The Prince and the Pauper

1547 London. Edward Tudor, first in line to the British throne as the Prince of Wales, and Tom Canty, a beggar boy, were born on the same day ten years ago. The two have a chance meeting when Tom, in an effort to get out of the rain, falls asleep under a bench just outside the castle. Both craving some companionship, they end up playing a game together which entails them changing clothes, which is when they come to the realization that they look exactly the same. The changing of the clothes leads to the Prince, mistaken as a beggar boy, banished from the castle by the Chief of the Guards. Both the Prince and Tom try to convince those around them in their respective new strange environment of who they really are. In the castle, the opportunistic Earl of Hertford does come to realize that the young man in front of him is not the Prince, which he intends to use for his own benefit to control the throne as King Henry VIII is on his deathbed and the Prince, who he is able to threaten Tom to portray, will ascend to the throne as King, with the Earl, by royal order, will become the young King's sole guide, that role which he will use to keep himself in comfort by getting Tom, as King, to sign new laws of his liking. The Earl is also able to threaten the Chief of the Guards to locate the real Prince out in the streets of London and kill him. Meanwhile, the Prince is located by John Canty, Tom's brutal widowed father, but not before befriending Sir Miles Hendon, a soldier of fortune. While not really believing the young boy's declarations that he is Prince Edward, Hendon does become his protector. Ultimately believing that the young boy really is the Prince, Hendon has to protect him first from Tom's father, who routinely beat Tom and now the Prince, and the from the Chief of the Guards who is after him to kill him, with a second goal of getting the Prince back to the castle before the coronation of "the Prince" to King Edward VI.