This is not a good world, a fair world or a just world. History does not remember many people when they are gone. Most people – if they are lucky enough to survive childhood - live a short uneventful life and then die. Only those in their village and – perhaps – a few others, if that, remember them. Some though, like me, are fated to be remembered by history. My name will go down in the line, like my father, my uncle, before me and like the son that will follow me.
History, though, will not remember me well. How could it, since I write these few last words here in this dungeon while I wait for my last dawn on this Earth? History will remember me, I know that. But I will be remembered as the fool who lost this kingdom. Not as I'd once hoped as the king that made life better, not for me and the landed families, but for everyone, including those that die and are then forgotten in the villages and hamlets.
I wanted to do so much. But in these few short years I did so little, apart from turning my own son against me. Then losing to him in another of those pointless wars that ruling families inflict on those who serve them. With each such war leaving thousands to die for no other reasons than the vanity and ambitions of those who see themselves as born to rule.
Yes, history will remember me, but only as a fool who threw his kingdom away because he tried to be an honest man in a court of schemers, plotters and liars, the greatest of which was my own son.
Long live the king.
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