MEDIA | SATIRE
Windsor Castle, England — The caretaker of Saint George’s Chapel got the surprise of his life early Monday morning when a routine sweep of the chapel’s floors was interrupted by an unscheduled appearance: the ghost of King Henry VIII.
Oliver Davies, 52, of nearby Maidenhead, told reporters, “I was doing me rounds when a tile in the chapel’s floor shifted to the side and who pops out but the cheeky ghost of Henry VIII himself!”
According to Davies, the ghost of King Henry VIII peeped his head out from the bowels of his tomb and announced that he could stay silent no longer.
“First, he was brassed off about the state of his tomb — why wasn’t his fancy monument ever built? Why did they toss in one of his useless dead sons? And a treasonous king? He was right miffed.
‘At least I got dishy Jane,’ the ghost king said, ‘Even rotted she’s a better plow than Anne of Cleves!’”
While Davies’ wife, Anne, did not appreciate this aside, she corroborated her husband’s story, “I know me husband was chuffed to have a jar or two with his lads after his graveyard shift — he wasn’t expecting the graveyard to come along!”
And come along, the ghost of King Henry allegedly did.
“He was wearing the finest of robes and his waist was all 50 inches as it was before he died,” Davies went on. “He moved slowly, even for a ghost. I had to tell him that in 2024, we don’t trundle, we walk and chinwag at the same time.”
Davies, no stranger to a yak himself, got to the point of the infamous king’s haunting, “The gobby old king has a message for Prince William. ‘Don’t worry about the media fuss,’ Henry said. ‘Keep your hair on. Do you think I paid the gazettes and messenger pigeons any mind? Remember, you make the rules — not the rags, not God, not the government, not your wife. Now get me and Jane our own tomb! Charles likes to watch and I’m not into that.’”
When asked if Oliver was positive he saw the disgruntled royal spirit, Davies retorted, “Blimey, I was a wee bit knackered, but I’m not daft! I know a ghost when I see one!”
While this clearly also-British reporter thinks Davies is taking the piss out of her, there isn’t exactly a line jumping to cover Oliver’s next graveyard shift — his football league plays Saturday — except, of course, the wraiths.
