He’s been king of the Ren Fest for 22 years. The crown is weighing on him.

This is suburban America, 2024. It is also England, in the year of our Lord 1537. It’s the Maryland Renaissance Festival, where the masses stream in — wearing corsets and cow costumes, Harris-Walz merch and “Defend the Second” shirts — and pay a $30 admission fee to spend the day in an alternate reality. More than 300,000 will come to this patch of Anne Arundel County over the course of nine weekends. They come to drink mead and eat giant turkey legs, to purchase flower crowns and take in jousting matches, to ogle maidens in off-the-shoulder blouses, to dance blithely in the village square.

They come to lose themselves. To bow before the king.

His name is Fred Nelson. Today is his birthday — Fred’s birthday, not Henry’s.

He is 61 and not sure how much longer he can do this.

He’s also not sure how to give it up.

The last man to wear the crown died suddenly in 2001. Not at the festival, mind you, but during the offseason. That king held the throne for 15 years and was beloved by both Ren Fest regulars and staff. He would not be easy to replace.

And Nelson didn’t have much interest. After growing up in a military family in Guam, he moved to the D.C. area in the late 1990s. Acting had been a big part of his youth, but he gave it up in early adulthood while establishing a new life in the continental United States. After two years away from the stage, he waded back into community theater and was acting with a Shakespearean theater company in Manassas when he was recruited to audition for the role of his royal Ren Fest highness.

Initially, he turned down the invitation — he was in the midst of a production of “The Merry Wives of Windsor” and had another role lined up after that. But his director told Nelson that if he didn’t audition, he’d regret it “for the rest of his life.”

Days later, Nelson was crowned king.

Nelson is stout and bearded, with eyes that crinkle when he smiles. And when he winces. He has a baritone that seems to vibrate the castle walls whenever he’s in character. When he’s not, his shoulders drop. He’s eloquent, thoughtful, soft-spoken.

Those first seasons in the gig were brutal. He needed to win over the cast and patrons, and to build the endurance required of a Ren Fest king. Nelson had confidence in his acting chops — he’d go on to win community theater awards for portrayals of Don Quixote and “Fiddler on the Roof’s” Tevye — but he wasn’t prepared for consecutive 10-hour days in a 20-pound costume that he privately calls his “mattress.”

“I didn’t necessarily expect it to be so bloody hard,” he says. “I guess I just looked at it as, you know, another role.”

It wasn’t. Not to audiences or fellow Ren Fest actors. Not to Nelson, who started seeing his face advertised on the back of Pepsi trucks and on posters in Jiffy Lube bathrooms.

The role, he learned, matters because of what Ren Fest means to its people. “Some of us are in situations or positions or identities that have more limitation,” explains psychologist Drea Letamendi. “Ren Fair allows us to kind of explore and expand those boundaries.”

As Lance Oppenheim, director of the HBO documentary miniseries “Ren Faire” puts it, the festivals, which have been taking place across America since the 1960s, allow people to satisfy the urge to “leave yourself, in a way, and become someone new.”

Nelson, a father of two grown daughters, admits there were times the outpouring of adoration for the Ren Fest king infected Fred Nelson, the civilian.

“I haven’t always been a perfect person, and I’m certainly not now,” he says. “Actors are egotistical creatures, even more so than other humans. You take an actor and you tell him, ‘I’m going to make you king,’ that’s like throwing gasoline on a fire, man.”

After a few years, he considered giving up the role and confided in a cast mate who played a guardsman.

“He grabbed me and shoved me up against a wall — this big, burly guy — and started crying,” Nelson recalls. “He got right in my face and he said, ‘I was the last king’s guard. I carried his casket. I buried him. You are my king. Don’t you dare give this up.’ And I haven’t.”

The morning cast meeting begins at 9:30. By then, Nelson has woken up at his home in Glen Burnie, wriggled into his ruffled shirt and tights, driven to the festival grounds in Crownsville and gathered with the 40-odd actors who portray villagers, knights, jesters and vagabonds.

These are not Fred Nelson’s subjects. “I am never their king. I am just another cast member,” he says. “It has to be that way, because if they don’t like me — me, meaning Fred — then, yeah, they’ll go out there and do their job, but they may not necessarily support me as king. And it’s dreadfully important that they do.”

