The Courtier From The 21st Century Who Would Be King : The King Behind The Throne : King Henry VIII (Alfred the Great II) : Ch.4 by Alfred Muggins (himself) The Real Henry VIII Finds His Feet In 21st Century England! Part 1

28/5/21 (27/2/23)

    Alfred had unleashed an aging and disgruntled Henry on the modern world! Where would he stop, now that he had found his feet? Henry, the real Henry, fully believed that he was the inheritor of the Crown. He had been brought up to fully believe England was his, or at least since his older brother Arthur, unfortunately died too soon in 1502! Forget these German descendants who were not first in line to his throne, and had accepted to be mere puppets for all these years! ‘Constitutional Monarchs,’ they said, not real rulers! Henry now realised he had been sent to the future to rectify this, and to retake his original throne for the real monarchy, chosen by God himself!

    His Minister Alfred had been right, true to his word! The incredible National Health Service of the future had indeed managed to fix him of most of his ailments (so much so that Henry was already considering founding one along similar lines for his very own Tudor England, when he returned home to his own period, assuming of course that Minister Alfred, in his guise as the King Henry, had not already had the bright idea and started work upon such a scheme?) They had fixed him in their hospitals! Their wonderful knowledgeable dieticians, and beautiful and so kind nurses had forced him to become what he truly should have been again. He was again becoming like a man in his prime, like the younger Prince and the King he had once been.

     He was back, and the only difference was that he had been placed here in the future (for the time being at least!). He was Henry, the once and future King, the true Head of the Church of England. He was the true King Arthur (after the ancient King, who his dead brother had been named for. Henry had picked up his mantle in 1502, and ruled when their father passed away.) But things had begun to go wrong. He had made some mistakes, but he was learning as he went on. Alfred, his friend and advisor had magically sent him to his own original time in the future, and now Henry found that his ‘Ancient’ Kingdom, which he had always thought very modern in the sixteenth century, particularly after his bold Dissolution of the Monasteries and his noble standing up to the excesses of the Papacy, his unparalleled creation of his Church of England, and his bold promotion of talent and ability, was not deemed so modern by comparison to the changes which had been wrought in the centuries since!

    Henry was in a position to see what had been made of his efforts to bring his Kingdom to Greatness, and indeed it was now even called Great, but not just England, it was now Great Britain (and Northern Ireland if you please!) Calling it Britain perhaps brought it in line with the vast legendary Britain of King Arthur’s legendary time! But there were problems, many of them, with his inheritance!

    Henry saw that the Modern Monarchy was under threat in so many ways, and his Church of England was fading, probably because it had become too soft! He needed to find some yuppies and go getters, the kind of men who had enabled him to disband the monasteries, and they would tear England (now Great Britain and Northern Ireland!) apart, and put it back together again, just as he had done with England back in his own time of the sixteenth century!

    Henry had never expected to rule Scotland, even its glens came under his theoretical control, places he had never even dreamed of touring, with strange and wonderful royal castles, which were now part of the modern crown, his magnificent Crown! There was apparently a real Castle called Balmoral out in the wilds of ‘bonnie’ Scotland, far out amongst the tamed Gaelic Clans and upon territories presumably conquered at some point from the ancient Picts, where one could hunt to one’s heart’s content, while ignoring all the worldly concerns of state for long periods at a time. It all sounded quite heavenly to macho Henry, until he remembered that he had promised a fair number of his erstwhile wives back in the 16^th Century, that he would never again risk life and limb on the eternal quest for the sacred stags, not to forget his more recent pledges and promises to the beautiful nurses and erudite (noble?) doctors of the magnificent NHS! In which he promised not to indulge his youthful jousting and hunting pastimes no longer. He supposed he could go out and get the fresh air without risking his limbs, or banging his head!

    Also there was a famous Palace called Hollyrood where fantastical film creations of all types were made to entertain the Scottish masses. Henry’s sister Margaret had been married to an uncouth Scottish King, but she had resided at the famed Hollyrood for a time. Alfred his mentor had reminded him of all of this, and he looked forward to seeing the modern family entertainment films Alfred said were mass produced in fabled Hollyrood today! Scotland had indeed become a major success story by all accounts!

     Henry would build up his navy again, a modern navy this time (with nuclear submarines! – what power this would give him (although he learned that they had not been fully used even before – or not for a long time!) These he had been told would be unsinkable (unlike the Mary Rose!) unless there was a direct hit from above or from a missile! Henry was thrilled. He could threaten to use them if he wanted, on the Spaniards, or the French? Or anyone who came in his way. He had heard the modern Russians had tried it on a few times recently, but that the Chinese (whom the Mongols of Genghis Khan had once tried to wipe out!) were the rising power in the world, due to being very populous and therefore economically powerful, and also being one of the few places in the world in this 21^st Century, which were still basically under the command and control of effectively one man!

    Henry could see that ‘Britain’ was a bit rudderless and that what it was probably lacking most of all was the firm leadership of a proper monarch from the past, with enough authority and determination to make England (sorry Britain!) what it really should be once again!

    The only problem was, could he get his erstwhile subjects to once again let him be their King, chosen by God?