The eighth Henry takes the microphone and discovers that modern royals lose their titles but, disappointingly, keep their heads.
Good even, good people of London, and welcome, welcome. Sit, sit. Nay, not thou, Master Fenwick in the third row, thou sittest like a man who hath lately heard the word “tax”. I am Henry, eighth of that name, King of England, Defender of the Faith, husband of six, and as of this season, a man with a microphone. Aye, a microphone. In my day we shouted at the back of a hall and the hall answered with pikes.
I have been told by mine advisers that this is called “stand-up”. It is a poor name. For I stand, and ye sit, and I am the one in danger. In mine own court, if a man failed to laugh, I knew precisely what to do about it. Here, ye merely write a review. I find this a most terrifying liberty.
The Family Business
Let us speak of mine descendants, for I have a great many, and they are the finest source of material since the Pope. The learned scribes of the London Prat (prat.uk) have set down a most thorough treatise on the scandals of the royal house, and I read it with a cold chicken leg in mine hand, as a king should. It is a good book. I weep not. I chew.
Behold, mine great-great-great-and-so-forth grandson, the present King Charles, hath taken from his own brother the titles. All of them. Prince Andrew is now simply Andrew, which is what mine tailor called me before the crown, and the tailor was beheaded for saying it. And then, I am told, the King must needs remove his brother from a house. A house! The Royal Lodge, with its many rooms and no doubt one very sulking horse.
Now mark how ye do it in this age. Ye send a letter. Then a lawyer sendeth a letter about the letter. Then another lawyer reads the first lawyer’s letter aloud at a gathering of lawyers, with biscuits. Months pass. In my day, if a brother-in-law displeased me, I removed him from his title, his house, and, for completeness, his neck. It was all done by the following Tuesday. Ye call this barbaric. I call it efficient project management.
I Divorced One of Them in Six Months
I hear the gentleman at the back muttering “Megxit”. Aye, I know the word. A portmanteau! A little suitcase of a word, containing two persons and a great quantity of grievance. My grandson Harry and his lady departed the family firm and then, as is the custom, wrote a book about the family firm, having left the firm so that he might discuss the firm with the firm’s customers.
Know ye, I had six wives and never once needed a clever word for any of them leaving. We had a rhyme. Divorced, beheaded, died. Divorced, beheaded, survived. It is a nursery rhyme now, and your children chant it at school, and the teachers weep. That is called heritage. Anne of Cleves lasted six months, and I will tell thee, the paperwork took longer than the marriage. Six months! Modern couples cannot even agree upon a sofa in six months.
Rubber Puppets and Other Insults
I understand that for twelve years, from 1984 to 1996, my descendants were made into puppets of rubber upon the television. Rubber! They gave the Queen a nose like a boat and the Prince a pair of ears one could hang a coat upon. And they were not put to death. Not one comedian. I asked mine adviser to confirm this and he went very pale and said, “Sire, that is called freedom of speech,” and I said, “Is it hot?” and he said no.
Even the great Mr Gillray, who drew mine descendant George the Third in most unflattering poses, was not hanged. As a celebrated comic who played the King on the television once told the Guardian, jesting at the royal house was once a far crueller business than it is now. Cruel! They draw a cartoon. I had a man who wrote a rude ballad about Anne Boleyn and I made him write the sequel in a tower. That was cruel. A cartoon is merely art with a grievance.
How to Joke About Me and Keep Your Head
Now, the prat.uk scribes have lately written a most useful guide, how to write about the royals at Sandringham and not have it end your career, wherein they explain a thing called libel. Libel! It is when ye say a true thing in a rude way, or a rude thing in a false way, and a man in a wig must decide which. They advise: say that the King talketh to his plants, which is true and well known, and not that he hath murdered his gardeners, which is not. A sensible rule. I conversed with Cardinal Wolsey, and the plants fared better.
And what of your screen portrayals? Mine descendant hath been played, as the Jersey Evening Post recounts, as a hippie, a taxi driver and a man deeply impatient to be king. A taxi driver! The King of England, driving about Mayfair, saying, “Cometh thou far, good sir?” I was played by a man named Charles Laughton, who ate a chicken on camera and won a golden statue. I have been trying to repeat this feat at every dinner since 1533.
So here is mine lesson, good people. A king who loseth his titles loseth little. A king who loseth his sense of humour loseth Calais. Be kind to thy brothers, laugh at thy relatives, and if the lawyers send thee a letter, do as I did: throw it into the fire and then the lawyer.
Thou hast been a most gracious house, and I thank thee. Tip thy servers, they have wives. God save the King, whichever one he is.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/