The Crown

9. Trust no one

" With great sadness we say out dear King has passed away over night. He is now in peace , God rest his soul and good night." The radio blared into the servants quarters.

Many of the servants stopped in their tracks as the news was sinking in that the King of House Demure was dead. But here is the thing the young man had no heirs and the rest of his intimate family had either died also or had disowned him. So as of this moment House Demure had no King with the crown being up for grabs within the next two days the whole house went into meltdown. Questions were being thrown left right and centre by everyone. As , the report was read aloud to the staff later that night after the post-mortem.

"His majesty did not die of natural causes. The post-mortem results show that he had a deadly poison lining his stomach that seemed to have sent his flu into overdrive. An investigator will be arriving shortly to question each and everyone of you on your whereabouts of the  sixteenth of August." The Doctor stated and they all began to put the blame on each other within a matter of minutes.

"It Has to be Mr Gillingham he prepared the soup for his royal highness." One of the Lady's maids exclaimed and shot an accusing finger his way

"Nobody said the poison was given to him in the soup. It could have been his flu medicine , some water anything." MR Gillingham calmly retorts sending even more questions flying around the serving quarters.

"Why would we have poisoned him we all hated his royal highness but we would never do such a thing this close to the crown." The head maid said on behalf of the rest of her serving team.

"It could have been anything. What is the point in arguing and pointing fingers. His royal highness is dead and we don't have a ruler to compete for the crown in a few days." Victoria chips in and they all turn to her.

"But who will take on the role. He has no heirs. No family that are still legitimate and we wont allow that pesky mistress of his to take it. It has to be Lord Francis." One of the servants replies looking down towards the ground as he spoke kicking up a cloud of flour that had been spilt on the floor.

"I am sorry but Lord Francis wont be allowed the title of King. In the royal sense he should he is next in line being his majesty's best friend given the circumstances. But Lord Francis was seen have illegal relations with Lady Niomi in the garden every Thursday for the past month and he has not come forth about the relationship so therefore he is also out of the question." Victoria  mumbles mostly to herself but the majority of the serving quarters heard

"Professor Gulliver will have to stand in as our head till we find a new one and we will just have to wait for next time for the crown." One of the more sensible servants suggests.

"That's another three years of humiliation. Not to mention our King has just passed away. We are susceptible for an attack from any of the other royal families even if we don't have the actual crown. We are venerable. We need a sovereign now!" Lady Daisy cries and stares at Victoria.