Story [Victoria] "A Kingdom Where My Love Can Stand" | 2023/'24 Olympics & More | AU; Victoria/Melbourne

Title: “A Kingdom Where My Love Can Stand”
Fandom: Daisy Goodwin’s Victoria
Author: Mira_Jade

Genre: Drama/Angst, Romance
Time Frame: Canon Expansion, AU (eventually), fix-it fic(s)
Characters: Queen Victoria/Lord Melbourne, Ensemble Cast, Historical Cameos, Original Characters

Summary: Her reign has been far from traditional since the day she took the throne; she refuses to begin now with her choice of husband.


Author’s Notes: I know, this is a surprise! What can I say? I’ve had Daisy Goodwin’s Victoria in my to-read pile for years now, and I finally did. I then followed that up with watching PBS/Masterpiece’s Victoria, which Daisy Goodwin also wrote the screenplay for, and now I’m completely smitten with a doomed OTP that hadn't a chance in history or in fiction . . . but, in fan fiction? Well, that’s another story entirely.

To begin, I have to disclaim: yes, I know that Victoria loved Albert very much and they were very happy together. Buuuuut, you guys, have you seen the chemistry between Jenna Coleman and Rufus Sewell onscreen? Have you?? I dare you to watch the first four episodes of Victoria and then tell me that she would have transferred her affections from Melbourne to Albert just that quickly. So, here I am with a decathlon for the 2023 Summer Olympics to indulge my broken shipper’s heart. (Which has since grown to be an epic ficlet collection for several different challenges.)

That said, this story is very much fan fiction for the book/show, rather than historical fiction. I’m going to attempt to write these stories in a way that negates the need for any prior knowledge – that's one of the reasons why I chose the Olympics format, to explore this pairing – but for those of you who would like a little bit more background going in, I’ve included both a short summary and a longer one beneath the spoiler tag below.

I thank you all for reading, and hope that you enjoy!

Spoiler: In Which Mira Rambles and then Rambles Some More

The Short of It: Queen Victoria ascended the throne when she was 18 years old. Until that point, she'd lived a sheltered life at the instigation of her widowed mother’s comptroller Sir John Conroy, who wished to rule through her by proxy. Yet Victoria held fast against Sir John and many others, and made her mark as an independent queen from the very beginning. Her detractors were constantly looking for reasons to justify assigning a male regent to her rule, and even went so far as to observe her for signs of madness, as she was the granddaughter of King George III. She was a constitutional monarch, who governed in concert with the British Parliament. The prime minister at the time was William Lamb, the 2nd Viscount Melbourne. He was her closest advisor, and they formed a fast and intense bond. Melbourne was a widower (whose wife infamously had a very public, very sordid affair with Lord Byron), and a father of three children who had not survived into adulthood (a stillborn daughter, a daughter who didn’t make it a day outside the womb, and an autistic/epileptic son who died far too young). Melbourne truly seemed to only want to guide Victoria, rather than control her. Even so, their relationship was frowned upon by outside eyes on both sides of the political divide, and when Melbourne tried to resign when his support in government ebbed, Victoria rather famously (and dangerously, for her desperation easily read as immature and selfish, even with my shipper bias) dug in her heels and connived to keep him as her prime minister. Their bond intensified the pressure put upon Victoria to marry, and her cousin Prince Albert was summoned to England to present his suit. Yet (and this is book/show!canon), before Albert’s arrival, Victoria proposed marriage to Lord Melbourne, who turned her down for her own sake and the good of England, rather than his own wishes.

. . . and that’s where I come in as the holder of the pen.

Now, for the long of it . . .

Queen Victoria: Alexandrina Victoria was the granddaughter of King George III, and came into power after the death of her uncle, King William IV. She was the daughter of King George’s fourth son, Prince Edward, the Duke of Kent, and Princess Victorie of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. Prince Edward died when she was only a year old, and she was raised by her mother and the duchess’ comptroller, Sir John Conroy. Sir John, who had considerable influence over the duchess (and was rumored to be her lover), made sure that Victoria grew up in a purposefully restrictive and isolated environment. The Kensington Rules that governed her upbringing didn’t even allow her to go down the stairs without holding the hand of an attendant, and she slept on a cot in her mother’s room until the day she was made queen. This was undoubtedly due to the ambitions of Sir John, who fed the duchess’ paranoia for her daughter’s “safety” to serve his own ends. He wished for Victoria to be uneducated in matters of state and unable to take the throne without guidance, at the very least, or a regent, at best, which he would control through his influence on her mother. Sir John pushed to become her private secretary, but Victoria held fast against him. She banished him from her presence when she was made queen, but Sir John remained part of her mother’s household – a household Victoria continually had to share as an unmarried woman, even as queen.

Victoria was crowned when she was 18 years old. She was a constitutional monarch, and reigned alongside the British Parliament. The prime minister when she came to power was William Lamb, 2nd Viscount of Melbourne, and that’s where their relationship began.

Lord Melbourne: William Lamb was a rather checkered character in history, to say the least. He was commonly known to be the natural son of the Earl of Egremont, but his "father", Peniston Lamb the 1st Viscount Melbourne, tolerated his wife’s affairs and claimed her children as his own. Elizabeth Lamb was a very colorful and intelligent woman, and was known to be responsible for her husband’s rise in politics and social successes amongst the British peerage – there’s a reason, I think, why our Lord Melbourne not only believed that a woman was capable of knowing her own mind, but rather appreciated such strength in a woman. His sister, Lady Emily Palmerston, led a very similar lifestyle to their mother, and William had a close, lifelong bond with her as well.

William eventually married Caroline Ponsonby, yet another strong-willed woman. Theirs was a love match, though tragedies in their marriage slowly eroded their bond. Caroline gave birth to a stillborn daughter, and then another daughter who survived for less than twenty-four hours outside of the womb. Their one surviving child, a boy named Augustus, suffered from severe mental illness and physical handicaps. Rather than send their son away to an institution, as was customary at the time, the Lambs cared for Augustus at home until his death. William found politics as an escape from their woes; Caroline, in her turn, found Lord Byron.

Yeah . . . that was an ugly mess, to say the least. Caroline's relationship with Byron was loud and obsessive, and rather of the love/hate variety on both ends. They wrote and published poems both eviscerating and praising each other by turns, and Caroline’s novel Glenarvon fictionalized her affair with Byron, adding to the scandal. When Byron eventually spurned Caroline, William let her return home, yet Caroline never gave up her love for Byron entirely. She continued to communicate with him through letters and even went so far as to publicly attempt to win him back at a ball held in honor of the Duke of Wellington (which was doubly awkward, seeing as how Caroline also had a not-so-secret affair with the Duke of Wellington shortly after the Battle of Waterloo). Byron scorned her efforts and insulted her in front of all gathered, upon which Caroline broke a wine glass over his head and even went so far as to slash her arms to get his attention. (Other accounts say she threatened him with a knife before turning that knife on herself.) Caroline’s health sharply declined after that, and she struggled with an increasingly erratic mental state due to her addiction to alcohol and opium; within a matter of years, she passed away far too young. Throughout all of this, William refused to forsake Caroline and divorce her. He, by that point, had had many affairs of his own, and he blamed her actions on his failings as a husband – and on Lord Byron for taking advantage of an unhappy woman. He was there at Caroline's bedside when she died.

Melbourne then had nothing left but politics. He rose higher in the Whig party, and became prime minister for King William IV. He was still in office when Victoria reached the throne, upon which . . .

Victoria and Melbourne: Melbourne was Victoria’s first and closest advisor, and, according to her journals, she absolutely adored him. Melbourne doted on Victoria in return, and truly seemed to only want to guide and support her, rather than control her. Victoria was determined to be an involved ruler, and refused to be a puppet queen governed by proxy. Even so, she was vastly unprepared to rule due to her limited exposure to life, in whole, but the intricacies of politics, in particular. Victoria confided in him her initial uncertainty about marrying Albert so soon into her reign, and her dread for the idea of motherhood. Melbourne had his own rooms at Windsor Castle, sent flowers that he grew himself to Victoria every day until her marriage (he was an avid hobby botanist), and Victoria was called “Mrs. Melbourne” by her detractors.

Now, does this mean that they had some secret love affair in history? Maybe Victoria had a bit of a crush on the first man she’d come to know following her sheltered upbringing – let alone the first man to take her seriously and believe in her as a queen. But, more likely than not, it was a more paternal love on Melbourne’s part – as he was 40 years Victoria’s senior. Personally, I tend to be rather blasé about age differences, especially in historical settings, but that’s rather extreme, even for me. Know that if do you decide to read this collection, I keep the age difference to a nebulous old enough to be her father – or 28 years, going by the difference between Coleman and Sewell's characters, if you really want an exact number, which is still plenty problematic enough. No matter what Victoria may have felt for Melbourne, she did go on to marry Prince Albert and their marriage was a great romance. (Even if I hold that theirs was a toxic and problematic relationship more often than not, with Victoria insisting that the deeply troubling aspects were done out of "love" for her.)

But . . .

Why I Ship Victoria and Melbourne: I like a ship where the partners enable each other to be all they can be – which, in history, was a struggle for Albert. He almost broke off his suit due to being unable to stomach the idea that he would be only the husband, rather than the master of his household, and he found it unnatural that Victoria had to propose to him as queen, rather than the other way around. At least in the beginning, Albert thought Victoria immature, uncultured, and out of touch with the needs of her people (something which drove me nuts on the show). Victoria hated pregnancy, feared childbirth, didn’t like babies, and suffered postpartum depression with every birth. Albert, as was customary for the time, believed that it was a woman’s role to have as many children as God allowed them, and called her unreasonable and irrational when she grappled with her constantly changing body and fluctuating hormones. He even wanted a vast number of children for political means, as he thought that having a son or daughter marry into the great houses of Europe would help improve the morals of the world, I kid you not. They had nine children in quick succession, and Victoria spent most of her twenties and thirties pregnant or recovering from pregnancy. During this time, Albert took over the many day-to-day aspects of running the kingdom. Victoria started as a strong queen and ended as a strong queen, but while Albert was alive . . . not so much. Victoria purportedly went on to say that she didn’t have to think for herself until after Albert’s death – he thought for her. She told her daughter that it was a woman's role to be slave to a man in body and deed, which always stuck in her throat.

Now, Victoria was a feminist in her own way, but she was actually very traditional in many regards. Her and Albert’s relationship was typical for the time period, and neither of them would have thought anything of their power dynamics. (No matter how much Victoria bucked against Albert's control.) I know better than to judge them from a more modern point of view. Albert wanted what he thought was best for Victoria, and a lot of his domineering was done "out of love" for her. He did do amazing things for England as her consort in regards to reforms and modernizations for the realm.

I’m not knocking Albert to build up Melbourne, either – in history, Melbourne had a checkered political record as far as human rights were concerned, and hardly lived a virtuous personal life, to say the least. He was an unfit consort for Victoria in more ways than one.

Yet, on the show, I was shown a couple who absolutely respected and trusted each other in the form of Victoria and Melbourne. I was shown a man who believed in a woman unconditionally, who gloried in her triumphs and comforted her in her losses. He was truly her helper, without being enabling or a sycophant in the other direction, and he found a new joy in life through her in return. The show did take the romantic arc, which was super believable due to Coleman and Sewell’s chemistry, and just – watch the scene where she proposes to him here:



YOU GUUUUUYS, HE LET HER GO FOR BOTH THE GOOD OF THE COUNTRY THEY BOTH SERVED AND FOR HER OWN SAKE. He truly thought that he was not the right choice for her happiness, and so he turned down the Queen of England when she proposed to him. Whatever line he gave about still considering himself married to Caroline is bogus, as the novel/show went on to prove – and given just to let her down in a way that would allow her to recover more quickly. If he would have admitted to loving her, Victoria would have never taken no for an answer. She would have had the consort that she first chose, if she knew he loved her in return.

And that’s the big if that inspired this collection.

Now, who’s ready to join me in shucking history out the window and playing in the realm of make-believe instead?

Disclaimer: Nothing is mine, but for the words. My title is borrowed from the song Midnight Oil, by Tommee Profitt and Fleurie, from Gloria Regali - a loosely GoT inspired, epic queen and knight concept album that I may have listened to on repeat while working on these stories . . . you know, for reasons.

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INDEX OF EVENTS​

Part I: Ascension ​

I. "Gloria Regali" | 1500 Word Dash

In which Her Majesty seeks counsel, and is so provided.​

II. "Queens of England" | Equestrian Cross Country 2023

Part One | Part Two | Part Three
In which Her Majesty visits the Tower of London.​

III. "Though She be but Little ... " | Tennis Match
IV. " ... She is Fierce" | 4x100 Relay

In which Her Majesty surrounds herself with giants.​

IV.II. "Say We Choose (but It's No Choice at All)" | bonus 4x100+ Relay

Part One: Intimacy | Part Two: Affection | Part Three: Friendship | Part Four: Charity
The prime minister; a history.​

V. "The First Grave" | Angstober 2023 Prompt No. 27

Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four
The queen; a history.​

VI. "A Ruby Mounted in Jet" | 30 Sentences

Moments, from the earliest days of Her Majesty's reign.​

VII. "I have the honor to remain ... " | 3x300 Basketball; OTP "3+1" Challenge

Letters, concerning invitations to Her Majesty's coronation.​

VII.II. “Sta et Retine (Stand Firm and Hold Fast, From Now On)" | bonus 3x300++ Basketball

• Part One: Toil
• Part Two: Synergy
• Part Three: Turbulence
• Part Four: Duty
• Part Five: Hallow
• Part Six: Arise
• Part Seven: Mettle
• Part Eight: Worth
• Part Nine: Dauntless

In which Her Majesty celebrates her coronation.​

Part II: Investiture​

VIII. "Your Miles of Shore" | Marathon Swimming 2024; Story Building Challenge

• Part One: The Sister
• Part Two: The Ward
• Part Three: The Suitor
• Part Four: The Father
• Part Five: The Uncle
• Part Six: The Attendant

Five who saw from afar, and one who saw up close – a series of correspondence.​

VIII.II. "Her and the Sea" | bonus Marathon Swimming 2024; "Ocean Souls" Roulette

• Notes from Portland:
  • Part One: The Arrival
  • Part Two: The Beach
  • Part Three: The Discovery
  • Part Four: The Fort
• Notes from Weymouth:
  • Part Five: The Storm
  • Part Six: The Step
  • Part Seven: The Shell
• Notes from Sherborne:
  • Part Eight: The Lieutenants

​

In which Her Majesty tours the southern coast.



~ MJ

 

Author's Notes: I'm going to start with a piece that can rather double as my shipper's manifesto, set a few weeks into Victoria's reign. My title is once again borrowed from the song Gloria Regali, which translates to royal glory. Yet, another translation I found said that it more closely holds the sentiment of royal gift, which I especially liked for the potential duality of meaning.

And now, it's my pleasure to share . . .

---

I. “Gloria Regali”
(1500 Word Dash)​

In a matter of days, she had already come so far from the girl who first gloried in her small, hard-won independences. Deciding that she would finally have a room of her own once felt like the bravest of choices; now, she has settled in a palace of her choosing. Refusing to be a puppet queen pulled by Sir John Conroy’s strings was a necessary act of defiance, yes – breathless and liberating – but to choose to allow counsel, not just for her own sake, but for the sake of all those she was now entrusted to serve . . .

Victoria quickly realized that her fear for blundering over how to address the Privy Council – my lords both spiritual and temporal – was nothing compared to her fear of faltering in leading the subjects who needed her most.

. . . how long had it been since her people had a monarch they could trust, after all, let alone take pride in?

Towards that end, she knew that there were many who were waiting for her to fall so that they in turn could rise. A king could misplace his step and be forgiven, but a queen . . . a queen was extended no such grace.

As such, Victoria pored over one of her first official duties in assigning the bishopric of Lincoln. Sir John, she recalled with disdain, had sought to make her choice for her in appointing the Dean of Wales, but when she asked her prime minister to share his knowledge of each of the candidates, he answered her plainly – in that oh so refreshing way of his – just as a true advisor ought. He gave her facts, not opinions; his explanations were patient and thorough, without condescension for her gender or youth; he did not speak down at her, but rather to her, and she . . .

Victoria the girl – the woman – wanted nothing more than to bask in him like a parched traveler who'd arrived at the sparkling waters of some desert oasis, life-giving and soul-affirming; Victoria the queen, however, knew better.

(She knew better.)

The Dean of Wales was a properly devout man who seemed to have little interest in altering the current status quo. He was steady (tepid?) and dependable (stagnant?), and would be a safe, sensible choice for a queen’s first ecclesiastical appointment. Yet, the Bishop of Bristol, whom Sir John thought much too radical for any further elevation . . .

“How many schools has Bishop Kaye sponsored in Bristol?” she bid a summation of the papers spread before her.

“Seventeen, ma’am,” was the ready answer. Lord Melbourne indicated a document from amongst the seemingly infinite sheaves, detailing the parishes that now had new village schools added to the custodianship of their rectors. “Kaye believes in the education of all, rather than a privileged few. While there are many who'd readily agree with that sentiment in word, the vast majority nonetheless prove slow to act upon it in deed.”

“My uncles did but little to advance education in England, it would seem,” Victoria murmured, remembering what it was like to be kept small and purposefully ignorant. Privately, she thought that an all-encompassing system of education for every British citizen, regardless of status, should not be part of the church’s domain at all, but rather the Crown’s absolute duty to their subjects. Yet, for now . . .

“Amongst other things, ma’am,” Melbourne agreed without obsequiousness to compliment the royal presences who’d commanded the throne before her. “They rather set their attentions elsewhere with their agendas, it’s true.”

They failed their people, even so, she heard what even her plainly speaking Lord M would not say, and she thought to know her mind on the matter.

Still, caution must serve; she could hardly make such an important decision in a rush of feeling.

“Sir John Conroy,” she forced her mouth to work as if she spoke around something foul, “believes the Bishop of Bristol much too evangelical for the honor of such an appointment.”

Melbourne merely shrugged – an easy, irreverent gesture that somehow failed to detract from his otherwise courtly manners. “Then we will have to ensure that he is paired with an appropriately conservative dean. That is what checks and balances are for, Your Majesty.”

Oh, she thought, listening and learning all the while, that did indeed seem most sensible.

Still . . .

“May I,” she began as a question before Melbourne raised a pointed dark brow, his correction somehow teasing and challenging all at once, and all the more palatable for being so. She turned up her chin, and even amended with the royal pronoun that was now her right to state with all firmness: “Issue an invitation; we shall meet both the Bishop of Bristol and the Dean of Wales in person before making our decision.”

A bow answered her decree. “It shall be done, ma’am.”

“We . . . I think I favor the bishop, yet I wish to make certain.” Even so, she watched his expression for . . . what, exactly? Approval? Disapproval? “He may be absolutely intolerable in person, you know. Nor do I wish to be unfair to the dean, simply because he has Sir John’s favor. He should be allowed to present his own plans for improvements to the dioceses, were he to advance to the position.”

“Indeed, Your Majesty,” Melbourne agreed as he gathered the corresponding papers on the matter, preparing to switch them out for the next matter of state waiting in her dispatch boxes.

Victoria bit her lip – a gesture that would have had Lehzen tutting at her if she was there to see. She studied her prime minister, looking for some sign that . . .

“You favor the Bishop of Bristol, too, do you not?” she finally asked outright.

Melbourne looked up at her, green eyes flickering before his countenance smoothed once more. “Does it matter what I think, ma’am?”

Yes, she wanted to exclaim, your good opinion matters more to me than any other!

But that was Victoria the girl who felt as such – not even Victoria the woman, whom she was trying so desperately to be. Yet, above all else, it was Victoria the queen who said: “You have made politics your life; your wisdom is vastly more extensive than my own, and I wish to benefit from your counsel.”

“Only at present do I have the benefit of age and experience,” he conceded somewhat wryly. “Yet, as queen, isn’t the art of governing to be your life as well?”

She saw his point, yes; for his words, her insides squirmed with that now familiar combination of determination and excitement and absolute dread. “I wish to be a good queen,” she looked down to whisper – hearing Lehzen’s sharp correction again in her ear, reminding her to bow her head before no one. Yet, even without a physical crown to weigh her down, she then felt a phantom of its presence most acutely.

“Ma’am,” she heard him say – oh so soft and gently – bidding her gaze to rise. She lifted her eyes in time to see him withdraw his previously outstretched hand, as if he had unconsciously reached out to tilt up her chin in a thoughtlessly familiar – but hardly unwelcome – gesture. “I fully believe that by the end of your reign you will be greater than the sum of your forefathers. Your name will be spoken alongside that of Queen Elizabeth's in glory. You are capable of so much, and need only to believe the same is true of yourself.”

“Do you really think so?” her voice remained small and hushed, yet, that once, he did not correct her. She felt safe, she found, sharing her uncertainties with him alone.

Warmly, he smiled – that rare smile that she found herself increasingly seeking with a want that more closely bordered on crave. “With all my heart, Your Majesty. And that is why I would never assume to lead – merely advise.” With that, he turned his attention to a new set of papers, and she felt the end of . . . something as they assumed the bounds of formality once more. (Had they ever truly abandoned them as such?) “You are the Queen of England, and I, a humble servant of the people. This decision is yours alone to make.”

“You don’t believe that a man should think for a woman, even if that woman is queen?” the words unexpectedly tumbled from her mouth before she could consciously hold them back.

His answer, she thought, was just as reflexive: “Why should I – or any man – think for you,” he seemed honestly surprised by her question, “when you have every ability to think for yourself?”

It was heady, this particular independence. For his words, both queen and woman soared, leaving the girl quite far behind.

“Well then, Lord M,” she then felt more than equal to the weight of her crown, “what’s next?”


~ MJ

 

Most excellent!

Yours and mine both!

Towards that end, I'll have more to share in a jiffy.

You know, that's exactly how I felt, stumbling into this ship! I was reading Goodwin's novel, easy as you please, thinking that I knew history and was reasonably happy with how the story would end and then wham! Hello, there, all the Victoria/Melbourne feelings - which were so intense that I felt like Goodwin then had to overcompensate to make Victoria/Albert work, and work so quickly. Yet, as I am not similarly beholden by history . . .

I'm so glad that you like their dynamic here already, and hope that you continue to enjoy their story as it goes!

Agreed! I can only imagine.

That is the best possible compliment I could receive for an opening chapter! Thank you so much for the kind words!

And again, you are just a dear for jumping in fandom-blind (if not history blind ) once more! I always appreciate having you for a reader more than I can say!

Thank you! Victoria and Melbourne really do have a fascinating dynamic, even this early in their relationship, and I'm glad that I was able to write them in such a way that left you looking forward to more - which I will share right about . . . now!

As always, thank you so much for reading and taking the time to leave your thoughts!


~ MJ

 

Author's Note: Welp, I was able to get a grand total of two events done in this collection before the closing ceremony. But, deadline or not, I am so excited to share this next piece, where I will be examining Victoria's visit to the Tower of London forty years or so just a wee bit earlier in her reign than it actually occurred in history.

Towards that end, I am using the Equestrian Cross Country prompt, which requires 400+ words; the story element of a chasm to cross; the words Reined, Fence, Hunter; and to include or take inspiration from the line of dialogue, "Only the strongest shoulders can carry the hopes of a nation." This story will be told in three parts.

Enjoy!

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“Queens of England”
(Equestrian Cross Country)​

II.I.

Her Majesty announced her intention to visit the Tower of London over breakfast.

Various reactions met her decree: polite nods from the statesmen and courtiers who had the privilege of dining at the royal table that morning; a short, disdainful sound from His Majesty the King of Hanover and Duke of Cumberland, matched by a sniff from his wife the queen and duchess; and narrowed, considering eyes from Sir John Conroy, who sat, as ever, to the right of the queen’s mother.

It was she who, perhaps somewhat predictably, replied aloud: “Drina, whatever do you wish to go there for? Such an awful, awful place,” she shuddered in affected distaste, “and not at all suitable for any lady, let alone a young girl such as yourself.”

Victoria, who had been spooning juice from an orange in a measured display of cool indifference, frowned. In many ways, she was still mastering her mask, especially where her mother was concerned, and William tensed on her behalf, willing her composure to hold when so many eyes were now fixed upon her.

“Do you wish to visit the Jewel House?” Sir John followed the duchess before Victoria could make reply. The inflection in his voice rather abased the queen’s right to inspect her own lawful property to some shallow, feminine fascination for pretty baubles, such as never would have been dared with a king – even those kings who may have rightly deserved such abjection to begin with. “I assure you, Your Highness, that any selections you desire can be brought to you; it is above the royal dignity to visit the treasury in person.”

The only thing truly beneath Victoria’s dignity would have been to correct Sir John on his use of her former honorific as a princess, rather than her current due as the man’s sovereign and queen. William felt pride fill him when Victoria stiffened but did not deign to acknowledge Conroy in the slightest. Her pointedly ignoring his breach in etiquette sent the appropriate message in censure and made the odious leech of a comptroller bristle, where a sharp rebuke would have merely served his own ends.

