, so it had been to Alfred’s surprise that he had managed to persuade him to cast caution to the winds and become an intrepid time traveller, in order to salvage his future.

    Thus Henry had indeed become more withdrawn at Court, much of the time, and had spent much of his time in excruciating loneliness and pain, having his leg sores frequently leeched and bled. And so when Alfred, in the guise of his master Henry the King, ventured into court, he found that his erstwhile confidants did not always wish to get so close to him. Or spend so much time with him, partly for fear of losing their own heads or falling into disfavour with the grumpy King. Alfred as caretaker King was able to use this distance to his advantage, and no courtiers or Ministers even dared voice the suspicion that this might not be the real and genuine King Henry. As they came to find him perhaps a little more tolerant and sensible, or reasonable, and a little less vindictive they were more likely to be thankful for small mercies than to suspect that this was not the real Henry of recent years. Alfred could threaten toughness to keep everyone at Court on their toes, but practice reasonability, which made most thankful and supportive. There were plenty angling for influence and position, but all had become afraid of the real Henry, particularly in recent times, so he found he could keep them happy, play them subtly against each other, and keep one step ahead of them!

18/2/21

Discombobulation :–

 a new torture devised by King Henry VIII (Alfred the Great II). Thankfully he, coming from the more humane, and some would call them soft times of the distant future, never put this particular one into practice, for which his conscience is eternally grateful, and he still has a hope in Hell, of getting into Heaven still as a result. He has opted not to reveal what this awful torture would have actually consisted of, because he does not wish any of his erstwhile subjects to know about it now that he has magnanimously cast it aside. ( and he certainly and surely does not wish any of his fans in the 21^st Century to know what it was because it would have been ridiculously and extrementally, and excruciatingly Un Politically Correct, and would have caused him great shame and eternal punishment in the 21^st century, particularly from the many adherents of the PC religion, and others also, without a doubt. They would all have had his guts for garters for even thinking about it.)

28/2/21 / 23/10/21

    “My Kingdom for a Pen,” cried HenryVIII (Alfred Arthur the Great) Tudor (Muggins). (He kept quiet about the Muggins parts of his name, but that was what he really was, an interloper time traveller, who had engineered a brave body swop with the real Henry, who had taken his place in the future 21^st Century, while Alfred took on the far more difficult job of running Henry’s Sixteenth Century Kingdom in his absence, as a caretaker King, unbeknown to everyone else in the Kingdom. (He had of course allowed himself the privilege of changing his own real middle name of Nigel, which he had never liked, since other teenagers at school a long time ago, had ridiculed him for it, to Arthur, which was a real monarch’s name, so much more regal! Unfortunately none of his subjects in the sixteenth century would ever know him by that name as they were not aware that he was not the real King Henry, but the change brought great comfort to Alfred himself, and the knowledge of it made it so much easier to concentrate on ruling to the best of his abilities, until it became time to return the real King Henry to his full entitlements. Perhaps he would actually go a bit further, and actually add it to his official Henry VIII, name, but Henry’s brother Arthur had been an Arthur, and it probably would not be considered politic for him to take on the name of his erstwhile brother. Besides Henry himself might be very angry when he did finally return from the 21^st Century to find that he had been given the name of his long dead brother as an extra name, without his own consent. (It did occur to Alfred that perhaps he might claim the fact that he was Henry’s legal ‘agent’, and could therefore do what he judged best with Henry’s Kingdom and his legacy, while Henry himself was away, to persuade the real Henry to accept the change?)

    “Will no one find me a pen?” he cried in desperation! He had had an idea, and desperately wanted to write it down, but they didn’t have ball point pens in the sixteenth century, more’s the pity! “Will none of my subjects hear me?” He almost said, ‘Please,’ but then remembered Henry’s advice, that a King should never say ‘Please.’ Maybe the odd ‘thankyou’, but even that was not expected of him. It could be used to reward his subjects.