♔ To Carry the Crown ♔
a Royal take on the 'One Family 2021 Challenge
Come with me as I revisit my Royal Family. I made it to 10 generations but I skipped a lot of gameplay to get there! I am replaying through the generations. My first two generations were entirely fictional the first time around.
There are no strict rules to a One Family Challenge. It's as straightforward as that. Stay with the one family for the entire year.
This is my year with my royal family
Comments
Info coming soon
All of Me
Every great story starts somewhere. I'd like to think I could start by telling you my own...but if I'm going to do this the right way I need to go back 10 Generations - right back to the very first King and Queen of Windenburg.
Their love was the kind that you read about in books. A literal fairytale. My great-great-great-great-great grandmother Queen Athea Collazo was a girl born to no rank of her own. She captured my great-great-great-great-grandfather body, heart, and soul.
I've read stories of their sweet and gentle love, lost myself in the lyrical words of my ancestors as they poured out their love for each other in poems and sonnets that sit preserved in our family library.
“No plant or animal devoureth we,
only ripe fruit as falls from the tree.”
"By bright-green lily-pads in sphagnum bogs
the herons waded gracefully,"
"bullfrogs croaked their deep, clear calls;
bluebells, delicate yellow buttercups
were rampant; larks sang in the mulberries."
“No pain or hunger knew we there,
only the sameness of Eden fair.”
"Even the bounty, the beauty, the civility,
the rich perfection, stretching out like the wall"
"of the great oval garden, day after day,
year after year to eternity,
grew tiresome."
“No shame in our pureness knew we …
nor lust, nor desire, nor carnality.”
"It’s the exogamous, the unfamiliar,
which stirs in us the deepest passion,"
"the basso continuo of mortality
which gives to desire its piquancy
–of which they knew nothing in deathless Eden."
"“We wanted to look outside the wall.
We didn’t mean from God’s grace to fall.”
"Their lack of control, their disrespect
invited tragedy…."
"But to deny what one feels,
to deny what one is
is to risk even greater calamity…."
“God expelled us from the Garden.
Now we’ll know death and all that’s human.”
"Discord … despair…. Are you better off?
Coaxing grain from the cracked, parched earth?"
"Maybe you paid too much for your freedom?…
Maybe you wish you were back in the Garden?…"
“There be good inside the Garden;
there be good outside.…
There is no perfect Eden.”
It has been said before that our family is cursed for the sins of our ancestors. My great-great-great-great Grandfather and his Queen died too early into their life - leaving their son and heir to the crown to guide his younger siblings through their final school years as he himself stepped up to lead and guide his country. What sin they died for I could never know. Their country was their life and their passion and each generation after them has met a similar fate much too early in their own life.
I'm determined to ensure the same fate does not befall me or the generations that follow.
Generation 1
HRH King Rowan Collazo & HRH Queen Athea Collazo
Children: HRH Prince Kade Collazo, HRH Princess Arianna Collazo, HRH Matthias Collazo, HRH Tatiana Collazo.
Died in a Fire in Selvadorada.
It's like Wishing For Rain while standing in the Desert
....full of passion and desire.
They married quickly - I like to think it is because my Greatx6 Grandfather was so besotted with my Greatx6 Grandmother but I think the reality is a little different. It was the first time he was truly able to break away from his siblings.
The two raced off on their Honeymoon. If these old pictures are anything to go by they were clearly taken by each other. They stayed for a week in a private Villa in Oasis Springs.
It was a beautiful and simple time in their life...but isn't it always when you get to escape the day-to-day pressure of your normal life?
The minute they were back the spell was broken. Though they celebrated much of life's big moments together - especially when my Great x 6 Grandmother HRH Henrietta revealed that she was pregnant with their first child.
I'm sure if you asked them, they'd have told you my Great x5 Grandfather Matthias was the apply of their eye but the truth is he was raised by his nanny.
I'm not silly. May of the accounts of my family back then detail the extended months they spent away from their son travelling - too wrapped up in their life, in their duty, in their service, in their indulgence to realise how often he was left alone.
Even the birth of his twin brothers did little to alleviate his loneliness or warm the cold heart that had rooted deep within my Great x 5 Grandfather Matthias Collazo. There are very few pictures of his childhood. After my Great-Grandfather Kade Collazo died in a freak climbing accident Matthias was sent to the country with his brothers to live with his Aunt and her two daughters until he came of age.
My Greatx6 Grandmother ruled alongside Kade's oldest brother and Matthias' heart of stone started to soften when his cousin Charlotte refused to take no for an answer and insisted they, his brothers, and her sister go away on a ski holiday.
Maybe it was the city - maybe it was the time away with family that actually cared about him...but he did soften.
HRH Matthias Collazo took the crown on his 21st birthday. His cousin Charlotte moved into the palace as his advisor and he sent his mother HRH Henrietta away to Brindleton Bay with the intention that she would live out the remainder of her years in the same isolation he was subjected to but the curse of my family prevailed and she lost her life at sea.
My Great x 5 Grandfather Matthias Collazo was the first generation in the long history of my family to hold a Selection to find his bride.
He chose and fell in love with my Great x 5 Grandmother Natalie Collazo
And he tried to rule with cool and quiet grace. I don't think he ever truly escaped the ice in his heart completely but there were certainly moments that I've read about the bring warmth to my own heart.
Generation 2
HRH King KadeCollazo & HRH Queen Henrietta Collazo
Children: HRH Prince Matthias Collazo, HRH Prince Nathaniel Collazo, HRH Prince Nicolas Collazo
HRH Kade - died in freak climbing accident & HRH Henrietta - lost at sea.