Besides, there were hunters who aimed far sharper arrows at the table. “Are you worried that the crown will be too big for your head, niece?” the Duke of Cumberland too withheld the honor of a monarch’s address. “Do not worry,” with a silver turn of tongue, he completed his barb in a way that made his words palpable on the grounds of supposed familial affection, “St. Edward’s Crown has fit the brow of every king to take the throne for centuries; yours will be no different, I trust.”

Never mind that they were concerned over how to best shape the crown for the upcoming coronation, just for that reason. The only woman who’d ever been anointed with the crown of St. Edward wasn’t even a queen regnant, but rather a queen consort – though one could argue that Henry VIII had sought to crown the babe in Anne Boleyn’s womb, rather than his new wife, with as much royal dignity as possible, given the unprecedented and rather . . . controversial circumstances surrounding his potential heir’s impending birth.

Even Queen Elizabeth had not worn St. Edward’s Crown for her own coronation, but rather, her mother’s formal crown of state – in a gesture that was undoubtedly as carefully planned as her father’s.

“I look absolutely ridiculous, don’t I?” During their consultation with the royal jewelers, Victoria had smiled when the crown slanted over her forehead in an admittedly comical manner. The gaudy relic had slumped down even further when she’d tilted her head to gauge his reaction before catching on the bridge of her nose. Her laughter had been sweet and unexpectedly endearing as she pushed the crown back up and looked at him with shining eyes that put even the most precious of England's gems to shame as lusterless and dull.

“Ridiculous isn’t the word I would use, ma’am,” William had gracefully deferred, but hadn’t been able to resist adding, “however, should Her Majesty dub it as such, then who am I to disagree?”

“If you had disagreed in truth, I would very much doubt not only your good sense, but the supposed wisdom of all the counsel you’ve bestowed upon me thus far!” His teasing had only delighted Victoria as she examined her reflection in the mirror, turning the crown this way and that in an attempt to achieve a better fit. “Oh, but this will not do at all,” she’d at last conceded with a sigh of defeat. “I hardly convey any sense of majesty wearing this silly thing – and there are far too many lords who shall only grudgingly bend their knee to me as it is, let alone if I fail to present myself with every possible dignity as queen.”

She could be anointed with nothing more than a garland of flowers and still command heads to bow, William thought, yet that, even he knew better than to say aloud.

(He knew better.)

“It’s so heavy, too,” Victoria whispered, almost to herself as she solemnly communed with her reflection, “far heavier than I ever could have imagined. I don’t know how Anne Boleyn managed to keep her head up long enough for the archbishop to complete the ceremony without crumpling over entirely.”

And suddenly, understanding dawned.

It was the Nineteenth of May . . .

The Nineteenth of May.

Outwardly, at least, he kept to his own mask, and applied himself to finishing his plate with all apparent disinterest. Even so, he couldn’t help the way his hand tightened over his knife when the duke punctuated his barbed words with a supercilious smile. William wanted nothing more than to voice his own sharp reply to Cumberland, but this battle wasn’t his to fight; he’d do his queen no favors if he presumed to speak in her place.

Yet he needn’t have worried: “Matters for my coronation are well in hand, I thank you for your concern, uncle,” Victoria too denied the honor of a more formal address when no such formality had been extended to her. “Interestingly enough, it was not the fit of St. Edward’s Crown, but its weight that struck me when it was presented for my consideration – which is something that only those who’ve worn it can rightly understand, I imagine.”

It would be bad form to laugh, William reminded himself – even if he suspected that Lady Portman noticed his mouth twitch anyway. Emma too hid her own smile behind a deliberate bite of toast and jam, just as many at the table pretended to be absorbed in their own portions, yet nonetheless turned hungry ears and even greater appetites to gorge on every word that was spoken by the queen and those . . . closest to her rule.

Rather predictably, Cumberland’s naturally red complexion flushed even further in a characteristic display of temper. He’d never seen fit to master a mask of his own, for, as the son of a king and now a nascent king in his own right, he’d ever had but little need to apply himself to discretion whenever he was so disinclined. “The crown is not too heavy for Her Majesty?” he abandoned all pretense to growl. “The weight has been known to make even the strongest of heads bow.”

“Oh, not at all!” Victoria went so far as to laugh. “Indeed, I found its presence a most comfortable reminder of the even greater weight now beholden upon me as queen. Which calls to mind: how does the crown of Hanover suit you, uncle?”

Yet, as the crown of Hanover had passed Victoria because of her gender, so too did the new King of Hanover believe that a second crown should have been his by rights to match. “I find my brow quite suited for its weight – made for it, even,” Cumberland muttered grimly, “and could bear yet more still.”

“Wonderful,” Victoria said – pleasantly, but with a noticeable froideur turning her words to spears of ice. “It is so refreshing to speak with someone who truly understands.”

That alone would have been enough for the wolves at the table, fat and sated on blood and tender meat, but the feast was far from over.

“Yet, if not for the Crown Jewels, then why, Drina?” the Duchess of Kent was not so easily deterred. William watched as Victoria tightened her grip on her spoon before consciously relaxing her hand. “Surely you know that the Tower . . . well, the less said, the better – but you must understand why the Tower is not a suitable place for a queen.”

“But that has not always been true, has it, mother?”

With those softly uttered words of iron, William found his understanding shared by many at the table. A ripple went through those gathered, and he could already imagine the headlines in the papers upon the morrow. For once, though, he satisfyingly thought: let them come.

The duchess too was no fool – for all that she was oftentimes foolish – and her frown deepened. “Drina, liebchen,” she lowered her own voice to try once more, hardly wishing to gainsay a queen but clearly seeking to guide her daughter as if she was still an errant child, incapable of knowing her own mind, nonetheless, “it would be most upsetting, I fear, for you to visit for just that reason. For the sake of your health alone, it would be better to - ”

“Today, we will visit the Tower of London,” Victoria interrupted her mother to repeat with all finality, her use of the royal pronoun all the more imposing in majesty as it encompassed all who were now . . . and all who had once been before. “And there,” sure enough, she paused to add with all due reverence, “we shall pay our respects.”

For her decree, all at the table fell silent, and silent they remained.

“The carriage will be prepared at once, Your Majesty,” Baroness Lehzen stepped forward to concede to her mistress with a bow. “When do you wish to - ”

“ - no,” Victoria sharply held up a hand. “We intend to arrive the same way as the queens before us once arrived. We shall go by boat.”

The silence continued to hold. Not even the baroness, who was inclined to fretting and scolding as if she was still a governess rather than a royal attendant, or the duchess, who clearly disproved of her daughter’s course, would undermine the queen’s power any further. There was a reason, William thought with no small amount of pride, that Victoria had announced her plans so publicly in the first place.

He couldn’t help his own smile then if he tried – and the expression finally broke free just as Victoria looked down the table at him, her eyes finding his with an awareness of presence that whispered he’d never been far from her sight to begin with. For a moment, he thought, she rivaled even the sunlight shining through the great windows behind her in radiance.

“Lord M,” the command remained inherent in her voice, even as her tone lightened considerably to invite, “would you be so kind as to accompany us?”

“It would be my honor, Your Majesty.”

With that, the matter was settled. Victoria stood from her place – declaring the meal through for all – and, without a backwards glance, left her court to their whispers.



.

.

It was impressive, really, the speed with which arrangements were made to fulfill the queen’s orders. There was some brief consternation from the Household Guard, worrying for the security of such an expedition – especially only days out from the coronation. Yet they answered the uncertainty of any potential risk much the same as they ever did: with superior men and surplus munitions. The field officer did respectfully ask leave of Her Majesty to travel to the river by carriage, rather than walking on foot as had been her first intention, and Victoria at last acquiesced to the sensibility of the request, albeit grudgingly. The Life Guards surrounding the carriage had been doubled in number, and red uniformed sentinels were stationed merely paces apart throughout St. James’ Park and then just past the buildings of Parliament to the river.

There was an even greater number of soldiers posted at Westminster bridge, keeping a weather eye on the curious crowds who had gathered as the royal barge was made ready to row, and all the more so at the steps of Whitehall, leading down the landing. Boat traffic on the Thames had been diverted for the queen’s journey – a feat, for the quite literal lifeline of their empire’s commerce – and even more guardsmen were stationed along its banks all the way to the Tower proper, which, thankfully, was not more than two miles downriver.

Once his mind could rest assured on the matter of the queen’s safety – as much as it could ever be made easy on the subject, at any rate – William took in the scene awaiting them with admittedly curious eyes. He’d lived and served besides the Thames for the better part of two decades, yet had never actually traversed the river by boat – let alone in any sort of royal procession. The late king had grudgingly accepted him as his prime minister – for William IV had been as vocal in politics as he was slow to tact and compromise, while William had ever made an art of remaining amiable even to his enemies – yet their tenuous working relationship had only truly warmed near the end of the king’s reign, when they’d seen victories (such as they could be called, for their reforms had not gone nearly far enough, even while they were criticized for going much too far by far too many) in the Factory Acts and the Poor Law Amendments. Even so, their professional respect for each other had never translated to any sort of rapport that would have extended an invitation such as this.

If he was curious, then Victoria was fairly vibrating with interest for the novelty of the experience. As soon as she was handed down from the carriage, her eyes widened for the sight that awaited them – Prince Frederick’s Barge, one of her great-grandfather’s best known legacies as a patron of the arts. The vessel was most certainly a statement piece, William would grant, awash in gold and boasting a cabin that gave every impression of being a palatial space in its own right, from its Corinthian columns to the ornate arches forming an impression of a crown atop the gable. The gilded baroque carvings caught Victoria’s eye, in particular, from the roaring lions to the leaping dolphins and the rather impressive collection of fearsome sea serpents and water dragons. The mermaid at the stern, of course, delighted her best – so much so that she had the bargemaster, Captain Phelps, quite besotted from the first, even as he bowed low and bid his queen’s permission for the honor of attending her down the river. Victoria granted her leave, and, with the sundry of such ceremonial necessities thus seen to, was next shown to the cabin.

The interior of the cabin was a rich space, William could appreciate, even if a bit overdone for his taste. Similarly, Victoria gave the accommodations – truly fit for a queen – only a cursory glance before turning her attention back to the natural wonder of the river and the great city standing proud on both sides of its banks. Without a word said aloud, he knew that Victoria would prefer standing out on the forward-most space of the deck with the Royal Watermen rather than being enclosed in such ostentatious comfort. Yet, between the guards and the oarsmen, there was simply not room. Even so, her sights remained turned beyond the cabin, no matter that she could not rightly make a request of the bargemaster as queen – she could only command, and she would not risk giving a command that had the possibility of being impossible to obey.

Instead, William watched as the bargemaster went about his duties, and, upon seeing an opportunity, he seized it. “Captain, would it be possible for the queen to attend the journey at the bow? The view from inside the cabin is somewhat limited, as you undoubtedly know, and she is admittedly most curious for her first procession on the water.”

Captain Phelps hesitated. “Traditionally,” he answered slowly, “it is not done. The watermen have their places, and Her Majesty’s safety would be best assured within the cabin as opposed to out.”

Part of William agreed with the captain entirely. Yet, as he’d first challenged himself to better examine his own concerns as regards the queen more closely, he now similarly challenged the bargemaster: “Would safety remain your concern in matching proportion if it was His Majesty who wished to travel at the bow?”

To his credit, Captain Phelps’ eyes widened as he understood his own unwitting bias. “I . . . no, of course not, sir. It is only – well, it is tradition that . . .” but he faltered, clearly uncertain.

“Is it merely tradition, or would doing so disrupt the efficiency of this vessel?” William asked plainly, and then continued with a wry sort of sincerity that had never failed to serve him well when the rest of the House was scathing and screaming their own opinions on both sides of the divide, “Please do not merely grant the answer that you may think I wish to hear; I ask you most truly, Captain, I assure you. I admittedly know next to nothing about watercraft, nor would I countenance putting the royal person at risk if you truly believe that risk to be untenable. This is not my domain, and I will happily concede to your greater wisdom on the matter in its entirety. I only wish to inform you that Her Majesty would desire the most optimal view possible for her first voyage as queen, yet has not the ability to make such a request for herself. So, I am making it for her.”

William had never understood the arrogance of those supposedly great men who disdained humility as a weakness. Especially when, in his experience, a small offer of honest candor and genteel respect usually ensured a more favorable outcome than bandying about any forceful surplus of hubris – and did so, not by bullying another into carrying out one's will through a grudging sense of obligation, but rather, as an ally more truly gained and all the more inclined to remain one's ally in the future.

Sure enough, the bargemaster smiled. “The river truly is a sight, isn’t she?” he looked out fondly over his domain. “Our queen should see it at its best, Your Lordship, I quite agree. Let me make inquiries with Colonel Hampson,” he referenced the field officer of the guard, “and see what might be done.”

Not even ten minutes later, Captain Phelps presented himself before the queen, and bowed deep and low to extend an invitation for her to attend the journey at the bow. Delighted, Victoria accepted, joy suffusing her features as she thanked him with an artless grace that William rather suspected the man would be retelling to his children and grandchildren for years to come. From there, Victoria took her place at the fore of the barge – with both Life Guards and the traditional watermen adjusting their formation to bodily ensconce her while still allowing her the royal dignity of standing proudly on her own. William, for his part, fixed himself at Victoria’s side, if not a step behind her due to the limitations of space, and distantly acknowledged that he too was happy to be one more body that any would-be ne’er-do-well would have to aim around – and even through, he would have it – if they wished to do her harm.

“I have never been on a boat like this before,” Victoria remarked, keeping her voice low, for his ears alone. “Mama never would have allowed such a thing. ‘Oh, Drina, what if you were to fall into the river and drown?’” she mimicked her mother’s heavy German accent with impressive accuracy. “Just think, Drina, of what should happen if you were to contract some horrible disease from that awful water? Or what if your wicked Uncle Cumberland should arm a school of sturgeon as assassins? Then only imagine your poor, wretched mama when you are gone!’”

“Your Majesty’s mother the duchess is most wise – one must remain cognizant of the sturgeon at all times, as they’re particularly fiendish fellows,” William said with as straight a face as he could manage. “Though I find the swans to be the most dangerous of potential foes on the river. They quite have minds of their own and are not at all afraid to express them.”

“But don’t all the swans of the Thames belong to the king? To the queen?” Victoria amended before he could even think to offer correction.

“Indeed, ma’am – yet, explaining such a concept to the swans may be beyond even the power of the Crown, I fear.”

Victoria laughed – girlish and bright – and the sound seemingly carried them as they pushed off from the quay.

Her giddy curiosity remained unfettered as they maneuvered out onto the river and rowed with the current, flanked by two attendant barges filled with yet more guards and watermen. They’d had a mild spring thus far, and the breeze on the water was pleasantly cool against the impending warmth of summer. Great, pillowing clouds had gathered in the sky since the morning, promising rain even as the late afternoon sun determinedly shone down in fragmented patterns of dark and light, shading and cresting the hazy brown-green of the waves with murky turquoise and frothy white. Here, the thick scent that ever hung over London was lighter in some ways and heavier in others, with the wind carrying the fresh reprieve of sea salt and the acrid stink of smog giving way to the more . . . organic aroma of the river. He sighed, thinking about the various proposals from numerous civil engineers that yet awaited him back on his desk at Downing Street. The Great Cholera Outbreak of 1831 had occurred during his watch as home secretary, and every bill he'd helped author since then in an attempt to modernize London's still rather medieval infrastructure and limit the outpouring of all sorts of filth into the Thames had been met with opposition; things would have to get worse before the slow moving clogs of government would deign to take steps to make it better.

But he turned his thoughts away from his duties as prime minister for the time being, and instead focused all his attention on his queen. Victoria’s beaming countenance had continued to hold, and yet did so until they reached the first bend in the river, upon which . . . there, amidst the ever reaching skyline of London, the tallest summit of the Tower came into view. She stared, quite taken by the mammoth glory of the fortress, even in comparison to its modern neighbors. Imagining this keep, when there had once been nothing but farmland and one and two storey buildings for miles and miles around when it was initially constructed in the eleventh century was . . . impressive, to say the least. After tracing the whole of the structure, her eyes fixed on the copulas Henry VIII had added to the White Tower, crowning England’s already most striking symbol of power even further in splendor and glory. The weakening sunlight caught on the gilded weather-vanes, winking even brighter than the glittering mirror of the water far below.

It was a long while before Victoria spoke again. “You have an interest in history, do you not, Lord M? I assume you do; you always seem to have a story for everything.”

“I do, ma’am, yes,” William inclined his head to answer. He had not meant to say anything more when he was not expressly bid by his sovereign, but, quite without his conscious intent, he found himself adding: “My father ever preferred books to company, and he never turned any of us children away from his library. Instead, he would simply carry on reading whatever currently held his interest aloud. I can’t tell you how many nights a gaggle of us would fall asleep, cuddled together with the hounds by the fire, listening to his voice.”

It had been strange, he thought, when he was finally old enough to understand who the Earl of Egremont was to him – his sire in truth, for his mother never hid their true parentage from any of her children. The earl – who’d never married, for his own part, and proudly kept portraits of both him and Emily (his only full sibling out of nine) in his study – had done as much to sharpen his mind as his mother, and had openly sponsored his education and aided his subsequent ascent in society. William had come to love the earl in his own way, but the man he called his father . . .

. . . this one memory, and now fundamental part of his own being (for he too seemed to fall asleep in his father’s old chair more often than not these days, a book in his hand and a decanter of brandy by his side), belonged to Peniston Lamb alone.

But the melancholy that ever seemed ready to cling to his thoughts then cleared like cobwebs before the sunshine when Victoria gave a wistful sigh. “That is an absolutely delightful memory, Lord M,” she whispered. “Sometimes, I can’t help but wish that . . .”

That her father had survived, he heard what she couldn't say aloud, to nurture and guide and protect her; that she’d had a sibling of her own to help combat the suffocating loneliness of Kensington; that she’d been allowed such easy comfort with what family she did have left, rather than the nest of vipers with ready fangs who considered only their own claim to the throne before her own; that she had been allowed to learn with abandon and freely develop her mind in preparation for what was perhaps the greatest honor – and, indeed, the greatest burden – in all the world as the ruler of a near quarter of their globe.

And yet: “Well, never mind that; wishes matter not in the here and now,” she said with the same arch pragmatism that had impressed him from their very first meeting together. “I know that I have much to make up for,” instead, she declared, “but I intend to do so with all possible efficiency.”

As ever, he was left in no doubt that she would succeed. And so, towards that end, he asked, “How did you enjoy your lessons on this particular subject, ma'am?” He sought to gauge her prior knowledge without embarrassing her, affording her the respect and dignity that was her due.

“I found my lessons most . . . thoughtfully surmised,” Victoria answered with only a trace of bitterness, “to aid the delicacy of my mind in understanding.”

“Ah,” was all William could manage in return, his own jaw tightening on her behalf.

“What I was taught mostly had to do with succession,” she continued, “so that I could better understand my own claim to the throne. And I was told how my role as Protector of the Church of England came to be through Henry VIII’s Great Matter and the . . . horrible things that were done in the supposed name of God in the years thereafter. Then, as you can perhaps imagine, Baroness Lehzen liked to use stories from that time to impress upon me the fate that befell women who did not,” but she blushed prettily, and had to try once, and then a second time before she mumbled, “ . . . the fate that befell women who did not uphold strong Christian morals, in marriage and without.”

Her blush held, but she seemed proud of herself for managing to voice even that much as regards the darker side of human nature where carnality and ambition were concerned. He found her naiveté, in this regard, at least, rather refreshing, but did not dare smile lest she misinterpret his amusement.

“So you see,” Victoria concluded as they passed underneath the new London Bridge – where, in its former state, Henry VIII had purposely made sure that the severed heads of Catherine Howard’s accused lovers had rotted on pikes in plain view as his fifth queen passed its shadow for the final time, “I quite depend upon you to tell me such details that may have been omitted. As your queen, I command you to make yourself useful; hold nothing back.”

“I shall endeavor to do so most faithfully,” he promised with a bow. “I know better than to fail my liege, especially with Whalesbourne dungeon so conveniently close at hand.”

“Excellent.” Victoria imperiously tilted her chin. “It's good that you understand the stakes, Lord M. For, should I wish to make use of the rack once more – do we still have a rack, even? – I would have to inquire in order to command, and, as you are normally the one I would direct such inquiries to, that could prove to be most awkward indeed.”

“I wholeheartedly agree, ma’am; best to avoid such awkwardness entirely.”

Yet the teasing glint in her eyes faded as the Tower grew even larger in their view, and Victoria finally sighed. “Though perhaps I shouldn’t say as much, even in jest, when the Crown has so cruelly abused such . . . extraordinary measures before.”

It is only me, he nearly said without thinking, you have the freedom to say whatever you wish. Yet that thought, he knew better than to voice aloud. (There were a great many things that he knew better than as of late, it seemed, where Victoria – where his queen was concerned.)

Instead, he allowed himself to say: “You already attend your role with grace, Your Majesty. Your people will never fear you as they feared previous monarchs – and not only because of the constraints of our Constitution and the warning examples set by subsequent revolutions in history.”

“Where the people fear the government, you have tyranny; where the government fear the people, you have liberty,” Victoria quoted to agree, and William was helpless to stop the grin he turned towards her – even as it assumed a dangerous level of familiarity.

“Her Majesty has read the Federalist Papers?” he asked, more delighted than surprised by the revelation.

“Poor Grandpapa would be quite shocked, I know,” she confirmed, dropping her voice as if conspiring to share a secret. “I must confess that my initial reason for doing so was solely to find the most offensive piece of literature possible to stoke Mama’s ire upon removing from Kensington, but I . . . there were many passages that ultimately drew me to reflect, and that was one.”

He found that he absolutely adored her in that moment – Victoria the girl; no, Victoria the woman, even more so than Victoria the queen – no matter the caution of his every higher sense to the contrary.

“Yet that,” she continued, “is a conversation we may better expound upon at a later time. For now,” her gaze turned down the river as she bid, “I wish to know more about the women who made this journey before me.”

Which one? he nearly asked. Anne? Elizabeth? Catherine? Jane? There were far too many to choose from, but he already knew what her answer would be. All of them. She had, and would, bid that he leave nothing out.

Instead, he took a moment to consider where to begin – with Anne Boleyn, the wife whom Henry VIII had made and unmade? Elizabeth Tudor, Victoria’s idol and guiding star? Jane Grey, who had been queen for a mere nine days before falling on the sword of her family's ambition? Or perhaps Catherine Howard, who’d been of an age with Victoria, if not younger, when she made this very same journey? Catherine, he uncomfortably recalled, had attracted the eye of a king who was old enough to have been her grandfather when she herself had been little more than a child, and had paid with her life when her artless beauty and infectious high spirits had at last failed to stoke Henry’s ego and instead challenged the vainglorious image he held of himself as a virile god king, matchless in vigor and might.

Yet that, even he did not quite know how to say aloud.

Instead: “Did you know that Anne Boleyn once made this journey as part of her coronation? Her first visit to the Tower of London was one of celebration, rather than condemnation.”

“Really?” Victoria's interest was sparked, inviting him to tell her more.

And so he did: “At the time, it was customary for monarchs to stay at the Tower Palace, and then walk to Westminster for their coronation. The Tower was a prison, yes, even if not yet so infamous a one, but, first and foremost, it was a symbol of royal power – just as it has been since William the Conquer laid the first stone. To imagine the river crowded with the boats of the nobility, all garbed in their finest – with music and fanfare to perhaps intentionally drown out the few brave citizens who dared call out ‘God save the true queen’, and good food and excess drink to ensure the cheers of the lords – and then Anne’s barge decorated with splendor enough to rival that of Cleopatra’s entrance to Rome parting through the masses, with Henry waiting on the wharf as if he was Caesar himself . . . it’s something, is it not?”

Sure enough, Victoria’s eyes were unfocused as her imagination took her back to that long ago day – a reverie that was, perhaps, somewhat disconcertingly punctuated when the curious onlookers on the north bank called out with their own cries of God save the queen! to see their new monarch pass in person for the first time themselves.

“What a difference to her second arrival,” Victoria finally muttered – just as her own barge slowed before the outermost walls of the keep, and the watermen carefully maneuvered to approach a set of stairs rising from the river before a tidal gate.

Victoria frowned, undoubtedly comparing what she knew from word of mouth with what she now saw before her. “Is this the Traitors' Gate?” she asked, clearly perplexed.

“No, Your Majesty,” he inclined his head to answer. “Anne did not arrive through Traitors' Gate, as romantic as that story may sound. Instead, according to contemporary chronicles, she landed here. So, too,” he added when Victoria continued to look less than impressed, “did Elizabeth.”

That was all he needed to say for Victoria to make up her mind on the matter, and she didn’t speak against their docking. Instead, she was quiet in contemplation as she was assisted from the boat to the quay by Captain Phelps. There she stood for a long moment, gazing at the cobblestones. William wondered if she put herself in the young princess’ place, walking through the ghosts of her father embracing her mother in triumph as she instead repeated Anne Boleyn’s subsequent path to her own uncertain fate.

He felt a chill go through him as he too brushed shoulders with the specters of the past, following behind Victoria as she was welcomed by the deputy lieutenant of the Tower, who said all that was right and proper to mark the honor of a royal visit. A line of yeoman warders awaited their queen’s inspection, and she nodded to each of them in turn and spoke a few unscripted words in recognition of their service before the lieutenant bid her permission to show her across the drawbridge, spanning the width of the inner-moat, to the waiting iron-barred gate on the wall.

