Lost Tudor

Did you know I was going to be king once?

I didn't live for very long though. Only 15 years.

But I wish I could've lived to be the king I never was.

I wish I could've stayed with Catherine. Or should I say...Catalina.

I wish I could cherish the moments with my wife. My friends, My in laws, My family, My children that never came to be.

I wish I spent more time with my siblings. Especially Henry.

I have many regrets. Duties and promises I will never be able to fulfill. And bonds I could never repair.

I was trained my whole life to be a king, but it was snatched away from me and given to my brother instead.

My whole life was filled with training and work and pressure. The second I was born, the future of England was on my shoulders thanks to my father. I was already Duke of Cornwall at birth!

I was named after a legend, I was trained and had to study over and over and over for years and years! I rarely got to dance or write my own poetry, or do archery like I wanted to. But being a King is far more important, after all, you can't just care about yourself only, you have to care for your own people. Everyone.

It was stressful. But at the same time I couldn't wait to be king! Because...that's what I was born for. That was my purpose, to guide England into its golden age.

I was married to Catalina of Aragon. I could've had children, we could've been powerful.

But I died.

And she was alone.

My future was shattered, all because of an illness. All that work and stress over so many years and what do I get? Illness and death. It's a cruel joke.

I was so excited, and now it was snatched from me and given to my brother instead.

My usurper of a brother.

He stole everything from me once he became king, including my wife. 7 years after I died.

"But what did he do to be a so-called usurper?"You may ask. "He was 10 when you died!"

Well he wasn't 10 when he sealed me away, he was 17. I would've been 22, I would've become king.

But no, I was still 15. And I still am. As long as I continue to exist. I will remain 15 for the rest of eternity and beyond. Billions upon billions of years will pass and yet I am still 15. And I will remain that way. I will never be the King I was meant to be.

I will never be able to grow up, to mature, to learn. No.

"But why won't you be able to mature and grow anymore Arthur?"

Well something happened when I was 15, and Henry was 17.

When he became King. He sealed me away.

While I followed my family and my wife for 7 years, Henry made a room full of my artifacts and belongings, my paintings, he even set statues of Jesus and Mary. He even went so far to place stained glass windows there. And finally, the brooch. The golden rhombus brooch with the black onyx in the center with 3 hanging pearls was placed on top of the painting with the black cap and the same brooch. He even had another painting in which I had a red cap with a different brooch. This was when he was 15. He had everything about me in there.

At first I saw it as mourning, but it was weird and unusual for someone to mourn like this. Especially when it makes me feel like a religious figure. Sure I was a king. But I never expected to be..."worshiped" by him. What makes it stranger is that I never really had a close relationship with him unfortunately. So I don't know why he did it.

I was quite envious of him. He was trained for a Church career while I was trained to be king. He was free, and I wasn't. He had a form of freedom in which I had never known throughout my whole entire life.

But I suppose Henry did want to be king after all. Despite how much freedom he had, he still wanted to be King despite all the pressure. So when father died, he became King.

I suppose he was consumed by envy. Green with jealousy, when he became King. He sealed his own brother away with Witchcraft since he hated and envied me so much.

I was sealed by the brooch. And now, I can't do anything. I was just....trapped. In the art, the windows, the objects, the gem.

I was never free.

I was never free either way, once I was a boy, now, I am an 'it'. I am no longer a prince. I am just an artifact, an object. A gem, a painting, a window, an arrow, a voice in the radio, a voice announcing numbers, the beeping of morse code, the statues, the room, a museum.

First I was trapped in a life of pressure and stress, now I am damned and doomed to this room for all eternity. Damned to the walls, the paintings, and the damned brooch.

Now I am doomed to be forgotten.

I have lost track of time, I don't know whether I have been here for days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries, or even millennia.

Things have probably changed a lot since I was brought this "radio." And now I get to learn this "Morse code."

But yet I don't know, I only got to know very little compared to the whole rest of the world.

I know nothing.

I'll be trapped in the cage forever.

I'm a bird who will never be able to fly. I'm trapped in this bird cage. I'll never learn anything else. Nothing.

As long as I continue to exist, I will remain in this prison as many artifacts and objects. As paintings, windows, radios, statues, and a gem.

As long as I continue to exist, I will remain 15. I will never mature, I will never be the king I was born to be.

As long as I continue to exist, I will remain in a constant state of isolation, misery, loneliness, ignorance, and solitude.

You know, I wonder all the time what would've been like had my future not been snatched away from me.

I wonder all the time about the king I never was.

It's such a cruel joke.

Why did that happen?

Why do I even exist at all?