Of Pride and Power - 32. Chapter 30: “Do not build a fortress to protect yourself, isolation is dangerous.”

There was a line from Souma Kazuya in Realist Hero Who Rebuilt The Kingdom, that went like this, “Seen from the past, the future is always a series of coincidences. Seen from the future, the past always looks like it was inevitable. Then what of the present? For that... we just have to trust in our own choices”. Ultimately, Robert and I trusted in our choices up to the point when coincidences became certainties and plots were inevitable. We had prepared for a northern uprising just as history had predicted, sent military units, and kept a close eye on the imports coming from the Habsburg empire. Yet, we didn’t realize our nominal “allies” were far more dangerous than our obvious enemies. Francis claimed it was his mistake to not extend our intelligence gathering further into the Baltic Sea, but Danish merchants have been traveling to the British Isles for centuries, and a gradual increase in traffic went unnoticed over the last ten years. Neither Robert nor I took the warnings of the late Uber-Kaiser Charles seriously since the man tried to suppress or murder us at various points. Our greatest foe was the one with a powerful religious infrastructure in Europe and a global empire around the world, but enemies within were growing by the day with the reforms that were being done. Queen Mary’s rhetorical attacks and pro-English sentiment had seeped into the consciousness of various dissident groups, despite her death. In such an environment, we ignored outside influences that sided with dissidents as many of them were allies. An army had arrived in England under our very nose, poised to strike like a viper.

We didn’t know any of those truths when we were awoken on June 19^th, 1569, by our boisterous ten-year-old son, Harry. He was enthusiastic about celebrating his youngest brother’s third birthday.

Harry was fiercely proud and protective of his omega brothers. When Will added salt to the tea kettle, meant for my ministers and me as a prank to see our reactions, Harry took responsibility for the act and accepted the punishment for his little brother. Will for his part objected to his brother’s self-sacrifice right away and quickly provided proof that he was the real culprit. Will enjoyed creating situations and watching human reactions, something we would recognize later as his latent interest in storytelling. Some people use their imagination to create scenarios or plots, but Will prefers direct experience and observation. Sadly, in contrast to William Shakespeare of my reality, Will’s future stories had far less comedy and far more tragic deaths.

To wake his three fathers and his honorary uncle Takechiyo, Harry created a motorized fan, which he used to blow smoke into our bedroom at Whitehall. Like his younger brother, Harry enjoyed playing pranks too, like connecting a simple DC electric battery and a voice synthesis device with spare parts from storage, to create an audio illusion of me demanding Marzipan cakes from the kitchen. Essentially, Harry created a Vocoder, using technology comparable to Bell Lab’s creation in the 1930s. Robert and I wanted to punish him, but we were too impressed by his ingenuity to penalize him. Part of his ingenuity was due to his relationship with the two resident mecha knights at Whitehall, knight commander Gard, and apprentice knight Marc. As Harry grew older and learned about the true nature of the stone Gargoyles in our throne room, he began speaking with Marc, the youngest of the mecha knights. Marc was initially nervous since Gard had ordered him to keep his presence secret within the palace. However, Harry wasn’t unreasonable and only spoke to Marc privately and hushed. Though Marc was trained as a page, he died at twelve years old, so his personality was closer to Harry's in disposition. Gard, due to his military experiences under Lancelot remained silent for days like an actual statue until being asked a question by me or Robert, but Marc enjoyed the excitement from Harry’s presence. According to Lok, despite how restrained Gard became, he had a soft spot for Marc, who used to have a similar disposition to Harry before the fall of Camelot. At some point, Gard dropped his guard, he began to join in the whispered conversations.

Even if people heard Harry talking to statues, we chalked it up to my young son’s creative imagination and ability to mimic voices, which was known as merely a creative prank by those in the palace with equipment. Out of curiosity about Harry’s conversation with Marc and Gard, I used my ability to perceive that they were discussing engineering concepts like tensile stress levels for various things Harry created. Seeing my son eagerly working out ideas and building things with friends reminded me of Jack, Robert’s first incarnation when we were kids in our prior lives. A warm feeling covered me after witnessing those conversations. As such, I told the mecha knights, there were no problems with their friendship.

