Of Pride and Power - 31. Chapter 29: “Play a sucker to catch a sucker, seem dumber than your mark.”

The remaining decade was a time for progress, development, and growth. On our way back to England, Robert, Francis, and I took a few weeks to enjoy the hospitality of the nascent Dutch Republic in Bruges. I’ve heard a lot of interesting rumors about the Netherlands in my era, including wild libertine sex. During the medieval period, the prosperous region of Flanders was a pragmatic cosmopolitan area with a lot of prostitution, brothels, and sexual freedom that did not exist in many areas of Europe. In my timeline, the Catholic counter-reformation and Calvinist Protestants Christians of the 16^th century ended that era of openness with their puritanical one-upmanship. However, the defeat of the Protestants in Germany and Switzerland had a massive limiting effect on the flow of Christian purists into the Netherlands. Francis through his secondary identity as the Black Knight of Navarre had already begun a certain kind of revolution against orthodoxy when he visited the Netherlands and executed several corrupt Catholic Church and Habsburg leaders, ten years ago. Thus, the cosmopolitan mercantile society continued without interruption.

Additionally, I think the relationship between Francis, Robert, and me probably progressed their views toward a society that my timeline would consider one of the most “open-minded” in the world. Unlike England, where servants whispered stories about how I engaged in sexual relations with more than one partner, and with the inclusion of Frances more than one gender, it was less scandalous to see open displays of affection between the three of us in the Netherlands. We were often invited to private dinner parties with merchants and magistrates, who wanted to understand how poly couples work. There were also continental offshoots of the fair folk in England, who gathered in Calais and Flanders to meet us. Francis offered introductions to European coven leaders like Roderic and Alain, whom he met over the years. Roderic with his well-managed full beard, muscular appearance, and commanding attitude made me think of a classic gay Dom, especially when I saw he was leading a group of servile young men clad in skintight leather outfits. Robert must have thought the same thing because he gave Francis a questioning look, and Francis shook his head in denial while blushing.

After witnessing the showmanship of Roderic, Robert and I thought about upping our own game. As the region of Flanders was known for its leatherwork and craftsmanship, I did get some custom-made outfits and toys for the three of us. A few select Flemish admirers and friends were introduced to some interesting modern sexual concepts. Francis was our sub and I thought it was time to explore more sexual roleplay.

After a few nights of experimentation and some very good wine from my vineyards in the region of Picardy that was ceded to me by Catherine de Medici during the exchange for her son and heir to the French throne, I got knocked up. The idea was to try “double stuffing”, which in gay sex is exactly what it sounded like, but it usually requires months of stretching exercises with lube for two erect penises to enter your anus. However, as an Omega, I had wondered how the idea would work if both the vagina and ass were penetrated at the same time. As Francis penetrated my vagina and Robert with his experience penetrated my anus, the prerequisites for sexual stimulation were met for reproduction. While some Omegas prefer monogamous relationships, our biology complements assisting partners in sexual reproduction. As such, I returned to England pregnant with my second child, an Omega boy, whose father was Francis.

It was scandalous to the courtiers and heralded by the fair folk that Francis would have a child with me. Though there were whispers across the kingdom that my second child might inherit the throne, the rights of succession were strict to only allow children of the official spouse, so legally only my eldest cisgender male son, Henry, could inherit the throne at that time. It was not a new issue either, since Henry FitzRoy, the illegitimate son of Henry VIII, was not named as heir to the throne for the same reason, and the desperate need for an “official” son created Edward. Though, Henry at age five was happy to have a baby brother to play with.

As this would be my first omega child, the Cadbury Hill facility in Somerset wanted the honor of helping me give birth. We had planned to leave London several days earlier by barge along the Thames River and across the newly created canal linking us to Western England. However, two months before the planned trip down the river, a major issue occurred in central England near the bustling city of Birmingham. There was a major issue happening within the city due to an external issue between neighboring freeholders and nobles with land grants and the appointed mayor.

