Around the thrones of kings, thunder rolls.
Sir Thomas Wyatt is often given credit for this observation. He knew how dangerously thunder rolled around the throne of Henry VIII, for he saw how bloody and unpredictable it was. The most famous example was Anne Boleyn: for years, the king called her beloved - and then he had he had her executed.
Wyatt wrote a poem about the death of Anne Boleyn, using 'circa regna tonat' as a sad refrain to mourn the loss of such beauty and wit. He wrote it in the Tower of London, specifically in the Bell Tower. Three arched stone windows in his cell gave him a view of the execution site, and he would have been close enough to hear the stroke of the sword.
Thomas Wyatt may have been Anne Boleyn's lover at some point, or he may have simply loved her from afar as one of Henry VIII's courtiers. Either way, he was very close to the throne, and thus it is surprising that he survived the thunderstorm at all.
Nowadays, it seems that the people far from the throne suffer the thunderstorms, not the people close to the king. I'm thinking of young girls, trafficked worldwide for the amusement of the powerful... schoolchildren killed in bombs...judges bribed and elections corrupted...prices soaring and aid programmes cut...vaccines removed and diseases rising.
We're all caught in the thunderstorm, and this one seems to have no end.
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