An interesting fact was learned from watching Harry’s bristling intelligence, my children’s intellectual development was advanced compared to most human children. Harry, Will, and Jamie could write and read fluently by the age of 2-years-old. Harry and Will could handle advanced mathematical concepts such as geometry and algebra by the age of 4 years. Harry at the age of 8 years was able to debate the finer points of literature from Chaucer to Homer with university students. From what I learned later, other children with an Omega parent had similar feats of genius among omega offsprings, but three-quarters of cisgender male and all the female children had average intellectual development. Harry won the genetic lottery due to Robert’s unique genetic modifications being passed down the line alongside my own. Many fair folk and newly created Omegas were happy to have Harry as their crowned prince. They saw his advanced development parallel the development of other children who came after him; he was trailblazing a path forward.

Amid his two older brothers’ antics and creativity, Jamie was quiet as any two-year-old would be, despite his advanced intellect. Jamie preferred to be by his parents or his brother’s side, including sneaking into my bedroom during an inopportune time. We had to give our kids early sex education talks after one encounter involving a Saint Andrew’s Cross and leather swing. The concept of polyamory and relationships between multiple partners was brought up, along with rudimentary things about the relationships between us, along with various uncles and aunts. My three sons had different responses to this knowledge. Harry did not have any interest in sexuality, so none of this knowledge elicited a response. Harry's interest was in technical aspects rather than human relationships. Additionally, Harry came out to Robert and me as asexual a few months after the sex education on his 9th birthday. On the opposite end, Will accepted everything we told him though he wanted to experience these things for himself later. I had thought Will was likely pansexual based on his behavior and historical alter-ego. Jamie asked more questions regarding concepts like primary partnerships, such as the one between me and Robert, and the secretive nature of my sexual relationships with others. Jamie understood intrinsically that there was more to the secrecy by not making Francis Walsingham or my other lover's official recognition.

Robert said that the historical James VI of Scotland was a pragmatic king due to the various issues with his mother, including the murder of his biological father by one of her lovers, and his homosexual lovers in a conservative protestant country. When he became James I of England, he was remembered as a gifted monarch who found a way to create national stability and a cultural golden age through intelligent domestic policy. The historical King James was considering moving several steps ahead of everyone to ensure the best outcomes due to the precarious nature of his existence. As there were two people, Mary’s son James and my son Jamie, who share parallel destinies, some points of intersection existed between my history and the one we live in. However, I never wanted him to be afraid of his surroundings, his status, or his sexuality, but events would make my desire for his future impossible.

After using my ability to determine there was no threat of the smoke entering our bedroom, I put on a robe and walked outside the door to greet Harry. I asked him to give us thirty minutes, which he accepted with joyous cheers. Having servants had its benefits, it was easy to get four adult men into presentable form within a short period. Television dramas from my era like Downton Abbey gave the appearance of professionals, who lived to serve nobles and royals in everyday tasks. However, the reality is that most of these servants were children of nobility themselves during the 16^th century. The entire concept of having servants drawn from noble families was meant to demonstrate a royal family’s authority and create ties for political appointments. I never really considered reforming the practice of having servants serve my family with the English obligation system until after the events, because it had always existed like this throughout the decades I lived as Elias Tudor and in my memories of historical fiction from my era. In retrospect, I naively thought servants were happy to serve and they enjoyed the rewards like pensions and land grants that came after five years of service. They weren’t slaves, nor were we abusive towards them after all.

After washing off our nighttime residue with warm water, we each drank an extra-strong mug of tea and planned out the day’s events. Jamie’s official third birthday party was planned to occur later that day near dusk in the audience room, but other things were happening at the same time. I had to attend Parliament due to the recent stirrings in northern England to justify the movement of royal military forces. Usually, Frances Howard, as Royal Military Commander, would be addressing Parliament for such matters, but she was busy in Somerset doing combined arms exercises. The triplets were acting as frontier generals leading the bulk of my forces across key strongholds in England, Wales, and Cornwall. Robert was going to be at the seaport to supervise the installation of new cranes for cargo containers coming from new freighters since most of the fair folk engineers were busy with railroad and industrial plant projects throughout our lands.

