King Freddie Doesn’t Want To Lose His Head
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Revolting peasants were nothing new in England, but there did seem to be more of them these days since the British Union of Revolutionary Peasantry (BURP) had been formed by Thomas Belcher. BURP rallies were sometimes supported by the League for Improved Coinage in England (LICE) with banners calling for, ‘Golden Heads on Golden Coins.’ King Freddie decided to do something to make himself more popular so he called his Prime Minister, Merlin the Whirlin, for a consultation. Merlin suggested that it might be a good idea to hold a referendum as people liked to feel that they were being consulted on an important national issue.
‘A referendum about what?’ asked Freddie.
‘Oh I don’t know; let’s say about whose head should be on our coins. That should be acceptable to LICE.’
‘You mean my head might not be on the coins anymore?’
‘Don’t worry, we’ll put out loads of government propaganda, swamp the news media with spin and get all the town criers on our side.’
‘Do you think we can win?’
‘No, but we can give it a good try.’
‘I don’t want to lose.’
‘No, but you want to be popular. Losing your head could be the most popular thing you’ve done since you sacked Cuthbert as patron saint.’
‘I still don’t think I want a referendum that could lose me my head.’
‘How about if we keep your head but put another head on the other side of the coin?’
‘The side you call tails at cricket?’
‘That’s right, then we could hold a national vote on whose head we should use.’
‘Harold of Monmouth would win.’
‘Not necessarily, we have a few other handsome men in England and Wales; George’s man Jack quite fancies his chances, and then there’s Cuthbert. We could draw up a shortlist and let the whole population vote in the final selection.’
‘How will we let the people see the different heads?’
‘Let’s say we have a shortlist of six. We will design six gold coins, each with your head on one side and one of the six different heads on the other. Then we will mint one hundred of each of the six coins and put them on display in all the major towns and cities.’
‘How will they be displayed?’
‘At each location, people will see a row of six coins showing the six different heads.’
‘My head won’t be shown?’
‘Your head doesn’t need to be shown, and if it was, nobody would come to see the coins.’
‘So how do we select a shortlist?’
‘I suggest that we ask each town and city to hold a handsome head contest and select the best to go forward to regional contests. Then the winners of the regional contests will come to London for the final selection of the super six.’
‘What a splendid idea, I am sure the contest will raise morale and boost my popularity,’ said Freddie.
‘Yes, I think it will raise morale,’ said Merlin.
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Source by John Powell