With that, William watched as Victoria drew in a breath, and then, yet another Queen of England stepped into the shadow of the Tower.



TBC

Spoiler: End Notes

To keep these notes from getting way too long any longer than they already are, I am just going to include supplemental facts to those I already mentioned in the chapter – and if you have questions or comments about anything else, please don’t be shy! I always love a good chat.

A Note on Oranges: A documentary I watched on food in Victoria’s court said that she loved oranges, but at the time, it was considered “inappropriate” for women to eat the flesh of an orange. Instead, it was custom for ladies to spoon out juice on a spoon. (I know, history is wild, isn't it? )

A Note on the 19th of May: This date marks the anniversary of Anne Boleyn's execution. And yes, I am stretching the dates just slightly to make it possible for Victoria to visit the Tower on this exact day, as she technically wasn't made queen until June. (Though no more than the book/show, which only put a few months between her ascension and coronation, rather than the year it was in history – let alone the timing of the whole Flora Hastings scandal.) And yes, yes. I know that the visit in history where Victoria made her famous changes to the Tower – changes which inspired this story – was decades later in her reign. I am applying very liberal artistic license.

A Note on St. Edward’s Crown: Yep, I am fudging history here, too. Technically, St. Edward's Crown was rebuilt following the Stuart Restoration. All of the Tudor crowns had previously been destroyed by Oliver Cromwell and the Parliamentarians, with the gold melted down into bullion and the jewels sold to the highest bidder. So while Henry VIII did crown Anne Boleyn with St. Edward’s Crown, which was an unprecedented mark of honor for the son he thought she was carrying for a queen, it would not have been St. Edward’s Crown as Victoria knew it. Victoria, for her part, would go on to have her own unique crown made for her coronation – as St. Edward’s Crown was too large and heavy for a petite young woman to wear for the five hour ceremony – which was a precursor for the current Imperial State Crown of Great Britain.

A Note on Anne Boleyn: Anne Boleyn was Henry VIII’s second wife. In order to marry her, he had to divorce his first wife of twenty years, Catherine of Aragon – a feat which required him to break all of England away from the Catholic Church and papal authority, and set up the Church of England, instead. There’s some debate amongst historians as to whether or not Anne Boleyn was a sacrificial pawn in her family’s quest for power, or a scheming, ambitious seductress in her own right. Like most cases in history, I personally tend to think that she was somewhere in the middle: a canny and clever woman doing her best to come out ahead when faced with an impossible situation, all until that situation spiraled out of her control. After giving birth to a daughter and suffering two miscarriages, reports of her “infidelity” reached Henry’s ears – though Thomas Cromwell later (purportedly) admitted to inventing all of the charges – and Anne was tried for treason and executed, as were her five supposed lovers, including her own brother. Henry was engaged to Anne’s former lady-in-waiting, Jane Seymour, the day following her execution, and they were married ten days later. (It was suspected that Jane Seymour was already pregnant – which would line up with the timeline of Henry’s first interest in her, and explain how quickly he saw to Anne’s removal and his own remarriage – and then miscarried the child, though there’s no concrete evidence for this theory.)

If you want to learn more about Anne Boleyn’s dual stays in the Tower, in both victory and defeat, I highly recommend this video:



(BTW, Dr. Kat is one of my absolute fave historians on YouTube if you're looking for a new channel to follow, and I highly recommend her!)

A Note on Elizabeth Tudor: Elizabeth I was the daughter of Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII. Like her elder half-sister Mary I, she was declared illegitimate after her mother’s execution and her father’s remarriage. But, after a mess of succession following Edward VI’s death (Edward VI was Henry VIII’s only legitimate son through Jane Seymour), Mary became queen. Her brief rule was contentious, as she sought to restore England to Catholicism – where she earned her sobriquet of “Bloody Mary”. Though, again, she’s another woman in history who had the odds stacked against her, in my opinion, and she rightly had an axe to grind against her father just as much as she sought to honor her mother’s memory. Due to this, there was more than one plot to remove Mary from power. Elizabeth was implicated in Wyatt’s Rebellion, only days after Mary’s ascension to the throne, and imprisoned in the Tower of London in what had to be a terrifying mirror of her mother’s own fate. However, there was not enough evidence to convict Elizabeth, and Mary eventually spared her life (not for the first time) and had her moved to house-arrest on a country estate.

A Note on Catherine Howard: Catherine Howard was Henry VIII’s fifth wife, a young woman who’s been unfairly remembered as “hedonistic” and an “empty-headed wanton” by even modern biographers (though, thankfully, current historians are fixing that). She was somewhere between 15 and 21 years of age (we don't know her exact date of birth) when she married Henry, only 19 days after his annulled marriage to Anne of Cleves. A little more than a year into their marriage, she still had yet to fall pregnant (it’s been suggested that Henry, due to his ill health, wasn’t able to give her many opportunities to become so), and, the same as with Anne Boleyn, rumors reached Henry that Catherine hadn’t been a virgin upon her marriage, which set off a chain of events that ultimately ended in her execution. We do know that Catherine was sexually preyed upon and abused for a two year period by a music tutor who was at least twice her age when she was somewhere between 9 and 14. Even if she was on the elder end of that scale, and understanding that girls of this time period were treated as women very young and could be married at 14, don’t get me started on the historians, both then and now, who have argued that this was a “consensual” relationship. She then had a romance with Francis Dereham not long after. Catherine and Francis called each other “husband” and “wife”, but her family separated them when they discovered their bond, as he was her social inferior. Those who witnessed this relationship did blackmail Catherine as queen, and sought positions and favors in the royal household. Investigations into her previous relationships (Henry had a new law made specially for her that said that any queen consort who did not divulge her full sexual history was guilty of treason, punishable by death) led to the discovery of Catherine’s current relationship with Thomas Culpeper, one of Henry’s favorite courtiers. Thomas Culpeper had been a suitor for Catherine before she attracted Henry’s interest, when she was Anne of Cleve’s lady-in-waiting (are you noticing a trend?). The possible explanations for their relationship are these: one, Catherine truly loved and/or was lonely enough to engage in an extramarital affair with an attractive man closer to her own age; two, Culpepper knew about her previous relationship with Dereham and was blackmailing her for favors, sexual and/or otherwise – which wouldn't surprise me, as Culpepper had previously been guilty of rape but then killed the man who tried to bring him to justice; or, three, Culpepper had been chosen (by either Catherine herself or by her ambitious family – the same ambitious family, headed by the Duke of Norfolk, whose lust for power saw to Anne Boleyn's rise and fall) to try and sire a child in Henry’s place. No matter what the truth was, after an investigation that was conducted through vicious torture in the Tower, this “stupid and oversexed adolescent … who certainly behaved like a whore” (yes, that comes from a biography published in 2009 – can you believe it?) was convicted without a trial of having a grand total of two lovers – and one was before she was even married, with a man that she had chose to marry for herself! Francis Dereham, even under torture, maintained that he hadn’t touched Catherine once she was made queen – and he took that stance to his own execution, where he was hanged, drawn, and quartered. The gross part of this story: you know the music teacher who took advantage of Catherine? Yeah, Henry pardoned him, and he was allowed to go free. Depending on her date of birth, again, Catherine was 21 at the oldest, 16 at the youngest, when she was executed. Even if Catherine was just as promiscuous as she is popularly portrayed to be, let's still be completely honest: Henry, at the time, was a debilitatingly sick and oftentimes impotent man well past the glory days of his youth, and he loathed the idea of being viewed as anything less than a virile god king who couldn’t keep his young wife satisfied in every way. Catherine’s true crime was bruising the ego of a very fragile, dangerously arrogant man, and that’s why she died. Henry waited an entire year before marrying his final wife, who was part of his daughter Mary’s household - but even in his will, which he wrote while dying, he left room for "future wives and heirs" in the line of succession. Yes, I kid you not.

A Note on Lady Jane Grey: Speaking of young women in history who didn’t deserve the fate they suffered, Jane Grey the “Nine Day” Queen is definitely one of them. To make another long story somewhat short: Jane Grey was the granddaughter of Henry VII through his daughter, Mary Tudor; thus, she was Henry VIII’s grandniece. Henry VIII’s son, Edward VI, knew that he was dying, and he altered his father’s will to take his sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, out of the line of succession – as he was just as fiercely Protestant as Mary was Catholic. Instead, he named his heir through the lineage of Mary Tudor, and that heir was Jane Grey. Now, here’s the catch: Edward’s chief minister was John Dudley, the 1st Duke of Northumberland (yes, he’s the father of the Robert Dudley, Elizabeth’s suitor lover companion beloved long-time favorite), and John Dudley had just married his own son, Guilford Dudley, to Jane Grey. (In a suspiciously rushed wedding just before the king died between two very young people who may have otherwise delayed marrying.) John Dudley, at the very least, strongly advised Edward to change his will, if not schemed to have it changed outright without Edward’s ability to properly consent as his health failed. After Edward’s death, Dudley had Jane taken to the Tower of London to be made queen. Jane accepted the crown “with great reluctance”, and was reportedly angry when she realized how she had been used as a pawn in Dudley's bid for power. She refused to give Guilford – or his father, more accurately – any rights as king without an act of parliament. However, Mary raised an army to claim the throne that her father had willed to her (whether or not she or Jane had the better claim is a debate for the ages), and succeeded in her conquest. Jane was abandoned by everyone who had connived to make her queen – even by her parents, who both hardly deserved the title long before this fiasco – and left alone in the Tower for Mary to decide her fate. Mary originally spared Jane and Guilford – John Dudley was not so lucky, nor were his elder sons, who lived under a death sentence for some months, but were eventually pardoned. (During his imprisonment in the tower, Robert soon fatefully reacquainted himself with Elizabeth for the first time since they were children.) Yet when Jane’s father openly participated in Wyatt’s Rebellion, Mary was forced to take more decisive action against her unwitting rival for the throne. She had both Jane and Guilford executed within an hour of each other. Jane was only 16 years old, and heartbreakingly wrote to Guilford on the night before their deaths that “they would meet shortly elsewhere, and live bound by indissoluble ties.”

A Note on Victoria Quoting The Federalist: I am really stretching the facts with this one, but the idea of Victoria reading the Federalist Papers just tickled me, and I had to run with it. Instead of my own words, let me quote directly from Montecello.org to explain:

So . . . yeah, I rather mashed all that up to suit my own ends.

And now, I think that's everything? I'll include the background on the queens at the end of every chapter, just for reference going forward, but for now I will just say thanks for reading and until next time!

~ MJ

 

Aw, thanks! Victoria could be very hit or miss when it came to keeping her cool and reining in her temper, but I have to imagine that this early in her reign, when everything depended on her proving herself capable of leading, she managed more often than not. She's most certainly not going to let the likes of John Conroy get the best of her, let alone her uncle! And of course, then there's Melbourne, who just gets her and is proud of her every single victory, no matter how small.

. . . I promise that I love these two a completely normal amount.

---

Author's Notes: Here we are with Part Two! Just as a refresher for anyone who may be interested, I've reincluded my notes about the previous queens in the Tower underneath the spoiler tag - and I definitely have more notes to share at the end of the chapter. My inner-history nerd has rather enjoyed this project, to say the least - maybe too much, as I admittedly had to grapple to not make this chapter in particular sound like a history report. You guys can tell me whether I was successful or not.

Enjoy!

Spoiler: Queens in the Tower

A Note on Anne Boleyn: Anne Boleyn was Henry VIII’s second wife. In order to marry her, he had to divorce his first wife of twenty years, Catherine of Aragon – a feat which required him to break all of England away from the Catholic Church and papal authority, and set up the Church of England, instead. There’s some debate amongst historians as to whether or not Anne Boleyn was a sacrificial pawn in her family’s quest for power, or a scheming, ambitious seductress in her own right. Like most cases in history, I personally tend to think that she was somewhere in the middle: a canny and clever woman doing her best to come out ahead when faced with an impossible situation, all until that situation spiraled out of her control. After giving birth to a daughter and suffering two miscarriages, reports of her “infidelity” reached Henry’s ears – though Thomas Cromwell later (purportedly) admitted to inventing all of the charges – and Anne was tried for treason and executed, as were her five supposed lovers, including her own brother. Henry was engaged to Anne’s former lady-in-waiting, Jane Seymour, the day following her execution, and they were married ten days later. (It was suspected that Jane Seymour was already pregnant – which would line up with the timeline of Henry’s first interest in her, and explain how quickly he saw to Anne’s removal and his own remarriage – and then miscarried the child, though there’s no concrete evidence for this theory.)

If you want to learn more about Anne Boleyn’s dual stays in the Tower, in both victory and defeat, I highly recommend this video:



(BTW, Dr. Kat is one of my absolute fave historians on YouTube if you're looking for a new channel to follow, and I highly recommend her!)

A Note on Elizabeth Tudor: Elizabeth I was the daughter of Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII. Like her elder half-sister Mary I, she was declared illegitimate after her mother’s execution and her father’s remarriage. But, after a mess of succession following Edward VI’s death (Edward VI was Henry VIII’s only legitimate son through Jane Seymour), Mary became queen. Her brief rule was contentious, as she sought to restore England to Catholicism – where she earned her sobriquet of “Bloody Mary”. Though, again, she’s another woman in history who had the odds stacked against her, in my opinion, and she rightly had an axe to grind against her father just as much as she sought to honor her mother’s memory. Due to this, there was more than one plot to remove Mary from power. Elizabeth was implicated in Wyatt’s Rebellion, only days after Mary’s ascension to the throne, and imprisoned in the Tower of London in what had to be a terrifying mirror of her mother’s own fate. However, there was not enough evidence to convict Elizabeth, and Mary eventually spared her life (not for the first time) and had her moved to house-arrest on a country estate.

A Note on Catherine Howard: Catherine Howard was Henry VIII’s fifth wife, a young woman who’s been unfairly remembered as “hedonistic” and an “empty-headed wanton” by even modern biographers (though, thankfully, current historians are fixing that). She was somewhere between 15 and 21 years of age (we don't know her exact date of birth) when she married Henry, only 19 days after his annulled marriage to Anne of Cleves. A little more than a year into their marriage, she still had yet to fall pregnant (it’s been suggested that Henry, due to his ill health, wasn’t able to give her many opportunities to become so), and, the same as with Anne Boleyn, rumors reached Henry that Catherine hadn’t been a virgin upon her marriage, which set off a chain of events that ultimately ended in her execution. We do know that Catherine was sexually preyed upon and abused for a two year period by a music tutor who was at least twice her age when she was somewhere between 9 and 14. Even if she was on the elder end of that scale, and understanding that girls of this time period were treated as women very young and could be married at 14, don’t get me started on the historians, both then and now, who have argued that this was a “consensual” relationship. She then had a romance with Francis Dereham not long after. Catherine and Francis called each other “husband” and “wife”, but her family separated them when they discovered their bond, as he was her social inferior. Those who witnessed this relationship did blackmail Catherine as queen, and sought positions and favors in the royal household. Investigations into her previous relationships (Henry had a new law made specially for her that said that any queen consort who did not divulge her full sexual history was guilty of treason, punishable by death) led to the discovery of Catherine’s current relationship with Thomas Culpeper, one of Henry’s favorite courtiers. Thomas Culpeper had been a suitor for Catherine before she attracted Henry’s interest, when she was Anne of Cleve’s lady-in-waiting (are you noticing a trend?). The possible explanations for their relationship are these: one, Catherine truly loved and/or was lonely enough to engage in an extramarital affair with an attractive man closer to her own age; two, Culpepper knew about her previous relationship with Dereham and was blackmailing her for favors, sexual and/or otherwise – which wouldn't surprise me, as Culpepper had previously been guilty of rape but then killed the man who tried to bring him to justice; or, three, Culpepper had been chosen (by either Catherine herself or by her ambitious family – the same ambitious family, headed by the Duke of Norfolk, whose lust for power saw to Anne Boleyn's rise and fall) to try and sire a child in Henry’s place. No matter what the truth was, after an investigation that was conducted through vicious torture in the Tower, this “stupid and oversexed adolescent … who certainly behaved like a whore” (yes, that comes from a biography published in 2009 – can you believe it?) was convicted without a trial of having a grand total of two lovers – and one was before she was even married, with a man that she had chose to marry for herself! Francis Dereham, even under torture, maintained that he hadn’t touched Catherine once she was made queen – and he took that stance to his own execution, where he was hanged, drawn, and quartered. The gross part of this story: you know the music teacher who took advantage of Catherine? Yeah, Henry pardoned him, and he was allowed to go free. Depending on her date of birth, again, Catherine was 21 at the oldest, 16 at the youngest, when she was executed. Even if Catherine was just as promiscuous as she is popularly portrayed to be, let's still be completely honest: Henry, at the time, was a debilitatingly sick and oftentimes impotent man well past the glory days of his youth, and he loathed the idea of being viewed as anything less than a virile god king who couldn’t keep his young wife satisfied in every way. Catherine’s true crime was bruising the ego of a very fragile, dangerously arrogant man, and that’s why she died. Henry waited an entire year before marrying his final wife, who was part of his daughter Mary’s household - but even in his will, which he wrote while dying, he left room for "future wives and heirs" in the line of succession. Yes, I kid you not.

A Note on Lady Jane Grey: Speaking of young women in history who didn’t deserve the fate they suffered, Jane Grey the “Nine Day” Queen is definitely one of them. To make another long story somewhat short: Jane Grey was the granddaughter of Henry VII through his daughter, Mary Tudor; thus, she was Henry VIII’s grandniece. Henry VIII’s son, Edward VI, knew that he was dying, and he altered his father’s will to take his sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, out of the line of succession – as he was just as fiercely Protestant as Mary was Catholic. Instead, he named his heir through the lineage of Mary Tudor, and that heir was Jane Grey. Now, here’s the catch: Edward’s chief minister was John Dudley, the 1st Duke of Northumberland (yes, he’s the father of the Robert Dudley, Elizabeth’s suitor lover companion beloved long-time favorite), and John Dudley had just married his own son, Guilford Dudley, to Jane Grey. (In a suspiciously rushed wedding just before the king died between two very young people who may have otherwise delayed marrying.) John Dudley, at the very least, strongly advised Edward to change his will, if not schemed to have it changed outright without Edward’s ability to properly consent as his health failed. After Edward’s death, Dudley had Jane taken to the Tower of London to be made queen. Jane accepted the crown “with great reluctance”, and was reportedly angry when she realized how she had been used as a pawn in Dudley's bid for power. She refused to give Guilford – or his father, more accurately – any rights as king without an act of parliament. However, Mary raised an army to claim the throne that her father had willed to her (whether or not she or Jane had the better claim is a debate for the ages), and succeeded in her conquest. Jane was abandoned by everyone who had connived to make her queen – even by her parents, who both hardly deserved the title long before this fiasco – and left alone in the Tower for Mary to decide her fate. Mary originally spared Jane and Guilford – John Dudley was not so lucky, nor were his elder sons, who lived under a death sentence for some months, but were eventually pardoned. (During his imprisonment in the tower, Robert soon fatefully reacquainted himself with Elizabeth for the first time since they were children.) Yet when Jane’s father openly participated in Wyatt’s Rebellion, Mary was forced to take more decisive action against her unwitting rival for the throne. She had both Jane and Guilford executed within an hour of each other. Jane was only 16 years old, and heartbreakingly wrote to Guilford on the night before their deaths that “they would meet shortly elsewhere, and live bound by indissoluble ties.”

---

“Queens of England”
(Equestrian Cross Country)​

II.II

Victoria stepped into the light, perhaps somewhat auspiciously, to the cawing of ravens.

Paying only half an ear to the deputy lieutenant, who was still robustly complimenting the honor of a royal visit, her gaze followed the sleek black birds as they circled from their roosts high atop the White Tower. The wind blew, carrying down a scent of promised rain as it swept through the new leaves on the branches of the ancient planetrees and rustled the dark violet satin of her gown. For a long moment, William hardly attended anything the lieutenant said, until -

“If it pleases Your Majesty, the Jewel House is this way.”

Victoria’s expression rippled with annoyance before she could constrain herself. “I thank you, Lieutenant,” she said stiffly, recalling her attention from the birds, “but I have no desire to see the Crown Jewels today.”

The lieutenant frowned, as if unable to comprehend her meaning. “The Mint no longer operates here at the Tower,” bewilderment leeched into his voice, “and the Royal Menagerie too has since been moved.”

“As I am well aware,” Victoria did not succeed in hiding her irritation a second time.

While the lieutenant struggled to parse out another possible reason for the Queen of England to want to visit the Tower of London – a taxing endeavor that clearly strained the uppermost limits of his mind – he nonetheless heard her tone, and understood that he had somehow displeased his sovereign. He was smart enough, at the very least, to close his mouth, unwilling to risk another word spoken in error – and even went so far as to glance at him for assistance, if not outright commiseration for the difficulties of serving at Her Majesty's pleasure.

William kept his expression neutral but for the slight narrowing of his eyes, refusing to be any such brother-in-arms. He let the moment linger, just long enough to make a point, before ignoring the inconsequential man entirely. “Perhaps Your Majesty would first like to walk along the battlements, to take in the view?” he suggested with a respectful bow.

“What an excellent idea, Lord M; I shall do just that.” With a last, withering look at the now thoroughly flustered lieutenant, she too spared him no further attention. She turned her back in clear dismissal, but then hesitated.

To answer, he shifted his weight in an almost imperceptible gesture – which Victoria nonetheless noticed, and interpreted correctly. Holding her head up high, she turned to the right and set out down the Water Lane without sparing a backward glance. William smoothly assumed his place at her hand and a step behind her, while the lieutenant and the yeomen warders scrambled to keep pace with the surprisingly determined gait of the petite young woman. He allowed himself a moment’s amusement for the tableau, but felt his humor sour when the lieutenant presumptively hastened his stride in order to claim the privilege of walking level with the royal person, without her express invitation to do so.

He rather suspected that the lieutenant would never have dared as much with his Lord Commander and Constable of the Tower the Duke of Wellington, let alone his sovereign in His Majesty. Oh, but what a splendid chat William was going to have with his Tory comrade later as regards the suitability of his Tower appointments.

Yet, until then, he bespoke the queen’s displeasure for her: “Lieutenant,” he said softly, but lowly – in the same tone of voice he used when warning the House of Lords to order, “you forget yourself.”

The superbious dolt didn't even have the grace to realize his error before William pointedly glanced at the queen's side. He even thought that he would have to go so far as to rudely gesture before the lieutenant flushed red and reluctantly fell back a step – and then a second when William continued to fix him with his stare, unwilling to suffer the man walking besides him, either, after he’d so sullied the centuries’ old honor of his uniform. Victoria did not react to the exchange but for a faint easing in the tight line of her shoulders, but that was enough. She lifted her chin even further, and turned her attention to their surroundings. As ever, he followed to do the same.

Here in the outer ward, they were fenced in by high defensive walls on either side, slotted with dozens of narrow archer’s loops in what had once been a veritable death trap for invading armies in the game of medieval warfare. Though the Tower hadn’t been used as such in centuries, an echo of its initial purpose remained as their footsteps sounded against the cobbles and echoed between the stones. From behind the darkening clouds, the late afternoon sun cast their shadows forward in long, marching shapes across the ground.

They did not have far to go before . . . there.

“Now that is Traitors' Gate,” Victoria stated with confidence, gesturing at the massive portcullis that sank its iron teeth down into the murky waters of the river.

“So it is, ma’am. This began as the king’s entrance when Edward I moved his court to the Tower. What was fit in splendor for a monarch was later used to strike fear into the hearts of those unfortunate souls who arrived here for the purpose of incarceration.”

“Majesty can be most intimidating, I agree,” Victoria darted a glance at him, the humor in her words apparent as she stood as tall as possible – which, no matter how regal her bearing was otherwise, was not very tall at all.

“Without a doubt,” he agreed with the utmost seriousness, and was rewarded when her smile grew.

From there, he merely had to glance at the stairs leading up St. Thomas’ Tower. Victoria understood, and turned to make her own way, leaving her escort to follow without a word.

Within the tower, the constructs of the old medieval palace captured her attention, but did not hold it for long. She was not here to see how the kings before her had lived and governed; not this time. Instead, leaving the ghosts of her ancestors to reign over their eternal court with only a cursory glance, she made her way out onto the battlements.

William followed, and stopped to take in the unparalleled view of the Thames beyond the crenelated parapet as Victoria too paused to better appreciate her surroundings. His last visit to the Tower had been some five years ago, when Wellington had orchestrated the dissolution of the Royal Menagerie – a bipartisan project that he’d readily supported, and then further sponsored through the establishment of the Royal Zoological Society (a foundation that Victoria herself now eagerly lent her patronage to with every intention for expansion). Even in so short a time, the city of London had grown by remarkable degrees, and the sight of the new alongside the old was a poignant, sobering reminder in its own right. Yet Victoria was not looking out at the city, but within – to where the White Tower stood, encircled by its dual curtain-walls and flanked by its sister towers, with its now infamous Green stretched out between them.

For a moment, Victoria simply stood, her gaze unreadable. Then, she continued on.