Since the birthday party included several gifts including a prototype tricycle, trainset, and music boxes, I did not want Jamie to see everything being prepared before his party, so I decided to take Jamie to Parliament alongside me. However, neither Harry nor Will wanted to attend Parliament, having been bored to tears through several sessions with me in the past. Thus, Francis and Takechiyo would have to perform babysitting duties for Harry and Will, while simultaneously preparing the palace for the birthday party. Puck, Ambrose, and Edward were living in Bristol with their young children, but they were going to be arriving by riverboat around noon, so Robert could welcome them at the Thames River estuary near the seaport. Though we had built some rudimentary aircraft, unlike the Habsburg empire, we did not have many trained pilots, so civil aviation was at least another decade away, making travel by boat and rail far more efficient.

Security was provided in the palace by the royal guards, a mix of nobles' appointments, and personally handpicked soldiers like John Cary, the former teenage peasant soldier from Northampton who fought alongside me during the Battle of Heath Woods. After the battle he enlisted as a member of my Royal Marines, I learned that he was the son of William Cary and Mary Boleyn, the sister of Anne Boleyn, my biological mother in this life, making him my maternal cousin. Due to the ruin of the Boleyn family and the death of William Cary, who was also Francis’ step-uncle, Mary Boleyn was exiled from London and had no financial support from her husband’s family. She had gone into hiding with her youngest child, who was rumored to be the illegitimate son of a country noble named William Stafford, in Northampton until she died in 1543. John had grown up as an orphan tenant farmer due to his family’s destitute status and held the surname of Mary’s deceased husband “Cary” despite the rumor to honor his mother’s wishes. Due to John’s enlistment as part of my military forces in Somerset, he was among the troops on active duty during the battle of Boulogne under Frances’ command. During the intervening years, I made him the captain of the Royal Guards as he had proven himself to be a good soldier and loyal retainer. By this time, the fresh-faced teenager with a love for ale had morphed into a seasoned professional warrior and loving family man. He married an Omega boy during his training at Seahawk base and spent a year in Greenland for his partner’s conversion. They had one child together named Henry.

As captain of the Royal Guards, John was my assigned bodyguard, despite my protest, for a simple assignment of attending Parliament. I was more than capable of protecting myself and Jamie, especially with my abilities that remained mostly secret, but he would not have me go unaccompanied without at least five guards. His second-in-command, Charles, was organizing most of the royal guards at Whitehall Palace for the forthcoming party later that day. As the established noble families traditionally held most of the ranks in the royal guards rather than soldiers with new peerages created by an English monarch, my royal guards were recruited with a ratio of four noble appointments to every one merit-based appointment from my forces. In the past, under Lancastrian and Tudor kings, the royal guard appointment system was like the civil service systems of the early United States. The system in the history of my former home nation created crony political machines for Democratic and Republican party bosses since the appointed positions would always lead to higher positions and more wealth, which would ensure certain political factions always remained in power. These arrangements created relationships and trust between leaders with their dependents through many corrupt bargains that ultimately led to social issues such as slavery, racism, sexism, homophobia, corporate monopolies, and warmongers. To deal with the English origins that led to these developments, over the last decade, I had seldom offered additional promotions or land grants to those who held these positions for the simple reason that these people did not deserve them. Government ministers were also prevented from giving favorable treatment as well. The royal guards were well compensated at a rate of double the standard salary for most soldiers, which should have been enough to give them above-average living conditions. Nevertheless, it was my fault for not anticipating the ugly realities within human hearts, especially greed from nobles who compare themselves against one another like my former countrymen’s much-lauded “American Dream” that resulted in endless schemes and scams for profit. A warning for my descendants, when wealth and prestige are compared, envy begets greed, leading to the inevitable betrayal of loyalty.

In all my memories of that dreadful day, my clearest memory was the last time I embraced Harry as I left Whitehall Palace. Even after so many decades, I can almost feel his arms wrapping around me like he was looking for my warmth just as he did when he was born. Francis and Takechiyo were not with him at the end. I never blamed either of them for what happened to Harry as they needed to protect Will. Harry loved exploring the palace grounds and even London, so it was not uncommon for him to be unaccompanied in the capital despite warnings from John and other royal guards. The mecha knights in the throne room, Marc and Gard, lamented that they were not alerted until it was already far too late. I learned later through Francis’ ability to experience Harry’s last memories that a curiosity about the waterline he spotted from the barges carrying goods for the birthday party led Harry to make the startling discovery beyond the palace. However, I didn’t know these facts when I left my son that day.

