The Shadow of Great Britain

Arthur pushed open the wooden door that had been freshly painted black and fully renovated not long ago, wrapped his cloak around himself and walked into his office.

The fireplace crackled away, clearly having had its logs replaced by the officer on duty last night, heating the kettle on its base.

He took off his gloves and leaned his ever-present walking stick against the back of a chair.

Arthur had just pulled back the armchair and before he could sit down properly, a series of unhurried footsteps sounded from outside the door.

Knock, knock, knock!

There was a knock at the door.

”Sir.” A young officer’s voice sounded from outside the door, ”Samuel March Phillips from the Home Office has arrived. Would you care to see him?”

Arthur’s eyebrows twitched, but he didn’t rise immediately.

If it had been anyone else, Arthur might not have bothered to see him, but this Mr. Samuel March Phillips was not someone Arthur could choose to avoid.

When Londoners see the surname ”March Phillips,” they likely have no particular feeling, but if you’re from Leicester County, you likely instantly recognize it as an influential family local to Leicester with a history spanning over two centuries.

Samuel March Phillips’ elder brother, Charles, has long been active in Leicester politics, an influential Whig Party member locally, having been elected as the Lower House Member for the Lafborough constituency three times over the past twenty years.

Upon his most recent election as a Lower House member, he even spent lavishly to host a grand feast, consuming four thousand pounds of roast beef, three thousand pounds of raisin pudding, and twenty-five hundred gallons of beer to entertain three thousand reformist voters supporting him. The financial prowess of the March Phillips family is thus evident.

Though Mr. Samuel March Phillips did not throw himself into party politics like his elder brother, he forged his own unique path.

After graduating from Charterhouse School, Samuel first attended Sidney Sussex College at Cambridge University, obtaining first a Bachelor of Letters and then a Master of Letters degree, before spending a year at Inner Temple Law College to acquire a lawyer qualification.

Though he never formally practiced law as a solicitor, he penned numerous academic works, with his ”Treatise on Evidence” and ”Chronicles of National Trials, or Compilation of the Most Noteworthy Trials Before the 1688 Revolution” now standard textbooks at Inner Temple Law College.

There’s an old saying, ”Excelling in studies leads to a career,” a Chinese proverb, but in Britain, at least it applies to Samuel.

Because in 1827, at the age of 47, Samuel March Phillips succeeded Henry Hobhouse as the Permanent Under-Secretary at the Home Office.

Counting the years, this marked his tenth year as the head civilian of the Home Office.

In the eyes of many young officials, the Permanent Under-Secretary at the Home Office was nothing more than a reclusive little old man, a typical scholarly bureaucrat. Aside from occasionally appearing in the review rooms of White Hall or footnotes in parliamentary journals, he was virtually out of sight.

However, Sir Arthur Hastings, having risen through the ranks of the internal affairs system, knew well that the advice and signature of this Permanent Under-Secretary at the Home Office were quite weighty. Whether it be Sir Robert Peel or Viscount Melbourne, or the present Home Secretary, Lord John Russell, all have highly praised Samuel’s capabilities.

Yet, it makes sense that a person able to stabilize himself in the position of Permanent Under-Secretary for a decade wouldn’t be easy to deal with, would he?

If you mistakenly believe this little old man is easy to dismiss simply because he often tags sentences with ”legally so” or ”institutionally so,” heh... then wish yourself luck.

Arthur straightened his collar and cuffs: ”Invite him in.”

”Understood, Sir.”

In no time, the door was pushed open.

Standing at the doorway was a middle-aged gentleman, dressed in a dark gray tweed coat, hair meticulously groomed although still sparse.

His hat was removed very properly, and his gloves tucked away neatly.

The Permanent Under-Secretary’s manner of entrance was as smooth as sliding a page of a dossier into a cabinet, neither excessive nor awkward, devoid of any emotion beyond polite courtesy.

”Sir Arthur.” Samuel nodded gently, ”It’s a privilege to intrude.”

Arthur rose with a smile to return the courtesy: ”Mr. Phillips, seeing you in the morning, today’s agenda must be quite intense.”

Phillips did not smile nor dispute this conjecture, but simply drew a fresh report from his briefcase: ”I won’t take up too much of your time, I’m here simply for a preliminary, informal discussion on a rather sensitive topic.”

Arthur glanced at the document, and at once recognized it as the memorandum of a death penalty verdict from the Central Criminal Court.

After all, such documents, he could see almost monthly when he worked on the frontline at Scotland Yard.

Though in recent years, death penalty decisions have become less frequent.

After all, following his renowned courtroom speech, Sir Peel vigorously championed the move to abolish the ”Bloody Code,” removing over eighty percent of the capital offenses within a year, the movement didn’t stall after the Whig Party came to power, but rather intensified.

As of seven years on, the British legal system sanctions capital punishment for only five offenses: murder, rape, robbery, arson and treason.