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When they were kids Bea used to love making flower crowns. With having what felt like an endless garden, there was no shortage of flowers for her to choose from, and with her being a princess, she was rarely told she could not pick the flowers. She’d probably made well over a hundred one year. She’d make them for herself, for their mother, for their father, for Henry, even for staff. One day she offered to make one for him.
Normally he’d decline, telling her he was too old for a flower crown, but that day he accepted her offer. He doesn’t know why he did. Maybe it was the look in his younger sister’s eyes, or because he’d had a bad day at that school that day, or the fact he was getting over a cold, he didn’t know. He does know that he liked it, even if he would never say it out loud. It wasn’t because it was a crown, or because Henry had run up calling him King Pip when he saw him, it was because Bea had made it for him.
He remembers how the three of them then spent hours running around the garden in their flower crowns. He remembers the cardboard sword fight with Henry, and when Bea came in with her cardboard shield to protect their little brother. He remembers it being the first time he smiled that day, it being the first time he’d laughed all week. He remembers taking the flower crown off that night, setting it on the desk in his room. He remembers looking at himself in the mirror with it on more than once over the days that followed, watching the colors change as it dried.
A few weeks later, he’d come back from school to find the crown missing. He looked all over his room. Under his bed, in his closet, in his ensuite. The crown was nowhere to be found. There was then a knock on the front door, he heard his father answer. It was a message from his grandmother, requesting Philip join her for tea that night. He had no choice but to stop his search for the crown. You didn’t tell the queen no. It turns out her request would lead to the end of his search.
She knew about his flower crown. She had his flower crown. She didn’t like his flower crown. An heir to this throne of your age cannot be seen in such a thing. She then made him break it in front of her and throw the pieces in the bin. He hid himself under the covers that night, the hot tears stinging his eyes as they fell. That was the last time he ever let Bea make him a flower crown.
He remembers seeing glimpses of the real crown throughout his life. He always thought it looked heavy. The day his mother was crowned queen, he thought it might be even heavier than he imagined. On the day he was crowned king, he learned he was right. He missed his flower crown, it was much lighter then the real one.