On 29th May 1648 King Charles I of England was caught trying to saw through the bars of his prison cell in Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight. How might events have changed if he had not been caught? Fate decreed that he was.
In the timeline of The Favourite Murder, the fifth book of the Sir Anthony Standen Adventures, I am within a few months of the death of Charle’s elder brother Henry Frederick. It is within the timeline because negotiations were taking place for Henry to marry Christine, daughter of Marie de Medici and Henry IV of France. Instead, Christine married the Duke of Savoy, and her younger daughter Henrietta would later marry Charles.
Henry Frederick was a keen golfer, which endears him to me. He was also very popular and often disagreed with his father King James I. He was athletic, scholarly and astute. Perhaps fatefully, he disliked his younger brother Charles, and teased him. He allegedly snatched the hat off a bishop’s head and placed it on Charles, saying that when he was king he would make Charles Archbishop of Canterbury and the long robes would hide his ugly, rickety legs.
How might the history of England have unfurled if Henry Frederick had been king, rather than Charles? Would we be a parliamentary democracy now? Probably, I would have thought. But when and how it would come about, who can say? Fate deals the cards and all we can do is play the game.
A college friend of mine, Alan Smale, writes alternate history. I thoroughly enjoyed Clash of Eagles, in which the Roman Empire had colonised North America, or rather was trying to colonise it. However I think I’ll stick to historical fiction. As a civil engineer and project manager I was always asking “what if” questions, but always about alternative futures for planning purposes. Fate is defined as inevitable destiny. If you ask the what if questions and take action you can effect outcomes, so fate can really only be seen from a historical perspective, can’t it?
I asked ChatGBT to paint King Charles I sawing through the bars of his prison cell as the illustration for this post. The first illustration didn’t quite convey what I wanted so I added window, and got the second illustration. Why AI decided to turn him into a King Charles spaniel, I can’t explain. I guess it was fate.