The company administration stands to offer a rundown of the day’s updates and events — some met by cries of “Huzzah!”

As happened in history, Henry’s queens rotate, while he remains in power. This year actress Laurie Simonds plays Queen Jane Seymour. Simonds gears up for the day with granola bar, careful to avoid dropping crumbs on her dress.

Nelson, now in his knee-length, sapphire-blue coat embellished with gold stitching, slides oversize rings on his fingers. To close the meeting, everyone yells “beep,” mimicking the sound of a modern watch. They’re synchronizing, as they step back five centuries back in time.

After welcoming patrons at the gate, the king and queen make their way to the maypole for a morning dance. Wherever they appear visitors and courtiers cry, “Long live the king! God save the queen!” Cast members must bow and curtsy as the king passes, only to rise when approved by his majesty. About every 10 paces, he is stopped for a selfie.

Eventually the king and queen arrive at their Royal Pavilion for hours of photo ops. Nearby, two guardsmen entertain children waiting in line with swordplay. But the guards also carry real knives — to protect the king should a patron drink too much raspberry wine and become aggressive. One of them notes that he’s fought off a fair few frat boys during his years in the role.

The air is thick with humidity. The king’s cheeks grow ruddier as the sun reaches the top of the sky. It’s the Saturday of Labor Day weekend, so this is the beginning of a three-day marathon. By the end, he says, “I will be a quivering wreck in my bed.” To recover, he will play the fantasy game “Skyrim” and “wait for the pain to pass.”

But he’s only halfway through day one, so all he can do now is nap at lunch, chug his homemade V8-pickle juice concoction and pop back up for a game of bocce. “Let’s go bowl a lawn!” he roars to the crowd at the village square.

Then it’s time for photos with newly knighted children — an outsize number of whom have names such as Flora and Aurora.

Most of day, Nelson is improvising as king — “Did you know I wrote this song?” he asks a patron listening to a harpsichord show — but at 4:30 p.m. every day, he stars in “Juste tordez!,” a 30-minute scripted stage show that portrays stories of Henry’s murderous rule. The Henry in this show is far more cruel and mercurial — and historically accurate — than the jovial fellow overseeing the rest of fair. The production captures Jane’s attempted regulation of Henry’s erratic temper. The grief of Henry’s castoff niece, Margaret Douglas. The scheming efforts by members of the court to rise in favor and status.

On his way to the stage, Nelson is stopped by two fellow cast members who present him with a bouquet of red roses and sing a sultry rendition of “Happy Birthday” low enough to evade the ears of nearby patrons. They were sent by his wife, Sascha. The couple is celebrating their 10th anniversary later this year with Nelson’s first trip to England — the country he’s “ruled” for two decades.

After opening day this season, Nelson recalls, he returned home broken. “I stumbled upstairs and I was just exhausted. I laid down and she put a weighted blanket on me and took care of me — you know, rubbed lotion on me,” he says. “She’s every bit as important to that character and my role as I am.

As the sun begins to set, Nelson has found what seems to be the only cushioned seat within the 19-acre fairground: a golf cart behind the jousting ring. He closes his eyes and lets out a yawn before entering the ring to preside over the day’s match.

It is the premier event of the fair, and when it ends, Henry makes his way back to the castle gates to wave to the crowds as they file out. Perhaps they can’t tell, but he’s leaned up against the divots of the elevated stone wall — anything to comfort his throbbing upper back.

He knows that after 22 years as king, he might soon need to give up the crown.

“I don’t want to be the little old man desperately trying to cling on to this part, to maintain the glory for as long as possible,” he says. “My predecessor passed away in the role. I certainly don’t want to emulate that.”

What he’d like to do, he thinks, is “peacefully retire the role in a couple of years and pass it on to a younger actor.”

“The character,” he says, “deserves that.”

For now he’s waving as the last stragglers exit and the gates are locked, just after 7 p.m.

He steps down gingerly, no longer bombastic King Henry VIII. He’s Fred Nelson. And Fred Nelson wants to go home.

The Maryland Renaissance Festival runs through Oct. 20. For more information, visit: www.rennfest.com.