QueensQuilt

The Missing Princess: a Real Life Fairytale

Episode One: The Missing Princess

Once upon a time—not so long ago—in a fertile Island Kingdom that—despite its modest size—once boasted an empire that had ruled the world by sea, the royal princess and her two youngest children went missing.

In line to be Queen, Princess Catherine was beloved throughout the land. Yet for many months, neither Kate—as her countrymen called her—nor her beloved children were seen attending the various and numbered royal occasions that occur on that green island in springtime.

While the prince and princesses' eldest boy, George, the golden-haired young heir, and his father—the prince apparent—were spotted out together one day at the football—on his sister’s birthday—many noted that the boy looked sad and dejected, despite his favourite team claiming the day’s victory.

The official line from the castle was that the people’s beloved princess had contracted a frightening illness, requiring unlimited time off royal duties and absolute privacy to recover.

This, while the King was announced—on the same day that the princess left hospital—to have contracted the very same illness. Yet, the King was out and about now, apparently well enough to recommence his royal duties and even host a lavish charity garden party.

Despite the press camping out for one glimpse of her royal highness, the princess was not even spotted leaving the royal hospital, nor was any of her family observed entering or leaving that institution to visit her.

Likewise, once Princess Catherine was reportedly back home, except for the prince–her husband, none of the family was spotted leaving or returning, besides a few haunting images that many believed to be conjured (or princess look-a-likes).

And the children all taken out of school!

More ominous, around the same time that the King announced his illness, a male friend of the princess from amongst royal circles was found dead in the stables at his parent’s manor, with the prince displaying bruises in the days that followed and a white and black horse–with the white horse dripping blood down its neck and forearm–breaking free from their postilions to run careering through the busy streets of the island’s illustrious and historic city of London.

Despite a short and unsettling moving picture show that was broadcast far and wide to the public, in which the princess stiffly declared her illness, rumours circulated that she had fallen into a deep sleep… due to some unexplained hex that the prince or his stepmother had placed upon her.

Fights had also been rumoured to have occurred between the royal couple over the tradition of sending young George away to boarding school.

George, it was noted–now that the princess was declared sick–was heading for boarding school with nothing but a cold and resounding silence from Princess Catherine.

The days of hope and festivities that had been born from the handsome Prince marrying a commoner, when all the land had welcomed their new Princess, now set like the sun.

After celebrating the birth of the prince and princess's three children, the long-reigning Queen had since died, with her eldest son, the prince’s father, becoming King and his second wife, Queen; a regal coronation witnessed the world over with little celebration, due to rumours that the king’s family had arranged the death of the king’s first commoner wife, to make way for his marriage to an older woman of royalty.

A queen who many considered the ‘evil stepmother’ to our tale’s current heir apparent.

While the younger Prince Henry and his celebrity wife Megan fled to distant lands, our heir apparent had little choice but to accept his new stepmother.

When the reigning queen is whispered to be an evil stepmother, every child knows that the tale has entered the true realms of darkness…

No Sleeping Beauty

Despite rumours of the princess being in a deep coma, this tale was not considered akin to the tale of Sleeping Beauty. Where a kiss from the prince would set everything right.

Instead, a long shadow enveloped the land, with Prince William–our tale’s heir apparent–jowls subtlely yet ominously ever-growing larger. A peculiar genetic anomaly that had affected one of his most infamous ancestors. A king long remembered for murdering his wives!

Like the story of Bluebeard’s castle, the princess' rumoured scheming for the superiority that regency would provide her was deemed by many to have blinded her to danger—a danger whose shadow, just like Bluebeard, was right there on his face!

My analysis of Prince Charming’s chilling role throughout history (Prince Charming's Dirty Secret) follows here for my loyal paid subscribers…

And stay tuned for the next enthralling episode of Queen’sQuilt!