The Courtier From The 21st Century Who Would Be King : The King Behind The Throne : King Henry VIII (Alfred the Great II) : Ch.7 by Alfred Muggins (himself) The Real Henry VIII Finds His Feet In 21st Century England! Ch.7 Part 1

16/7/23 (5/7/24)

    Mrs Muggins was back from the 16^th Century, having become sick of Henry’s cruelty in beheading of Catherine Howard in 1542. It had been ‘the last straw’, so to speak, after Anne Boleyn, and even loyal servant Thomas Cromwell, although he had perhaps partly deserved it for his cruel denouncement of Anne Boleyn. The beheading of poor Lady Pole, in 1541, as a potential contender, in line to the throne, had also been a very cruel and nasty thing to do, and quite undeserved on a personal or political level. She had therefore stormed back to the 21^st century, with Alfred’s reluctant assistance. She fully intended never to go back there, or to have anything further to do with that rotten century, or at least Henry’s rotten paranoid regime, and as far as Alfred himself could appreciate, with Alfred himself (He wasn’t sure whether it might even count as a divorce, although technically he was sure it was only a separation, although quite possibly or probably a permanent one!

    She was glad to be back in the 21^st Century, feeling a strong sense of freedom after the claustrophobic atmosphere of the Court, and not being able to say or do what she was thinking or wanting all the time, and of course the continual fear that she might do something wrong, or that someone would accuse her of doing something wrong, even if she hadn’t, and that she might lose her head, or worse, such as being burned to death for some supposedly religious accusation.

    Naturally she was horrified to find the familiar figure of the King in her lounge, treating the place as if it was his own home (she supposed he had done plenty of that with his nobles, even in his own time as King. He was looking quite a bit older than she remembered him, from not too long ago in her own timeline. She had left the 16^th Century in 1542 soon after the execution of that poor girl who had been Queen for only months. He had aged since then, but she remembered how bad his sore left leg had been at that time. (Perhaps it had accounted for some of the King’s grumpiness, and even his cruelty!) She wondered what year he had left his own century, and why. However in some ways he seemed better. There was definitely a twinkle in his eye at the moment, and she could not smell his sore at all, for a change. Come to mention it she could not smell him, or not anything like as much as he had reeked in his own Court (although everyone else had too, to a degree) She instantly knew that Alfred must have had a hand in bringing the ‘old’ King here. She felt annoyed, and angry with her erstwhile husband, but she was also curious. This familiar figure of the King she knew too well, and she was immediately trying to work out what had transpired. She could not help herself.

     “Hello Lady Muggins!” said King Henry, “It is so nice to see you again. I missed you at Court in recent years, but I see now you came back to the 21^st Century. Alfred told me all about your origins. He has explained it all, and even really persuaded me to come here too. Well, as you can see, the NHS has really fixed me, and I feel a whole lot better!”

   She couldn’t help suddenly realising at that moment that the good old NHS must have forced him to have a bath at long last!

25/3/23

    ‘Doctor’ Mrs Muggins reckoned she knew better than the real (fully trained!) Doctors what had been up with Henry VIII in the recent years of his life! She had diagnosed (unofficially) that Henry was suffering from severe bouts of ‘paranoia’, even while she was still in the 16^th Century, and it being a long time (in real life terms) since he had done any jousting or hunting! (‘Those poor foxes,’ she exclaimed!) She could admit that much of her diagnosis had been due to her reading of plentiful articles and the watching of plenty of documentaries and docudramas, during her times before the unexpected journey to, and residence in the 16^th Century. Despite having come away from the 16^th Century in a complete huff, after the beheading of yet another wife, Catherine Howard, and this time a young and virtually underage young wife (about 19 at the time of execution!), by modern 21^st Century standards.

    So Mrs Muggins was not much pleased to see Henry when she found he had ‘landed’ in the 21^st Century at her (and Alfred’s) home, in an inconsequential street in a quiet (relatively) suburban ex village in the north of a northern town, well past the heyday of its historic past (but that’s another story altogether!). She couldn’t believe Alfred had been so cruel and unthinking as to land the grumpy and cruel King upon the 21^st century. Now he would be yet another problem for the poor, struggling NHS to sort out, and modern Britain had more than enough problems of its own, trying to deal with every Tom Dick and Harry, and ladies, with children, who rolled up on a boat or even by legal routes from every modern basket case of a nation under the sun, whether it had been in the British Empire once upon a time or not. It was too much!

