The Shadow of Great Britain

”When he died, I was by his bedside. He was murmuring the name Arthur Hastings, and I took it as referring to me. On his deathbed, he gave me a signature, a surname, a vague story. I accepted these things as a soldier accepts a rifle with no ammunition—it might be useless, but holding it still makes you seem like a soldier. Of course, in the end, I didn’t become a soldier but a middle-class person, in name only.”

Several hours later, the old gentleman passed away.

On the bedside table remained a will and a document for a name change.

The funeral was simple, attended by a few old servants in ill-fitting black clothes, a priest reciting the prayers, Arthur bowing his head in silence. Everything was as he had hoped: quiet, dignified, undisputed.

Next, it was time for him to leave.

He set off, with no relatives seeing him off and no nostalgia for his homeland. Arthur Hastings boarded a carriage heading south to London from Bradford.

At that time, Britain, though not yet having undergone a spectacular transformation to democratization, was already on the eve of loosening its social structure. The steam of industry was reshaping London’s cityscape, printing presses churning out white paper were gradually undermining the Church’s authority, and the emerging middle class was beginning to desire independence from the patronage of the nobility. While the old order lingered on its last legs, the New World had already taken form.

The University of London, established in 1826, was the first light to break forth from that gap.

This university was distinct from Oxford and Cambridge; it cared not for lineage or faith, did not enforce a foundation in Latin, nor did it set a preference for noble offspring. As a rift in higher education scorned by the nobility, it nevertheless provided an entry point for those ”outsiders” unable to enter the upper echelons by virtue of bloodline.

Here, you could meet the merchant’s second son, the son-in-law of a printer, a theological seminary exile, adherents of Catholicism and Judaism, and even someone like Arthur Hastings, a son who knew not who his father was or where his mother was buried.

Undoubtedly, in 1826, the University of London welcomed its most outstanding alumni in history.

Arthur Hastings was not the type of youth to loudly question in lecture halls, nor did he belong to student groups constantly debating whether Burke or Pound was more patriotic over tea; but this didn’t mean he didn’t have like-minded friends at the University of London.

Eld Carter, a noble young man attempting to break free from the chains of identity and integrate into the new era, a regular at London social balls, the future Executive Secretary of the Navy Department, and drafter of numerous Royal Navy policies...

Most importantly, he was one of the few friends Arthur Hastings had at the University of London.

Or at least, Eld Carter himself thought so.

Unlike Arthur Hastings, Eld Carter was born with a surname, family crest, and a long family tradition. His father was a faded Irish MP, and his mother came from a declining noble family in Nottingham. The family could still maintain propriety, but not enough to join the House of Lords. They originally hoped Eld would go the Royal Navy route or seize an opportunity to enter the Civil Servant system of the East India Company.

But like many young men full of passion, Eld stubbornly wanted to prove he could secure a place in society with his mind and pen. He rejected Haileybury of the East India Company and didn’t glance at Balliol College, Oxford, nor Trinity College, Cambridge.

He chose the University of London as his refuge for higher education.

Perhaps because at this time, these two young men lacked much experience and both held beautiful expectations for their future lives, they quickly developed a close association.

During those days, Arthur Hastings and Eld Carter appeared in every corner of student life at the University of London: debate societies, philosophy reading clubs, political speech gatherings, even weekend charity parades.

At that time, they were known among University of London students as the ”Bloomsbury Twins”: one an aristocratic descendant eager to engage in reform, the other an ever sharp-tongued and passionate manor heir. Professors had mixed evaluations of them; some said they were ”the sprouts of modern society,” while others said they were merely ”a gentle breeze before the tempest.”

But who could have imagined, at that time, that those political opinions they had written with their own hands would one day be rebutted, with opposing positions, in the editorials of The Times and The Economist by the literary ”ruffians” raised by Imperial Publishing Company.

Who could have foreseen that in 1832, when reform demonstrations ignited the anger in the streets of London, as protesters confronted Scotland Yard police beneath the Tower of London, Arthur Hastings personally issued the order to suppress.

And who could have foreseen that in 1848, when revolutionary sentiments blew from Vienna to London, as the Charter Party attempted to encroach upon Westminster Palace, chanting the People’s Charter outside, Arthur Hastings would not sympathize with the crowds in the street, because he didn’t want to repeat the mistakes he made during the 1832 Reform Bill.

In a single night, bridges, passes, government buildings... every strategic point saw his Scotland Yard ”enforcers.”

The Royal Artillery Regiment and Guard Cavalry Regiment were secretly redeployed to the outskirts of London, though, considering the potential agitation from a military presence, they did not directly move in.