They continued along the wall-walk until its northern-most bastion, and then descended once more. They entered the inner-ward, coming around the great base of the White Tower. There in its shadow, he pointed out the remains of the old Roman city wall as they circled to the ruins of the Cold Harbor Gate, which once led the way to . . .

“This is all that remains of the Tudor Palace.” William gestured to the gashes of stone and mortar that jutted up like broken molars from between grassy gums. “Unfortunately, the rest has since been lost to fire.”

That was a tragedy that the English were more than familiar with – it was impossible not to be, when they could count their history in the plural thousands, rather than the mere centuries, or even scant years, of younger nations. “That is indeed a great loss,” Victoria sighed to agree, walking between the stones with a slow, contemplative step. "Far too much of our heritage has been taken by the flames."

For her words, William couldn’t help but flinch to remember the night Parliament had burned. To see the palace of Westminster ablaze in the night, hellishly reflected in the mirror of the Thames in what had felt like a judgment arraigned against his ministry by God himself . . . He could still remember the confusion when his cabinet first smelled smoke, and the thunderous explosion that had sounded for all the world like the second coming of Guy Fawkes, returned to finish what he had started so long ago. He remembered the mad rush of the ensuing evacuation, followed by the surreal horror of having to approve the fire brigade's desire to abandon the Houses of Lords and Commons . . . the Painted Chamber . . . the Royal Galleries . . . the priceless treasures kept within the great library as lost, just to save the bones of Westminster Hall itself . . . had such an impossible decision ever existed since the time of Solomon?

That night had felt more nightmare than memory, with only his blistered skin and smoke-scarred lungs – earned when he’d joined the line of peers and civil servants and firemen who’d braved the inferno to save the original Acts of Parliament from destruction – there to remind him that the horror had indeed been real in the days following. Even old King William – as gruff and as graceless as he ever was – had awkwardly placed a hand on his shoulder the morning following as they stood in the still smoldering rubble, and kindly proposed use of Buckingham House for their now homeless government, offering his support and condolences in the only way he knew how.

For a moment, he let his eyes shutter closed – seeing blooms of angry red and white-hot orange erupt against the black of his vision – before he let the memory go.

“I agree, ma’am,” he finally managed, his voice thick, “far too much.”

Yet he cleared his throat, and soldiered on. He’d not have Victoria comfort him in that moment – nor ever, if he could help it. (He was prime minister to a queen – not a man to a woman, after all . . . nor could she be a woman to a man – not to the likes of him, anyway.) Turning away from the sympathy in her always far-too-expressive blue eyes, William cleared his throat, and called to mind what Wellington had showed him on his previous visit to the Tower.

He walked the line of ruins, his brow furrowing in concentration as he estimated the length of the royal apartments, all the way to the concave impression in the surviving wall where the kitchens had once been – the stone was still tellingly scarred with years worth of cooking smoke and fatty grease to this day. From there . . .

“If I recall correctly,” William then felt certain enough to say, “the Great Hall once stood . . . here. In this hall, Anne Boleyn was once fêted as queen during her first stay in the Tower,” he stood off to the side of where the raised royal dais would have been, imagining the glory of soaring vaulted ceilings and stained glass windows and colorful standards flying from proud marble columns, “just as she was tried and condemned in this same space following, only three years thereafter.” Three years . . . and her true crime of three failed sons, before the king had decided there would not be a fourth.

Victoria followed that same imagined line, undoubtedly recreating the splendor of the hall in a similar manner for herself. But then, she did something that he would never forget.

She knelt on the grass – right where Anne had once defended herself against her accusers and entreated the mercy of a husband who had, in a dangerous retelling of their own sordid history, already banished her from his heart in favor of another. There, the currently reigning Queen of England took to her knees – uncaring of soiling the rich material of her gown, just as that queen of old had once supplicated herself on the cold stone floor – and bowed her head. Victoria closed her eyes, her mouth uttering whispered words as if in prayer – only, it was not a divine entity to whom she spoke, but rather, a fellow woman who was all too fallibly of flesh and blood.

At long last, Victoria lifted her gaze – her eyes fierce as she stared down the ghost of a king who had thought himself more god than man – and then, she stood.

He did not breathe a word in comment, nor did she offer one in explanation.

“Where else?” was all she said.

There was no need for him to inquire as to her meaning; instead, he obeyed her command. “Your Majesty may find Beauchamp Tower to be of great interest.”

“Show me.”

And so he did.

The entrance to that particular tower was poked and cramped. The hallways and doors were framed by sharp arches designed for warfare more so than comfort, and the ground floor was shadowed and cold. The tower may have been barren of all furnishings, yet it was far from empty – for, on every wall, from floor to ceiling, framing the arches and the hearths and the archers’ alcoves . . .

. . . there were words.

Dozens upon dozens of names and dates and even more besides were etched into the stone and scratched from the brick. Not one prisoner who'd ever lived – and refused to be forgotten as they faced their own mortality – in these makeshift cells failed to leave their mark, and their memory yet remained long after they were torn from the mortal coil. Some of the inscriptions were wispy – faint, shallow impressions that had since been dulled by time; some, however, were impressively ornate, carved in relief with painstaking care and as clear to read now as they must have been at their inception.

Even more striking than the names was where the graffiti took a turn for artistry. The first to catch his eye was a pitiably kneeling figure – either supplicant in prayer or locked in torture or prone before the headsman, it was impossible to tell – against which were fraudulently weighted scales, all poised over a gaping hell mouth. On the same set of stone was carved a skeleton wearing a ruff, though, due to the crudeness of the image, it instead seemed as if the doomed soul was being strangled by a still-living arm. From there, there were ornate Catholic crucifixes piercing through hearts and plain Protestant crosses, all purposefully left empty. There were Latin scriptures and defiantly English translations of the same; heraldic shields and family mottoes and other such symbols of the peerage; and words which were not quotes at all, but rather proclamations and pleas . . . protestations of innocence, messages to loved ones, and, perhaps most strikingly of all, the proud lines where soul after soul boasted of keeping their integrity, even unto death.

Each wall had been transformed into a veritable tapestry of indictment, preserved now for centuries and poised to last for centuries more – and yet, it was not the prisoners who stood accused.

Indeed, as the current scion of the Crown, Victoria was wide-eyed and struck in the middle of the room, unable to approach any one inscription as she instead stood and seemingly absorbed them all.

“There are so many,” she breathed, before her eyes focused, and she at last approached one of the carvings – a crude etching of a bird, that, on closer inspection . . .

She'd found Anne’s badge – her device, symbolizing her status as queen, though the falcon was poignantly bare-headed and empty-handed, with neither crown upon its brow nor scepter held in its talon. Instead, there was just an abandoned bird, surrounded by an empty shield.

“It is thought that her brother carved this,” William revealed, his voice hushed. “All of the men who were condemned alongside Anne were imprisoned in this tower.”

“Her brother?” Victoria tilted her head with a frown.

“Yes, her brother.” It took him a moment to comprehend her own incomprehension, upon which he cleared his throat somewhat awkwardly. “George Boleyn too was accused of treason and found guilty.”

Still, Victoria puzzled out part of the story that had clearly been omitted from her lessons. “But I thought the only treason those men were supposedly guilty of was . . .” but she faltered, and her eyes flew wide. “Oh,” she said simply. “I see.”

“It was treason at the time – and still is now, for that matter,” he refused to insult her by prevaricating, even when it would have been far more comfortable for him to do so, “for any man to touch the wife of the king. The treason came from casting the line of succession into doubt, you see.”

A now more than familiar look of stony irritation hardened Victoria’s features. Her mouth pressed in a thin line, unwittingly reminding him of the day when she’d first removed to Buckingham Palace. Then, he’d similarly had enough of Baroness Lehzen’s clear reluctance to speak to their queen like the grown woman she was – let alone their rightful sovereign – and instead bluntly told her what the clearly feminine apartment adjacent to the king’s rooms – now her rooms – was for.

“You mean, Uncle George kept his . . . his ladies here?” she’d stammered, torn between shock and outrage. “Not Aunt Caroline?”

“The Prince Regent and his wife had a rather singular relationship; they could hardly countenance living in the same country, let alone so . . . readily close at hand. They were estranged long before he was made king. Once he was, your uncle was hardly unique in that regard, Your Majesty.”

“So it would seem,” Victoria had huffed. “I thought that Mama was exaggerating when she said that the reason she did not want me staying with Uncle William and Aunt Adelaide as their heir was because so many of his . . . his natural-born children lived with them, as well. She called the palace a house of Babylon, but I thought . . . well, I thought that she was simply being Mama on the subject.”

“In the late king’s defense,” William had somehow found himself caught in the most surreal of conversations, “his children may have been born outside the bounds of matrimony, yes, but they all predated his marriage to Queen Adelaide, at the very least.”

He did not have to say that, following the untimely death of the sole legitimate heir to the throne in Princess Charlotte, the ignoble scramble for the surviving royal dukes to marry and produce the next heir was what had seen Prince Edward abandon his own primary mistress of thirty years to wed Princess Victorie and beget Victoria in his turn. Instead, he chose to focus on one of the few truly kind things he could say about King William: “I can tell you from first-hand experience that they very much grew to love each other. None of their own children survived infancy, as you know, but Queen Adelaide did indeed welcome her husband’s prior children and subsequent grandchildren to live at the palace. She quite doted on them – and still does to this day, even though the king is gone.”

“And yet I cannot live in a separate house from my mother without my own virtue being called into question.” If Victoria could accept her aunt’s right to define her own family however she saw fit easily enough, she could hardly countenance the unequal standard that now constrained her own rights in any such manner.

And she . . . she was not wrong about the hypocrisy of society, William privately agreed. King George III and Queen Charlotte – who’d been famous for their own fidelity to each other – had nigh on sixty grandchildren that their sons openly acknowledged (one of that multitude was his own brother, even, through the Prince Regent; George IV had brazenly called himself his son’s godfather and welcomed George Lamb to stay at court for months at a time), and yet the only legitimate daughter of their fourth son now reigned, no matter the dozens that had been born before her. Her uncles had been . . . most proliferate, but hardly faithful. Now, if Victoria should ever choose to conduct herself in any similar fashion . . .

. . . well, the crown would not be hers for long if she gave even the impression of immodesty, was the sad truth of the matter. Rumors and speculation aside, even Queen Elizabeth had known better than to openly keep a lover throughout the entirety of her reign. She may have been one of their nation’s foremost monarchs as Gloriana, yet she’d had to style herself as the Virgin Queen in order to maintain her power, no matter that her own father had quite literally rewritten every rule of the land to marry a string of his own mistresses as he saw fit.

It was hardly equal, no – yet, how much of history had ever been just to the fairer sex?

That thought still echoed in his mind, just as Victoria whispered, “Jane,” with a quick exhalation of breath.

Sure enough, she had found a sad, lonely inscription compared to its more ornate brethren – carved by a man who was hardly more than a boy himself in matching with his equally young bride and ephemeral queen.

“Jane Grey’s husband, Guilford Dudley, was also imprisoned here,” he shared quietly. “He is thought to have carved this.”

With that, he led her to what was perhaps the most intricately tooled coat of arms in the tower's uppermost chamber. “Guilford was kept here,” he said when they entered the room, “as was his father John Dudley, the Duke of Northumberland – who not only carried out Edward VI’s dying wish to have Jane Grey made queen rather than his sister Mary, but, some would say, orchestrated the change in the line of succession entirely on his own to have his son made king.”

“Whether or not it was ambition or loyalty," Victoria muttered, "it was his family who paid the price.”

“As is so often the case,” William somberly agreed. “Mary I, once she assumed the throne, had the duke executed, as well as Jane and Guilford. However, John Dudley’s remaining sons were kept alive in the Tower – though under the pall of a death warrant – until their mother secured their release by appealing to the queen for mercy.”

He pointed out the Dudley blazon, which may have been carved by the duke himself, or perhaps by his sons as a lasting monument to their once close-knit family. The lengthy inscription beneath the shield – entreating later witnesses to remember the four brothers who would soon be found beneath the ground was particularly sobering to his eyes. William, who had similarly been blessed with such loving bonds with his own siblings – and had since lost far too many of them, with only Emily and Frederick being left – could still feel the impossible weight of helpless finality that seeped out from those lines. His own youngest brother had died of natural causes, but to imagine having to stand aside, useless with Penn and Fred as George was instead taken by the guards to meet the headsman . . .

. . . he inhaled, and let his breath out slow.

Victoria, meanwhile, traced the intricately carved floral motifs framing the shield with the pad of her first finger. “Roses,” she identified, for Ambrose Dudley, “honeysuckle,” for Henry Dudley, “carnations,” for Guilford Dudley, “and,” but she let her finger rest against the fourth symbol, “well, I must confess that I cannot quite tell.”

“That would be oak leaves, for Robert Dudley,” he revealed, and watched as understanding lit her eyes.

“The Earl of Leicester?” she smiled – a bright, curious look that seemingly pierced through the gloom of the tower.

“The one and only,” William confirmed. “Though that title would come later in life, through the grace of Queen Elizabeth. Towards that end, however,” he then took particular delight in revealing – for her own enthusiasm was ever catching, “here is where he would have met Princess Elizabeth for the first time since they were children.”

With that, he showed her to the room’s largest window, looking out over the ghost of the old Tudor palace. And . . . there, by the sill was -

Bess.

It was a simple, informal inscription, framed by a border of vines and roses. It was easy to imagine Robert Dudley carefully etching each petal and thorn as he watched Elizabeth walk in the privy gardens down below – the same gardens which had been designed as a gift for her mother, but may have since been left to grow wild and untamed from their once stately beds. Even these many years later, although the man was long gone, his devotion remained.

“Records show that both Elizabeth and Robert had permission to take the air beyond their cells. Adding to their childhood bond – for Elizabeth stayed with the Dudleys when she was merely Lady Elizabeth, declared illegitimate by her father – they would have each thought themselves soon to meet their ends on the scaffold, just as they both understood the grief of losing a parent to that same scaffold. They both had a talent for languages, a love for literature, and were avid sportsmen. It is perhaps easy to conclude that these few months may have been the only time in Elizabeth’s life when she was . . . ” loved merely as a woman, by a man who was merely a man. Yet he caught his tongue, and instead amended, “when she was free as herself in spirit, even when imprisoned in body.”

“He saw her for her,” Victoria echoed, still transfixed by the inscription.

“Yes,” William agreed, for a moment quite unable to look away from his own queen, before sighing to recall the rest of their ultimately star-crossed tale. “Or, at least, he did so for a time.” Beyond that, the innermost workings of Robert Dudley’s heart and mind had long-since been lost to the grave.

Following those words, silence fell, and silent it remained until Victoria withdrew her hand from the border of roses. She turned, and met his gaze. “Show me where Elizabeth was kept.”

“As Your Majesty pleases,” he bowed to heed her command, and then, together, they set out for the Bell Tower.


TBC

Spoiler: End Notes

A Note on Ravens in the Tower: There are so many myths about Ravens and the Tower of London that stretch back thousands of years to Roman and even Celtic times! You can check out all of them here, but the most common one is that King Charles II was told that when the ravens left their roost in the Tower, the monarchy would fall. Charles II just got the monarchy back, so, perhaps somewhat understandably, he was very invested in giving the ravens a happy home. To this day, there is a raven master who cares for the Tower's ravens (six of whom have their wings clipped, which seems like cheating to me ), and the monarchy still stands.

A Note on the Layout of the Tower: For anyone who would like to keep track, this is the official map from Wikipedia:



Victoria would have entered from the Queen's Steps in front of Byward Tower, which is #38 at the bottom left. Then, go right to St. Thomas' Tower, up the wall and all the way to the northern-most bastion, upon which they descended. The Waterloo Block wouldn't have existed yet, so they approached the White Tower, saw the Roman Wall, and came around the Cold Harbor Gate. On the Innermost Ward is where the Tudor Palace would have been. From there, they went to Beauchamp Tower, left of the green. (You may be able to guess where we're going next. )

A Note on the Royal Menagerie: I kid you not, but there was a zoo at the Tower of London for the longest time! Apparently, when exotic animals were given to English monarchs by foreign dignitaries, they didn't quite know what to do with them. (There was an elephant who was gifted to Henry III by the King of France, and, as story goes, the warders, who perhaps understandably didn't know how to properly care for such an animal, gave the poor creature gallons of wine to help it endure the cold so far north of its native home, which was . . . counterproductive.) The Duke of Wellington had enough of that nonsense when he was appointed as Constable of the Tower, and saw about having the animals moved to the new London Zoo - which was making early efforts in the field of natural science to understand how to properly care for and study the animals in captivity.

A Note on the Tudor Palace: Yep, only ruins of it can be found at the Tower of London today! If you're interested in more, this video explains the palace's history - and even recreates it with 3D imagery! - much better than I can:



A Note on the Burning of Parliament: The Houses of Parliament would have looked very different at the beginning of Victoria's reign - mostly because of the Burning of Parliament in 1834. In history, Melbourne's cabinet was meeting late that night (it was a contentious time between law-makers and the people due to the amendments that were being made to the poor laws - so much so that many did view the fire as an indictment from God), and events carried out as I briefly described here. Victoria would have been able to hear the explosion all the way from Kensington, where the sky turned red and smoke filled the air; so it had to have been a hellish memory for them both. The rebuilding of Parliament began in earnest about a year into Victoria's reign, and lasted all the way until 1870.

A Note on Regency Morals and Lack Thereof: Yeah . . . isn't it crazy to think that Jane Austen was writing stories about this exact same time period? In what seems to be a tale as old of time, numerous non-marital affairs and serial adultery seemed to be a way of life for the royalty and peerage of this era. It's true: King George III and Queen Charlotte had thirteen children survive to adulthood. (Say what you will about George III, but he and Charlotte were famous for being faithful to each other. If love didn't eventually grow in their arranged marriage, they were at least comfortable with and affectionate towards one another before George's mental health declined in later years.) From their seven sons, they had fifty-six acknowledged grandchildren. (And yes, Melbourne's younger brother George was thought to belong to George IV - the prince regent turned king whom the time period is named after.) But, for decades, their SOLE legitimate heir was their granddaughter, Princess Charlotte. Princess Charlotte was married to Leopold I of Belgium (both Victoria and Albert's uncle - yes, there's a reason why Leopold very much wanted this match, as it gave him influence over the same throne that had nearly been his as king consort), and she died after giving birth to a stillborn son. (Poor Charlotte was in labor for 50 hours, throughout which the doctors gave her opium and wine for the pain, according to the medical wisdom of the time, which . . . sadly didn't help.) After Charlotte's death, there was no legitimate heir to the throne, no matter the dozens upon dozens of grandchildren born to the old queen and king. This led to a mad scramble for the remaining royal dukes to properly marry and beget offspring. (Those who were married outside of the Royal Marriages Act and the "illegitimacy" of their children is another conversation entirely. ) Victoria's father, Prince Edward, did abandon his favorite mistress of 28 years in order to marry her mother, and he 'won' the baby lottery with her living into adulthood after his elder brothers failed to produce surviving heirs of their own. When filling in the blanks that were left out from Victoria's understanding of her family (yep, Melbourne really did fill that role for her in history - he's constantly described in her diaries as being an animated story teller), Victoria recorded Melbourne as saying that her uncles and father acted as "wild beasts" when it came to women - which is saying something, coming from a man who was the product of a very famous open marriage, was well-known for his own affairs, and who refused to put aside his own wife when she became perhaps the most infamous adulteress of the Regency era. (You better believe that I have a story coming up detailing just how skewed Melbourne's psyche is when it comes to romantic entanglements, that said. I'm not normally one for the Playboy Turns Monogamous for True Love trope, but in this instance . . . I'm having fun helping this character realize that there's a great deal of happiness to be found in being a rook penguin and mating for life. )

A Note on Graffiti in the Tower: This has to be one of the most sobering aspects of the Tower of London - and someday I would love to visit and read each inscription in person! Until then, I found this article very helpful - which has lots of pictures, for those interested! - and this video tour of Beauchamp Tower, in particular.



All of the graffiti I described is very much real, all except for Robert Dudley's inscription of Bess. That one is pure conjecture on my part - though Elizabeth and Robert were both imprisoned at the same time and were allowed liberty to walk outside their cells. It's very possible that their childhood friendship could have rekindled into something more during that time. As such, I had to include the imagined inscription, solely for story telling purposes with the, you know . . . parallels.


And now, with all that said, I bid you adieu until next time!

~MJ

 

Aw, thank you!

I rather relished writing the breakfast scene, because there are so many forces that Victoria is fighting against to defend her right to rule - from those who are purely misogynistic, to those who are just good ol' fashioned power hungry, and those like her mother, who mean well, but are unwittingly feeding both sides by coddling her. But Victoria is holding her ground, and even winning that fight!

Then you have Melbourne, who may have first been apprehensive about the idea of serving a sheltered child, even more so than any complication due to her gender. One of my favorite things about Rufus Sewell's portrayal is how Melbourne went from wary, to visibly surprised, and then absolutely delighted during his very first meeting with Victoria. In one conversation she was pragmatic, opinionated, sharp-witted, and firmly put him in his place when she felt he overstepped his bounds as a potential advisor. The man was all but beaming, even when she snapped at him, and was more than devoted - if not a little bit in love - from the very beginning.

Anyway, these two rather embody the hold my flower/I got yo flower meme, and I love their dynamic as such.

Oh yay! I was rather worried about info-dumping with this story, but then I decided to shrug and give into telling as many interesting historical tidbits as I could, hopefully in an organic manner. I'm glad to know I was successful!

Also, I will never get tired of writing Victoria and Melbourne's flirting banter. (I was particularly proud of the dialogue about the rack .) It's a trick, having two characters get to know each other when there is such a vast wall of propriety between them, but I loved writing them do so, even with that barrier.

He's definitely the sort of politician who would rather charm and persuade than argue, that's for sure! He's so laid back and easy-going that I can imagine that it was easy for others to underestimate him and fail to realize just how much he did notice and take into consideration - which he then used to his advantage so that when he did state his opinion and call for action, he was loudly heard without having to raise his voice at all - which is quite the trick in Parliament! And I of course loved complementing that with Victoria, who tends to be a more blunt-forced instrument in her own right. He's very much going to be her knight, albeit without a literal sword and shield, and fight on her behalf, even for the small things.

With that pesky wall of propriety still firmly being in place between them, that's exactly why I chose to include these third party interactions, so I love that you noticed that! They're both quite adept on their own, but then, when you put them together . . . (Let's just say that I'm not done being mean to this particular jerk when it comes to the deputy lieutenant, either. )

Yes, yes, exactly! And you quoted what's perhaps my favorite line in this story thus far - because it's so true! To be any person in charge is to be an island, in a sense, but for a solely reigning queen - and especially a queen regnant during a time period that was so grossly misogynistic . . . she's alone in so many ways, and very much trapped by her circumstances. In history, I think that was a big reason why she threw herself into loving Albert - because her marriage had to happen, and it was going to happen to him, and so she chose to embrace her circumstances with arms wide open. Even so, true happiness in her life was oftentimes elusive, which is an inherent contradiction in and of itself for a woman who had everything in so many ways.

Oooh, have you been to the Tower? If so, I am even doubly happy to hear that the graffiti resonated with you! Even just in pictures and videos, it's a powerful testament to the past, and I can only imagine how it would be all the more so for the woman who's the current heir to her ancestors' abuse of power, and figuring out just what sort of queen she wants to be at the beginning of her own reign.

Again, I can't thank you enough for leaving such awesome feedback, and I hope that you continue to enjoy this story as it goes!

Eugh, because it's such a gross, slanted double standard, isn't it? I'm so happy that you enjoyed all of the history, too! There's so much of it that's interesting and relevant to Victoria's story that this chapter, in particular, all but wrote itself.

Oooh, now there's a thought! Their story has always fascinated me, with all of its ups and downs, so I'd never say never.

Thank you for reading and commenting, as always!

Thank you! Like I replied to Chyn above, Melbourne really is an interesting sort as a politician, and I rather enjoyed exploring his character in this way.

YOU BETTER BELIEVE THAT I HAVE JUST BEEN WAITING TO USE THAT LINE!

Oh, but this meant so much to me as an author, in particular - wow, just wow! Thank you! That's such an incredible compliment, and I only hope that I can continue to do so with the final part of this story.



That said, I have to give a big ol' thank you to anyone who just left kudos, or is enjoying and lurking, too! I will be back with more in a jiffy!


~MJ

 

Author's Notes: And here we are with the final part of this event! But first, I have to give a brief content warning, just to be on the safe side: there are somewhat graphic descriptions of improperly buried bodies and the aftermath of a battle from a soldier's POV near the end of this chapter, if that's something you'd rather avoid. All I can is say that, yes, reality really is stranger than fiction, and I couldn't even begin to make any of this up - but more about that in my end notes.

As always, I thank you all for reading and hope that you enjoy!

---

"Queens of England"
(Equestrian Cross Country)​

II.III

In the uppermost chamber of the Bell Tower, Victoria stood for a long while in silence.

She’d ordered her guards and yeomen warders to remain in the courtyard below from the first – much to the ill-constrained annoyance of the deputy lieutenant, who’d attempted to follow, regardless, before a single look from Victoria impressed upon him his error. William initially made to stay behind as well – for, if there was anywhere Victoria would like a moment alone, it would be here – before she bid, “Lord M, aren’t you coming?” He, as ever, followed like a faithful tide tethered to its moon.

