LONDON—Ruthlessly moving to stake his claim to the British throne mere moments after his parturition this morning, the newborn Prince of Cambridge began consolidating power by having all other members of the royal family imprisoned in the Tower of London, those close to the Crown report. “In what can only be seen as an unusually audacious seizing of power, His Infant Majesty the Prince of Cambridge has systematically eliminated the entire sovereign line of succession by decreeing their bondage in durance vile,” said sources in Buckingham Palace, who detailed how the newborn prince moved to have Princess Charlotte, Prince George, and Charles the Prince of Wales taken into custody on suspicion of conspiracy against his royal person; stripped of their wealth, land, and titles; and left to rot in the bowels of the Bloody Tower. “As the prince’s—pardon us, His Majesty the King’s—scourging of the monarchy intensified, His Royal Highness has decreed in his mercy that his disgraced cousins, those princes and princesses who sought to oppose his ascension, will be allowed their lives, though their remaining years will be spent wallowing in the squalid Tower, subsisting on only gruel and what orts and leavings the ravens see fit to bring them; and, if they see their way to grace by confessing their crimes, they shall avert the torture of having their bodies stretched on the rack and excruciated with hot irons for their high treason against the Crown.” Acknowledging the popularity of the Queen among the British common folk, the as-yet unchristened king has decreed that Elizabeth II shall abide in the keep until her death, after which her head shall be set upon a pike as a warning to usurpers.

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