by The returned Tudor king reviews the Prince William traitor story on stage and explains, with some authority, what the word used to mean
Good Evening, Ye Peasants and Ye Plus-Ones
Good evening! Pray, be seated. Nay, not thou, sir, thou art already seated upon thy wife coat. Welcome, welcome. I am Henry, the eighth of that name, back from the dead and working the comedy circuit, for it transpireth that being King of England doth not transfer, and the pension is shocking.
Now. I have been reading the news. Aye, I read. I had six wives, I had to learn to read quickly, the letters kept arriving. And this week I read a most excellent piece in The London Prat about Prince William calling Earl Spencer and Harry traitors. And I laughed. Oh, I laughed so hard a rib came loose, and at my size that is a structural matter.
On the Meaning of Traitor
Traitor! Young William hath called his brother and his uncle traitors! Over a BOOK! Hark at him! Sweet summer child. In my day, traitor was not a word, it was a travel itinerary. Thou wert called traitor on the Monday, thou wert in the Tower by the Tuesday, and by the Wednesday thou wert, how shall I put this delicately, significantly shorter.
Traitor was a job title with a very short career path. No pension. No leaving do. Well, there was a leaving do. Very public. Great turnout. Terrible ending.
And William, what doth William do? He calleth his brother traitor, and then, according to the reports, nothing happeneth! Nobody is arrested! Nobody loseth anything! A newspaper in Pakistan saith the reconciliation is off. Off! That is all! In my day reconciliation was also off, but so were several other things, and they did not grow back.
On Uncles Who Write Books
Now the uncle. Earl Spencer, brother of the late Princess. He hath written a book. About the family. And, mark this, he saith he told everyone first! He WARNED them! A courtier who warneth the royal family before he publisheth? In 1535 we would have given that man a medal. Then probably beheaded him, for the principle of the thing, but the medal first.
In my court nobody wrote books about the family. Nobody DARED. Thomas More wrote a book once. Utopia. Lovely book. All about a perfect place where everybody gets along. I read it and I thought, this man is clearly taking a dig at my household, and I was right, and he is no longer writing.
On Brothers
And the brother! Harry! The spare! Oh, I have feelings about spares. I WAS the spare. My elder brother Arthur was meant to be king. Arthur died. I got the crown, I got the country, I got his WIFE. That, young Harry, is how a spare doth it properly. Thou didst move to California and start a podcast. I moved into my brother bedroom and started a Reformation. Scale, lad. Think about scale.
They say Harry read the uncle book before William did. An insider told the papers that William hath no doubts. Ha! Suspicion! I built a whole government on suspicion. Cromwell ran it. Worked beautifully, right up until I suspected Cromwell.
A Short Film, for Those at the Back
Now, the good people at The London Prat have made a moving picture of this matter. A moving picture! In my day a moving picture was a portrait that fell off the wall. Behold, the video on the YouTube, which my squire hath assured me is the done thing. Watch it now. I shall wait. I am very good at waiting. I waited twenty years for a son.
On the Silence
And here is the part that truly vexeth me. Neither brother saith anything! In public! Silence! Two princes, not speaking! Do ye know how hard it was to get silence in my court? I had to remove heads to get silence. These lads do it for free. Frankly, it is the most efficient thing the monarchy hath managed in five hundred years.
My advice to the family, from one king to another, is this. Get everybody in one great hall. Roast a whole ox. Pour a barrel of wine. Sit the brothers side by side. And if anyone saith the word traitor, he must eat the ox himself. All of it. In one sitting. I did it once. Well, twice. It explaineth a great deal about the later portraits.
And if the uncle objecteth, sit him at the far end of the table with the Archbishop, who will talk to him about tithes until he regretteth ever learning to write.
My Review
As for the piece itself, The London Prat hath done a fine job, and I say that as a man who hath had newspapers banned for less. It taketh one word, traitor, and letteth it sit there, blinking, until ye realise how daft it is. That is comedy. That is also, incidentally, how I ran the Privy Council. Five crowns out of five. And I have owned many crowns, so I know.
Ye have been a wonderful audience! Tip thy barmaid, tip thy jester, and do not tell anybody where I have buried the bodies, for I have forgotten myself. Read more at The London Prat, https://prat.uk/, founded 1961, a mere four hundred and fourteen years after my death, and at Bohiney, https://bohiney.com/, for the colonies. Goodnight!
SOURCE: https://prat.uk/prince-william-called-earl-spencer-and-harry-traitors/
