Leadenhall Street, London.
Here once stood a magnificent edifice—stern in its exterior dignity yet sumptuous within: the headquarters of the East India Company.
For over two centuries it had acted as the Empire's true "shadow government." In those smoke-filled chambers, decisions that shaped wars, commerce, and the appointment of colonial governors were made with the casual arrogance of men who believed themselves the masters of continents.
George Matheson and his fellow directors—men long accustomed to manipulating the destinies of millions—had always carried themselves like minor gods.
But today, their faces were drained of all colour, seized by a grey, lifeless despair, as though the world itself were collapsing.
"It is over… utterly finished…"
Matheson sat slumped behind his priceless rosewood desk, clutching an urgent notice freshly arrived from Parliament. His gaze was hollow, and he muttered incoherently.
Never—never in his darkest imaginings—had he expected Arthur Lionheart, the "promising young man" he thought he could manage and perhaps even groom, to return from his year-long "expedition" not with spices and porcelain from the Orient…
…but with a butcher's knife sharp enough to send them all to the gallows.
The Day After Arthur's Triumphal Return
A special hearing on "Eastern and Indian Imperial Affairs," convened by direct order of Her Majesty the Queen, opened within the House of Lords.
Arthur Lionheart, as the sole "presenting authority," stood before the assembled peers and ministers dressed in the uniform of the Royal Chief Military Advisor—a symbol of supreme military merit.
He gave no rousing speech. He levelled no dramatic accusations.
Instead, he merely instructed his chief accountant, Hansen, to distribute to all present the true financial report of the East India Company, brought back from Calcutta.
Then a second document was handed out.
Its title read:
"Preliminary Investigative Report concerning George Matheson and the Board of Directors, on Charges of Wilful Concealment of War Risks, Investor Fraud, and the Disclosure of Commercial Intelligence to Foreign Powers during the Opium Trade with the Qing Court."
When the Lords and MPs—many of them shareholders—saw the contents of these two dossiers…
The chamber erupted.
"What?! A deficit of three million pounds?! Auckland swore we made eight million last year!"
"Good God—embezzlement of half a million! Parasites! They've stolen our dividends!"
"And this—Matheson selling false intelligence on our naval deployments to Qing merchants, attempting to provoke a greater war?! This is treason! Brazen treason!"
Those who once toasted Matheson with champagne now transformed into indignant arbiters of morality, bellowing like enraged bulls.
The Company's fraud had struck them not only in conscience—but in their wallets.
Amid the storm of outrage, Arthur Lionheart ascended the podium with unhurried steps.
He surveyed the chamber with a calm, almost sorrowful dignity.
"Gentlemen," he began, his voice steady yet resonant, "this is our East India Company—Her Majesty's so-called brightest jewel. And this… is its true condition."
"It has rotted from within."
"Its administration is held by greedy, shortsighted men who would betray their country for personal gain."
"Its archaic, two-century-old chartered structure cannot survive in our new age of steam and iron."
"In Afghanistan, the Empire has lost twenty thousand sons—and its honour. Tomorrow, shall we again entrust our fate to another incompetent Auckland, and lose all of India?"
Each sentence struck harder than the last.
"Therefore—" he declared, standing tall, "—I, Arthur Lionheart, Prince Consort, Royal Chief Military Advisor, and head of the Empire's foremost industrial enterprise, submit this urgent and solemn proposal to Parliament and to Her Majesty."
He paused.
Then spoke the words that would shatter an era:
"I propose the immediate revocation of all Royal Charters granted to the East India Company since the Glorious Revolution."
"I propose the dissolution of its Board of Directors on Leadenhall Street, and that all members be surrendered to the Royal Prosecutor for charges of treason and commercial fraud."
"And finally—"
His eyes blazed like those of a reformer born for his time.
"—the establishment of a new Department of Indian Affairs, jointly supervised by the Crown, the Cabinet, and Parliament."
"All overseas assets, armies, and governance rights of the East India Company shall be fully nationalised."
"India shall no longer be the private plantation of a merchant house. It shall become—and must become—an inseparable province of the British Empire, governed directly from London."
His declaration fell upon the hall like an explosive charge.
Even Prime Minister Melbourne was stunned—he had expected Arthur to act, but not with such breathtaking audacity.
Some MPs rose to protest—then faltered when they met Arthur's cold, steady gaze, and remembered the Revenge Queen ironclad anchored on the Thames… and the people's growing reverence for the "Saint of the Empire."
Opposition melted like snow under a spring sun.
The vote passed with overwhelming support.
That Afternoon — Leadenhall Street
Royal police stormed the Company headquarters, smashing its grand doors open with axes.
Matheson and the directors—who had still hoped their "donations" might save them—were dragged from their opulent offices like vagrants, irons clamped upon their wrists.
"Arthur Lionheart! You damned cur! May you die a wretched death!" Matheson spat as he was hauled past the young Prince Consort, who stood overseeing the proceedings.
Arthur looked upon him with quiet pity.
"Mr. Matheson," he said softly, "the age has changed."
"Your seventeenth-century games of profit through spice and slavery are finished."
"Welcome to the new century—my century—where steel, railways, and true capital will rewrite the world's laws."
He spared the fallen magnate no further glance.
Stepping out of the doomed building into the crimson London sunset, Arthur understood that now—with the Empire's sharpest and dirtiest spear finally brought under the Crown's hand—another task awaited.
A deeper, fiercer Reform of Victoria, aimed at the Empire's own corrupt shield, was about to begin.