The Autobiography of Arthur

LacheyS

LacheyS

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF​


ARTHUR,​


KING OF ENGLAND​


(1509-1549)​

428px-Arthur_Prince_of_Wales_c_1500.jpg



PROLOGUE​


∫ From Henry Radclyffe, Earl of Sussex
10 October 1556, England

My dearest sister Frances,

I am about to die and, as such, I am glad to be consoled by being yet able to lift this pen. We have not seen each other in many years and I am uncertain of the visage I might now behold should I see you, being more than aware of the changes which afflict me in my sinful vanity. It is my hope that time has been less unsavoury and strange with thy features than with my own.

I currently live quietly in the countryside now, but am aware of the dangers faced in the city by those of thy religious persuasion. I have been near enough at hand to watch the many pieties and wild ideas of some at the Court and it is my sincerest hope that thy husband shall be spared from any martyrdom on their accounts. It is with heresies such as these that we all miss the steady hand of More.

I came here before the new King Arthur’s coronation; despite my friendship with his father, I felt no place in the Court following his death. You would not recall, Frances, the summer that we have with the King. It was such a wonderful ride up to the hunting lodge. It was there I discovered a thing of your father’s, a thing which I must now entrust to you.

Make haste to inform me of the manner by which it may be discreetly given to your person, lest my celestial interview be hastened by our capricious Maker.

Ever yours, Henry



∫ From Frances Radclyffe
11 November 1556, England

My brother Henry,

I beg your patience in taking such a length to place this reply into your hands. The servants of the King can create difficulties for those in receipt of any correspondence or carrier they distrust.

I am distressed to hear of your health, and pray that you are given to repentance in your private devotions for the betterment of the shape and disposition of your eternal soul. We remain comfortable and rich, despite the affront to God from those who tempt his judgment, and we pray daily for the lifting of the spiritual bondage of all those who live under tyranny.

I am curious of this “thing”. Our father has now been dead these fifteen years and you have only now mention a legacy. And yes, I do remember the summer with the late King. He was certainly beautiful, with a presence of majesty.

I have some sad news to share regarding Father Thomas. I am sure that he has obtained his crown in Heaven with your friend, More. Their deaths have diminished our ranks, but our ideas will be proven true in time and we shall prevail against the ranks persecuting the true faith.

I have arranged for the one who brings you this message to establish the means by which we may exchange the valuable legacy. Your servant in the name of our Saviour,

Frances



∫ From Henry Radclyffe, Earl of Sussex
1 December 1556, England

My dearest sister Frances

Thy prayers may have had some effect, enabling me to hope that my meeting with Death may yet be scheduled to a more convenient time. As you know, I shun the services of all priests, those who bleed along with those who meddle, and I care not what vestment they wear. I hope not to offend thee, Frances, but my hopes in Masses and pilgrimages, Bibles and sermons, and Gods created in the image of man have faded. Perhaps there is one who waits for me on the other side; I know not.

Frances, do not attempt to send me the Scriptures mentioned by your servant. I have already read such in the service of the King after the death of good Queen Catherine. I remain unconverted to any faith, old or new.

I have spoken to your servant regarding transportation of the legacy. It is a journal written by your father. It is extremely valuable and many people would like to destroy it. They know of its existence, but have come to believe that it is in the possession of Norfolk. However, I fear that, sooner or later, they will find their way to here.

There is one last thing of which I must tell you and it is a hard thing. This journal is not written by the man you call “our father”. It is written by your true father: King Arthur. I speak truth to you, who remains my dear sister, not an abomination of insults on our common mother. We have always defended the low-minded accusations from outsiders, but we must now be truthful with each other.

You may have many questions but I trust that this journal will rest safe in your hands. It was my father who bound me to this service. Our fathers were as brothers, growing old together, and when King Arthur lay dying alone in that stuffy Whitehall chamber, it was I who was there. Many of us knew of the king’s journal; I had heard rumour of it since I was became an adult in Court. Toward the end, he was still making notes, hoping to expand on them later. He never did or will.

I enclose the notes here, along with the rest, with my own notes and explanations. I thought to destroy it after I stole it from his chambers, but I made the grave mistake of opening its pages and hearing your father’s voice once more. This is his most private earthly remain. I beg of you to be a good daughter and maintain it for him until its path becomes clear. Ever yours,

Henry
 
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LacheyS

LacheyS

I have always had a personal fascination with the Tudor Dynasty and, since discovering this site, have commented on a few timelines of this era. I even tried a very rough Tudor timeline last year during my Gorby break last year. I will still get back to that.....

