Chapter I

That was the day that changed everything. The metallic bells of the nearby chapel rang, screaming a metallic melody across England and sending peasants and nobles alike, running to the great chapel doors. At those same doors, all were greeted with the horrifying news that swept through the land like a plague. The day had fallen upon the 3rd of April in the Lords’ year of 1502, and all was terribly cloudy. A harsh tempest grasped the shores of England in its palm, squeezing its frosted fingers shut leaving us in a heavy downpour from the heavens. I shall never forget the chill of cold wind so bitter it could freeze your clothing to your skin. It was truly one of the coldest days of my memory and it fit well for the occasion. I sat in my childhood chambers of Greenwich Palace, seated upon an old rocker and before a once great mantle. Though now, The mantle’s gold had been stripped away for perhaps money in times of war or taken in fear of raid. The one log in the pit burned quickly, entirely too quickly and was unable to spread its warmth through my cold bones and heat my frozen blood presiding within my veins. How rebellious I would be if I dared to just throw one more log in the smoldering fire. Perhaps it was the childhood sense of stubborn sensitivity or even the cold that did not deliver me from my mind when the rapid foot steps came ringing through the hall outside of my chamber door. I was forced to look from the smoldering flame to the door as it was flung open and my Lady Nurse stood within the open door frame before flinging herself to my feet in curtsy. Never had I ever been shown this much respect, respect to me? I was only the second son now red in the face and bound in piles and piles of fur. My Lady Nurse’s breath was heavy in her throat like she had been running and the hemline of her gown tracked in mud. Her hazel eyes were struck with something, some fear or intensity I will never forget nor have seen before or again.
“Your Grace, Prince Arthur hast passed early yesterday morrow. We suspect the sweat.”

I was born in the 28th of July, 1491. From what I have been told, that year was dreadfully hot in the first place but the dog days of July had settled in and August was ready to spring like a caged animal. I can only imagine the fatigue of my poor mother. My father had taken progress nine months earlier to Greenwich in preparation of my birth. My father had ambitions of Greenwich being the birthplace of the Tudor Dynasty and it was a very good location for a birth or several. Greenwich lays upon the river Thames and still bares the Middle Aged Architecture though it had been built no more then 20 years before. Greenwich was a standing example of the dank Civil War that England had emerged from for even 20 years earlier, Lords were building their Palaces in preparation of war. When the palace was opened up, the breeze from the river whistled through the thick walls of the castle and showed itself to be much more comfortable during the summer then anywhere else in England. Greenwich admitted a lovely breeze that put other river palace’s to shame. I also heard through the grapevine, That my mother went into a laying in period exceptionally early, in-fact 3 months early and was forbidden by my father to perform even the most simple tasks. My mother reported pains and movements such as she had never felt before and they later found that this was the cause of having a healthy child. Arthur and Margaret who had came before me had been weak, sickly infants while I, tossed in the womb with a healthy abundance. The pregnancy was not quite as grand as it was for Arthur, in-fact with each child that came, the celebration became less and less grand in order with the importance of the child. My father already had all he could ask for; a son, a successor to carry on the newly forget Tudor dynasty and that was Arthur. Arthur was the golden, bread and butter child of England who was raised so high and praised like a God himself. The midwives’ reported that my mother was nearly in labor for a day and when I had finally arrived into the world early in the morrow, there was no need to be told a child had been born for it was already known! As tradition says, I was bathed thoroughly in holy water, wrapped in towels of gold and presented to my mother. With my mother, it did not matter what sex or order the child was for she loved to behold the child in her arms until she was forced to rest. When my father first beheld me, he was said to have put his fingers in my palm and upon curling my small fingers upon the foreign object, he was thought to have put a pleased smile upon his lips and shout out.
‘This is the strongest yet!’

My father was a man by the name of Henry Tudor, later to be known as King Henry VII. Notice how I say later, my father was not born a king, in-fact he was born in the most basic of circumstances. In Pembroke Castle, a 14 year old widow named Margaret Beaufort who had a direct lineage to John of Gaunt (son of King Edward III.) She gave birth to her first and only son whom she named Henry Tudor after his father, Edmund Tudor. Edmund was the half-brother of Henry VI, being the son of Henry V’s widow through Owen Tudor. This young woman had a direct connection to royalty
And royal blood to say the least and this blood accompanied with the Tudor blood line, Henry was pure-bred for the throne. Meanwhile, a Civil War known as the War of the Roses was being waged until the Yorkist win in 1461. After the death of Edward IV, the greedy brother Richard III who had been appointed protector of Edward IV’s son, Prince Edward had set his sights on the throne. It is said that Richard locked both the boy King Edward VI and his brother Richard into the tower of London and they were never seen again. It is believed that Richard killed both boys and they or their bodies have never been found. In the mean time, My father had been raising an army after escaping exile in France and marched into England. My father’s army slaughtered Richard’s army and even Richard himself at the Battle of Bosworth and it is said that my father plucked up Saint Edward’s crown from a nearby bush and place it upon his own head and no longer was he Henry Tudor but King Henry VII. My father secured his new dynasty by marrying the daughter of Edward IV, a woman named Elizabeth of York who had spent much of her life in exile. By doing this, he joined the two houses and created an entirely different one. With all this being said, one can understand why heirs were so important for without heirs, The Tudor dynasty would be no more and be passed to Yorkist or Lancastrian hands, either or which would destroy England in another brutal Civil War. Though people view Kings selfish in our need for heirs, it is to uphold peace and sometimes to uphold peace, one must war with corruptions of peace.

