The Duchess   By Melissa Tawn   Is there any reason why England should not have a transsexual queen?

CHAPTER 1. THE DUCHESS IN HER CASTLE

The English peerage has, throughout the ages, more than its fair share of eccentrics (and not infrequently outright lunatics) but, should a compendium of these characters ever be compiled for the edification of the casual reader, there is no doubt that the Duchess of Bradford would insure her prominent mention. She was, after all, one of the richest of the peerage, her extensive holdings contained rich mineral deposits and her family fortune having been skillfully invested over the generations in banking, industry, and commerce. She also, though not of her own volition, became the center of immense public interest and controversy which rocked the throne of England as had nothing in the preceding centuries.

When Lady Holly Denise Binnion, the Duchess of Bradford, was born, she had been named Holden, for she was, at birth, a biologically male child - the only son of the sixth Duke of Bradford, retired General Miles Binnion, and his wife Anne. Though the young Holden knew deep inside that he was really meant to be a girl, he also was intelligent enough to know that there was no way he could explain this to his sickly mother and his domineering father. He was 14 when his mother, the duchess, passed away from one of her many lingering illnesses - not aided by the Yorkshire weather, which the duke maintained was “invigorating” or the lack of central heating in their home of Bradford Castle, which the duke decried as a sign of “modern decadence”.

After his mother’s death, young Holden found that he was able to indulge in dressing as a girl during the long and frequent periods when his father was away (usually in southern France in the company of one or more extremely young ladies). Fortunately for him, he had several female companions who thought it great fun to help him on his way to femininity so that, without his father knowing it, he soon lived the life of a very beautiful and vibrant teenage girl for considerable stretches of time. Of course, the local press and local constabulary soon knew about this, but they also knew better than to mention it, and certainly none would dare incur the legendary wrath of the Duke by telling him. On the several occasions when constables found Holden intoxicated in public places, usually dressed in a manner which would have shocked many a whore of the previous generation, he would be discreetly bundled back home and put to bed, with no official paperwork ever being filed (though stories about “the little lord Ho” did make the rounds of the pubs at which the constables and newsmen gathered after work).

The duke, himself, did not pass on to the next world until Holden was 30 years of age, and securely married to Lady Mary Dowling, the daughter of an Earl. Mary knew about Holden’s cross dressing and didn’t mind it, so long as it was done away from the public eye. In fact, she had a lot of fun buying frocks for him, and managed to alter his fashion taste from the provocative and trashy to the aristocratically elegant. At the time of the duke’s demise, she was in her 5th month of pregnancy and had bought an “empathy belly” for her husband, so that both of them could go through the process together. They were very much in love.

As both Mary and Holly - the name she picked for him - grew larger and larger, they planned the birth with care so as to share the experience as much as possible. However, the best-laid plans of mice and peers sometimes go astray. One day - roughly two weeks before her due date - Mary suddenly felt excruciating pains in her womb where, as it later turned out, a blood vessel had ruptured and severe peritonitis had set in. She was rushed to the hospital where doctors operated on her for the entire night and it was only in the morning that Holden was given the terrible news. The baby - a girl whom they had resolved to name Anne in memory of Holden’s mother - was healthy and well, but the mother’s life could not be saved.

Holden, of course, was in shock but, by the time the funeral services were over, he knew what he had to do. A wet nurse was hired to take care of the baby for the next six months, while Holden Binnion, the seventh Duke of Bradford, disappeared from view. At the end of that time, Lady Holly Denise Binnion came home, legally and physically a woman. (One should pause here to cogitate on the ability of the aristocrats - especially if they are extremely wealthy - to make clocks move so much faster. Psychiatric evaluations and medical opinions that normally take months if not years to obtain were available to Holden within days; Harley Street surgeons whom one would normally have to book years in advance all of a sudden found convenient holes in their schedules. Legal paperwork was filed and approved almost before the ink dried.)