Anyway, the POD of this world is obviously that Arthur Tudor survives through 1502. I know it's been discussed a lot, but I want to try to do it anyway. So part of this story will be set during the reign of King Henry VII, starting from around 1491 when Arthur's "memory" will begin.
 
LacheyS

LacheyS

I​





You might presume to think that, just because I'm an old man, I feel like discussing the past. But since everyone knows that discussing my age may provide them with an unlucky trip to the Tower, this is the first time I have had to think on what was my earliest memory.

I was five when my brother Henry was born and I recall that. Three, perhaps? Yes, I was three when my sister, Margaret, was born. I remember Father saying that she was "only a girl child". On the day before that, it was a cool winter's day and I was with Father in Westminster Hall while he rehearsed with me. I entered the Hall in the clothes of a hermit as part of the ceremony which made me a Knight of the Bath.

A few days after Margaret was born, Father and I rode through crowds of people on the way to Westminster. I was wearing some heavy ceremonial robes and had my own white pony. The walls of people on both sides were happy and they called out blessings to us both as we passed. It was this day on which I became Prince of Wales. I was honoured afterwards, with each noble paying homage to me as the highest peer in England – after the King.

I did not then understand what that meant. Father had exacted oaths of loyalty from each of them, but some under duress. But I did not understand this at the time. It was at this time that I first recalling meeting Archbishop Morton. He was not yet a cardinal at that time. He told me that I looked like the Queen’s father, who was King Edward IV, and then he and Father made some jokes I neither recall nor understood. They referred to “the old bitch”, which I later learned was Elizabeth Woodville, my grandmother. She died when I was seven.

And I remember the name Perkin Warbeck. This young Fleming caused my mother, the Queen, a lot of pain after she became convinced that my uncle was still alive. His invasions plagued the country until I was nine and I learned of him from my tutor, John Rede. I particularly remember when I was five. Not only was Henry, my brother, born, but it was the year of the Great Comet.

Living in London as the son of King Henry was not as materially luxurious as some may imagine. It is true that the palaces in England are now places of luxury and beauty, but they were not so before my reign. Father’s desire to be “economic” meant that his family lived in dark and cold conditions. Until I was seven, I lived an unadventurous life within the confines of the palace for my own protection. We may have had a safe life, but it was a dull life. It was one which might have suited Henry, whom Father had already decided would one day be Archbishop.

Yet to be a prince of the royal blood made it bearable. To know that you share the blood of the Confessor and Richard Coeur de Lion makes their stories more remarkable. Father sent me off to Ludlow Castle with some shabby clothes, but I was warmed in the knowledge that I have the blood of kings. The Earl of Kildare later reported to Father that I was “studious, thoughtful and reserved”.
 

Historico

An interesting take on the Arthur Tudor survives TL, as it will be much more personal and interesting than most's standard textbook style...Keep it comming Lacheys:D
 
LacheyS

LacheyS

II.​



I began these jumbled thoughts in a vain attempt to soothe myself several months ago when I had another terrible pain in the chest. Perhaps, now the pain has passed, I must do things properly. As Foxe would have insisted.

The King is Henry VII of the House of Tudor, a dynasty which, to that point, began and ended with my father. Until Father became king, we were no royal house, but a group of Welsh adventurers who relied on being on the right side of battles and in the right beds to advance. Of course, I can show you Father's genealogy which goes back to Calwaladr, but this, like his stories about the vileness of Richard III, is simply about public consumption.

We should really return to my great-grandfather, Owen Tudor, who ran the household for Queen Catherine of Valois, widow of Henry V. He was our greatest king, having conquered much of France some seventy years before I was born. His only son became the infant King Henry VI. Queen Catherine had two sons with Owen Tudor before she died, Edmund and Jasper, whom Henry VI made Earl of Richmond and Earl of Pembroke respectively. He even arranged for Edmund to marry my grandmother, Margaret Beaufort – a proper Lancastrian bride.

Henry VI was crowned in Paris as King of England and France, but could not hold his inheritance. Half mad and generally inept, the anointed king was weak. Father would say that, whenever a king is weak, there will be those who imagine themselves to be powerful. Thus was born the so-called War of the Roses and, within a few years, hundreds of Englishmen were dying for various claimants to the throne. At the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross, one of my grandfathers, King Edward IV, captured my great-grandfather, Owen Tudor and ordered that he be executed in Hereford marketplace.

