Prince William's Fifty-Year Feud With Harry Ends in Fatal Heart Attack as Stress Kills King and Tabloids Report Record Profits
Palace Says William Remains Unavailable, Harry Offers to Reconcile Anyway, Daily Mail Cites Employment Concerns
LONDON — Britain's most profitable grudge has reached its logical conclusion, at least in the imaginary future this newspaper has just invented. In 2079, King William V, aged 97, suffers a fatal heart attack after fifty years of stress, nearly all of it aimed at his younger brother, Prince Harry, who spent the same period at the beach.
The medical side is simple enough. The NHS says untreated high blood pressure raises the risk of heart attacks and strokes, and the American Heart Association says chronic stress can push blood pressure up. The NHS guidance on heart attacks adds smoking, cholesterol and diabetes to the list. It doesn't mention staying furious about a Netflix documentary from 2022 until 2079, but doctors agree it can't have helped.
William Finally Wins the Argument by Dying During It
After fifty years of refusing to speak to Harry, William collapses with a stress-induced heart attack. Harry immediately offers to reconcile. The Palace announces that William remains unavailable. Royal experts describe this as the longest sustained communication between the brothers in decades.
The irony is almost too neat. William has spent half a century punishing Harry by refusing to forgive him, and the only person he has ever really punished is himself. Harry, meanwhile, lives in California, goes to the beach, plays with his children and occasionally grumbles about his relatives. William spends fifty years becoming furious about it. At 97 his heart finally gives out, and Harry, still alive, is promptly blamed for surviving.
Why William's High Blood Pressure Is Britain's Newest Renewable Energy Source
Tabloid editors work out early that William's temper is a business asset. Every time Harry gives an interview, William's blood pressure goes up and newspaper circulation improves. By 2040, executives are quietly hoping Harry writes another autobiography. A cardiologist recommends that William stop reading about Harry. The Daily Mail objects, citing the devastating effect this could have on employment.
The press regulator, IPSO, oversees newspaper standards across the country, though nobody has yet found a clause in its code covering the daily headline WILLIAM INCANDESCENT. For decades the front pages run WILLIAM FURIOUS, then WILLIAM ENRAGED, then WILLIAM INCANDESCENT, each one a little louder than the last. Then comes the fatal heart attack, and the same papers ask in huge type how this tragedy could possibly have happened. One editorial calls for an urgent inquiry into the dangers of prolonged stress. It sits directly opposite an advert for the paper's next exclusive Harry betrayal story.
Kate Spends Half a Century Telling William to Calm Down
Catherine does what she can. "William, he's your brother," she says, year after year. "I'm perfectly calm!" he replies. "Your blood pressure is 220 over 140." "THAT'S BECAUSE YOU KEEP MENTIONING HARRY!" By the time the fatal heart attack arrives, Kate has personally worn out three generations of royal cardiologists. Her final words to the attending physician are "I did tell him."
The doctors do try. One tells His Majesty that the feud is putting tremendous stress on his cardiovascular system. "Are you suggesting I telephone Harry?" asks the King. "Yes, sir." "You're dismissed." The next physician advises him to avoid family arguments, tabloid headlines and unnecessary emotional stress, and is sacked for being a Sussex sympathiser.
The Royal Feud Becomes Britain's Most Successful Long-Term Investment
Anyone who bought newspaper shares at the start of the feud could have retired rich in this imaginary tabloid economy. Harry's refusal to disappear and William's refusal to forgive provide fifty years of dependable content. Eventually financial analysts file royal resentment alongside oil, gold and government bonds. Unlike government bonds, resentment actually produces something.
The final quarter is spectacular. William's funeral brings the biggest newspaper sales in half a century, with special editions, souvenir editions, commemorative editions and a sixteen-page supplement titled Could Harry Have Done More? The newspaper chairman announces record profits and solemnly expresses regret that the feud cannot continue. His circulation director quietly explains that it can.
Harry Gets the Last Word, Which Is Exactly What William Feared
At the funeral Harry rises to speak. "My brother and I had our differences," he begins, and somewhere inside the coffin William would be furious. "But I always loved him." The next day's headline reads HARRY USES BROTHER'S FUNERAL TO MAKE HIMSELF CENTRE OF ATTENTION. William has lost the argument, his life and editorial control of the coverage, all in the space of one week.
The royal medical report is blunt. It concludes that the King suffered a fatal heart attack brought on by the stress of maintaining an argument nobody could persuade him to drop. One physician notes that anger is a normal human emotion. William had turned it into a full-time occupation with overtime. Harry had moved on with his life. William had moved on to his third blood-pressure medication. In the end the doctors determine that the cause of death was fifty years of being right.
William's Last Words Give the Tabloids Six More Months of Exclusives
As doctors rush to save him, William reportedly whispers, "Don't let Harry..." Nobody hears the rest. Three newspapers immediately produce three different endings. One says he wanted Harry kept away from the funeral. One says he wanted Harry to know he hadn't hated him. One says he didn't want Harry getting the good parking space. A palace source calls all three versions credible.
Harry eventually visits the grave. "I wish we'd made peace," he says quietly, and a photographer takes a picture. Within minutes the tabloids run HARRY'S DESPERATE FINAL ATTEMPT TO UPSTAGE WILLIAM. A royal expert explains that William would have been furious, which, Harry observes, was pretty much the problem all along.
The Real Winner of the Royal Feud: Fleet Street
The winner isn't William or Harry. It's Fleet Street, which managed to turn one man's resentment into fifty years of revenue, a fatal heart attack into a circulation bonanza and a family tragedy into a subscription service. The feud killed William. The newspapers made a killing.
Satirical Disclaimer
This article is royal-family satire set in an imaginary future. The fatal heart attack, the stress, the medical report, the funeral and every quotation are comic inventions. They are not claims about Prince William's health, medical prognosis or future, and nothing here suggests that the feud or anything else will harm him. The medical links are included only so readers can see what real health authorities say about blood pressure, stress and heart attacks.
This story is entirely a human collaboration between two sentient beings: the world's oldest tenured professor and a philosophy major turned dairy farmer, both of whom believe that the British tabloid industry would regard a lasting royal reconciliation as a national financial emergency. https://prat.uk/?p=51640
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