Lady Holly Denise made no attempt to hide, now. Debrett’s was informed that the Duke of Bradford was now the Duchess and expected to be listed as such among the peerage. Suitable stationary and visiting cards were printed and readied. On the other hand, the Duchess made no attempt to force herself on society, especially the London society with which she had never been comfortable. Lady Holly Denise had only one goal in mind, and that was to be a good and loving mother to her daughter, a purpose to which she devoted her entire energies - rarely leaving Bradford Castle. She did, however, modernize her home (and install decent heating) to make it a suitable place for the baby. As little Anne grew, her doting mother did everything to make sure that she would have the most perfect girlhood imaginable, one that Holly had always fantasized for herself but had never enjoyed.

When Anne reached school age, Holly enrolled her in the local school, rather than send her to a special school for rich girls or have her educated by governesses. At the same time, moreover, she also became a very active supporter of quality education and freely donated her name, her time, and considerable amounts of her money to projects for upgrading the local schools. The West Riding of Yorkshire could boast, within a few years, of having some of the best schools in the country, including an amazingly-equipped secondary school for scientifically-gifted students which ran its own satellite tracking station, manned entirely by 16-year-olds (under the guidance of their teachers, of course) which was part of the international network for ecological monitoring. Anne, who had shown a distinct aptitude for science and mathematics, hoped to enroll there next year.

CHAPTER 2. THE DISASTEROUS BANQUET

The Duchess of Bradford’s refusal to be part of London society meant that she turned down an invitation to participate in The Event of The Decade, a festive three-day cruise on the QE2 in honor of the aging monarch’s birthday. Almost all of the other high-ranking peers did attend, and - as the ship sailed off of the coast of Ireland, partook of a sumptuous grand banquet more appropriate to first decade of the 20th century than to that of the more egalitarian 21st century. They all ate their fill (or more) and then, within hours, they all retched. There was something terribly wrong with the food. Helicopters were quickly summoned to take the worst cases to hospitals on land, while the ship’s infirmary tried to cope with the others. But the dimensions of the disaster turned out to be unbelievable: forty three of England’s foremost peers lost their lives that night. (The monarch, who had not felt well earlier, chose to eat only some fresh fruit, and so was not affected.)

A subsequent investigation by Scotland Yard revealed that there had been not one but two separate poisonings by terrorists infiltrated onto the ship in the guise of cooks: one of them a member of a radical Islamic group which campaigned to have Shariyeh - Islamic religious law - replace British Common Law and the second a member of an anarchist group that had passed a public “death sentence” on all peers of the realm for the continued theft of land and lives since the days of William the Conqueror. The two poisons placed in the food reinforced each other and neutralized any possible antidote.

The nation was in total shock, and it took many months for the anger and indignation to subside enough that a proper assessment of the situation. As editorial writers poured out pages and pages of opinion about the future of the aristocracy, and as countless talking heads debated the situation over and over again on television, one startling fact suddenly emerged: the Duchess of Bradford, who had not been on the cruise, was now second in line to the throne of England.

CHAPTER 3. A TRANSSEXUAL QUEEN?

The possibility that a transsexual might, some day, be queen of England caused public controversy unlike any before, but with several interesting realignments of opinion. Conservatives - traditional supporters of the monarchy - now insisted that everything be done to bar the Duchess of Bradford from ever reaching the throne, though it was not clear what in fact could be done. After all, there have been British monarchs who were overtly homosexual - Edward II being the most notorious - and certainly there have been many homosexual peers - including the uncle of Queen Elizabeth II, who had a long and well-publicized gay relationship with playwright Noel Coward. Speculation even persists, and some reputable historians even maintain, that Queen Elizabeth I was in fact a crossdressing male (the real princess Elizabeth having died - from natural or unnatural causes - in girlhood and a boy having been substituted for her).

On the other hand, leftists who traditionally advocated the abolishment of the monarchy altogether now found themselves in the position of defending the Duchess of Bradford and her right to be queen, if events turned out that way. They repeatedly pointed out that both British and European law forbade job discrimination against the transgendered, and that would include barring a transsexual from the throne. In the name of political correctness, they ended up supporting the monarchy.

