"NO! NO! NO USE!" The toddler's screams rang through the ornate rooms. Mistress Luke sighed, then knelt down before the sobbing Prince.
"Very well, Your Highness. You don't have to learn to use the chamber pot. But then you'll have to carry on wearing napkins like Princess Elizabeth."
Prince Henry stilled, then looked up at Mistress Luke, injured. "No! I no baby like Lisbet."
"No. But if you won't learn to use the chamber-pot, then I'm afraid you have no choice. Come on."
Mistress Luke picked up the two and a half year old Prince and laid him on his back, lifting his legs high with one hand.
Henry struggled and kicked, roaring his displeasure, but Mistress Luke was still stronger, for all he was a vigorous boy. He had no choice but to let her pin the cloth around his legs.
But that didn't mean he had to keep it on. The second she was done and let him up, he roared, "Hurts! Hurts!" and used all his strength to tear it off, flinging it to the floor angrily and stamping upon it.
"Prince Henry!" Mistress Luke admonished, but he paid her no heed, running away before she could grab hold of him.
"Let him go, Anne," Joan Guildford, Princess Margaret's governess, advised. "He'll learn as soon as he feels the liquid running down his legs. Goodness knows Margaret did."
"Are you sure?"Anne asked, but since she knew she had little or no chance of catching her charge when he was in this mood, she eventually gave in, hoping against hope that Henry wouldn't decide he needed to go all too soon.
Unfortunately for her, Henry, stubborn as a mule, had withheld his desires to empty his bladder for the entirety of the morning until Mistress Luke had given in and let him be without a napkin around his legs. Within moments, there was a shriek from where he and Princess Margaret were playing.
"Harry, no, that's naughty!" Four year old Princess Margaret chided her younger brother, who stood in a large, rapidly spreading, puddle of urine, laughing his head off.
Anne gasped and moved towards them, but Princess Margaret was faster. Even if her brother had been naughty, it was still the two of them against the attendants. Always. Especially since Lisbet had been born and no one had paid them their full share of attention. Grabbing his hand, she pulled him after her and shut them both in the next room before Anne could catch them.
Groaning, Anne called another, lower, nursemaid to mop up the puddle and then went to try to coax the Prince and Princess out of their hiding place.
"Come, Your Highnesses. Please. You won't get into trouble. Just come on out. I have sweetmeats," she called temptingly.
"No," Margaret called back, "You'll treat Harry like a baby. And he's not a baby. He's my brother."
"I'm not denying that. But you don't want him to spoil your things by emptying his bladder on them, do you?"
"No, but he won't. He's been now, haven't you, Harry?"
There was silence behind the door, and then Princess Margaret called back, "He's promised not to. Now go away."
Anne hated the note of arrogance in the four year old's voice, but she had no choice but to agree. "As you wish, Your Highness."
Not half an hour later, however, Princess Margaret came sprinting out of the room herself, holding her nose.
"Harry pooing!" she explained nasally.
Anne sprang up. "Oh no!"
Racing into the next room, she was just in time to see Prince Henry rising from a squat, his young face visibly relieved. The smell drifting up from below him was unmistakeable.
"No. Prince Henry, no!" Anne swept him up and slapped him lightly, "Bad boy! Bad!"
"Harry bad!" he chuckled cheerfully.
"Yes, very bad, Your Highness. You know what that means, don't you? You'll have to go back into napkins until you can learn to use the chamber pot properly."
Prince Henry's face darkened and he instantly started fighting her, "No! NO! I no baby! I no baby!"
Normally, tears and temper won him his way in the end, but this time Anne was adamant. Striding back into the other room, she immediately forced him on to the floor and pinned the napkin back on his lower half. And when he tried to tear it off again, she slapped his hands away.
"No. Take it off and you'll be in bed with no supper."
Henry howled furiously, but no matter how many times he screamed it, "Hurts! Hurts! Take off, take off!" no one listened. At last, he had no choice but to let himself be distracted by the wooden soldiers that were scattered about the floor.