Die Königin (The Queen - A Prince Harry story)

Prequel 007: June - August 2010 (William)

"Now you know the beginning, my beginning. Stories are more than their beginnings. You do need to start strong, get the audience interested, but that's only half the battle. You need to keep them interested. You need a good middle, or at least half a good middle. Far warning, the middle of this story goes on for a really long time. I promised Catherine I wouldn't bore you all with the details, so I'm only going to cover the highlights. In other words: the bits I was there for.

I feel like I need to apologise for talking about myself so much and how this whole thing has affected me. I wish I could say the rest of the speech doesn't focus on me as much. It does."

The Duke of Cambridge, 18 July 2015

Schweriner Schloss, Schwerin, Mecklenburg

June, 2010

Euphemiasburg, Bad Doberan, Mecklenburg

Seated at a table underneath the marquee at the bottom of the West Sloping Lawn of the Royal Domain of Euphemiasburg, William breathed in the cool night air. It had been a lovely summer day, which had turned into an even lovelier summer night. Perfect day for a wedding.

The British press had collectively lost its mind the day before when they'd realised a not insignificant number of The Queen's descendants and their spouses or partners were in Mecklenburg for the weekend to attend the same-sex wedding between a (sort of) Mecklenburgish Princess and her American fiance. Half lauded them for being progressive, while the other half condemned them for taking a political stance. Aunt Anne and Uncle Tim were attending because his aunt was one of Anne Therese's godmothers (and namesake), while the rest of them were attending as Anne Therese and Mercedes's friends. Buckingham Palace and Clarence House had confirmed the attendance of The Princess Royal and Princes William and Harry of Wales, respectively, but they were also keen to point out they were attending in a private capacity.

Some said it had been a decision bourne from good intentions, but a decision rashly taken. William wanted to shout and yell that there had been several meetings about whether or not any member of his family should attend, and if any did, who they would be. At times it was exhausting not being able to have an opinion on certain things, especially opinions that will, in hindsight, be viewed positively. They'd all known how people would react, how some would say they were overstepping their bounds, but in the end Aunt Anne, Uncle Tim, Peter, Autumn, Zara, Mike, Harry, Kate, and himself had decided it was worth a few days of grumbling from certain sectors of the press until something else inevitably caught their attention.

While it would eventually be a forgotten piece of trivia for his Aunt's branch of the family tree, as the first (future) British monarch to attend a same-sex wedding, this weekend will feature in every biography written about him (and probably every biography written about Kate and Harry) from now on. For the next few months, reporters will go out of their way to include a line about it, however unrelated to the rest of the article it was to either enrage or endear him to their audience.

It was during times like this William envied his Mecklenburger cousins their ability to be 'political' without retribution from the Mecklenburgish press. Almost a hundred years ago, Lina's great-grandfather made the decision to interpret Mecklenburg's brand new constitution and its clause about the political impartiality of the King to mean he could do and say what he wanted so long as he didn't show any party favour and ignored all politicians equally. The people of Mecklenburg, who were very new to this constitution and democracy thing, went along with it and were still happily going along with it under their current monarch.