Of course, there were those who said that the “situation” was a perfect excuse to eliminate the monarchy altogether, but these were considered extremist cranks and were not taken seriously by the media. What would England be without its monarchy?

The Duchess was condemned by one camp as being a pervert and a freak, and praised by the other as being an exemplary mother and a public-spirited champion of quality education. She, herself, took no part in the public debate. She refused to be interviewed or even to issue a public statement. She remained in Bradford Castle, devoting her time to her daughter and to her various educational projects. Her main concern was that the controversy surrounding her would not hurt Anne.

Anne had known about her mother for many years. When she was ten years old, her mother - aided by psychologist, sat down and explained the situation to her. Since Anne was very intelligent, and loved her mother very much, she was able to accept the situation and deal with it. Now came the real test. The Duchess was worried that the intense publicity would harm her and initiated meetings with the police and school officials and how to handle the situation. Reporters were barred from the grounds of Anne’s school and when one was caught infiltrating the building while carrying a tiny hidden video camera, he was arrested and charged as being a suspected pedophile (the camera being evidence that - on the face of it - he intended to photograph a minor or minors without their consent, perhaps in some compromising or intimate situation). The charges were dropped only after the leaders of the press pledged not to try to harass Anne in any way, on or off the school grounds.

CHAPTER 4. THE NEXT QUEEN OF ENGLAND

Then broke the news that the heir to the throne was thrown from his horse while fox hunting and died the next day. The Duchess of Bradford was now next in line to the throne of England, occupied by an aged monarch of increasingly-questionable health.

The succession to the throne of England is governed by complex but well-defined criteria in which the qualifications of the candidate to actually perform the duties of sovereign play no part. A king may be an imbecile or even stark raving mad - as was George III - and still reign over England. Paradoxically, as the monarchy lost much of its actual power and the monarch became more and more of a figurehead, the qualifications needed to perform for the job decreased and so any possible argument for disbarring someone from holding it. The only hope of disqualifying the Duchess from the throne lay in the fact that the monarch of England is also head of the Church of England. This was, after all, the technicality used to force the abdication of the pro-fascist king Edward VIII, who had married a divorcée, contrary to the rules of the Church, and therefore could not technically serve as its head. Many commentators speculated that a transsexual also, could not fill that position. But the Church of England itself had changed considerably since the 1930’s. The current Archbishop of Canterbury had - before he was chosen for his position - expressed considerable doubt over the divinity of Jesus and even was willing to “appreciate” the notion that God Himself was a “convenient myth” necessary for the social survival of mankind. It was therefore hard to maintain that there was any Church doctrine left by which the Duchess of Bradford could be judged. Still, this was the only hope of those who opposed her, and they managed to build a case against her which was duly laid before the House of Lords.

The government, led by a weak and dithering PM whose major concern was trying to reduce government spending in the face of increasing social entitlements and an even-faster-increasing trade deficit, tried to remain neutral in the controversy on the grounds that there was no immediate and compelling need to take a stand.

And then the monarch passed away.

The next few days were a mixture of official mourning and unofficial panic at the future. The Duchess of Bradford made her first appearance in London in years, at the funeral service. She refused to make any comment to the press during the mourning period, saying that the time was not right. She promised, however, to make a formal statement to the press after the official period of mourning was over. Behind the scenes, intensive negotiations were in progress between her, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Foreign Minister, representing the government. At the end of the mourning period, the Duchess of Bradford appeared at a news conference in Buckingham Palace. In a short and dignified statement, she announced that, in the interests of national unity, she had decided to forgo the throne of England, which she had never sought in the first place. The next queen of England would, by mutual agreement of all concerned, be her daughter Anne. Holly would, officially, be the Queen Dowager or, as she is informally called, "the queen mum".

DISCLAIMER: Needless to say, this story is fiction and is not intended to reflect any real-life situation or any actual member of the British royal family or peerage.