Now, he lingered in the shadow of the arched doorway, feeling like an intruder on some hallowed space, no matter his invitation. This was not a moment for the likes of common men – nor for any man – as his queen communed with the spirit of a woman who'd once made the way for her own rule. This was . . . this was sacrosanct, and he’d not profane the sacrality of the sublime if he could otherwise help it.

It was dim inside the tower, with the storms having successfully veiled the blue sky beyond, but Victoria was a light of her own as she continued on her pilgrimage. She lingered by the long-cold hearth as if staring into still-dancing flames; she took in the view from the window, absorbing the great height of the White Tower and the crenellated line of the battlements; she touched her fingers to the engraving on the wall that he did not even have to point out, defiant as it proclaimed justice through patience; and, finally, she merely stood in the center of the room with her eyes closed as if she was a young oak tree, soaking in the succoring rays of a warm summer sun. With each passing moment, she seemingly grew taller before his eyes, filling the space with a presence to match that of Gloriana herself, no matter the vast centuries between them.

When she opened her eyes again, Victoria did not need to voice her wishes aloud.

“The Queen’s House,” he said softly, and they resumed their journey.

The brick and timber-framed buildings adjacent to the Bell Tower declared themselves Tudor in origin by their architecture alone. Though Henry VIII had originally ordered these apartments built for Anne Boleyn, they'd been incomplete prior to her execution. Rather, Catherine Howard was the queen who'd spent the final three days of her life in these rooms. Unlike Anne, Catherine had been condemned without a formal trial; instead, she'd passed an agonizing two months in limbo at Greenwich Palace before her sentence was passed through a bill of attainder. Scarce years later, Jane Grey spent the near entirety of her own queenship within these walls; in a darkly ironic twist of fate, she'd first been ensconced within the Tower for her protection – for Mary I would not easily relinquish her claim to the throne, and a battle had seemed all but certain. That battle, however, the Duke of Northumberland had lost, and suffered the scaffold as a result. As both a pawn and the most powerful piece on the board in the game of kings, Jane had reigned over her mayfly court in the same rooms that thence became her prison while she awaited her own turn with the headsman.

The long presence chamber on the second floor was dominated by a vast wall of diamond-paned windows. Unlike the rest of the Tower, which had been built for war, these rooms were constructed for beauty and comfort. Once, this hall would have been resplendent with light, illuminating colorful tapestries hanging on white walls underneath the exposed-beam arches of the soaring roof above. Even now, the barren and empty space seemed to glow as the edges of a dream, hushed and grey with faded radiance. In the distance, thunder rumbled like some great beast roused from sleep; in the boughs of a planetree nearest the window, a raven cawed as if to herald the oncoming storm.

There was no graffiti in these rooms; neither Jane nor Catherine would have thought to do so as high-born noblewomen, with no previous example for them to follow. Jane, he uncomfortably recalled, had been a whole two years younger than Victoria upon her death, while Catherine . . . as the eighth daughter of a third son, her exact date of birth had been deemed of little consequence to record for posterity, but she had been anywhere from three years younger than Victoria to a mere three years older, herself.

Yet, for being almost wholly remembered as flighty and folliful, Catherine had requested that the executioner’s block be brought to her cell the night before her death. There, she had practiced how best to lay her head, determined as she'd been to meet her end with all possible dignity . . . just as Jane too had clung to her faith in God as she approached the scaffold with the resolve of a queen.

That, however, he did not say aloud as Victoria walked the length and breadth of the hall, lost to the past. She lingered with her concomitance, and it was some time before she came to a stop where he imagined the royal dais may once have stood. There, framed by storm light, she knelt once more.

Victoria bowed her head, the same as she had done for Elizabeth and Anne, and this time, William could faintly make out her whispered, “I remember you, Jane; I remember you, Catherine.”

Yet anything further he purposefully closed his ears to hear, leaving that moment to his queen and her kinswomen who'd reigned before her.

At long last, Victoria stood, and they departed in silence.

By the time they exited the Queen’s House, the weather had completed its turn. The wind blew in gusts, rustling the leafy crowns of the trees and snapping at the heavy fabric of the queen’s gown. It didn't rain, not yet, but the promising scent of a deluge was thick on the air. High above them, the ravens continued to circle and caw, casting curious eyes down at the gathering below.

It was then that Victoria took in a breath, and stepped out onto the verdant expanse of the Tower Green.

For the first, her voice was hesitant to inquire, “Where, exactly . . . ”

William understood her unspoken question, but could not grant her enlightenment. “I do not know, ma'am,” he answered truthfully, a sick roil in his stomach. “His Grace the Duke did not show me when last I visited the Tower, and . . . I must confess, I did not ask.”

Victoria nodded, and turned to the lieutenant. “Where was the scaffold kept?” she asked, her voice strong once more.

“The . . . the scaffold, ma’am?” the lieutenant blinked owlish eyes for her request.

Victoria merely stared, impatient and expectant.

“Ah, yes, the scaffold,” the lieutenant recovered somewhat. “You see, there hasn’t been an execution within the Tower in almost a hundred years – not since the last of the Jacobites, which was well before my tenure. As such . . . ”

Victoria continued to stare.

“You were asked a rather simple question, Lieutenant,” William interrupted on her behalf. “Do you know, or don’t you?”

“I am the Deputy Lieutenant of the Tower of London,” the self-aggrandizing man drew himself up to haughtily proclaim, “of course I know the history of my post. It is only that - ”

“ - excellent.” Bellying any pleasantness of the word, William narrowed his eyes – glad as he was, then, that he had the height that Victoria lacked to look down on the warden. “If that’s true, I believe you have your orders from Her Majesty. I would not tarry any longer,” he dropped his voice to add, “in carrying them out.”

The look the lieutenant gave him could not quite be called cordial by any definition, to which he only gave a pleasant smile in return.

“If it pleases Your Majesty,” the lieutenant at last muttered, “this way.”

Victoria gestured, granting him permission to lead from beside her, if not by walking ahead, and set off across the green.

It was not a long walk, and yet far enough to have felt like an eternity for those doomed souls who'd once trod this path. When they came level with the north face of the White Tower, the lieutenant found the center-most point on that line, perpendicular to the chapel and the Queen’s House.

“Here, Your Majesty,” the lieutenant indicated a vague expanse of grass. “This is where the scaffold once stood.”

Victoria looked down at the ground, then up to the White Tower and the high walls enclosing them. Her expression was unreadable, but her voice was noticeably cool when she said: “There is nothing here to mark the site.”

She asked no question, nor did she criticize outright; yet only a fool would be blind to her displeasure.

Sure enough, it was the lieutenant who said, “Should there be, ma’am? This is not something that most like to remember.”

“You think our history should be ignored, then?" Victoria put to him, for all intents truly curious to know his answer. "Purposely forgotten, even?”

“No, not forgotten, exactly,” the lieutenant’s brow furrowed, clearly taken aback by the turn of the conversation, “but where it’s . . . less than flattering, it's perhaps best to draw as little attention as possible.”

“Yet for whom is it less than flattering?” Victoria, as ever, was tenacious in her views. “For a king?”

“Well, yes . . . very much so for the king.”

“And his memory, of course, is the one worth preserving, even at the expense of all others?”

“Is there one more important, ma’am?” the lieutenant spoke as if the answer was obvious – as if his opinion was instead a truth so absolute that he couldn’t even begin to imagine the possibility that his understanding was fundamentally flawed in any way.

(For, to all too many, it wasn't.)

Victoria merely stared at the man, clearly incredulous for the utter intransigence of his mind. Yet the lieutenant was not worth wasting the further privilege of her attention. William was glad when Victoria looked away from him in thinly veiled disgust, and even went so far as to purposefully stand between his queen and the lieutenant when she took several long strides forward, her small fists clenched and her shoulders rigid with tension.

She did not speak another word aloud; instead, she circled the site, the tightly coiled energy in her body not dissipating so much as transforming. Just the same as Victoria, William too attempted to imagine this space as it may have once been, with nearly two thousand souls gathered to witness the supposedly private execution of Anne Boleyn, and the far smaller numbers that had seen Catherine Howard and Jane Grey to their own ends. (By that time, the state-mandated death of a queen had lost much of its novelty.) How much of that first crowd had truly expected blood to spill? he couldn't help but wonder. Did they attend for the violence of the spectacle, or for the drama of Henry pardoning his wife at the last possible moment? How could anyone have believed that the king meant to go through with such an extreme punishment, when he merely could have put his disgraced queen aside for the new bride he'd already chosen? There hadn’t even been a coffin prepared for Anne in advance; instead, she had been buried in a hastily repurposed elm chest from the armory, one that had humbly housed bow staves before being elevated to a far greater purpose. Had anyone truly thought . . .

Anne knew, he intuited with a sudden chill of icy premonition. Anne had known that her husband was not a merciful man, and would have expected no such clemency. Yet she’d still approached her end as a queen, with dignity and grace as befit her station.

. . . so too had Catherine.

. . . so too had Jane.

. . . and now, so too did Victoria hold her own head up proudly high. She did not kneel – would not kneel; not here. Instead, she tilted her chin, and stared up at the ravens who circled against the steel-grey sky. One of the creatures, in particular, had grown unusually bold, watching from the tall boughs of a great planetree before gliding to the ground. There, it hopped closer, its head tilted expectantly and its beak open as it cawed. That first raven was soon joined by another – its partner in life, perhaps, faithful as these creatures were – who had been observing more cautiously from a higher perch in the branches above.

Victoria showed the bird her empty hands – which only garnered another cry and a fluttering of glossy wings – before one of the yeomen warders hesitantly stepped out of formation.

“Begging your pardon, ma’am," the guard respectfully sought Victoria's attention, "but I always try to keep a bit of bread on hand for the ravens. If it pleases Your Majesty, it would be my honor to share.” Yet he trailed off uncertainly, clearly not wanting to offer the handkerchief wrapped parcel he held directly to the queen, but wishing to be of use to his sovereign, nonetheless.

“Oh, how wonderful,” Victoria enthused with a sincere smile. She turned to him and nodded, and William accepted the bit of bread on her behalf as she gave the soldier her full attention. “You have our gratitude, Yeoman . . .”

“Stu-Stutfield, ma’am,” the young man stuttered, clearly startled to understand that she wished to know his name. His cheeks flushed nearly as red as the VR monogramed on his uniform before he collected himself. “Yeoman Sergeant Charles Stutfield,” he managed to repeat on a stronger voice, clicking his heels and standing even straighter at attention to punctuate his words with an exactingly proper parade-ground salute, “at Your Majesty’s service.”

“Thank you, Yeoman Sergeant Stutfield,” Victoria graciously acknowledged, “we are most pleased.”

The yeomen warder fell back into line with his comrades, still looking rather stunned for the honor paid to him by his queen and colonel-in-chief. William observed him for a moment longer – not failing to notice the proud looks that passed to Stutfield from his brother-wardens, who clearly held him in high regard – and made a note to remember the sergeant to his lord commander when next they spoke.

Yet from there, it was Victoria who held his attention, and held it entirely as she took to one knee to offer the bread to the pair of ravens. That first curious raven was vocal in its approval, and even its wary mate accepted a bit of crust before retreating back a safe distance with its prize. Another raven from the unkindness noticed the commotion and landed, and then another and another, until there were a dozen of the birds surrounding Victoria and chattering for her favor. The first raven squawked at the interlopers, and took the choicest pieces of bread as if they were its due. When that raven at last took the remaining bit of bread from Victoria’s hand outright, without any of the usual skittishness of a wild creature but all of the uncanny awareness of the crow-folk, William knew that he was not the only one who stared at the sight, quite transfixed.

It would be something of a legend in the centuries to come, he rather suspected as even the most impeccably trained of the yeomen warders seemingly gaped in awe: the time when the newly ascended Queen of England knelt on the ground where the blood of queens had once spilled, and fed the Ravens of the Tower from the palm of her hand.

At long last, she stood, and let out a deeply held breath.

“All of our history should be remembered,” she finally determined aloud – as much to herself as for the ears of every man gathered. “The history of every king . . . and every queen.”

At her words, William stepped forward to suggest: “Your Majesty only has to give the order to make it so.”

“Oh, I may now; that’s quite right.” Victoria blinked – as if surprised to remember that she now had the power to affect such lasting change at will. “Very well then, let's make it official: we decree that, henceforth, this site shall be marked and remembered in such a manner that befits the gravitas of its history.” She did not smile, not quite, but her countenance was pleased to formally utter the command. “You have our trust to see this done, Lord M.”

“As Your Majesty commands,” William gave an equally formal bow to accept the task, "it shall be done."

She did not thank him aloud, but, for a moment, her gaze was soft and warm, even as thunder rumbled across the horizon, louder than before. The storm was closer now; he could feel its presence in the sudden chill in the air, just as the ravens finally retreated to their roosts.

It was then, as the first, warning drops of rain began to fall, that Victoria returned her attention to the lieutenant – who’d had a sour look on his face ever since his sergeant managed to gain his monarch’s approval where he had not. “Show me where they are buried,” she bid, looking across the last of the green to the chapel. “I wish to pay my respects.”

Not a soul gathered was dumb as to who they were. Still, the lieutenant hesitated. “Your Majesty,” he started carefully, “the chapel . . . well, you see, the chapel is not . . .”

Victoria’s eyes flashed in annoyance, with the patience she’d exercised throughout the day stretched taut beyond endurance before finally snapping. “Oh, what now?” she rolled her eyes with a huff. “I gave you an order, Lieutenant. I did not ask for your opinion; I wish only to be obeyed. If you cannot do so, then kindly step aside for someone more competent who can.”

Lightning flashed; the lieutenant stared, struggling against himself before he forced his overly stiff limbs to concede with a bow. “My apologies, ma’am,” he bore the rebuke from between clenched teeth. “This way, if Your Majesty pleases.”

Yet Victoria did not wait for him to lead; instead, she stalked off towards the chapel on her own, leaving her escort to fall into step and follow behind.

By the time they reached the doors of the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula – the Chapel of St. Peter in Chains – the rain was gaining in intensity, and the next peal of thunder sounded from immediately overhead. As they filed inside, William's first impression was that of twisted shadows in a large, cavernously dark chamber. Lightning flashed through the tall, ogival windows, ghosting to illuminate the interior of the chapel even as the yeomen warders hastened to light the sconces around the nave. The light did not, however, reveal a pleasing sight.

The chapel itself was an ancient building, with a foundation that predated the Norman Conquest entirely. Once the site of a humble parish church, Henry III’s expansion of the Tower had at last brought the chapel within the walls of the keep as a royal peculiar. Yet, what had once been a space fit for a king to worship in was now anything but these many centuries later.

What impacted him first was the smell – not only that of stagnate water and mold and mildew, but something earthier . . . something rank and putrid that rather ominously stank of rot and decay. Before he could even consciously understand what his senses were telling him, he was rather viscerally drawn back to his first time experiencing the aftermath of war in the Battle of Salamanca. He’d been newly arrived in Spain (missing the main action of that penultimate battle, but participating in the breaking of the French rear-guard the following day as part of the fresh reserve troops summoned by General Wellington), trailing behind his colonel with a green soldier’s dumbstruck horror to see where both their dead and the enemy's had been collected in great heaps for burial. The smell of those thousands of bodies rotting in the muggy July heat, even more so than the sight, was one that he would take with him to his own grave, and now . . .

Even worse than that memory from his youth – an odor so foul that it had tasted as raw copper and putrescent meat in his mouth before he’d turned away from his commanding officer in shame and truly lost his stomach – the stench here was heavy and fetid with centuries’ worth of ill-preserved charnel.

William reached up with his left hand to cover his nose and mouth before he could gag – while, with his dominant hand, he found and passed his handkerchief to Victoria, anticipating her need. She accepted it gracelessly, fumbling before coughing wetly into the faint reprieve provided by the thin fabric. Yet she did not retreat into the fresh air back out of doors; instead, she stood her ground, transfixed with disbelief, to take in the surreal, disgustingly Stygian ossuary they had somehow found themselves in.

For that was truly what had become of this supposed house of God: an irreverent, moldering ossuarium. The former partitions of the church had been torn down and stacked against the far wall of the nave some time ago. The remaining expanse of floor between the pews was warped and engrailed, the tiles broken and baldly packed with dirt in many places – and from what cause, it did not take long to deduce. This sad little cemetery had clearly been filled to capacity and then dug and dug again. Whenever space had been sought for fresh bodies, it seemed that those older had been haphazardly exhumed and shoved aside. When even that had failed, he understood with growing revulsion what the long chests stacked next to the furnishings of the chapel contained. They were . . . they were coffins – as such crude vessels could possibly be described, at any rate. Some of the poorly constructed, cheap board crates were so old and so damaged that they too were decaying, with the . . . reliques of their contents visible for any and all to see. Some of the coffins just as appallingly enhearsed the recently deceased, who had unceremoniously been left to rest wherever an empty space could be found. Even for the comparatively fortunate souls buried beneath the ground, it was easy to tell where the long-decomposed corpses had been smashed and their dry bones piled together to make room for fresh bodies. In the remaining mounds of dirt, clearly human bones peaked through – carelessly left by their undertakers or dug up by rats and other such vermin, it was impossible to tell.

From there, of admittedly lesser shock, was the state of the chapel itself: the peeling plaster and molding masonry; the deteriorating stone and mortar, to the point of outright gaps in the cobbles, since burrowed further by rodents; and the broken glass in several of the once-proud window panes, now bared to the mercy of the elements. The ceiling had collapsed outright between two of the exposed beams above, and rain-water cascaded down from the roof, where it pooled and sank, eternally weeping, into the bone-strewed ground below.

“Sweet, merciful Christ in heaven,” Victoria breathed, violently gagging against his handkerchief and swallowing back bile – just as several of the yeomen warders were affected much the same. “Oh, God have mercy.”

“There was a reason, Your Majesty,” the lieutenant said from where he'd buried his own nose against the sleeve of his uniform, “that I wished to dissuade you from entering this place.”

Lightning flashed, illuminating the tempestuous blue of the queen’s gaze.

She did not have to speak for William to understand her fury. What was ill-fit for one queen merely to pay witness to was nonetheless fit for three queens of old in their eternal rest? And she wasn't merely incensed on behalf of the queens – but for the venerated saints and martyrs and noblewomen and statesmen and scholars and warriors, all, who'd fallen to the wrath of the Crown. Even the common criminals and mere denizens of the Tower who couldn’t afford any better when their time finally came . . . each and every man and woman entombed here was an English citizen and a fellow child of God, besides. No one deserved to be treated with so little honor in death . . . no one.

But, no matter the myriad thoughts that screamed from her face, “Where are they?” was all that Victoria asked of the lieutenant aloud, her voice dangerously flat with the effort it took to constrain the true depth of her emotions.

“Up there, ma’am,” the lieutenant wisely hesitated to answer, “by the chancel.”

William wanted nothing more than to take another step closer to Victoria – to put a hand on her arm in a soothing gesture and urge her to leave this place and never return. Instead, he followed behind his queen as she made her way up the aisle. They had to step carefully around the irregular tiles and uneven, jutting angles of the floor to make their way thither. Victoria sucked in a sharp breath when the wide circumference of her skirts caught against the exposed edge of one of the ill-buried coffins, and, by the time she reached the empty altar, stripped naked of its finery for worship, she was all but trembling from the force of suppressing her wrath.

“They are . . . " the lieutenant gestured rather uncertainly, "we believe they are somewhere there, Your Majesty.”

Somewhere there was nothing more than an otherwise unremarkable expanse of paved stones, dented and broken from years of hard use and neglect. Instantly, he saw what Victoria saw – or rather, what she did not see.

Not one of the women who were buried here – nor any other of the high-ranking victims, for that matter – were remembered by name. There was no engraved stone nor humble plaque – not even a discreet symbol existed to declare that here laid, at one time, three of the most powerful women on Earth before they met their otherwise sad and ignoble ends.

“Is this truly how not one, but three Queens of England are interred?” sure enough, Victoria asked with deceiving calm.

“Begging Your Majesty’s pardon,” the lieutenant took it upon himself to contradict his sovereign, “but these women were not queens, but rather, convicted traitors when they were - ”

“ - get out.”

Her voice, though yet still quiet, cut through the gloom like the swinging of an ax.

“Your . . . Your Majesty?”

“Get out, I said!” Victoria wasn’t nearly so composed to demand a second time. “I want you to leave,” she exclaimed when the lieutenant remained, confounded in his place, “immediately!”

“But, begging Your Majesty’s pardon,” the lieutenant stuttered in protest, “it – it’s raining.”

Victoria’s eyes flashed with sea storm and fire, but through a supreme – and, frankly, rather admirable – force of will, she collected herself. “Regardless,” she reined in her temper to hiss, “you have our permission to withdraw – all of you.”

The lieutenant wisely did not argue any further, and joined his men, who were already obediently walking backwards and bowing to depart. She waited until the chapel doors closed behind the last man before letting out an inarticulate sound of anger and frustration. She looked as if she physically wanted to strike something – she wanted to fight – but only the storm was available to answer the tempest of her fury.

William, for his part, stood quietly, and let her feel whatever it was that needed to be felt, for as long as she needed to feel it. His liege was not unlike a tea kettle, it hadn’t taken him long to understand. She could only be stifled and constrained for so long before nature inevitably found its outlet – situations where she felt wrested from control, in particular, only hastened that process – and he was more than content to be a safe space for her to vent her emotions in a healthy manner, the same as he’d once been for her uncle the king. (Or so he told himself most sternly – this was not the same as enduring Caro's rages, where his admittedly sangfroid propensity for equanimity had only ever incensed his wife further, never mind that this felt infinitely more natural than closing himself off from her mercurial moods had ever been . . . it was not. Then, he'd felt like some granite sea stack, weathering the violence of the waves in open water; now, he rather felt like the harbor of the shoreline itself, cradling the pounding of the surf before the ocean finally calmed and returned to its rest.)

William IV, though, (he purposefully called his mind back to a more relevant parallel) had merely been called eccentric in his youth and tetchy in his dotage; his temper was taken in stride by both his subjects and those who served him, in large part due to the crown he'd worn first as prince and then a sovereign king.

However, there was a vast difference between a woman who was supposedly prone to hysteria and a man who was known to be querulous. One was merely viewed as passionate in the eyes of society, while the other . . .

Victoria stalked around the altar, as restless as a caged lion, her rage all but shimmering from her as the rain sluiced down the former splendor of the windows in livid waves to match.

“I demand to see Wellington as soon as I return to the palace,” she all but growled. “This will be amended, immediately.”

“He shall be summoned without delay," William agreed just as fervently, no matter the apparent restraint of his voice. "This will . . . this will be changed,” he vowed, casting a dark look of his own across the sad state of the chapel. “This is not a wrong that cannot yet be put to rights, Your Majesty.”

“Isn’t it, though?” she whispered, and then, to his alarm, he thought he heard . . .

Sure enough, when he tore his gaze from the ruin of the nave, Victoria gave a noisy exhale and held her hands up to cover her eyes. He found himself turning bodily towards her, not knowing to what end he intended to be of comfort but instinctively wanting to provide that comfort, nonetheless. This was a woman whose hand he could not even hold, let alone indulge in the sudden, surprisingly intense urge he felt to pull her close and wrap his arms about her. So, as he all too often did whenever he warred within himself, he held back, and did nothing.

Victoria, however, solved his quandary for him. “Please,” she bade as she continued to sniffle, “please, if you could . . . I would be grateful if you did not look at me for a moment.”

He respectfully gave her his back as requested, and held his hands clasped before him in order to keep them equally still in obedience. He heard her grapple with her tears, and instead forced himself to focus on where the rain poured down from the ceiling above in a steadily trickling cascade.

When he finally spoke, his own voice was rough with emotion to say, “Tears don’t make you weak, ma’am.”

“Don’t they?” she snorted bitterly, and then coughed when she unwittingly inhaled a lungful of the still foul air. He wished, then, that he had another handkerchief to spare. “I will most certainly be dubbed as such if any of the guards catch sight of me. The lieutenant will already call me hysterical, I fear, and by the time this story reaches the court they will say that I was shrieking like a harpy and stamping my feet like a little girl throwing a tantrum.”

“You have passion, ma’am,” he disagreed entirely, “which is something that has been lacking from the Crown for far too long.” For generations; centuries, even – since Elizabeth herself was queen, he would go so far as to say.

“But, don't you know, Lord M? Passion in a woman is dangerous,” Victoria said in a too-small voice. "It's not the same as passion in a man."

“Only in the eyes of weak men,” he scoffed, “and fools besides.”

“Perhaps," she gave with a wry, wet sort of sound. "Yet the fools far outnumber such men of sense. There are . . . there are so many of them, just waiting for me to fail."

“Then be canny and clever – and careful, yes, while you establish your rule – but I would entreat you, Your Majesty, never to make yourself small for fear of a man’s opinion; do not ever dim your light,” William surprised even himself by the fervor of conviction in his voice. When was the last time he had believed in, let alone felt so deeply about anything? When had he ever truly committed himself to the rightness of a path with a certainty he knew down to his very bones? “Entirely cool heads do not affect change – not for the better; they merely tread water in stasis.” For how too often had that been true of himself, even? “You can’t see it, ma’am – not yet – but you are waking up a government that has far too long been at sleep.”

