when last i updated, catherine of aragon had given king henry three sons (nine, ferdie and arthur) and a daughter (mary), but, when caught doing it with bessie blount (who gave birth to maxine fitzroy, illegitimate and entirely made-up daughter of henry), catherine of aragon left the king. fine.
henry, being who he is, has bessie blount pregnant again, but she doesn't live with him, since he has married anne boleyn.
i tried to create a situation in which anne started getting it on with one of the teenage princes, therefore enraging henry into killing her. i had this really COOL idea that elizabeth would actually be the child of anne boleyn and a son of henry and catherine of aragon -- good and convoluted! -- but since moving anne boleyn into the house she rates as "family" and a chaste family kiss is all she and the princes were capable of mustering. here she is though, gossiping with prince ferdie, with whom she had the best relationship.
due to a real lack of finesse when it came to figuring out when to take toaster pastries out of the oven, the palace had a series of kitchen fires. you see anne getting toasty here, but mercifully she was extinguished. however. prince henry IX and prince ferdie, both spotty teens, were dispatched in one of these fires. (prince nine has already been seen walking the halls at night, ghostly and red.)
scorecard: at this juncture, prince arthur -- third son of catherine of aragon and henry VIII -- stands to inherit the throne. behind him, his sister mary.
but not for long. in a historically false move much like catherine of aragon's, anne boleyn gives rapid, machinelike birth to TWO sons -- prince harold, and prince greensleeves.
here we see prince harold being held by his half-brother prince arthur. they have an unusually close relationship -- sims have "free will" and arthur is always first to come running to hold harold, or even to potty train or bathe him. they just seem to love each other.
but i think you'd agree that prince harold is obviously demonspawn. look at that face. he doesn't look like the type who wants to be second-in-line for anything, much less the throne of england.
prince greensleeves is still a tiny infant right now, so it remains to be seen what will happen with him.
enough about this household -- you may be wondering, where do all these queens-in-waiting come from? are they "built" yet, or do we make them as we need them?
all the queens DO exist already -- in a holding pen on the other side of the neighborhood.
there are benefits to doing it this way, rather than just conjuring up new sims as the need approaches. when in the queen pad, henry can come "visit", but since it is not his house, he is not actually aging while this happens. "playing" the queen house, after having one of the women phone to get him to come over, buys me time in which he can make their acquaintance, begin to form relationships with them, but does not use up days in the king's actual lifespan. it's very helpful.
i love this calvin-klein-ad shot of jane seymour, demonstrating how really boring the queen house is. i didn't spend a lot of time outfitting it. in fact, for some time, when they were hungry, they had to order pizza, because i hadn't given them a kitchen. (true story.)
here's anne of cleves, demonstrating how the queen house has a real prisoner: the women of cell block H feel.
here's katherine howard eating out of the trash at the curb. again, free will. when i realized that they would do this kind of thing, i got them a kitchen right quick.
bessie blount, who is no queen, but has borne a daughter and is pregnant again with henry VIII's child, was in a little house of her own, but it gets annoying to maintain so many homes. i have since moved her in with the queens, who are all incredibly helpful in teaching little maxine fitzroy to walk, talk, and use the potty.
instrumental in getting bessie moved in was her very close relationship with jane seymour.
but, as often happens with these things, it sometimes seems like it's going in one direction...
and then, suddenly, it's not.
so there you have it. henry is flinging his seed hither and yon; i need mary queen of scots to come of age relatively concurrent with elizabeth, and, while i might have them both conceived right now, i'll have to cheat to be sure (force-quitting the game).
the possible conception of mary queen of scots was quite interesting. marie de guise and james V have been the most ornery married couple i have ever seen in this game -- in fact i have NEVER had such a hard time trying to get two sims in bed together.
but here's what's fascinating: as i sat there clicking and cursing and ordering them to copulate, the "conception" theme song started playing -- and neither marie nor james had gotten undressed, or under the covers, or so much as touched each other!
so -- things that the history books don't tell you -- mary queen of scots was a virgin birth.
here's what my blackwork sampler looks like these days.
and i'm very excited to finish and move on, fine-tuning and reworking the bands i liked the best, using all this nice new linen and exciting threads (including silk), sent to me by a friend (the trade was some high quality paper "scrap" from the KT as well as the loan of my new scott peterson trial book).