In my timeline, the city was an important location for the first wave of the industrial revolution. While Manchester might have been the first industrial city in England, I focused my efforts on this city for national capacity improvement first. The steam engine, cotton mills, steel production, and most importantly technologists like James Watt and James Keir. My interest in this city’s development wasn’t just in its industrial capacity either. These developments in my timelines created the radical thinkers known as the “nonconformists”, who represented the anti-orthodox beliefs established by the Church of England and, by extension, all existing forms of Christianity in the 18^th century ushering in concepts of Enlightenment and Scientific revolution. The veritas sect had already been born through my interactions with the western regions of England, but it was limited to only areas I directly interacted with, so a second wave needed to expand their appeal. Things like the scientific revolution, and particularly the theory of evolution with its focus on genetics, needed fertile ground here to the point where in my time, scientific views actively competed and challenged traditional religious views in open debate. My opponents like the German Empire and New Rome attempted to progress technology without revealing the inherent contradictions within the nature of technology against the dogma they used to control people, but their approach could only be sustained in a vacuum. Knowledge isn’t just power; it is the building blocks of choice. Once the choice of ideologies expands, there would be no heaven or hell, just the reality of the multitude.

Sadly, the noble bloc obstructed my goals, and their leader the Earl of Sussex, Thomas Radclyffe, was an extortionist. In my history, he was an English politician, who was loyal to Henry, Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth as long as he benefitted with titles, wealth, slaves, and lands. This guy was a snake, who prioritized wealth and prestige over anything else. During Mary’s reign, he led troops to “cleanse” Ireland of rebels and murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent people to improve his standing. If there was an International Court of Justice, he should have been put on trial for crimes against humanity. However, he was a leading figure among the noble bloc with a loyal detachment of troops and a friend to William Paulet, one of my oldest allies, there was no reason to touch him except his immoral actions. In my timeline, he was remembered as a key factor in the successful suppression of the Northern Uprising, protecting Elizabeth I's reign as well. Beyond his cruel actions, my thoughts were conflicted due to his impact, since I knew in my history, he was loyal to Elizabeth I and fought for her, so I assumed he would be the same in this timeline. However, I couldn’t allow him to interfere with my designs for Birmingham. I was prepared to pay him off as a result.

At the heart of the issue was land, the Lord Mayor of Birmingham was empowered by me to expand the city with new furnaces, factories, and a railroad to connect to the new Midland coal and iron mines. I had used a significant number of resources from Avalon to build power plants to build Bristol into a major industrial city within the first years of my reign, then I used the output from Bristol to build railroads connecting to Birmingham, in anticipation of the next city. By late 1563, the connection had been finished, but Birmingham encountered a major problem in connecting with the mines. Radclyffe organized the local landowners to extract exorbitant rewards for access to their lands, my representatives were unable to negotiate with these people, and Parliament with the support of both landowners and nobles sympathized with them. They wanted items ranging from annual gold payments to indentured farmers for fieldwork because, in their eyes, they were entitled to these things as a reward for their ownership of the land. Land rights transcended religion in English history, it would also be an important ancillary factor in the United States’ formation. However, I couldn’t let this continue. While the concept of ownership might have spawned democratic institutions, it was also at the heart of all the corruption within these systems.

Despite being pregnant, I traveled north in the guise of a meeting between William Cecil and the landowners around Birmingham. The meeting spot was supposed to be an abandoned village, which had no significance after it was destroyed by Mary I when she was trying to purge disloyal individuals. The meeting place was the location where Stratford-upon-Avon used to stand. Due to the situation, Robert and Francis joined me along with my 25-year-old ward, Eddie Seymore, who was working as the secretary to my Chancellor William Cecil. A train ride back to Bristol, then a carriage ride to Cadbury Hill would take around two days, so I thought prenatal and postnatal care wouldn’t be an issue. Of course, Robert was by my side for backup as well, since he could produce everything that I needed on the spot for a safe birth. If things go sideways, I could rely on Francis’ skills in stealth and information gathering to support negotiations with the landowners and nobles.

At the site of our negotiations, two dozen representatives had already arrived before us. The four members of my party were welcomed with shock and awe. The Earl of Sussex was not expecting us to attend this meeting.

I opened the talks by addressing the highest-ranking member of the landowners, “My dear Earl, we have convened today to discuss the matter of land enclosures. It has come to my attention that there is much discontent among the common folk regarding the encroachment upon their lands.”

