by The Tudor king who inherited his brother crown and wife offers the younger prince some advice about uncles, books and making the most of being second
Hail, Good Folk, and Mind the Codpiece
Thank ye! Thank ye! Sit down, sit down, save thine applause, ye shall need it for my second wife, she was always the one they clapped for. Well. Until they stopped.
Tonight I wish to speak unto a young man. A royal young man. A younger son. I wish to speak unto Harry. For I have been reading the London Prat account of William branding Earl Spencer and Harry traitors, and I feel a kinship with the lad, for I too was the spare. I was the original spare. I was the spare before spare was cool. I was the spare when spare meant thou might get a nice abbey to run if thou wert lucky.
The Spare Who Made Good
My brother Arthur, God rest him, was the heir. Handsome lad. Tall. Good teeth, for the period, which is to say he had some. He was going to be king. I was going to be, I do not know, Archbishop of Somewhere Damp. Then Arthur died, and suddenly, huzzah, promotion! I got the throne. I got the palaces. I got his widow! Catherine! Lovely woman. Spanish. Very devout. Could not give me a son, and I made that everybody problem for about seven years and one entire religion.
So, Harry, here is lesson one from the original spare. When thine elder brother calleth thee traitor, do not sulk in California. Wait. Patience. Fate is a funny thing. I am not SAYING anything. I am merely observing, as a historian, that spares have prospects.
On Visiting Thine Uncle
Now, the papers say Harry went to visit his uncle at Althorp in July. With the wife, with the children, lovely summer visit. And William, the heir, is FURIOUS. He thinketh the uncle and the spare are plotting!
Well, of course they are plotting! That is what uncles are FOR! In my family the uncles plotted so much, my grandmother kept a chart. There was the uncle who plotted, the uncle who plotted against the uncle who plotted, and the uncle who vanished in the Tower along with two little princes, and to this day NOBODY will tell me what happened, and I was the KING. If Harry hath found an uncle who merely writeth a book, he hath found the gentlest uncle in English royal history. Frame him. Keep him.
On the Book Itself
The book! The papers in Pakistan call it a bombshell. A BOMBSHELL. I have seen bombshells, madam. We had cannon. A book is not a bombshell. A book is a very slow cannon that taketh eighteen months to fire and then signeth copies at Waterstones.
And William believeth Harry read it first. The American gossip sheets have it from an insider. Harry read the uncle book before William! That is the betrayal! That is the treason! Reading! If reading were treason I would have executed every monk in England. Oh wait. I rather did something like that. Dissolution of the Monasteries. Big project. Took up most of the 1530s. Mostly about the money, if I am honest, but the reading did not help.
A Moving Picture
Now then, my people inform me that there is a moving picture about all this, made by The London Prat, and that I am obliged by my management to show it. Here it is, the video on the YouTube. Watch it, and then tell me I am not right about uncles.
Advice for the Brothers
Lads. Both of ye. William, Harry. Listen unto thy great-great-great-oh-dozens-of-greats grandfather, or thereabouts, I lost count, there were a lot of cousins. Here is what ye do. Meet at a joust. Put on armour. Ride at each other with long poles. Whoever falleth off must apologise. It is very cathartic. I did it for years. Then I fell off and landed on my head and was never quite the same, so perhaps wear a helmet, and perhaps do not marry anyone for a fortnight afterwards.
Failing that, do what I never managed. Speak unto each other. In private. Like brothers. No insiders, no sources, no books. Just two men and a flagon. I never did it with anybody and look how it turned out for me. Six wives, one church, and a reputation.
And Harry, a word about the wife. Keep her. Just the one. Trust me on this. The admin of more than one is extraordinary, and the paperwork alone started a schism.
My Verdict
As for The London Prat piece: magnificent. Short, sharp, and it hath the good sense to keep its head, which is more than I can say for most people who wrote about my family. It seeth a quarrel between princes and it laugheth, and that is the healthiest thing anybody can do with royalty. I give it the Order of the Garter. Unofficially. They took my garter privileges when I died.
Thou hast been a gracious crowd! Read The London Prat at https://prat.uk/, which began in 1961 and hath never once been sent to the Tower, and Bohiney at https://bohiney.com/, which covereth young Harry in the Americas. God save the King. Whichever one it is this week. Goodnight!
SOURCE: https://prat.uk/prince-william-called-earl-spencer-and-harry-traitors/