The next peal of thunder, when it sounded, was distant. It took Victoria a long moment to reply, and when she did her words were nearly whispered, “Do you truly think so?”

He knew so.

For his own part, he'd been quite done with politics by the end of her uncle's reign. He knew his own worth as a politician – he'd risen as far as he had in his party and remained there because of his ability to compromise and sooth tempers and keep dangerous egos in check. Following the scourge of Napoleon, and decades of warring, indolent rule from one irresponsible monarch after another, their country was unsteady and needed time to heal and recover. They were not yet strong enough for the vast, sweeping changes that perhaps needed to happen for the betterment of all – those changes would come about after his tenure, no matter how much he may have privately wished otherwise. Instead, his gift and lasting legacy to the future would be a government that was stable enough to stand as a firm foundation for that new era yet to come. Even so, he'd long-since wearied of his role of maintaining peace solely through equilibrium; he was tired of placating, of tempering, of perpetually walking the path of least resistance between incalcitrant lords and zealous reformers and stubborn monarchs. His service to his country and the Constitution he so completely adored – the one constant love of his life – had felt far too empty for far too long, and he'd been ready to relinquish his premiership to anyone who thought they could do better in his place with a hearty good luck and godspeed.

But then, he'd been called to Kensington to bend the knee to his new queen – inwardly dreading the prospect of playing nursemaid to a sheltered girl-child, no matter how highly King William may have spoken of his niece – and from nearly that very first moment in her presence . . .

It was like awakening to the light of spring after a long season of winter. He'd felt alive again, and energized anew in his service even as he guided her through her own. This woman was going to shake the world – was going to redefine what it meant to lead an empire – and the great privilege of his career (of his very life) was the honor of attending her as she took her first, uncertain steps down that path to greatness.

“I speak for myself," he finally managed to say, a hoarse rasp to the already low timbre of his voice, "with the utmost sincerity, Your Majesty.”

Those words were not enough – not nearly – to express the true depth of devotion he better felt inside, but when he at last turned back to Victoria, her eyes were shining for a far different reason than grief. She held his gaze, words passing unspoken between them, before she hesitantly ventured, "Would you . . . would you perhaps pray with me, Lord M?”

She'd crossed back to the penitent side of the chancel, and watched him with a hopeful smile. He restrained his first, almost reflexive demurral – for he'd not prayed since the night his son had died, nor had he stepped foot in a church for the express intention of worship for far longer still. He’d not lived by the grace of any higher power for most of his life, but now, for the glory of this woman . . .

“Of course,” he said, and knelt with her on the abused stones in front of the altar.

It was easy for Victoria to bow her head over her clasped hands and fall into reverent supplication, yet he hardly knew how to offer up a prayer of his own. What could he possibly say that God would be interested in hearing, and after so many years of not bothering at all? Instead, he merely inclined his head for as long as she did, and trusted that, if anyone was truly listening, they would know everything he voiced in silence. Then, at long last, Victoria lifted her eyes to the fading storm light, shining down from the clerestory windows above.

“I will honor each and every one of you," she whispered aloud, and this time he gave himself leave to experience the intensity of her communion alongside her. "I will make every single queen who has ever come before me proud – and pave the way for all who may yet reign after me, I swear it.”

When she finally stood before the altar, her eyes were dry – and though she would be officially anointed in all due ceremony at Westminster Abbey in only a few weeks' time, this felt like a true baptism in spirit, if not a consecration in actuality.

Sure enough, she took one last look at the plain, tired old stones covering the graves, and then exhaled. “I am ready to return," she declared, determination ringing like a clarion-call through her voice. "There is much to be done.”

“And so it shall be, Your Majesty,” he assured with an echoing promise of his own. Then, he accompanied her down the aisle of the chapel and, heedless of the rain, out into the storm beyond.


fin

Spoiler: End Notes

A Note on Sergeant Stutfield: In history, he was the next Deputy Lieutenant of the Tower under the Duke of Wellington's stewardship as Lord Commander. The one before him was not named on Wikipedia, not because of any mark of disfavor, I don't think, but rather due to an incomplete list. (Still, I enjoyed interpreting that in my own way. )

A Note on the Scaffold Site: Believe it or not, the monument built on the supposed scaffold site at the Tower of London does not mark where the scaffold actually was - it just marks where Queen Victoria was told it was, by a yeomen warder who did not want to admit to his sovereign that he did not actually know for sure. (That little bit of unflattering information thus inspired the unnamed lieutenant's characterization in this story. ) Victoria went on to have the site commemorated in her time, and the absolutely beautiful monument that's there now was added during Queen Elizabeth II's reign. The inscription on the monument: "Gentle visitor pause a while, where you stand death cut away the light of many days. Here jeweled names were broken from the vivid thread of life. May they rest in peace while we walk the generations around their strife and courage under these restless skies," is absolutely beautiful, in my opinion, so much so that the title of this story was almost Under These Restless Skies. The site of the scaffold, as described by several in the crowd who attended Anne Boleyn's execution (there was nothing private about it), would be somewhere north of the White Tower, on the parade grounds in front of the Waterloo Block.

A Note on the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula: I, sadly, did not make a word of this up. For anyone who has seen the chapel in person, the bright, airy space that stands there now was all Queen Victoria's doing. Prior to her reign, the chapel had fallen into a gross state of disrepair. This contemporary visitor said it best: “In truth, there is no sadder spot on earth than this little cemetery. Death there is associated not as in Westminster or St. Paul’s, with genius and virtue, but with whatever is darkest in human nature and human destiny, with all the miseries of fallen greatness and of blighted fame.”

Queen Victoria ordered renovations to the chapel, proper burials for every single body found within, and memorials erected to honor the dead. Perhaps somewhat fittingly, it took the act of a queen to grant those three queens of old a dignity in death they'd been denied for centuries. Even so, of those queens, only Anne Boleyn's remains were identified with any confidence. Her "coffin" had been disturbed, and her bones broken and re-piled to make room for a neighboring interment. It has been concluded that since Catherine Howard and Jane Grey were both so young at their deaths, their bones had not yet hardened and calcified. The combination of the lime contents in the grave soil and the insufficient containers used for their burials turned their bones to dust.

If you're morbidly curious on this subject - and I know I was, the more I learned - then I recommend these videos, both of which are from two very interesting history channels on YouTube! The first one is just a few minutes long, and the second one goes into greater detail.





A Note on Melbourne's Military Service: Lord Melbourne was a lieutenant and then a major in the army, though at a time in the Napoleonic Wars when the British Navy was more heavily deployed beyond England's shores than the Royal Army. As a result, as far as I can tell, I don't think he saw any major action. From there, his service was cut short at the unexpected death of his older brother, upon which he returned home to take his place as heir to the viscountcy. So, him being present for the end of the Peninsular Wars is more of me purposefully being nebulous with his age to fit with the show rather than history. I also liked alluding to the Battle of Salamanca and the following Action at Garcia Hernandez to further establish Melbourne's very, very interesting relationship with the Duke of Wellington, which we will definitely be getting into further on in this series. (If you really want to be historically inaccurate with me, the colonel I imagined very well could have been Colonel Brandon, whom I already wrote as serving in Portugal and Spain at this time in my S&S fic, We Few, We Precious Few. )

A Note on Melbourne's Political Career and Legacy: It highly amuses me that both positive and negative views on his premiership tend to say the same thing: that nothing happened while he was prime minister. Critics use that as a detraction, while favorable views say that that alone was impressive given the circumstances under which he served. Keeping that many egos and tempers in line when Parliament was just starting to truly become more powerful than the Crown, all the while keeping Britain out of war, regrowing relationships with France and America, and maintaining the tenuous bonds between the grossly disparate social classes at home during a period of violent reform and revolution in Europe was . . . no small feat. Historically, he was quite done with politics and ready to retire before Victoria's ascension, but then he seemingly found a new zeal for governing and life in general. () His greatest legacy, even his political enemies could agree, was giving Victoria the tools she needed to lead and affect change in her own way. Fictionally, however, I enjoyed Goodwin's characterization of Melbourne as being rather frustrated by his reputation as a man of compromise and more socially aware than he actually appeared to be in history, which you better believe I'm going to expand upon further as we go . . .

A Note on Feminine Hysteria During Victorian Times: Here's a rather awful not-so-fun fact: the English word hysteria stems from the Greek word hystera, which means uterus. Hysteria as a "medical condition" was anything from strong emotions in a woman to fainting spells, anxiety, insomnia, vomiting, seizures, hallucinations, and infertility. The most common cure for hysteria was thought to be marriage and motherhood - which is a stigma that Victoria absolutely fought against in history, with varying degrees of success. But, more about that later in another author's note. I've ranted enough here, I know; you guys have to be tired of me by now!

Spoiler: actually, I lied, here's another essay

Once I started, I really got going on this tangent. So, I am going to preface this by saying that this is all my opinion as an author, learning more about these personalities in history with an aim to influence my characterizations while writing. Please feel free to take my modernly influenced, admittedly amateur arm-chair diagnosis with a grain of salt.

In short: Victoria had a famously explosive temper (especially when she felt that she wasn't in control of a situation, which, given her childhood at Kensington and the outright abuse she suffered at the hands of Sir John, is not surprising). At the beginning of her reign, her ministers commonly agreed that she needed to marry in order to "bring her under control" and that motherhood would "calm her natural feminine inclination for hysteria". Enter Albert, who was an admittedly cool character, by all accounts. His natural reserve turned icy and cutting whenever Victoria was in "excitable spirits" - even according to her own diaries and firsthand observers. This caused no small amount of tension in their marriage, to say the least.

Now, to be fair: Albert, in his own way, had just as intense a need for control as Victoria. He was the "impoverished" younger son of the prince of a very small, minor German state. He was royal in blood, but that's about all he had to offer as a bridegroom, and he chaffed underneath his perceived inferiority to Victoria. What's more than that, he'd been told his entire life that he had to marry her in order to bring British pounds in to clear his family's debts; that expectation must have rankled in its own way. (His yearly "salary" as a prince increased with every potential heir, and was mind-bogglingly ridiculous nine children later; make of that what you will.) Albert's father was a famous womanizer and spent obscene quantities of money that he didn't have at the expense of his people, as did Albert's elder brother Ernst, though to a lesser extent. Albert, as a result, was strict, pious, disciplined, and, in line with the thinking of the time, balked at the idea of a marriage where he was not the master of his own household. He and Victoria constantly locked horns over him trying to assume the role of king - Victoria very carefully kept him as a prince, with no official power in government, before the near constant trials and complications of pregnancy and motherhood won out and Albert took over more and more of the day-to-day business of ruling as her private secretary.

But what's truly telling, in my opinion, is that so many of Victoria's journals describe what a wicked, awful creature she was for her strong emotions, while Albert was her precious angel prince who was saintly for enduring her and deserved better than such a troublesome wife. These entries just got wilder and more self-flagellating further and further into their marriage. Personally, from a modern point of view, a woman who talks like that tends to repeat what she's being told until she believes it herself - though, again, that's just my own opinion. I actually had to stop watching the show because Albert hit some of my own RL triggers a bit too hard, and I couldn't handle seeing such a relationship romanticized - but I also want to be transparent in saying that I am more than slightly biased, and I'm aware of my bias. I'm going to do my best to be balanced in my own writing, because we are definitely going to get into Albert and Victoria's courtship before I deviate from history . . . and maybe, just maybe, that will make for a happier ending for Albert too. Like I said in the opening notes for this story, I don't think that Albert had any malicious intentions as Victoria's husband, and he truly loved her in his own way, but it was not a healthy relationship for either party, by any means.

Because, yes, Victoria most certainly had a temper, and that temper came out in spades whenever she had to fight to assert her right to rule - which was sadly more often than not. I can't even express how gross it has been, reading of the opinions that men held about women in general, let alone their queen, during this era. Because that's really the short of it: Victoria rarely had the freedom to process and express her emotions in a safe, healthy way - even in her marriage - and this impacted her character negatively over the years, in my not-so-professional opinion.

Now, let's contrast that to the way that Melbourne handled such supposed "hysteria" in women. In history, I wouldn't call Melbourne cold, so much as mild tempered. He was laid back, almost to the point of irreverence, which is an image he rather cultivated to give himself an edge in politics; he tended to respond to insults with humor, and went quiet when he was hurt or truly angry. Perhaps somewhat ironically, his wife, Caroline, had a rather tempestuous personality of her own. She was a passionate, opinionated woman, even at the zenith of their marriage - which, according to Melbourne's sister Emily, was what he had fallen in love with in the first place. That passionate nature soon turned toxic, yes, but in a way that was rooted in tragedy. Melbourne closed in on himself when they lost their daughters and suffered through their son's declining health; he called his bouts of depression "blue tempers" where he couldn't stir from his melancholy. Many of Caroline's outbursts seemed to be in direct reaction to his seeming lack of a reaction - which is a pattern of behavior that only intensified with Lord Byron, and the astonishing extremes to which she went to recapture his attention after his own ardor cooled. Her affairs, in the beginning, equally seemed to serve that purpose, just as much as they were band-aid solutions for her own pain. (I'd put any money that that's why the Duke of Wellington was one of her lovers, as that one had to really sting.) But Melbourne did not react the way she wanted him to - he, as the product of a very famous open marriage himself, respected her choices with the hope that they would bring her some happiness, and allowed her the same freedom that he then enjoyed in keeping his own mistresses . . . which is such a warped, unhealthy dynamic that it can be an essay all its own. Needless to say, neither of them were happy with their arrangement, but couldn't figure out exactly why.

Enter into that hot mess: Lord Byron, who was only truly besotted with Caroline when she resisted his advances and was then repulsed by her when she became too "clingy" and wanted a more long-term relationship. Yeah . . . theirs was an unhealthy situation on so many levels, as well. When Caroline published their fictionalized story in Glenarvon, her heroine's biggest complaint about her husband was that he did not care about her enough to fight for her. He did not react when she strayed, and so she felt no reason to stay close to him in return.

So, you had Albert who imposed too much, and Melbourne who imposed too little. But, with Victoria, Melbourne's patience was soothing rather than enabling. (For the most part, anyway - but we'll get into that too. ) He would let her express her emotions, even the bad ones, especially when her temper was the result of her feeling constrained and underestimated, and then help talk her down. They didn't feed off each other's negativity, but balanced each other. It got to a point where Victoria's ladies-in-waiting would write to Melbourne whenever Victoria had a trying day, and make sure that he visited to help set her mind at ease. I think it's easy to say that he had the benefit of hindsight, and, in this case, their age difference was a good thing. He was there solely to support Victoria, and found his own peace in feeling needed by her in return. He didn't view her as any less for being a full human being, either - he was related to, romantically involved with, or outrightly admired some of the greatest female powerhouses of the time when it came to society, the arts, and politics. He said that he'd have his sister and Emma Portman as ministers in their husbands' places - I think that the exact quote was that the only reason that their husbands were ministers in his government was so that he could benefit from the wisdom of their wives - and he believed that more real policy was influenced and settled in the drawing rooms of the likes of Lady Holland and Princess Lieven than the halls of Parliament. As such, he was a rare man in power who did not think Victoria incapable of ruling, but rather, took it upon himself to enforce her right to rule. In having such a close ally who did not seek to dominate her when she was truly besieged on all sides, Victoria then tackled her own hurdles with a calmer mind and a clearer head. Instead of feeding a vicious cycle, they complemented each other, and that . . . well, what works as a sound foundation for political allies and even friends makes just as compelling a basis for shipping, too, again in my humble opinion.

But . . . until then!

~ MJ

 

Success!

Aw, thank you so much! Even that means so much to me, and I'm thrilled to know that you are reading and enjoying these stories!

Aw, thank you so much! That was one of my favorite lines - the both of them.

Thank you! I was so proud of both of those metaphors.

And thank you for reading and leaving your thoughts! A lot of this was new information for me, too - Goodwin's novel just slammed into me, and now, the more I learn, the more I am enjoying building this particular what if.



Alrighty! I will have the next event up soon.


~ MJ

 

Author's Note: I know, I'm as shocked as you that my muse is being so constant with this project! But I'm happy to take inspiration whenever and wherever I can, and, towards that end, I am happy to share these next two events.

. . . that said, have I mentioned that I am actually going to write for fifteen events, according to my current outline, and this entire collection just may be novel-length by the time I'm done? No? Well, that happened, and I can't say I'm entirely sorry.

Enjoy!

---

III. “Though She be but Little …”
(Tennis Match)​

“Flora Hastings gave me a list, suggesting suitably appropriate ladies-in-waiting for me to appoint – as if I'm utterly incapable of deciding for myself!”

“Begging Your Majesty’s pardon, but I too am making suggestions for those very same positions.”

“Yes; but you are advising, Lord M – and a most trustworthy advisor you have since proven to be! Flora thinks that since she is my mother’s lady, she is both mother and lady to me, as well. It’s the worst sort of charity; it’s condescension.”

“Ah, I see.”

“She suggested ladies who are, and I use her exact verbiage, not above average height!”

“Heaven forbid.”

“Because they – Mama and Sir John and their puppet Flora – think that I am still a child, if only because God has seen fit to bestow upon me less than a true woman’s full height!”

“ . . . ”

“Are you laughing at me?”

“Your Majesty, I would never dare – yet, as your most trustworthy advisor, I must point out that it's perhaps best not to punctuate such declarations of your maturity with words that could possibly be perceived as otherwise less than.”

“ . . . ”

“ . . . ”

“Don’t think me ignorant of your aim: you’re trying to make me laugh so that I forget my – most valid and quite mature – reasons for anger.”

“ . . . is it working?”

“Oh, don’t smile at me so, Lord M; I find such arrogance entirely unbecoming.”

“As my queen commands, I shall endeavor to obey.”

“ . . . ”

“ . . . ”

“Well, then – is this Lady Flora’s list?”

“It is.”

“It’s rather . . . ”

“Wrinkled? I suppose that’s because I crumpled the paper and tossed it over my shoulder. She must have found it and returned it to my study – odious, presumptuous woman that she is.”

“There are many Tory ladies on this list.”

“That is precisely what I thought; yet, I assure you, I shall consider none.”

“Ma’am, at the risk of sounding impertinent once more, I feel it my duty to remind Your Majesty that while your faith in my party is most gratifying, the Crown is supposed to be above such petty partisan bias.”

“Oh, but the Crown assures our most dutiful, if quite impertinent, prime minister that we are indeed impartial – however, Her Majesty is one thing; Victoria, for herself, quite has a mind of her own.”

“The Prime Minister is indeed grateful that the Crown has clarified that most essential of delineations. Yet, politics aside - ”

“ - never mind that everything about these appointments shall be examined through a political lens - ”

“ - these ladies may be Tories, but they’re not all entirely disagreeable. Lady Wellesley, for example - ”

“ - shall surely be sent as a spy for her father-in-law and Sir Robert Peel both!”

“Each and every lady who attends you, at least at first, will be a spy of some sort. Everyone belongs to someone; the trick is to ensure that someone then belongs entirely to you.”

“Then who do you recommend that I can trust, Lord M? I want . . . I would like to have friends of my own, as well as ladies-in-waiting, if at all possible. Is that . . . is that entirely selfish of me?”

“Ma’am, nothing could be less so. You may hold the throne by divine grace, but you are still one of God's creatures, are you not? You deserve friends, just as much as you shall very much need them in the days to come.”

“Then you understand me perfectly – no matter how you may sigh!”

“I sigh only to imagine the grumbling amongst my most esteemed colleagues in the House, I assure Your Majesty. They will say that you are overly taking the advice of your Whig prime minister if you wholly rely on my suggestions.”

“As if I care a fig for the grumblings of Whitehall – why should I desire their good opinion if they are wrong?”

“It is perhaps easy to say as much when you’ve never been on the disapproving side of public opinion, ma’am. That is . . . something I would spare you from, if ever within my power.”

“And for that, I am most grateful, Lord M. Yet, for something this important . . . I am ready to bear the disapprobation of the masses if you are.”

“Your bravery humbles me, Your Majesty. All right, then . . . I suppose that if I could offer any counsel with the sincere wish for you to take it to heart, it would be to surround yourself with giants, in every sense. If my premiership has accomplished anything – or ever shall – it is entirely because of the men serving within my ministry. Your ladies should be like the knights of King Arthur’s table – brothers-in-arms and great heroes, each in their own right, before they swore allegiance to their king. Select the best, for they will be the ones who accompany you into battle, day in and day out.”

“Tell me who such giants are, and I shall arm them with swords.”

“May I suggest, to start, Her Ladyship, Baroness Emma Portman.”

IV. “… She is Fierce”
(4x100 Relay)​

Charity

They were all so much taller than her.

Not only taller: but worldlier, lovelier, and so sophisticated . . .

And they were all well-known to each other. As great ladies of society, they’d weathered coming out balls and courtships and marriages and children and intrigues together, all the while influencing policy in their own right – for there was not a lady here, Lord Melbourne had promised, whom did not deserve a seat in Parliament herself.

Yet, far from taking comfort where comfort had been intended, Victoria keenly felt her status as an outsider from her own court, surrounded by such beautiful, elegant, clever, tall -



Friendship

“Too short, ma'am?” Harriet Sutherland repeated. “Oh, but I’ve always worried that I overly resemble a flamingo, myself!”

“Or a penguin!” Sarah Lyttleton mimed in example.

“An elephant!” Maria Phipps likewise tugged on her – truly quite proportionate – ears.

“If the current fashions do not complement Your Majesty,” Emma Portman advised, “then you’ll simply change what’s fashionable.”

“I can . . . I can do that?”

“You're the queen; not only can you, but you’ll be expected to.”

Harriet eagerly called for her sketchbook, and from there, with much giddiness – perhaps influenced by more than a little champagne – Victoria allowed her ladies to attend her.



Affection

Victoria did not wholly appreciate her new allies until the levée for the Spanish Ambassador. When she overheard Señor de Aguilar compare her to the Queen of Spain: a seven-year-old little girl, she was mortified, but could hardly respond without seeming childish as accused.

Yet she needn’t have worried: the ambassador made to approach her, but was intercepted by a wall of silk and lace.

“How tiresome, playing host to a nation of such infantes,” Harriet proclaimed.

“Perhaps, when Queen Isabella is old enough,” Emma frostily agreed, “we shall find better bon ton when graced by the true majesty of the Spanish court.”



Intimacy

Needless to say, the ambassador left immediately thereafter.

“You needn’t worry, ma’am," Harriet winked, "he’ll dare not complain of our poor etiquette, for fear that we shall reveal his.”

“Indeed, wasn't that marvelous?” Sarah exclaimed. “I rather feel like a shield-maiden of old!”

“I should write to Monsieur Fabre, even!” Anne Caulfeild enthused. “For his next painting of antiquity, he should immortalize us as Amazons, with Her Majesty as Queen Thalestris, staring down Alexander the Great himself!”

Such a splendid idea galvanized her ladies, and Victoria felt a warm glow to be surrounded, for the first, by such true friends.

Spoiler: End Notes

A Note on Victoria's Height: In real life, Victoria was insecure about her height. (She was only 4'11" - and, as such, very much embodied Shakespeare's though she be but little, she is fierce line. ) Part of her low self-image stemmed from Sir John - seriously, this man was verbally abusive and manipulative to the extreme, even according to outside sources - who routinely put her down in an effort to convince her to assign him more power. She was self-conscious about her weight and her perceived lack of beauty, as well - her Uncle Leopold even wrote her letters, counseling her to watch her diet and to exercise regularly. (Though her portraits show just an average, and even pretty teenage girl.) She was advised to choose ladies-in-waiting who were not taller than her, and plain as well. Victoria, of course, balked against this by choosing ladies who were traditionally beautiful, yes, but, most importantly, had razor-sharp minds to match.

If you're curious about contemporary images, this is a painting done by an American artist, Charles Leslie. Victoria - who typically didn't like portraits of herself - loved this painting even more so than her official coronation portrait, and commissioned a larger version to hang in the palace.



A Note on Queen Isabella II of Spain: She became queen of Spain at three years old, and was governed by regents until she came of age; she would have been a seven years old at the time of Victoria's ascension. Spain was embroiled in internal conflict at the time. There was an attempted rebellion by her uncle and his supporters who protested a female regnant when she first ascended the throne, and her reign was marked by civil unrest and political strife until she was ultimately deposed as part of the Glorious Revolution in 1868.

A Note on Harriet Sutherland, Duchess of Sutherland: She was Mistress of the Robes (senior lady-in-waiting) to Victoria whenever the Whigs were in power for thirty years. (Somewhat contrary to both the book/show and even my dialogue here, the queen traditionally kept ladies from her prime minister's party - which Victoria famously balked against in her second year of ruling when she lost Melbourne as a prime minister. The Tories refused to form a government under such adverse conditions, and Melbourne came back as a Whig prime minister for a weak two-year term to salvage the scandal - though we're going to get into the Bedchamber Crisis soon enough. ) Harriet became, perhaps, Victoria's closest female friend, and the only companion Victoria allowed during her reclusion following Albert's death. Harriet's grandson eventually married Victoria's fourth daughter, Louise, and they were bound together as family even when Harriet didn't have an official position at court. Harriet was a famous abolitionist and suffragist, and Lord Melbourne was completely right in saying that she was far more politically able than her husband, and an ally to keep close.