The Earl of Sussex gave me a bow, “Your Majesty Aelfric Elias Tudor, with all due respect, the issue of land rights is not what may be easily perceived. The landowners and their forefathers have invested their time and resources into improving their lands and estates. Just as the wisdom of your brother, Good King Edward, through promoting land enclosures had allowed us to better manage our lands and efficiently increase our productivity, we ask that you honor those prior commitments.”

The enclosure movement allowed individual landowners to improve their agricultural output by limiting land use to the owner’s purposes rather than allocating portions for “common use” in the preceding system, the open-field system. The simplest example of improvement is eliminating pasturing rights, since all lands are used in an enclosure system with different crops, you do not need to offer any land for peasants to graze on. Edward’s policy through Edward Seymore, Eddie’s father, did support enclosures, which benefited landowners like the Earl of Sussex and directly caused peasant revolts like Kett’s Rebellion in Norwich.

Robert addressed the Earl of Sussex, “But at what cost, my lord? The enclosures displace countless tenants, depriving them of their livelihoods. It breeds resentment and unrest among the populace.”

The Earl of Sussex was firm in his counter, “Your Grace, I understand your concerns, but we cannot ignore the rights of the landowners. They have every right to develop their lands as they see fit. Enclosures bring about progress and development, stimulating the economy and benefiting the realm.”

Francis argued against the Earl’s notions as he witnessed similar issues in Europe, “Progress, you say? Is it progress to drive honest men from their ancestral homes, leaving them destitute? We cannot allow such injustice to prevail unchecked.”

In my mind, private landownership was not wrong, but there’s a limit to how far individual rights can be applied without concern for the common good. These landowners just wanted indentured farmers to work their lands forever, slaves essentially. They wanted to be petty kings within their petty domains for their petty purposes on the backs of thousands, a notion that men similar to them would have continued for centuries onward. People needed livelihoods that gave them hope for a better future than always being servants to a lord. In my industrial plants and the military, I built, I gave folks a chance to rise in society and become productive. Thomas Radclyffe and these hereditary landowners only cared about themselves. With everyone’s words, I decided to create an example out of this situation with the Earl of Sussex and these self-entitled bastards.

With a polite smile, I pretended to concede, “Let us come to gentle terms, Earl of Sussex. I lack many things in my knowledge, and I had no idea that the rights of fine gentlemen like yourselves were attacked. As such please accept my apology, and we’ll attempt to compensate you for your inconvenience. The treasury of Birmingham has 10,000 gold coins, which I will make available to all the fine people without asking for any terms. I’ll order another 10,000 gold coins to be sent from London to here as a personal gift to you, my loyal and honorable Earl of Sussex.”

Francis gave me a quizzical look, while Eddie’s mouth was agape with my words. 10,000 gold coins were the entire allocated budget that Birmingham was given for their development, so surrendering the entire budget to these people would indicate abandoning the project. In addition, if I were to offer another 10,000 gold coins, it would be a significant amount for the military budget. Offering concession was expected by many people like Eddie, but the amount of concession I was offering went beyond the pale. Robert was the only one who guessed I was planning to do something infamous. He gave me an evil grin.

Of course, Thomas Radclyffe did not take my word at face value, but the wagons of coins being sent to Stratford-Upon-Avon over the next few days coming from Birmingham proved I was not merely joking. Francis and Eddie were visibly shocked at my sudden submission to the demands of Radclyffe and his allies. Clerks and secretaries from neighboring noble territories were sent to do an accounting of the gold coins that I was offering to them. After a week, they finished tallying the 10,000 gold coins.

While the gold coins were a great boon to these men, I reminded them after the confirmation, “I have ordered another 10,000 coins to be sent from London. In addition, I feel awful for troubling my most trusted subjects in such a way, and I am willing to offer another 20,000 gold coins as compensation.”

Eddie could not hold back his tongue anymore as the Secretary of Chancellor William Cecil, “Your Majesty Aelfric Elias Tudor, I must protest that such a sum of money would become a major encumbrance to the state. Will you raise new taxes or deprive loyal soldiers of their bread for these noblemen?”

I glared at my ward, who did not back down, so I questioned him, “And what shall I do about compensating these gentlemen for all this trouble?”