I remember clearly looking to the window and watching the deep grey clouds begin to evaporate to reveal patches of blue sky. Perhaps it was wrong to be happy at the death of my own brother but I did not care. No longer would I need to live within the shadow of ‘The Great Prince Arthur.’ Finally, I would be seen as I stepped into the light and gain my rightful place as the better brother in every respect. I was already taller then him, stronger then him, quicker then him, a better poet, musician, athlete, linguist and diplomat then him and it was about time that this was seen. Arthur had always been a weak child, skinny and pale with a terrible whooping cough that plagued him all through the year. The King had sent him to Ludlow Castle within the marshes of Wales and as Prince of Wales, it was important to keep the Welsh loyal to us especially since we as Tudors are of Welsh decent. Yet Arthur failed this simple task with his untimely death. Upon the journey, Arthur had been barely able to mount his horse even while his new bride watched. He could barely draw a bow, could not play sports, games or even dance. His skin bore an odd silvery tint and as I watched him only 6 months before at his wedding, I saw how skinny he had become. Clothes hung like a drying rack from his slim-shoulders even though they had tried to pack the shoulders of his clothing with saw dust to broaden his shoulders. Yet, as I sat to the back of him still over-shadowed by this disgusting excuse of a prince, I saw myself where he sat. That was where I belonged, in that seat yet glowing within the candle light as a grown man. A halo of red hair nestled around my head as the color came to my cheeks and my deep grey eyes glistened with happiness and power. The throne that looked so large with Arthur, appeared miniscule with my tall, athletic body occupying the seat. My masculine build was bright with expensive fabrics carved into the latest fashion while gold and jewels seemed to drip from my very being. My white hose tugged at the fine shape of my calf and stretched to the fine build of my doublet and cod piece and I smiled within the graces of my own court. Upon my God given throne. My slender ringed fingers were interwound with another set of fine fingers that followed a fine fore arm upon the body of the beautiful red-haired woman. Her hair was the color of my mothers, like licks of fire swept back into a Spanish hood. Her lightly sun-kissed skin stood flawless and her deep blue eyes gazed towards me in happiness and sincerity. Her cheeks were colored with natural blush upon glancing at me, her handsome husband and her full lips pulled into a glowing smile. The pull of her luxurious gown revealed the toss of her hips, ample bosom and swelling stomach full with a healthy red-haired baby boy ready to grace the world with his presence. Yet, within the sanctity of that vision things begun to turn, turn terribly wrong. I gazed forward into this sight in horror as the beautiful brides’ stomach begun to shrink while the rest of the once curvaceous body inflated with flat. The face swelled and wrinkles inot the depths of the forehead. The color of the blue eyes died out to an ugly silver and the licks of fire like hair was suddenly doused in grey before the image crumbled into dust, a pile upon the throne. Even more frightening then that, the vision of myself as the youth faded from my features like it was being sucked from my pores. The ring of red hair dulled and became thin and straw line as my eyes became smaller and smaller with the weight of the heavy eyelids. Within a great mass of grey and red facial hair enveloping my heavy face was my mother, where the smile had evaporated and the small lips drew tight in disdain. The large dough-like head was followed by a stump of a neck and an upper body so large that the fine garments had stretched very far to allow the excess. The garment had stretched so far, it could house a family within the tunic and my once fine legs inflated until they were nothing more but swelling appendages. To my horror, the body only inflated more and more like being filled with air until the figure burst into a similar pile of grey dust.
I came out from this terrible nightmare that I prayed would not become my eventual existence and as I came to reality, My lady Nurse had tugged me forward from my chair into her lap where she enveloped me in her arms and against her ample bosom. She wept for me, pressing her face into my head of red-hair and I felt the warm brine tears seeping through to my scalp. She wept and wept and I didn’t dare to ask why yet now I finally begin to realize why she wept so.