A Note on Elizabeth Wellesley, Duchess of Wellington: She was indeed a Tory and the daughter-in-law of the Duke of Wellington. Regardless, she did eventually become one of Victoria's ladies, and was another one of Victoria's close, lifelong friends.

A Note on Anne Caulfeild, Countess of Charlemont: As well as serving as one of Queen Victoria's ladies for seventeen years, she was also a celebrated beauty. Lord Byron famously compared her to Venus, and the artist François-Xavier Fabre did have her pose for his allegorical paintings - like this one with Anne as Psyche.



In my AU, I like to imagine that Fabre went on to paint just such a painting of Victoria and her ladies as Amazons (I feel like Melbourne would be all hearts-eyes for such a painting - maybe he'd even go on to commission a portrait of Victoria as her namesake Nike/Victory once I get this couple to such a point ), perhaps updating Johann Georg Platzer's 1730 painting The Amazon Queen Thalestris in the camp of Alexander the Great. (Which I would link, but there is one figure in the painting that displays artistic nudity, so, TOS and all that. ) According to legend, Alexander wanted to conquer a "kingdom of women" but wisely reconsidered upon meeting their queen.


And, on that note, I bid you adieu until the next event!

~ MJ

 

@Mira_Jade Brace yourself for another incoming long review

I love that sense of Victoria gaining confidence and coming into her own here. There is that delicate balance between needing to assert her independence and authority as a woman and ruler (to not be a puppet queen as you so aptly phrase it) and being able to draw on the wisdom of her counselors. Ruling is not easy, especially for a young woman in the nineteenth century, and I think you capture that core struggle really well throughout this piece.

Yes, I think you hit the nail on the head with this horrible double standard, and I appreciate that you have Victoria so acutely aware of it, and how it affects her as a woman and queen.

I love how progressive you have Victoria's views on education be here

This line feels so very Victoria.

You are doing a great job developing that tension between Victoria the girl, Victoria the woman, and, of course, Victoria the queen. Identity can be such a complex thing, and it's hard to manage that transition from girl to woman and balance the contradictions between woman and queen, and so to be trying to juggle all three identities like Victoria is doing in this piece is triply difficult.

These words feel so prescient since Queen Victoria's name did end up defining such a distinctive and glorious era in English history (say Victorian, and everyone knows exactly when and what you mean, same as if you say Elizabethan).

This is a fantastic bit of dialogue. It really shows both how restrictive nineteenth century gender roles can be for women (ideas that women are more feeble-minded than men and ought to submit to men) and how he is encouraging and empowering Victoria to break free of these constraints as much as she can.

Yes, of course, some sexist man would reduce her desire to see the Tower to some sort of feminine interest in jewels. You do a great job capturing and conveying that pervasive and insidious nature of casual sexism.

I love the history and significance of prior queens of England's crowns that you explore here.

Excellent reflections from Victoria on both the weight of the crown, and on the ominous and powerful significance of the Nineteenth of May.

There is so much import behind this declaration.

And there we have those nasty nineteenth century beliefs about the delicacy of female brains rearing their ugly heads again.

Such a horrifying and gruesome image that demonstrates just how ruthless Henry could be once he had decided it was time to set aside another one of his wives.

It's always remarkable how even to this day the fates of Henry VIII"s wives are used to comment on how women should behave but the comparable commentary on how men ought to conduct themselves isn't given about Henry VII. So, again, I really appreciate that you are highlighting this double standard in terms of how history doesn't tend to be particularly just in how it remembers women versus men.

I love Victoria's desire to know more about the women who preceded her as queen of England. Both the glory and the ignominy of their fates. And how she doesn't want anything left out, as we see reinforced throughout her visit to the Tower. This unflinching willingness to stare even painful and traumatic moments of history in the face and remember them for what they are. It's a very honest and brave approach to history.

I love how you describe each of these women. Anne Boleyn was indeed the wife and queen Henry VIII made and unmade, I could definitely imagine Elizabeth being Victoria's idol and inspiration as reigning queen, and then of course the tragedy of Jane Grey's brief, ill-fated reign (and life). I also appreciate your sympathetic take on Catherine Howard when as you observe in your author's notes, there is often a sad tendency among some historians and other commentators to want to malign her. So it is nice to see someone defending Catherine and her good qualities (and calling out Henry VIII's more vile ones as well).

This line is great and really drives home the tragedy of Anne's second trip to the Tower. That descent from celebration and triumph to condemnation and death.

I love the history you are giving of us the Tower here, and yes, it would have been splendid to hear the cheers, music, and fanfare for Queen Anne. And reading this part, I can almost hear the cheers, music, and fanfare. Feel as if I am being transported to the past along with the characters.

The blurring of the past with the present here is magnificent. It really shows that connection and parallel between various historical eras and queens.

Again, I like the history you are giving us, and the parallels not only between Anne and Elizabeth (mother and daughter), but also with both those queens and Victoria.

And I am so proud of this queen of England stepping into the shadow of the Tower because she is so brave and strong.

This really communicates the horror of the fire and everything that was lost to it. Well-done!

What a powerful thread of connection you draw between the three years and three failed sons. With the gut punch of three failed sons being her true crime and the king deciding that there would not be a fourth. Plus the king deciding to move onto Jane Seymour, his next wife.

Again, I love this parallel between Anne and Victoria with Victoria choosing to kneel in the grass in a sort of homage to Anne's memory.

The phrasing "all too fallibly of flesh and blood" is so moving and really resonates with me.

I am applauding over just how fierce Victoria is here, and Henry VIII seeing himself as more a god than a man is such a perfect description of him and how he behaved especially later on in his reign.

Nice acknowledgement again of that double standard that women and women rulers face compared to men and male rulers and of why Elizabeth had to style herself the Virgin Queen to maintain her power.

This was a very poignant account of how Elizabeth and Robert would have bonded in a difficult time in their lives (when they believed themselves to be facing imminent execution) and how a forbidden love blossomed between them. Which gets me thinking of the love blossoming between Victoria and Lord M. as well on this visit to the Tower.

I just love the poetry of the description "like a faithful tide tethered to its moon." What a masterful use of words there!

You really show the suffering and imprisonment that Catherine and Jane Grey would have experienced in their last days, and there also is a sense of the brutal twists of fate and turns of Fortune's Wheel that ended up crushing and destroying these young women (or really, girls).

Yes, I always get tears in my eyes thinking of how Catherine requested the executioner's block be brought to her cell so she could practice making a dignified end, and I appreciate you highlighting that episode and side of her character here.

It's so powerful that Victoria does this. Because remembering matters, and it feels like Jane and Catherine are finally being seen as they deserve to be.

I love Victoria's insistence that history shouldn't be ignored and that it's important to draw attention to even the aspects of history that wouldn't be flattering to a particular king, and her awareness that preserving the memory of one king isn't worth maligning and slandering the reputations of so many of that king's victims.

There are some great observations ("the state-mandated death of a queen had lost much of its novelty") and questions here. Such as how many of the first crowd attending Anne Boleyn's death would have expected the execution to go forth and whether people attended for the spectacle of bloodshed or to witness the drama of a last minute pardon from the king. And of course the detail of how there hadn't been a coffin prepared for Anne, and how she needed to be buried in a repurposed elm chest from the armory.

This passage provides a truly haunting parallel between Anne, Catherine, Jane, and Victoria. It feels like a truly poignant procession of queens.

Wonderful words from Victoria.

Yes, I whole-heartedly support Victoria's declaration here.

I do love the outrage on behalf of the dead here. The sense that they deserve to be treated with more respect. Their memories honored and preserved. Which are such core themes of this story: memory and respect for the history of those who have gone before.

Victoria's fury here is so well-written. I love the strength behind her final command to get out.

And again I am thrilled to see a sexist double standard called out as it deserves to be. Beautiful!

I got such a chuckle out of the sarcasm which I imagined inflected Victoria's voice when she pronounced "suitably appropriate"

I am such a fan of this line!

It must be so empowering for Victoria to realize that as queen she is in a position to set trends and dictate fashions, and of course she will go on to be the dominate force in defining fashion throughout her reign. What is fashionable in the Victorian era will end up being decided by Victoria herself, and she is coming into her own as this epiphany is being given to her.

Yes, it can be so annoying (as a short person) to have one's short stature equated and mistaken for childishness, and I love how Victoria bristles at it, but is also aware that seeming too offended by it would end up giving ammunition to those who are inclined to dismiss her as childish. It's not fair, but it is the truth and reality of her situation, and you do a good job describing Victoria's awareness of that fact.

Thank you for writing this stunning piece that truly transported me to the Victorian era and gave me a chance to remember, reflect, and fangirl over the Tudor era as well

 

Aw, thanks! Yeah, Victoria never really had a companion she could rely on and trust, besides her governess, until Melbourne. Now, to open that trust to a circle of ladies who will shadow her every move . . . that had to have been a scary prospect for her! While some of her ladies were, of course, spies and social climbers, a great many of them became true and lasting friends, and I wanted to highlight that.

I am so happy to hear that you are enjoying this collection as it goes, as always!

*grabs a bowl of popcorn and sits down with glee*

Exactly! And to know that Victoria hasn't had counselors who've looking out for her best interests, as well as England's, until Melbourne is just heartbreaking in its own right. It's a fine line, she's endeavoring to walk, but she's walking it.

Thank you! I was really proud of that sentence.

I find it veeeeery interesting that from the very beginning of her reign to the end, the shape and form of education in the UK slowly evolved to what we better know today.

I especially love that this line is so very hard for Victoria to put into practice - she didn't have a temperament that was naturally given to patience, and I can just imagine her repeating this to herself like a mantra until it stuck.

Just this! And then, to add in that she hasn't been able to discover so much of herself and who wants to be, due to the circumstances she was raised under, just makes this all the more difficult! Eighteen is a hard enough year for anyone, but to take that step from girl to woman, even without throwing in the role of queen, when everyone's just waiting for her to fail so that they can swoop in and claim her power as their own . . . yeah, it's a lot.

Exactly! And I just love that Melbourne was instantly Team Victoria from day one, no matter her detractors.

Thank you! I really think that - besides teaching her the ins and outs of government and politics so that she could rule in her own right - that was the most important thing Melbourne did for Victoria in history: he empowered her, and helped give her the confidence she needed to be queen of a nation who still believed in the naturally hysterical nature of women. He believed in her, and his belief helped her believe in herself.

Just, contrast that with: I never had to think for myself while Albert was alive; he thought for me . . . and that's really where my shipping began, in short.

Eugh, Sir John is a piece of work - and you know he would have been the first to tour the Jewel House if he was king.

I knew absilutely none of this before my research, but the more I learned, the more the story seemingly wrote itself!

Thanks! I was especially pleased with how everything came together.

So much.

Yep.

Agreed. I mean, it was common to display the heads of those executed at the Tower on London Bridge, but Henry had to give a special order to keep these two heads up long enough for Catherine to see them - again, so much of his actions against her seem particularly brutal and vindictive, even more so than his usual ruthlessness and even sadism, you could call it, at this point in his reign.

Right? I still see that argument with modern biographers, and it just floors me every time.

Have I mentioned that I love Victoria a completely normal amount?

Thank you! And I will happily defend Catherine Howard until my last breath - this girl deserved nothing that happened to her in her own time, and the way she's since been maligned by history (in a way that Henry hasn't, even) is just disgusting in so many ways.

I can only imagine how surreal it must have seemed for Anne . . .

Success!

Thank you! That was truly my aim with this story, and I'm so glad it worked.

Heck, that's how I feel when I walk through places that I know famous figures from the past once walked. (I've not been to the Tower, but I've been to the Place de la Concorde in Paris, and I felt a similar chill there, reading the plaque where the guillotine once stood.) There are some places where history just lives, and I can only imagine how tangible this was for Victoria - who is heir both to Henry's power and the legacy of these women as queens of England.

So, so proud.

Thanks! I didn't even know about the Burning of Parliament before researching this story, but now, you better believe that we're going to revisit this subject again.

Thank you! That's another point where history wrote this story all on its own.

This is the image that gave birth to this story! Once I read that Victoria gave these queens an honorable final resting place for the first time since their deaths, I knew that I wanted her to make a pilgrimage, of a sort, to reflect on the women who had their own reigns cut short at the Tower.

Thank you! I was particularly proud of that phrasing.

I LOVED writing this line, I must confess.

Right? For even Queen Elizabeth to risk losing her power if she bound herself to a man - in any way - is just mind-boggling to me. Then, there's this heartbreaking moment in the book/show, where, after Melbourne turns down Victoria's proposal, she even tries to suggest a companionship like Elizabeth and Robert kept, and Melbourne so gently tells her that she's worth more than that . . . gah, but the scene stung to watch/read! So, here I am, setting my foundations for all of the angst now.

Excellent to know that the parallels worked as intended.

Aw, thanks!

That really says it all.

Right? We have had so little from history survive in her own words - but that, that right there is an action that spoke volumes. Flighty and folliful, my foot!

I swear that I had chills writing those lines, so I am extra thrilled to know that they are effective!

Just so.

Thank you! Because it really does make you wonder, doesn't it? I don't think anyone really thought Henry would go through with it . . . except Anne.

Yay! I rewrote this passage so many times, trying to make it as heavy-hitting as possible, so I'm thrilled to know that it worked as intended.

&

Agreed to both!

I just . . . my jaw dropped when I read about the condition of the chapel before Victoria's renovations. At first, I felt like I was too gratuitous with my descriptions, and even toned them down more than once, but to know that they are 100% based in fact and reality is just something else. That any human being should be so grossly dishonored in death, let alone quite literal queens . . .

Seeing the interior of the chapel would have shook Victoria, I can only imagine, for how very little care was given to the memory of these women. The rise and fall of a queen ever balances on a knife's edge, and it had to put her own tenuous claim to power front and center in the spotlight.

I LOVED writing that line, I must confess.

It's amazing what a couple of well-placed italics can do.

Because it's so true, isn't it? We all tend to see only our deficiencies at first, rather than what makes us beautiful.

Exactly!

As an equally short person myself, I too can identify with all of this.

And I can't thank you enough for leaving such awesome feedback - your review really, truly made my day, and I hope that you enjoy the rest of this collection as it goes!



~ MJ

 

Author's Note: So, my initial idea for the 4x100 Relay was to examine Melbourne's backstory a little further. Of course, my muse turned somewhat . . . erm, verbose on the subject, and now, as a bonus event, I have a four part 4x100+ relay to share on the themes of love.

To disclaim, this plays somewhat fast and loose with the timeline of actual events in history - because, you know, fan fiction for the book/show and not actual history, yada yada yada - but, beyond that . . . there's so much of this that I couldn't make up if I tried. But I'll have more to say about that in the end notes for this chapter.

My title is taken from Noble Blood, by Tommee Profitt and Fleurie, once again from the album Gloria Regali.

Enjoy!

---

“Say We Choose (but It’s No Choice at All)”
(Bonus 4x100+ Relay)​

IV.II.I

Intimacy

As a lad, he could recall seriously stoking his father’s displeasure only once – when, at far too young an age, he’d been caught kissing a kitchen maid in a secluded corner of the gardens in a way that was decidedly less than . . . chaste. Peniston Lamb – a man seldom roused to ire, let alone true anger – had struck him sharply across the face, while the maid had been treated to a formal bow and a most sincere apology for his son’s ungentlemanlike behavior.

Perhaps somewhat dumbly, William had stuttered to echo the apology, flushing scarlet with every word. Once the maid was released to her duties, he was ordered inside to his father’s study. “If you’re ready to act as a man,” the elder Lamb had growled, “then it is time we talked as men – come.”

Still holding his smarting cheek, he'd quickly obeyed. Even so, with all the arrogance of youth, he hardly expected to learn anything more than he’d already been told regarding the biology and morality of the subject. He found himself quite mistaken, when, once settled therein, his father outlined the difference between a wife (a man’s partner, helpmate, and mother of his heir), a lover (who was only for pleasure), and a mistress (who, more so than a lover, could also be beloved, if not quite loved). Servants were completely off limits to any man of honor, as were women of unequal social standing, with exceptions made for paid women in properly respectable establishments – who came with a list of rules all their own.

“If you cannot marry her, and if she cannot support any child your union may bring, then you have no business touching her,” was the creed placed upon him, and William nodded most emphatically, hoping that his ready agreement would ensure the end of such a mortifying discourse all the sooner.

It did not.

Instead, the conversation turned all the more confusing, if such a thing was even possible: fidelity should exist between a husband and wife, yes, but only until an heir was born. Following the birth of a son, such strict devotion to each other could be ended, but only by mutual agreement. From there, any and all children a wife bore were his children, regardless of their sire in truth, just as a man was required to aid in supporting any children born of his own affaires de coeur. However, when such affairs were of unequal heart, they were better off unpursued – for love, William quickly inferred, was a messy emotion, and best avoided entirely, if at all possible.

A man who ignored those rules was no gentleman, had been the irrefutable conclusion – and Peniston Lamb would not suffer a disreputable man for a son.

“It seems easier just to forego the matter entirely,” at long last, William slouched back in his chair to admit – quite overwhelmed as his father poured him a rare serving of brandy, underscoring the seriousness of the matter alongside its inherently adult nature.

For that, his father laughed, his good humor and easy disposition fully restored. “Indeed – the entire history of the world would be quite different if men were so sensible, all the way back to Eve and the apple in Eden.”

And yet, there was one type of woman his father had failed to mention.

“But what if a woman is . . . ” William struggled to put his thoughts into words. “What if a woman is all those things?”

Wife. Partner. Helpmate. Mother to his children. Friend. Lover. Beloved.

Loved.

“If one woman is . . . well, if she is everything,” he reasoned with the honest naiveté of youth, “then there wouldn’t be a need for anything – for anyone else. That sounds much more preferable, does it not?”

His father, he had thought, seemed very sad then, even as he smiled. “If you ever find such a rare creature, hold on tight to her, and do not ever let her go.”



.

.

He was five and ten when his parents revealed his exact relation to the Earl of Egremont.

Emily – his sister, his only full sister in blood, he now understood – was too young to know the truth of their shared filial connection, and remained yet blissfully unaware. Instead, she was merely eager to show Lord George her progress on horseback with the new pony he’d bought her, while William held back from the paddock with his father. (His father?) For all appearances, he admired the fine Thoroughbred colt that had been his own gift, yet discreetly studied the earl over the back of the prancing animal.

If pressed, he supposed that he could see something of himself in the shape of the man’s nose – most certainly in the high, pronounced cut of his cheekbones, which were admittedly most . . . distinctive. The blonde hair and blue eyes gave no further clue, but perhaps that was to be expected – for all of the Lamb siblings had inherited their mother’s dark, curling hair and green eyes, from Penn on down to baby Harriet. Yet it was hard to see an exact relation when this man was so . . . expressive, in a way that William found foreign himself. He took what a small comfort he could in knowing that his manners and disposition, at least – the shape of his smile, most certainly – were all his father’s in origin. (His father’s.)

“George has invited you to spend a month at Petworth, before you return to Eton,” meanwhile, his father was saying. “Emily and your mother will join you for a sennight, before I come to Sussex for the earl’s closing ball and collect you all back home.”

William nodded his understanding, hardly surprised – for he’d often been a guest at Petworth during previous summers. Once, he’d simply assumed that the unmarried and childless earl had taken an interest in sponsoring him as the second son of a newly established viscount – the same as George Wyndham did with so many others as one of the richest men in England. There were usually a dozen or so children at Petworth at any time (his half-siblings, all), and he’d formed strong bonds with many of them over the years. He’d been eager, even, to see Edwin and Charlie and Richard that summer – his brothers in truth now, rather than just of heart.

From within the ring, Emily exclaimed in triumph after she successfully urged her pony over a series of cavaletti, distracting him from his thoughts. Delighted, she called out, “Look, Papa!” as she circled her horse to navigate the course of trotting poles a second time.

William could not help but notice how Peniston Lamb and George Wyndham both turned, answering the honor of a father’s designation as one – how had he ever missed it before?

“Well done, Emily,” yet Peniston was the one to proudly encourage aloud, while George merely smiled and politely applauded.

William felt something twist deep inside of him as Emily sat taller in the saddle. “May we try a higher rail, Papa? Gilly and I are ready!” She reached forward to happily pat the pony’s sorrel neck under its flaxen mane. “Aren’t we, Gilly?” she cooed.

“Of course you’re ready,” George, a man ever inclined to generosity, approved – just as, “Not yet, my dear,” Peniston answered in a parent's gently firm tone of voice.

There was a pronounced moment of awkwardness as Emily darted a confused glanced between the two men. Yet George respectfully (grudgingly?) withdrew, and Peniston hesitated only for a moment before he continued, “You first need to better acquaint yourself with Gilly, and she with you, before you attempt a greater obstacle together. Yet, in no time at all, I suspect that you will be jumping fences taller than even I am.”

As intended, Emily’s disappointment was tempered with a giggle. “As tall as you are? Oh, but I fear that poor Gilly’s legs are much too short!”

Peniston pretended to think that over. “Perhaps you are right – though I doubt not her willingness to try, nor your own. What do you say, then, to a jump as tall as you are?”

“Oh, for a certainty!” Emily enthused, and circled her pony to trot over the poles once more.

When the girl’s attention was quite fixed on her task, George and Peniston locked eyes, and William watched as his father (father?) inclined his head in a moment’s shared (tenuous?) understanding.

“May I leave Emily with you, George, to cool down her pony?” Peniston did not ignore the strange balance between them, but rather addressed it outright. “I wish to go with William and see how this colt runs – if he’s anything like the rest of your racers, he will truly be a sight in motion, and he’s growing restless.”

George gave an exaggeratedly courtly bow for Emily’s sake, and vowed, “I shall look after her as if she’s my own.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Peniston returned the gesture, and then moved to mount his waiting grey hunter.

William consciously relaxed his tight grip from the lead line, and swung himself up into his own saddle to depart. Amis fairly danced underneath him, and he did his best to clear his muddled thoughts before they could transfer through his seat to the already impatient animal. He usually prided himself on his horsemanship – he could ride even Cador, the most tempestuous stallion in the Melbourne stables, without needing to resort to a crop, but that day, he struggled to find his equilibrium. “You have a way with the creatures; your presence soothes them,” the earl had just recently praised him – and he’d thrilled to earn the high regard of the man who bred some of the finest stock in the kingdom. He’d not fail the respect he’d earned now – nor disgrace his original tutor in his father, who’d ridden with him as a child and explained that his peace would be his horse’s peace, if he calmed his own mind and heart to match.

Yet, no matter how he tried, by the time they reached the long stretch of green before Cheshunt Down, he was just as eager to give the Thoroughbred his head as Amis was, until, finally, he let the colt run.

With Amis, he quickly outpaced his father and old Uther, and by the time they eased from their gallop and fell into stride together once more, William found his courage to ask, “Does it bother you . . . the earl being here?”

He felt guilty, he could admit if forced to honesty, for both wanting to go to Petworth and wanting to stay – so much so that he hardly knew how to resolve the disparity of his emotions.

Yet the elder Lamb did not at all seem surprised by his question. “No,” he finally answered – and it wasn't until years later that he would suspect the lie that he searched for, even in his youth. “George is a friend to both your mother and I, and your friend, too. He is a connection that will prove valuable in the years to come, and I'd not take that from you.”

Rather maddeningly, William felt frustration roil through him for the answer. Yes, but -

“Your mother is still your mother, is she not?” Peniston seemingly plucked his thoughts from the air, even as they tangled in his mouth.

“Of course she is, yet - ”

“ - and she is still my wife,” Peniston said firmly. “In the end, that is all that matters.”

For a wife was a man’s partner and helpmate, if not . . .

. . . but he did not want to know, then, whether or not his mother was also the woman his father loved . . .

. . . nor could he quite summon the bravery to ask if he was merely a child born to his father’s wife . . . or was he his father’s son?

Instead, he slowly nodded, and pretended to understand.



.

.

As far back as his school days, William had never been much inclined to violence – he rather preferred to talk his way out of a tough situation, and even enjoyed disarming the arguments of others with as few words as possible. A quick quip and a small, double-edged smile never failed to irritate a would-be combatant more than any physical blow, and was therefore twice as satisfying. If words failed, he felt no qualm in walking away from a conflict entirely – for a brute who could not be persuaded with rhetoric was usually not worth the effort of persuasion in the first place.

Even in acceptable settings, he cared little for boxing, and he could never seem to muster the lethal edge that made for a truly accomplished swordsman. Martial sports aside, perhaps more peculiarly for an English gentleman, he preferred riding for its own sake to hunting; he could spend hours in the saddle without feeling the need to flush a fox from its den, and appreciated the sight of Brocket Hall’s reigning stag in the stillness of a misty morning more than he ever would the great creature’s antlers mounted on a wall. He kept hounds for the pleasure of their company, and hawked for the joy of communing with such an indomitably wild creature in what a small way he could as a wingless man. He enjoyed archery for the challenge it presented, yes, and shooting, too – but admittedly preferred chess to each.