Entering Westminster Palace, I headed to my usual elevated seat near the center of the chamber. The chamber with the House of Lords has a throne and dais that was where traditionally English monarchs would be present to sit for a session of Parliament. However, I wanted the monarch role to be closer to that of a hybrid Prime Minister and Speaker, so I moved the elaborate throne to the meeting place of the House of Commons. At this point, it was St. Stephen’s Chapel as my brother, King Edward through his regent Edward Seymore, had granted. Various renovations were done by me to create a series of circles with tables and seats that allow all members of the House of Commons to see the central platform, where people would speak in front of me to address or debate for the entire legislature. Microphone podiums and speakers were prepared to give everyone the ability to project voices. A radio transmitter and receiver were also established to connect the Parliamentary session with our troops stationed at various points throughout England, Wales, Ireland, and other territories. The House of Lords, when a joint session with my presence was needed, would be granted seats on the largest outer circle. We only had joint sessions for new military operations and territorial incorporation with new House of Commons seats and lordships being created such as Greenland, Iceland, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia.

When all the members had arrived and headcounts were completed, a herald that William Cecil designated as the Speaker for Parliament cried, “Order! Order! The House will come to order!"

The discussions began in earnest after the convocation and a short prayer from the Lord Spiritual representative, a noble clergyman from the Anglican Church. Jamie fell asleep after an hour of mindless posturing and rhetoric, while I was daydreaming of the best ways to avoid attending these sessions altogether by elevating a new Lord Chancellor position in addition to appointing a Prime Minister like William Cecil. Lord Chancellors were historically higher ranking than Prime Ministers, but they were drawn from the clergy, which I needed to remedy. William Cecil had mentioned his brother-in-law Nicholas Bacon for promotion, but as I had stated that no minister posts with familial connections could be issued, nothing was done despite Nicholas being a great choice for the open position. Nicholas was historically my alter-ego’s Lord Chancellor and his son, Francis Bacon, would become James I’s Chancellor and architect of England’s Scientific revolution in the early 17th century. The Bacon family were adherents to the new Veritas sect, instead of the Anglican Protestants in contrast to other nobles. They also aligned their small landholdings with my rationalist reforms for the kingdom under the principles of legal order. Nicholas Bacon was serving as my seal keeper so he was at Whitehall Palace along with his young eight-year-old son, who should have been introduced to the Royal Court formally during the birthday party later. However, Robert and I had supervised some private royal tutoring lessons between Harry, Will, and Francis Bacon for the last year. Based on his intelligence alone, the young boy deserved special attention; even if he wasn’t born from an Omega bloodline. Francis was by human standards a bona fide generational genius who easily befriended my technically advanced son, Harry, as they both spoke the language of science and experimentation. Harry was tempted more than once to reveal the secret of the mecha knights to young Francis Bacon, but we instilled in our son that national secrets had to be kept even from future statesmen.

After four hours of near endless debate, the audio speakers in the chamber squeaked with five rapid beeps in succession. A radio transmission was interrupting the special session of Parliament, it was unlikely to occur unless a critical-rank encoded message was being transmitted. Such messages were meant to announce an imminent emergency such as a natural disaster or, in my mind’s worst case, an attack from the Habsburg Empire. This new system was untested and experimental, like the Emergency Alert System that my era had created to warn local people of nuclear attack initially. I had shown Harry the test equipment that were going to use at the White Tower observatory, within the Tower of London Palace complex. Eventually, I wanted the equipment to be placed in Greenwich Palace, where a much larger observatory and tower would be built, specifically for this purpose. It made no sense that the emergency broadcast was happening at that moment.

After the five rapid beeps continued with three-second intervals for thirty seconds, a radio message was released with Harry’s unmistakable voice, “People of England, I am Prince Henry Tudor. An enemy force has infiltrated London and Whitehall Palace. They have allies among our guards and servants. The main enemy forces are invisible to sight. We need…”

A booming sound occurred followed by silence. At that moment, a shell had hit the White Tower from an unknown ship offshore and radio communications across London were jammed. My ability to detect energy signatures indicated a wide-range radio jammer was in effect from a major power source, likely a core. As for Harry’s notification of a fifth column within London, we didn’t need too much time to figure out the validity of his statement as two of the royal guards in my protection detail were turning their pistols on me, but John and his trusted men dispatched them with bullets to their heads. With shots fired inside St. Stephens Chapel, Parliament fell into chaos as screams and accusations were shouted.