The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack - Mark Hodder [43]
As Palmerston had detailed that morning, Burton's life had so far been remarkable, but he felt that this day, perhaps, had been the most astonishing of them all.
He shook his head in wonder. Only yesterday he'd been agonising over what to do next!
Resting his head on the embroidered antimacassar, he closed his eyes and allowed his thoughts to roam. They took him to 1841, the year he'd begun to study the Arabic language, the year the British Empire almost collapsed.
The government of the time, led by Lord Melbourne, had flown into a panic in the wake of Queen Victoria's death. There was only one clear successor to the throne: her uncle Ernest Augustus I, the Duke of Cumberland and King of Hanover, the fifth son of King George III. However, the thought of him becoming the king of England filled almost everyone with horror, for sixty-nine-year-old Ernest had, without a doubt, inherited his father's madness. There were persistent rumours that he'd brutally murdered his valet in 1810, fathered a son by Princess Sophia-who happened to be his own sister-and had indecently assaulted Lady Lyndhurst. He was also an extreme conservative, and thus out of step with the more liberal politics that were sweeping Britain at the time. Besides, it would mean reuniting the royal houses of Hanover and the United Kingdom, which had only been separated three years before, after Victoria came to power.
In the immediate aftermath of the assassination, the populace took to the streets to protest at the possibility of Ernest becoming their king. Riots broke out in several cities. A bomb exploded near the Houses of Parliament.
The government declared a constitutional crisis, the Duke of Cumberland's accession was blocked, and regal powers were passed to a council of high officials, among them the then foreign secretary, Lord Palmerston. These men turned their attention to an item of legislation that had been due for presentation in August of 1840. It was the Regency Act, prepared when Victoria declared her first pregnancy and designed to allow her husband, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, to be designated regent in the event of his wife's death before their child reached the age of majority.
Palmerston, who'd been intensely disliked by Victoria due to his propensity for acting without going through a proper consultation processes, knew a good thing when he saw it. With a political sleight of hand, he and his fellow council members backdated the Regency Act to make it effective from the time the royal couple's child had been conceived, rather than from the time of its birth. The Act was then rushed through Parliament and approved unanimously.
It was, of course, sheer hocus-pocus.
The unborn child had died with Victoria, so Act or no Act, the prince regent had no right to the throne. To achieve that, further manipulations were needed. The constitution required a rewrite.
Ernest Augustus I was, of course, furious. Had Hanover been any larger than a small English county, he may well have declared war. As it was, he looked on helplessly while the British politicians made the necessary adjustments and signed away his rights of accession.
In April 1842, the throne of the British Empire was passed to the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
Albert became king.
THE HOG IN THE POUND
The Government is the Empire's brain.
The Technologists are the Empire's mascle.
The Libertines are the Empire's imagination.
And 1, God help me, mast be the Empire's conscience.
-HIS MAJESTY, KINGS ALBERT
ednesday tried and failed to dawn. It wasn't until late morning that the fog allowed a smudge of daylight to filter through.
Sir Richard Francis Burton had spent the previous evening pondering the report Detective Inspector Trounce had loaned him. There was one aspect of it that he and the Yard man hadn't discussed: in every description given by witnesses-even those where the apparition was said to be a ghost or a devil-its age was estimated as "early forties." Yet twenty-four years had passed since the first manifestation. If Jack had