Palace of Whitehall, London
George Canning inspected himself in the mirror, frowning slightly. The cravat was too over-embroidered for the occasion, but it was too late to do anything about that now. He made a mental note to have ‘words’ with the d-mn fool of a valet. A quarter-way through his mental draft of the letter of dismissal, he checked himself.
No, those were all words for a by-gone era. The future belonged to people like Hopkinson now, the hard-working sons of the Commonwealth - not clapped-out antiquities like himself.
Sighing, he decided to try and wing the necktie that had been left on the dresser. As Canning tried to adjust his attire, he looked over at the map that his predecessor as President of the Council had insisted on hanging above the mantlepiece. The deep red borders of the three Kingdoms were very much there - although the Isla Blanca had angrily scrubbed out - probably by a coin, or the embers of one of those infernal cigarillos that Sidmouth had smoked compulsively during the Sedition Crisis.
It had probably been the last of the Henrician Revolts that had doomed the old Kingdom, Canning thought to himself as his Private Secretary, Praise-the-Lord Wellingborough, arrived. The long, bloody war of attrition in Ireland, the West Country Rising, even the collapse of the Hudson Company could have all been dealt with in isolation, but the imbecile of a pretender (which regnal number were they on now - XI?) and his Simnel-esc March on Winchester had been too much for old Sophia, who had simply given up one drizzly day last February and abdicated.
The Queen was gone now - although that seemed to matter little to her puppy of a son, languishing in exile in Corfu - or ‘The Kingdom of Great Britain Abroad’, as detractors of the Royalist rabble there had christened it.
Wellingborough cleared his throat.
“We should probably go now,” he replied, “the Levellers are braying for blood.”
“Wearing long trousers doesn’t make No-Fornication Gladstone a Digger,” Canning barked, “just as dispensing with the wig makes The Speaker any less of a sad relic of antiquity.”
The first election of the Commonwealth was not going to be enjoyable. Canning had arisen to the Presidency by virtue of all the other candidates being universally loathed, but his time in office thus far had been short and even more short-tempered, gaining him neither allies, nor respect. G-d - even getting the Spanish to return the Channel Islands after the Quintuple Alliance collapsed hadn’t quite been enough for the Covenanters, who were still talking of “Popery” this and “heresy” that at every opportunity.
My Commonwealth for a Constitution, Canning thought to himself as he led his Private Secretary down to the Commons Chamber, it seemed pointless to do anything in terms of social reform when the Peers were still blocking anything that had a whiff of Rome about it.
The Palace of Whitehall had been earmarked for extensive reconstruction prior to the Abdication. Westminster had proved too attractive a target for the mob in October, and the Vegetables, had ended up taking lodging in the Medieval Banqueting Hall, with the Animals up in Jones’ Throne Room.
“I would keep it as light as possible, Lord President,” Wellingborough said, “Humiliation Fairfax will insist that you send the shells flying across the Solent, but there’s no point even conceding that he has mentioned it - Madrid will be looking for any excuse to bring back the blockade, especially since Graham's flight.”
Isla Blanca - Canning through remorsefully as they approached the grand staircase to the interim-Commons Chamber - it was only even the d-mn Covenanters (or, as he supposed he would have to now start calling them, the ‘Radicals’) who mentioned the issue nowadays. The government really needed to work on far more important issues, the Federal Settlement, land reform, decamping from the Indian Petty-Kingdoms, but it seemed that that could all wait for a tiny parcel of Gallician homesteaders.
The Serjeant-at-Arms nodded at him as he entered the Chamber to a cacophony.
“You’re late, Porgie” - a Crofter yelled out from from the Opposition benches.
Canning paid him little attention, being pre-occupied with the host of men flanking the Speaker’s Chair.
“Rowland?”
The former Military Governor of Ireland gave a joyless smile.
“Lord President,” he replied, as a number of guardsmen filled in behind Canning, “I understand that we have a constitution to constitute.”
Wonderful, Canning thought morosely,
another one.