    The schools had to try to learn all these languages or at least to communicate with the incoming foreigners, and where was everyone going to be housed? And now it suddenly started to look as if migrant time travellers might be going to start rolling up from the 16^th Century as well, following in Henry’s footsteps! She hoped not, but now her erstwhile husband had opened the gates, so to speak. What next? Another wave of Hugeunots from France, or refugees from the religious wars of the 17^th Century Thirty Years War (or Wars?) in Europe, and every other conflict (including refugee slaves in the 18^th and early 19^th centuries!) She would have to let the Tories know, so they could start to effectively close off the Time Travel routes before too many people found out about them. Fortress Britain definitely would not be able to withstand waves of immigrants from other centuries. It was enough finding hotels for foreigners, and increasingly houses and flats for the homeless of the current modern period. Perhaps she was worrying too much. Surely her erstwhile husband would not open the floodgates for Time Travellers? Why should he want to do that?

16/7/23 (5/7/24)

    “I want you to help me now,” insisted Henry, continuing.

    “Help you sire?” enquired Mrs Muggins. “What do you want?” asked Mrs Muggins tentatively.

    “I want your help, to take my Kingdom back!”

    There was a silence while she considered how to respond to her erstwhile King. “You want to return to your own time? To take your Kingdom back?”

    “Well yes of course, at some stage of course I will return to my own time, and relieve Alfred of his duties. But for now, while I am here, I believe I should return my inheritance to my control in the 21^st Century!”

    Mrs Muggins was horrified. Auld King Henry, the murderer of poor teenage Catherine Howard, and intelligent, ambitious Anne Boleyn, back in the 21^st century, and trying to take over modern Britain! She didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry, but she was very definitely horrified at the prospect of such a callous ‘monster’ of a King, coming to the 21^st Century to throw his weight around!

    She almost laughed, but controlled herself swiftly, appalled by his suggestion. “Sire, you cannot take over the modern Kingdom of Britain! For a start it is ruled by a Parliament, not by the King. The King is merely a figurehead monarch in this day and age. In your day you really ruled. Your word was followed by your subjects. But in this day and age citizens are used to being able to vote and to choose their Governments. The King has no real power, some influence, but no control. It is called Democracy. Even if you somehow succeeded in taking the throne back from the new King Charles, you would have no real power anyway, not like you were used to having in the 16^th Century.”

    Henry listened, horrified. He did know about Parliament, and the Prime Minister, and even the Tory Party. He had been gathering information and knowledge in the last few months, but he still couldn’t believe the modern Monarchy had so little power. What about his dreams of making Britain use its nuclear arsenal and regaining France for the Crown? He could not give up these magnificent dreams.

    “Lady Muggins I need to meet with influential Ministers and the Nobility. I need to talk to the Prime Minister and see if I can persuade him to work for me. I must talk to your Generals and Admirals. Your recent modern day Queen became too old perhaps, and her son, the new King Charles, might have been a good polo player, as I understand, but he has never beaten an opponent at the joust, or stood with an army at the gates of a conquered city! Modern Britain needs a monarch who can exercise true power, for the benefit of his subjects, and England!

17/7/23

    “Henry I do not have connections with these important people in the 21^st Century! I don’t happen to know the Prime Minister or any of the current nobility (she was no longer concerned with creating a good impression upon Henry, or pretending airs and graces which they had never really possessed. She would never be going back to the 16^th Century again now.) I might be able to put you in touch with our local MP, if only I could remember his (or her?) name, but I think he’s in the opposition Labour Party, not even in the Tory Party, so I can’t see them wanting to help you get your throne back. They do believe in Democracy you know! Maybe, if you’re lucky and said the right things, and offered them contracts and enough lobby money, some Tories might. But I even think most of them would think twice at bringing an ancient King back into modern politics. Besides we already have a modern monarch, the new King Charles! And there would be lots of political correctness issues to iron out too!”

    “Well my Lady I would appreciate it if you could do what you can. I know it’s a big ask, and perhaps you don’t have all the right connections, but we don’t know how far we can go unless we actually try it do we? I didn’t ever hang about worrying about what I couldn’t do in the past, and I am not about to start being put off by that now!

    “I did manage to retake Calais and Boulogne in the end! I dismantled the Pilgrimage of Grace, and prevented the ‘extremists’ from taking over my Church of England! I did manage to engineer England’s escape from Papal Control, and sent their priests packing, and I managed to destroy a thousand years of monasteries! (I drained the swamp! Even my ancestors, the Vikings, didn’t manage to destroy so many monasteries before they got converted!) All I can say is ‘Watch Out Modern Britain’, I Henry, your erstwhile King, am coming to save you from your enemies and from yourselves! I am not scared of modern Britain!”