Francis, incensed by the proposal of more compensation money, jumped in, “Your Majesty, they do not deserve to be compensated as they have not earned such coin through their work. Perhaps their ancestors earned the privilege of their landholdings through merit, but they have no claim to an additional 20,000 gold meant for your loyal soldiers.”

Thomas Radclyffe's eyes widened at my proposal for more offerings to him, but he was cautious about Eddie and Francis’ anger, “Your Majesty is too generous. We are quite happy with the gold coins that you are giving us so far. As Lord Walsingham mentioned, we have not earned an additional 20,000 gold coins, so it would be unchristian to ask for more.”

It wasn’t that Radclyffe did not want more money, men like him are by nature greedy. No, he was just afraid of bearing the hatred of the entire English military for taking so much money or the other nobles, not involved in his extortion scheme over the land rights. I knew that by the words he used and played to his desires.

I smiled brightly at him, “My lovely Earl of Sussex if that is what you feel, I could create an easy method for you and other nobles to gain all the gold coins. I am a lover of games and festivities, so why don’t we host a festival here with a series of games? In these games, we can evaluate the strength, accuracy, and skill of all the noble lords here.”

Eddie was crying in exasperation, “Your Majesty, such a festival would cost countless coins as well. You would want the nation to bear such burdens to reward these men?”

I pretended to be angry at Eddie, “I am Aelfric Elias Tudor and I declare that game should be held here for these fine noblemen, will you deny my royal order, young Edward Seymore,” I gave Edward a hard slap on the face for insolence, then proposed to Radclyffe and his group, “However, we should be fair to the cost of holding such games. What if you gentlemen pay 1 gold coin for each attempt at a simple game, which will have a fair reward of 100 gold coins each? Within a hundred games, you fine gentlemen will gain 10,000 gold coins and additional games will reward even more. Fear not about men like this lowly secretary, since I am the one to order such pleasures through my direct command.”

The slap and the reward structure of the proposed festival games were convincing to the assembled nobles, who had already gained 10,000 gold coins from Birmingham. I would make up the slap I gave Eddie later on when I sent him off to a well-deserved ambassadorial mission to the Netherlands with a bag of gold and several letters of introductions to “houses of repute” for the type of men and women, he would find carnal pleasure with.

It took nearly six weeks of planning and organizing between Radclyffe and the Mayor of Birmingham to set up the festival to be held at the abandoned village of Stratford-Upon-Avon. It was a tedious exercise to plan various things from theater groups to musicians, while avoiding the unhappy stares of Eddie and Francis. Even though I brought them in on my scheme, they were worried it wouldn’t work and we’d be losing thousands of gold coins for nothing to these bastards. However, as Robert and I grew up with traveling carnivals and fairs like these, we knew it wasn’t hard to entice people into losing their minds over these random games.

The games that I planned for the festival were probably things most people from my era who have heard of traveling carnivals would have noticed. Of course, I would use every trick in the book from weighted milk bottles, dull points on darts, and off-balance air guns. Despite the cost being 1 gold coin with a 100 gold coin payout, it was an idiot's bet from the start. I had Robert create the attractions, then had Thomas Radclyffe assign his men to man the games. To prevent issues of unfairness, we allowed Thomas Radclyffe and his allies to test the games before the festival, then had the games guarded by his people to make it impossible for outside interference. However, Robert’s ability to manipulate matter made such guard duty irrelevant. On the first day alone, Thomas Radclyffe and his allies lost 3,000 gold coins in our rigged games with only 10,000 gold being won. It was still, in general, a positive outcome because we wanted Radclyffe and his allies to believe that they had a chance. However, on the second day, they lost an astounding 20,000 gold coins to 10,000 gold being won. I heard from Thomas Radclyffe’s men afterward that after the result of the second of the festival, he was incensed at the weaknesses of the noblemen that followed him. From their inability to burst balloons that he popped with a single dart to milk cans that they were unable to disturb. On the third day, Radclyffe personally attempted every game and won all of them, but at the cost of 50,000 coins to 10,000 being won. Instead of making money, they lost the 20,000 gold coins I gave them as “compensation” and to defeat the “cursed” games, they borrowed another 23,000 gold from me with their lands as collateral.

