Regina

He never would have guessed it. I still cannot believe it myself. How is it possible that this day has come? Here I am sitting before my people, ready and willing for a position of a lifetime, a title I was never supposed to have. My father would never have believed it if he had been told this was how things would turn out and that makes all the difference.

My father had such plans once long ago.

He had visions of the future, dazzling and triumphant, all cast in shades of gold. He imagined a great many things would happen and assumed all of which would occur because of my baby brother. I remember the stories well. He always was a good storyteller, if not the best father to his children. Three children belonging to three different mothers but each a child of the King.

My sister had come first, born to the first Queen, a Spanish import from long ago. She was not the son my father wanted, instead the daughter, easy to forget. My dearest elder sister was never allowed to forget her place as the lesser loved child of the King, heralded by the public for her position as Princess but forever unsatisfied with the lack of love from the father. I do wish at times that we had got on better as children. She may not have been so cruel to me in her final years but then again, the damage had already been done and the sins of the father who neglected his child, washed out onto the streets with the blood of her reign.

My brother the favourite, had been born last, to the third Queen of his Majesty. The poor ill-fated child born of love, doomed to lose his mother before he even knew her name. This was the child my father had wanted, craved more than anything above all else. He should have known, love is poor protection against the work of fate and many dreams die with the young. If it were not for poor Edward’s early death, the present would not be as it is but that is what happens when you pin all your hopes on a child. One simple fever and the cause is lost.

Then there is me. The middle of the three. I was the most unloved of all. Born to a mother of ill-gotten gain I was the product of unruly lust, cursed from the beginning as the daughter of an improper marriage. I would have enjoyed a childhood of luxury if it were not for my mother, and the day she lost her head.

After that day I lost all reverence as the daughter of a King, banished from his court to a life of isolation. I was raised in a revolving household, by people who cared little and whom I did not know. On the rarest of occasions when I was let back home, I was reminded often that it was merely for appearances sake. I was not wanted and however hard I tried to earn my place, my presence alone reminded my father too much of her and then, I would be sent away again.

Fate, however, has a way of correcting things.

Father died before he intended to. I guess the gout and the poor diet finally caught up with him. He called us all back home to bear witness to his last days and made some final changes to the line of succession. My sister Mary and I, long ago foresworn as potential heirs were reinstated, and my brother was declared next in line. I did not think much of the gesture at the time, the actions that would follow. For all my experience, my position in the court was precarious, always sliding between high and low on the whim of others. I assumed, like everything else, this little jump in station was another short-term ploy, a final good deed of the King before he met his maker, soon to be undone by the next.

The King died and little Edward took his place. If he had had the chance, he might have made a good King one day. Six years he lasted, before he too, was placed in the ground.

After the unexpected death another, a cousin, was pushed into power, lasting only nine days before Mary arranged her death. Poor Jane, she never stood a chance.

Mary was next. For only a short few years did she sit at the helm but that lack of time did not diminish her wrath. In anguish she tried to redo the past, pull apart the progress of our father. She even threatened my life once or twice all to fill the hole in her heart but none of her deeds could repair the wounds left from her youth. They only quickened her demise.

I was most surprised the day I received word that my time had come. I had never thought it would be possible, me, the daughter of a treasonous Queen, to achieve such a status but then again, stranger things have happened. By luck or happenstance, I have survived the road to here and now. I have surpassed rumour and outlived my family to the point where I am the last man, well woman, standing. I have won in the end.

As the Bishop beckons me forward to take my place before the people I think back to my dearly departed father and silently gloat. How did he manage to forget such a simple rule? On the chess board the King is the most important piece, but it is the Queen who holds all the cards. Surely, a man who once loved so many women would have realised this fact.

The Bishop places the Crown on my head and the Sceptre in my hand as the people rise and then loudly announces before the Court a statement that will ring true for many years to come, an outcome considered impossible, justice long-denied:

Long Live Queen Elizabeth I of England. 

Regina.