Entry tags:

drabble, fandom: historical, het

The Vanity of Kings: Historical Drabble
Author: Bitterfig
Title: The Vanity of Kings
Fandom: Historic
Pairing: Henry VIII/Katherine Howard, Henry VIII/Anne Boleyn
Beta Reader: Fedink
Word Count: 235
Rating: PG
Warning: None
Author’s note: Written for of_the_moon100 Challenge #1: Fool.

The Vanity of Kings


After the humiliations inflicted upon him by the Boleyn woman, Henry was determined he would never be made a fool of again.

The boldness, wit and vibrancy that had so excited him in Anne Boleyn became repellent to him. He no longer sought a woman who was his equal but one who would allow herself to be ruled by him, a meek and subservient bride as sweet and benign as a primrose.

His Jane was like this, but Jane was taken away from him. The next woman he loved was Katherine Howard. In her he found all he sought. She seemed a lovely, simple creature, awed by his majesty, pliant and fawning with no will of her own, a blooming rose without a thorn.

Queen Katherine’s indiscretions took him by surprise in a way that Queen Anne’s never had. Anne had always been a dangerous and troublesome woman, withholding and demanding, challenging his divine right. Yet he had believed with all his heart that Katherine adored him, that to her he was a Golden King, high and mighty as God in Heaven. When her treachery was revealed he was forced to see that he was only an aging cuckold, a fat old fool whose pretty young wife preferred handsome lads of her own age.

The vanity of Kings is a sacred thing. To lacerate it so was an act of treason and for this Katherine had to die.