The reason behind my success was the pride of the nobles, who believed that they were better than others. They held a belief in their victory without any reason, except they deserved to win due to a pedigree built on someone else’s achievements. Nobility should be won based on ability, not given by birthright. Otherwise, you will end up with false ideologies that champion the triumphs of the past from individuals, who can only exploit without having personally strived.

By the end, we bankrupted all of the landowners around Birmingham and the Earl of Sussex, who begged for a pardon from his immense debt to me had to give up a king’s ransom along with most of the lands and slaves, he was given by Mary in Ireland. He probably knew I played him, but he could do nothing about it as he couldn’t figure out how I managed to rig all these games from under his nose. His resentment at losing so much to me was assuaged with private loan forgiveness I offered him through William Paulet with the implication that he served me faithfully and assisted the kingdom. I had thought that was enough at the time to end any remaining enmity.

While the land issues were being settled and the landowners were placed into crushing debt, I began experiencing my first contractions. On April 23^rd, 1564, in the tent that had housed a theater troop a few days earlier, my second son, William, or “Will” to everyone, was born. He was an omega like me with fiery red hair and a cry that resounded throughout the area. Like his older brother Henry, he loved attention and adoration from all the adults in his vicinity. It’s an odd contradiction to his biological father, Francis, who was naturally submissive and shunned attention due to his work, but we wouldn’t know how contrarian he was until years later. Still, Francis, I, and even Robert, who had no biological ties to him, loved him. Thus, this timeline’s new Bard of Avon was born. My first memory of him was that he had a look of awe when he saw me, then threw himself instinctively onto my chest for milk. He lived up to his name of being extremely willful with his passions and interests.

The fair folk were unhappy that they never got a chance to host the birth of the first Omega prince. Still, they were able to host another of my children’s birth about two years later, when Jamie, my second Omega son was born on June 19^th, 1566, at the same time as the birth of James VI, who would have been the future heir to the throne of England after Elizabeth I.

Since Mary Queen of Scots, known as Queen Mary Stuart of Scotland, was going to have a son named James and he was the last legitimate bloodline claimant to the English throne, it was a dangerous point in history. Killing the unborn child was impossible, unlike Mary Tudor’s historical miscarriages. My analytical ability indicated that I could not displace the unborn child or injure Mary Stuart when I visited Scotland in late 1565 upon hearing of her pregnancy from the Scottish Lairds. Another option was needed to protect everything I built so far.

Our second Omega son, Jamie, was not born out of a sexual tryst like Harry and Will. There are no elaborate stories or plots that surround Jamie’s birth. We planned Jamie’s conception down to the moment of insemination to properly coincide with the historical records of James' birth since an Omega gestation time is shorter than a human female, I just needed to see Mary Stuart once to analyze her birth. Robert and I had discussed the impact of timeline alterations and adjustments, concluding with the idea that history would always “rhyme” even if it doesn’t repeat. In other words, the universe operated on a modified version of Novikov's self-consistency principle, essentially causality cannot be bypassed by altering facts, only adjusted to confirm the original result from history.

Robert, being a fan of science fiction novels, argued that Jamie and James’ co-existences were a competitive probability between two quantum existences in this altered timeline, so it wasn’t certain that Mary’s son James would become king after me and undo everything I strived to create. History follows patterns but doesn’t show favoritism based on bloodlines. We could protect ourselves and our family by having another child at the same time as Mary Stuart in Scotland. I know Jamie is more than a tool for probability, he is my son and I love him. However, just like the historical James VI of Scotland, who was born due to Mary Stuart’s need to secure her reign, my son’s creation was also a requirement to secure mine.

I know you will be reading this, Jamie after I die, so I want to take this opportunity to tell you again I am sorry for being so callous about your conception and everything else. You deserved a much better daddy and father than me and Robert. You never had a real childhood after your third birthday, but what happened was not due to your conception. I want you to live and love without hesitation or obligation. Let George bear some of your burdens, as Robert did for me because history is too fickle to give anyone more than a few extra moments. While our abilities can delay fate, we are not its masters.

As I am about to recall the worst moment in my second life, I want to lay it all out there for descendants. I take full responsibility for what happened, don’t let anyone fool you into believing otherwise. No amount of whitewashing, historical revisionism, or comforting lies that my loved ones try to offer will ever change that truth as you will see.