When he dropped his fencing classes at Eton in favor of applying his elective time to studying horticulture at Cambridge – for he’d not waste such an opportunity to learn a skill he’d actually use from a true master – even Fred and George gave up their good-natured gibes when their taunts rolled off of him like water from a duck’s wing. Penn, at least, never teased him when he too was of a similar nature – but then, the eldest of the Lamb siblings was non-incendiary in every way, and rarely had an unkind word to say about anyone, even in jest – which was a true inclination for passivity that William could not quite claim for himself.

George, however, even more so than Frederick, never found a problem that he couldn’t solve with his fists – if first raising his voice failed to grant him the victory he sought.

On one such occasion, William was in his last year at Cambridge, while George was in his first. As such, their paths didn’t usually converge during school hours – so much so that when William made his way across Neville’s Court, he was at first only distantly annoyed when a gaggle of shouting boys blocked the entrance to the library. William altered his course to avoid the ruckus, caring only when he was carelessly jostled by a passing throng of students, rushing to join the fray, and they disturbed the book on Constitutional law that he’d been studying while walking. Giving up on the peace he’d hoped to find in the reading rooms, he instead turned for his favorite spot by the river when he heard . . .

- heaven preserve him, but George was the one throwing blows amidst the circle of eager spectators. With a sigh, William made sure to safely ensconce his books behind one of the columns framing the cloister, and then dove into the meele to match.

Later – his heartbeat still thundering as he roughly shoved his brother back across the green – William harshly counseled: “George, you need to control yourself! They already say that you have the Hanoverian temper, and you are hardly proving them wrong!”

“I don’t have to be a prince’s bastard - ” George never held back from baldly admitting his relation to their regent, and, as always, William rolled his eyes in long-suffering forbearance for his very Hanoverian inability to speak in anything other than a near-shout, “ - to be righteously roused to anger, Will! Now let me go, and I swear I’ll break Tom’s smug, sanctimonious face clean off - ”

“ - you’ll do no such thing,” William caught the younger man when he made to escape again – which was quite the feat when his once little brother was now his equal in height and more his match in girth. “What you’re going to do is breathe – in through your nose, and out through your mouth, if you can. The way your nose is bleeding, it may be broken – again.”

“What care I for a broken nose when Thomas bleeding Denman called Mother a whore!”

“Is that what this was all about?” William exhaled in exasperation, completely unmoved. “We know she is not, just as she knows – who cares what the rest of the world thinks?”

“I care – and you should too, William Lamb, if you’re really a man at all!”

Contrary to George’s aim, William merely scoffed for the immaturity of such a barb as it missed its target entirely. “A gentleman,” he retorted, punctuating the word with another shove, “is one who is in control of his emotions at all times. What truly dishonored Mother today – the empty words of a fool, or the ignominy of a brawling son who didn’t know when to leave better off alone?”

Finally, when they made it to the river – and George understood that he'd happily dunk him in the moss-covered water if it also meant cooling his temper – William let his brother go. He eyed George as he paced between his favorite alder tree and the willows framing the punting house, warily observing him the same as a bull who was making up his mind on whether or not to charge. Finally, George inhaled noisily through his – not quite broken, then – nose and exhaled through his mouth.

“I don't understand you,” George finally growled, carelessly wiping blood from his face with the white of his shirtsleeve. His jacket had been abandoned long ago, and his waistcoat was torn at the shoulder. William wondered if his brother had even bothered with academic dress that day, and was hardly surprised to see his cap and gown missing, as well. “I’m ready to fight for what I believe in – for those I love. How can you stand so easily aside?”

William leaned against the trunk of the stately old tree, and raised an almost indolent brow to reply, “I fought to protect you, did I not?”

Slowly, George bared his teeth in a bloody grin. “And I do thank you for that,” he gave, albeit grudgingly. “It’s a pity you don’t box more – I’d put a sovereign down on you. And Denman’s face was particularly gratifying after you broke his nose, I must admit.”

“Thank you, but I much prefer fighting my battles in the courtroom,” William flexed the fingers of his right hand with a grimace – writing was going to be blasted difficult for the next few days, which was quite vexing in its own right. “I’ll leave the supposed joys of such base pugilism to you, brother.”

“Pance,” George huffed to disparage, yet without heat.

“Nihilist,” he returned, almost matter-of-factly.

“Bore.”

“Boor.”

“Feckless martinet.”

“Fustilarian.”

“Damn it, Will, but I don’t know what that means!”

As always, George’s unabashedly frank manner was as hopelessly amusing as it was frustrating. “How have you not made it through the works of Shakespeare yet?” William laughed in amazed disbelief. “Don't you mean to be a playwright?”

“You are undoubtedly quoting one of his boring plays,” George sniffed, and unceremoniously flung himself down on the grass, laying back with a much put upon sigh.

“If that’s what you want to call Henry IV, I suppose.” God, but his brother truly was a boor. “Still,” William admitted, lowering himself to sit at the base of the tree to match, “feckless martinet was rather good. That’s not a combination that should work, yet in this instance . . . I’m impressed.”

“Don’t act so surprised,” George didn’t bother opening his eyes to grumble, “you condescending ass.”

“Philistine.”

“Ninny.”

William smirked, but graciously allowed his brother the final word. It was hard to maintain the want to quarrel, anyway, when the late afternoon sunlight shone down through the leafy green canopy above and the merry gurgle of the river sounded as it danced across the stones. He fought not to close his own eyes and give into the temptation offered by such heady respite. Instead, when he was sure that George’s temper had cooled entirely – his brother then, for all the world, rather gave the impression of a maned young lion at rest, lounging there with his bruised face and bloody sleeves – he found his feet and pulled George up with him.

“Come on, it’s time to get you cleaned up,” he prodded, “and I still need to retrieve my books.”

George grudgingly obeyed, and they walked back to the now empty court together. There, however, William felt his ire spark to find that his satchel had been dumped and his notes clearly kicked and stomped and scattered across the green. They were savages, these uncultured swine masquerading as underclassmen, he silently fumed as he wiped mud from a volume of Blackstone’s Commentaries – every last one of them.

“Oh, now I see what it takes to move the Great Peacemaker to blows,” George drawled. He’d found his jacket from somewhere further up the cloister – his gown and cap, too – but didn’t bother redonning any of the hallowed academic ensemble. “Don’t you just wish that Denman was here for you to punch now? I can go and find him again, if you’d like.”

“I never said that I didn’t want to punch Thomas Denman,” William blew out a breath to make the distinction, “only that I know better than to give into such an urge.”

For that, George laughed outright, and slapped a heavy hand against his back. “I knew it! You’re no different than the rest of us mere mortal men,” he extolled quite cheerfully. “Then, you have to admit . . . it felt good, laying that tosspot out, just this once – didn’t it?”

William was not going to dignify that with a response, and yet . . . “Perhaps,” he finally conceded. “Yet that is not going to be included in the letter we send home; am I clear?”

For that, George groaned and swore aloud, “Hell and damnation – but Mother is going to thrash us herself, isn’t she?”

“That,” William pointed out quite sensibly, “is why we are going to write home with all expediency, before the headmaster’s letter has time to reach her first.”



.

.

All of the Lamb brothers returned home for Harriet’s funeral.

They’d lost two of their number before – three, in actuality, though Eliza had been older than William and died before he was born. Only Penn remembered their eldest sister, and he still brought their mother flowers every year on her birthday. The twins, Charlotte and Georgianna, had counted their age in mere months at the time of their passing. William had been but ten years old at the time, and he'd cried for his baby sisters with all of the immature love in his child's heart – but Harriet . . .

. . . at just four and ten, and he a man grown to appreciate her fully, her loss was deeply, dearly felt.

Emily, in particular, was devastated for Harriet's death, and the intensity of her grief compounded his own sorrow on her behalf. Emily was hardly two years Harriet’s senior, and the sisters had been as thick as thieves even before their brothers left for school. Since then, their bond had only deepened, and now . . .

William was out of the carriage before it could completely come to a halt. Without a word said aloud – meeting her eyes was more than enough to say everything that couldn't otherwise be spoken – he pulled a waiting Emily into his embrace and let her cry. Frederick was only a step behind him, and followed suit just as quickly, pointedly tugging on George as he did so. At first, George only patted Emily’s back somewhat awkwardly before he sighed and wrapped his arms about them all. He bowed his head over the top of Emily's hair, but not before William could see the telltale gleam of tears in his own eyes.

They stayed like that, the four of them huddled together in the drive, until Penn came down to greet them. Their eldest brother was always their anchor, and he grounded them then, just the same as he ever did – so much so that they gathered together in Penn’s room liked they used to do when they were all little children, still scared of storms. Yet now, instead of listening to Penn tell them stories to distract them from their fears, they passed around a swiped bottle of their father’s contraband Highlands whisky and took turns drinking without a proper decanter or glasses. In that manner, they traded their favorite memories of Harriet until late in the night, when they all fell into the exhausted slumber of grief, tangled together on the rug by the hearth. By then, the nearly empty bottle was still held in George’s hand as he snored, and Emily continued to sniffle, even in her sleep, from where she had her head buried against Penn’s shoulder. Fred had somehow managed to stretch himself out like a starfish across all of his siblings, rather than surrendering to the scant comfort of the hard floor – greedy bastard that he ever was – but William could not countenance moving him, even when his bony knee dug into his side.

Instead, he was considering how to best free himself and tend to the hearth before anyone else could wake from the cold when he heard movement at the door. There was the sound of a careful step against the floorboards, and then another. Ensconced in the dark, William peered from between veiled lashes, and was surprised to see their father standing there, looking down over his children with a sad, weary expression before he went over to stoke and feed the fire himself.

In short order, renewed light filled the room, along with its warmth. The shadows then flickered as a second figure joined their father by the hearth.

“Should we move them back to bed, do you think?” William heard their mother whisper, her voice raw from days of weeping. He didn’t know why he was surprised that his parents were there, together, that night of all nights . . . but he was.

Peniston considered, before answering with a sigh, “Let’s leave them be, Liz. They look peaceful, and I’ll not take that from them; they rather need each other right now, I think.”

For that, their mother couldn’t reply – and when William dared open his eyes completely, it was to the sight of the usually proud and indomitable Elizabeth Lamb clinging to her husband as he hushed and soothed her, grief etched into the careworn lines of his own face as he stroked a broad hand over her unbound hair and let her cry.

Whenever he thought of his parents in later years, it was that shadowy image in the glow of the hearth-light that he held close, and cherished.



.

.

He’d no sooner passed the bar than he was off to war, picking up arms as all the second sons of Great Britain did, to answer the scourge of Napoleon.

Scant months into his posting, he attended his colonel, standing at attention with a line of junior officers on the edge of the room as General Wellesley – already a legend in his own right and now the newly elevated Marquess of Wellington – dined with his seniormost commanders. As a lieutenant and a mere aide-de-camp, he was there to remain silent until otherwise ordered, yet he was well aware of the august presences he was honored to even observe – and so, observe he did.

As such, he was rather surprised when the general took notice of him at all.

“You, Lieutenant.” Even though the meal had long been finished and the officers were well into their port, there was a sharp awareness about the general’s eyes, for all that his tone was agreeable – even friendly.

The vague gesture made with his glass had been all the command he required. “Sir,” William stepped forward to answer with what was, perhaps, the most exactingly proper parade ground salute of his career.

The general did not grant him leave for ease, even as he leaned back in his own chair. Instead, William hardly breathed as he squared his shoulders yet further still. “You look familiar to me,” Wellington tilted his head to remark, “yet I am certain that I do not have the pleasure of an acquaintance.”

“No, sir,” William confirmed.

“What’s your name then, Lieutenant?”

“William Lamb, sir,” he answered – and, at a pointedly raised brow from the general, he amended with the (yet still unfamiliar) title that was now his due, “Second Lieutenant William Lamb, sir – at your service, sir.”

“Don’t worry,” he was at last waved to ease with a casual flick of the general’s hand, “it will come all too easily soon enough.” His sigh then, William thought, was sincere – and distant in its own right.

“Lamb,” yet Wellington thoughtfully repeated his name as if searching his memory. He swirled the remaining port in his glass, before: “Melbourne,” he alighted as if struck by recognition – though William would later suspect that he knew very well who he was all along. “You’re Elizabeth’s boy, are you not?”

“Yes, sir, I am.”

“Lady Elizabeth is a fine woman – one of the finest of our generation,” the general complimented – a compliment that was then echoed by many at the table with a resounding hear, hear. “The earl is, as well.”

There was a challenge in Wellington's words – a test as clear as if he was a proctor questioning him on an exam. Yet, as William had no idea what the general was searching for, he did not attempt to speak for his sake, but rather for his own: “Forgive me, sir,” he let his eyes flash as cold as propriety allowed, no matter how respectful his tone and expression remained otherwise, “but I believe that you mean to say the viscount – Viscount Melbourne is my father.”

A hush fell over the gathering of officers; William felt his shoulders tense anew as he awaited the general’s reply.

Yet Wellington, without missing a stride, merely laughed. “Indeed, the viscount, forgive me.” He tipped his glass in acknowledgment. “You are quite the loyal lad, are you not?” Yet it was not a question that required an answer, but a statement. “I shall look forward to reports on your progress with great interest.”



.

.

Years later, he would be called a man of compromise as if the constant endeavor to establish and then maintain peace was some great insult.

But there on the battlefields of Spain, William quickly learned that there was nothing he wouldn’t do for peace if it meant that this – the very worst of mankind's nature on display, even as they strove for the best – could be otherwise avoided. Not even the pride of the Crown’s colors on his back favorably disposed him towards violence, and if it was truly craven of him to feel nothing but disgust and abhorrence for the senseless brutality of war, then so be it – he'd wear the title gladly.

This far into his service, he no longer lost his stomach at the sight of their dead – comrades and enemies both, those fallen by his side and even some by his own hand and not he himself only by some twisted providence (for he couldn’t believe that God favored the lives of any one of his children over another) – but he never became easy with the toll taken on human life, either.

His colonel, he thought, understood in his own way – though the man was a veteran soldier himself, and had served the Crown for longer than William had been alive. He was a grave man – intense and stoic, but kind – who handled the savagery of their duty with a solemn adherence to honor that William tried his best to emulate for himself . . . for it was impossible to make sense of what was so brutally nonsensical, otherwise.

Some days, however, he failed more than he succeeded.

In the flickering light of the campfire, his hand shook as he wrote to Emily. Yet, if he couldn’t even tell his father or brothers about . . . about everything he'd experienced since leaving England behind, then he certainly couldn’t tell his sister. Instead, he tried to explain the beauty of the Zadorra river upon which they'd camped – the glory of the Heights of La Puebla and the shadowing mass of Monte Arrato. They were not far from the ocean, north in the neck of the Iberian Peninsula as they were, and the twin boundaries of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean made for a hot and humid summer, more so than any he’d ever experienced in England. The very air smelled foreign, dense with water and salt and something sweet that he lacked the words to wholly describe. How he would love to return in peace, and experience everything this amazing country had to offer in full. Yet, for now . . .

Peace . . . his pen stilled on the page, blotting it with ink. How foreign a word that sounded. What even was peace anymore?

As he attempted to tell an amusing anecdote about a quarrel between their quartermaster (without thinking about how the man had gave a gurgling scream before falling silent during the last raid on their supply lines) and one of his sergeants (who’d been caught in the same blast, and although he lived, he would never walk again), William felt his breath catch. His hand jerked, and he finally gave up on his clumsy script as completely illegible. He’d only frighten his sister with such a letter, no matter what he did or did not say, so he tossed the ruined sheet into the fire and watched it flare white-hot against the smoldering logs before crumpling into ashes.

He had been standing right there next to them, he shivered to recall – not even in the heat of an active battle, but in an ambush that wouldn’t even be called a skirmish in the annals of history – and for him to not even have a scratch to show, while they . . .

. . . he clenched his hands into fists, if only to keep them from trembling.

The gesture did not go unnoticed by his colonel, who shared a fire with his aides that night. There was an ever-present sense of immediacy amongst an army camp, even at rest, and words were rarely wasted on such mundane pleasantries best left suited to the distant graces of a drawing room.

Instead: “Not every man develops a heart for war,” his commander quietly intoned, not long after they were the only two left who had yet to (couldn’t) retire. “Especially those,” his voice dropped even further to add, “who’ve never had to first fight their battles at home.”

William started for the words, feeling them resonate before he frowned, a small part of him wanting to protest the sentiment, when -

“I do not say that you've known naught of turmoil,” the older man held up a hand to forestall. “We each shoulder our burdens in our measure, and you have no little mettle within you, Captain. It is a good thing, such peace – a blessing, even. Try to keep that peace close, and the rest – even the unthinkable – shall become, if not easier, then bearable in time.”

For a long moment, William stared at the flickering tongues of fire, and considered his words. “Is that what drives you, sir?” he finally asked.

“It wasn’t always,” was his answer after an equally contemplative moment, “but now . . . yes, very much indeed.”

There was something about his smile that William would remember – and unconsciously search for in his own turn – for a very long time to come.

Yet the habitually grave cast of his commanding officer broke then, and he instead gave a somewhat informal smile to invite, “Now, tell me about your home, Captain Lamb – you hail from Hertfordshire, do you not?”

And Derbyshire and London, more often than not – and even Sussex, too. But, yes, home would always be . . .

“Yes, sir,” William answered, feeling a lump expand in his throat, “from Brocket Hall, in Hatfield.”

“I have never visited the county,” the colonel remarked. “Tell me of it, if you please.”

There, hundreds of miles away from his native British Isles – as a stranger in a strange land, commissioned by his king to fight against a man who would call himself emperor over all – he turned his heart back to England. With steadily growing enthusiasm, he brought to life the hills and dells that he could so clearly envision if he but closed his eyes to see . . . the flow of the Broadwater, where his father had once taught him to fish . . . the orchard of cherry trees, where he and his siblings used to gorge themselves as children . . . the greenhouses, where it was ever hot and the air fragrant with rich earth and new life . . . his father’s library, which was a heaven no less equal in its own right . . . and the ballroom where his mother had taught her children how to dance and play the pianoforte and laugh . . .

When he finally made it to the rooks that came down from the north to build their nests together, where they then stayed the whole winter through, he found that he had left the battlefield far behind. Then, upon the morrow, he bore his arms with his definition of peace held firmly in mind once more.



.

.

Ultimately, it was not peace that returned him to England, but tragedy. Only a year later, before their victory could be called complete but was yet close at hand, he was summoned home by his father in a letter sealed with black wax.

No longer would the post of a soldier do, he numbly understood after reading the letter a second and then a third time through – nor would his initial course of a barrister, even. No. Instead of Major Lamb – a hard-won title that he’d come to wear with pride, if not joy – he was to be the Right Honorable Viscount Melbourne upon his father’s passing, now that his brother . . . now that Penn . . .

The younger Peniston Lamb had died of consumption back in February; by the time the letter reached him in Spain, it was nearly May, and Penn would have long since been buried and mourned. That he hadn't been able to attend his funeral . . . that he hadn’t been able to see Penn to his final rest, carrying his casket alongside Fred and George and their father . . . that he hadn’t been there to support his siblings when Penn was the one who always stood so strong for them . . .

With a dizzying speed and a surreal sense of finality, his commission was resigned and he was given leave to sail home on a Navy frigate from Santander to Portsmouth. The journey took weeks, and he spent most of their days at sea on the deck of the ship, watching the waves crash and churn and struggling to resign himself to his new reality all the while. He grieved his brother in those long, monotonous days, just as he grieved for his family. Yet, underscoring his sorrow was an all too sickly roiling sense of fear. With his change in prospects, what else may have altered? he couldn't help but dread. After all, Penn had been their father’s sole true son in blood, not merely in name, and now . . .

. . . was there any part of Peniston Lamb that had perhaps wished – even if it was a shameful and distant wish, thought in a passing moment of weakness – that it was a different son he had mourned, instead?

That thought tormented him, as restless as the white foam capping the waves, and he welcomed the squalls when they finally came.

It was well into the summer by the time they anchored at Portsmouth. Bellying the joy he'd once expected to feel – and rather traitorously did feel – to walk on his own native soil once more, he swung his pack over the braided shoulder of his uniform and looked down the quay for the city proper with a sudden, intense surge of trepidation. Feeling as if he yet still marched, no matter that he'd left the battlefield far behind, he summoned his courage, and made to see about hiring a horse.

Yet he'd hardly taken a step from the gangplank when he heard a familiar voice call his name. He turned, and with wide eyes, he saw his father making his way through the crowd of seamen and soldiers going about their duties on the wharf – his father. William stared, struck dumb in his place, almost unable to entirely believe that he saw what he saw.

It had been almost three years since he'd last seen his father. In that time, his hair had greyed and lines of sorrow had etched themselves into his face at the corners of his eyes and the furrow of his brow. Yet William recognized him – would know him anywhere – and could only imagine how much different he looked to his father in return. He'd been little more than a boy when he'd left home, and now . . .

"Sir," still feeling as if the earth moved beneath him, no matter that he was on solid ground once more, he formally greeted his elder and bowed as deeply and respectfully as he would to General Wellington himself. His mouth worked, and yet the speech he’d rehearsed all the way from Spain stuttered and stalled – he wasn't ready, was all he could think, he'd never be ready.

"Sir," he swallowed to find his courage, "please accept my condolences for the loss of - "

- yet those horribly stilted words died a quick death when his father reached out and yanked him, stumbling, into a firm embrace.

Forgetting, then, that he was much too grown for tears – and he was a veteran soldier now, long used to tragedy, at that – he dropped his pack and clung to the older man. “I’m sorry,” he gracelessly found himself stammering, “I’m so sorry. I know that I’m not . . . I’m not . . . but I shall try, sir. I’ll make you proud – I swear it.”

“Enough of that, hush,” uncaring of the spectacle he was undoubtedly causing on the wharf, his father – his father – only held him tighter. “You’re my boy,” he repeated, over and over again, “you’re my son, and that’s all that matters.”

William closed his eyes, and for the first time in years, he let himself believe those words as true.

Spoiler: End Notes

A Note on the Lamb Family: I cannot even begin to make these family dynamic up. In RL, the siblings really were this close, although I may have exaggerated the harmony in the elder Lambs' relationship. At least for the first several years of their marriage, Peniston had an ongoing affair with a stage actress (he didn't quite take his own advice, to say the least), and hearts were most definitely involved. My theory is that there may have been a certain amount of love there, but a marriage couldn't take place between them for obvious reasons. Elizabeth, meanwhile, was a spirited, outspoken woman for her time. She easily could have suffered in a marriage to the wrong man, and it's possible that she entered into a marriage of convenience with a social equal - perhaps knowing of his prior affection - with a full understanding of the circumstances in order to maintain a certain amount of freedom for herself. That's the only thing that makes sense to me, and explains the rather impressive amount of familial harmony they managed - but I could be off the mark.

A Note on George Wyndham, Earl of Egremont: He was a famous agriculturist, canal builder, patron of the arts (most notably in sponsoring J. M. W. Turner), and horse breeder. Contemporaries called him as wealthy as he was generous - which he most certainly was, and especially with his children. He had over forty illegitimate children, but didn't marry one of his long-time mistresses until much later in life. It was an open secret that both Emily and William Lamb were the earl's, and they - along with a dozen or so of the earl's children at a time - spent part of every summer at Petworth Manor growing up. Although Melbourne never publicly claimed the connection, he kept close bonds with many of his half-siblings and the earl himself up until his death. George Wyndham outlived both Elizabeth and Peniston Lamb, and saw Victoria come to power just before he died. (I like to think that maybe, just maybe, he knew what was what about Melbourne's devotion to his queen even before he did - but more about that later. )

A Note on George Lamb: I have a soft spot for this grump now, to say the least. I already mentioned his connection to George IV in previous notes, but he shared his biological father's tendency for temper and drink - he definitely had a not-so-healthy with his own wife Caroline that resulted in their estrangement for a time. He eventually got his life back in order, and the couple reconciled and rebuilt their relationship to the point where Caroline didn't remarry after his death. George was a minor playwright of the time, although his most important contribution to the literary world was his translations of Catullus' poems. He passed away about four years before Victoria ascended the throne.

A Note on Fustilarian: Shakespeare did indeed coin this insult in Henry IV, intending it to mean a stubborn person who wastes time on stupid, worthless things.

A Note on Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington: Well, he's the Marquess of Wellington here - he wasn't made a duke until after Napoleon's first exile. I don't have much to add about him in history that you guys probably don't already know, but since he's going to be a rather frequent character in this series, I just wanted to say that Christopher Plummer's performance as Wellington in Waterloo is always in my mind's eye when I write, and you're welcome, if you'd like to share in that casting. Besides being an absolute legend of an actor, he actually really resembles portraits we have of Wellington from the time, which is just A+ casting all around. I mean:





A Note on the Unnamed Colonel: I mentioned before that you can take this as a minor crossover with my Sense & Sensibility stories. You can still read it that way - I know I did while writing it - or you can interpret this character as whoever may have inspired Jane Austen to write Colonel Brandon in RL, since Jane Austen and her works will most definitely be referenced coming up. (We're going to meet Byron and Dickens, too, on that same line. )

But, until then!

~ MJ