Now Margaret Beaufort was the heiress to one of the two most considered claims to the throne and, as you can imagine, she was at the centre of the war. My grandfather, Edmund, Earl of Richmond, died at the age of twenty-six, leaving Margaret pregnant with a child. That child was my father, born when his mother was only fourteen. It was 28 January, 1457. She named him Henry because it was a Lancastrian name and, with each battle and each death in the wars, the claim of Henry Tudor to the throne advanced. By 1471, he was the surviving male of the House of Lancaster and he fled to join his uncle, Jasper, in Brittany, which only became part of France during my lifetime.

Fortunately for Father, Edward IV was stupid. He tried to pursue, abduct and murder my father, but the Tudors had the protection of good Duke Francis – for a fee. Father outsmarted Edward and he outlived him, waiting and watching as Richard usurped the throne. Before long, Father had a court in exile, and in England, rebellious subjects invited Father to return and take the throne.

Despite the Battle of Bosworth, in which Father became King, many recalcitrant subjects refused to accept him. Despite the fact he was of royal blood and had married the daughter of the late King, Elizabeth of York, my mother, the diehards were not easily placated. And so the treasons began. Lambert Simnel was amusing and Father rapidly deflated his royal demeanour by putting him to work as a kitchen hand. Warbeck was less amusing. With a highborn wife and hailed by the Scots, he needed to be executed.

I have learned that there is a bottomless well of traitors and malcontents. No matter how just the reign, there will always be dissatisfied groups plotting for an overthrow. Father once mentioned that he had always been “a prisoner or a fugitive”. Even after he was King, they would still not let him enjoy the peace. They meant to drive him from his throne into his grave. However, we talk now of a different time. No one is put to death surreptitiously in England anymore. There are no more smotherings, poisonings and midnight stabbings. I count it as a great achievement of my reign that the brutality and barbarism of England has now passed.

I am the heir of the houses of York and Lancaster; I was named Arthur to avoid any of the claimed names (Henry was Lancastrian, while Edward and Richard were Yorkist names). My Father said I was named for the legendary King Arthur, a son who would bring a golden age to England. After me was Margaret, named for the King’s mother and a future Queen. Then Henry, who never lived up to his partisan name. Then Mary. My stepmother, Joan of Naples, brought him Joanna and Edmund. There were others; their names, for the brief time they had them, are painful to recall. They remind me of the two who lie unformed in consecrated ground, taken from the womb of my Queen.

Father was in his thirtieth year when he married. By forty, he had four living children and the survival of the Tudor dynasty seemed assured. I am told that my Father was handsome and popular when he first came to the throne. The people saw him as a rogueish adventurer, the heroic soldier-king, but the cheering gradually faded and the people withdrew their affections.
 
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Julius Vogel

Julius Vogel

It is good to see you are trying your hand at this! I really have enjoyed your other timeline and from what I can see already, this new timeline looks to be of a similar high quality
 
LacheyS

LacheyS

SavoyTruffle said:
Ah, Henry's popularity fading due to his being a tightwad?
Click to expand...

My analysis is that

1. Henry VII probably struggled to connect to his people. He had spent all of his life out of England and I suspect that this would have made the native culture hard to understand, as it does for any immigrant.

2. I think that the public perception of him would have been that he was riding into the country to end the war at home and return the fight to France. However, then the soldier-king they wanted to rally behind sat on his hands at home.

3. I think, in his situation, he would have been constantly suspicious and paranoid of people.

These factors would have served to isolate him more from his people than his economic policies. A son, however, writing in a personal journal, would be inclined to complain if his father was a miser. And it would impact Arthur's perception of the role of money, just as other events will influence his opinions and thus determine the course of his reign.
 
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LacheyS

LacheyS

Julius Vogel said:
It is good to see you are trying your hand at this! I really have enjoyed your other timeline and from what I can see already, this new timeline looks to be of a similar high quality
Click to expand...

Thanks. I have just dried up creatively over there, but I don't want it to die. I just need a change, at least temporarily. I've toyed with the Ottomans and a different Edward VI, but I think that Arthur will be an interesting character.
 

Tomac

LacheyS said:
Thanks. I have just dried up creatively over there, but I don't want it to die. I just need a change, at least temporarily. I've toyed with the Ottomans and a different Edward VI, but I think that Arthur will be an interesting character.
Click to expand...

Indeed! There was a series of alternate histories where cross-time travellers managed to save Arthur's life (although that was about all the role that he played in the series) and brother Henry (now Henry Cardinal Tudor) died of Syphilis before he was thirty. Trouble is I'm having a "Senior Moment" and can't remember either the titles or the author.... :rolleyes::eek::rolleyes:
 
LacheyS

LacheyS

Tomac said:
Indeed! There was a series of alternate histories where cross-time travellers managed to save Arthur's life (although that was about all the role that he played in the series) and brother Henry (now Henry Cardinal Tudor) died of Syphilis before he was thirty. Trouble is I'm having a "Senior Moment" and can't remember either the titles or the author.... :rolleyes::eek::rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Henry, Cardinal Tudor will exist in this timeline too and, while he deserves to die of syphilis for his many mistresses, he will not. He will, however, build a magnificent Cardinal's palace, a la Hampton Court. He will also play a role in England's response to the Reformation.
 
SavoyTruffle

SavoyTruffle

LacheyS said:
Henry, Cardinal Tudor will exist in this timeline too and, while he deserves to die of syphilis for his many mistresses, he will not. He will, however, build a magnificent Cardinal's palace, a la Hampton Court. He will also play a role in England's response to the Reformation.
Click to expand...

Looks like we really love making ol' Henry a cardinal. :D
 

Darth_Kiryan

Well, with Henry as a cardinal, there can be no doubt that i am subscribing.

You sire, are a brilliant writer, and i would like to see where you take this.
 
LacheyS

LacheyS

SavoyTruffle said:
Looks like we really love making ol' Henry a cardinal. :D
Click to expand...

Yes, but he won't become a Cardinal at the same time and place as Wolsey did in OTL. In OTL, Wolsey got the cap because he convinced Henry VIII to join the League of Cambrai.

Adûnakhôr said:
Well, with Henry as a cardinal, there can be no doubt that i am subscribing.

You sire, are a brilliant writer, and i would like to see where you take this.
Click to expand...

Glad to have you on board and thank you for your compliments.

kasumigenx said:
He could be the pope as well if he became the bishop..
Click to expand...

This is a potential thread, but I don't think it likely, at least at this stage of writing. I think Archbishop and Cardinal will likely satisfy my creativity, and will give him the stage from which to deal with the Protestants.
 
LacheyS

LacheyS

II cont.​

Now here I am discussing Father as though I am a historian. Of course, as a child, I saw and understood little of this. Father was someone who I saw rarely, and never alone. Sometimes he would come to visit unannounced; I hated those visits. He would walk as a general inspecting his troops, demanding answers to Latin questions and the like. Sometimes, his mother, Margaret Beaufort, came with him. She was a tiny little woman with black eyes and a sharp face. She always asked the most difficult questions and was never satisfied with the answers.

My grandmother thought herself a scholar. It was she who guided my education. Bernard Andre gave history. Giles D'Ewes taught me French. John Skelton, the poet laureate, began teaching me, but, because he was a priest, he was placed with Henry. In addition, we all studied Latin (of course), Italian and mathematics.

She also insisted that I learn the Scriptures and theology. Well, you certainly cannot accuse me of having wasted that learning. I made extensive use of the knowledge later, though one must admit that it was in a way which would have horrified this pious old woman and her tutors.

There was a lot of travel involved with being a royal. The Crown had eight palaces and the Royal Household would move with the season. It was rare for we children to share the same residence as the King and Queen, and it was believed, and I still believe, that the country airs are good for the liver. As a small child, I was usually at Eltham Palace, which was only three miles from Greenwich. Small and set in fields, it was built by my pretty grandfather. There, we were guarded. Nobody was allowed to see us without Father's permission; I was to see nobody without Father's permission. I found the restrictions irksome.

At least we could "exercise" outdoors. I early discovered that I had little facility for physical things. I rode poorly in the beginning and soon found ways in which I could be outdoors without exercise.

Apparently, Margaret and Henry, who were still at Eltham when I went to Ludlow, would run amok, climbing trees and jumping in water. Margaret was fearless, even reckless. She never thought before hurling or jumping or tasting. Her later behaviour as Queen of Scotland was just as uncontrolled. However, Margaret and I were much more alike in spirit. We understood each other instinctively. That is something I would never have with any of the others.
 
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