King John of Jingalo Part 35

I

It is no use pretending that all history is equally interesting, even though the facts which it contains are necessary for an understanding of what follows. And I am well aware that much of this history so far has been very dull. We have been exploring interiors, moldy inst.i.tutions, cast-iron conventions, and one poor human mind,--with a tap on the back of its head as an incentive--wriggling to find a way out. But from this point on you see him wriggling no more; the slow wave of his resolve has crept to its crest and now breaks into foam.

A month has now pa.s.sed by; and four weeks hence the enamored Max will be coming for his answer--Max asking for the impossible thing. Like the man who set fire to the tail of his night-s.h.i.+rt in order to stop the hiccoughs, so now John of Jingalo had at his heels that terror of his own planting driving him on. Perhaps nothing else would have given him the courage.

The day for the last Council meeting had arrived, the last before the closing of that long session of Parliament which, beginning in February, had run on at intervals into November. Then only a brief month, and the winter session with the new Government program would open.

It was to this Council that the Cabinet's latest scheme for squeezing the Bishops out of the Const.i.tution was to be presented; and for that to be possible, since he was so great a stickler for const.i.tutional propriety, the King's consent had been necessary. A few days before, therefore, the Prime Minister had once more formally submitted the question; and the King had given his leave. "Produce what you like, Mr.

Premier; I will no longer stand in your way."

The brief autumn session was closing with a clangor of agitation which had not been heard in Jingalo for half a century at least. Everybody outside the machinery of party was profoundly dissatisfied with the parliamentary system and with all its doings and undoings; and this general dissatisfaction was being quaintly expressed by a refusal to let Parliament rise. The Women Chartists were battering at its closed doors; and from peep-holes and other points of vantage within, smiling and indifferent legislators saw those bruised bodies, those strangely obsessed minds, those indomitable spirits carried off to magisterial lack of judgment and to prison.

With a good deal more concern they saw strikes breaking out in their own const.i.tuencies, and riot becoming the normal accompaniment of the industrial demand for better conditions. Three strike leaders were in prison under sentence of death for having killed by purposeful accident a few over-zealous policemen; and from great working centers over a hundred miles away thousands of men were marching to demand remittance of the death penalty.

The Government was, in consequence, in a great hurry to get the session closed. It was an undignified scramble of the red-tape worms of various departments to be well out of the way before those slow, heavily shod feet of labor arrived upon the scene. At every town they came to they stopped, made inflammatory speeches, gathered funds and adherents, and then, a swelled body of discontent, marched stolidly on toward the capital; and this not from one point alone but from half-a-dozen at once. If there was not to be conflict between the police and these converging forces, appeas.e.m.e.nt of some sort must be devised, or official vacuum must be there to meet them.

And behind all this was the ministerial fear that, if they were not quick about it, it would be impossible to close Parliament with due ceremony. The Lord High Functionary had put it bluntly to the Prime Minister. "If those men get here we can't have out the piebald ponies and the state coach; they wouldn't stand it."

And as the piebald ponies and the state coach were necessary for the prestige of the Government and for proof that the King and his ministers were working amicably together, therefore the red-tape worms were all wriggling their level best under pressure from above, and in the small hours every morning millions of public money were being voted into the hands of the Government by an obedient majority of sleepy legislators, bound by party loyalty neither to criticise nor to control.

It was in the midst of affairs thus disarranged that on a morning three days before the rising of Parliament the Royal Council met, and awaited with official calm the advent of its t.i.tular head.

Since his outbreak of a few months ago the King had once more become amenable to that deferential guidance which was his due; and now word had gone round that all further opposition was to be withdrawn, and the Ministry to have its way.

And so the _piece de resistance_ is at last in full brew and we see the twenty cooks of the national broth waiting without any trepidation of spirit for the royal flavoring to arrive. And they talk among themselves in carefully modulated tones; for it is not etiquette, when the doors are thrown open to the royal presence, that the King should hear conversation going on.

The Prime Minister enters a little later than the rest, carrying his brief, and moves to his place near the head of the board through a circle of congratulatory looks and smiles. For all know that in this long bout with t.i.tular kings.h.i.+p, obstinate for the preservation of its rights, the representative of Cabinet control has won, and that a new and very comfortable stage in the subservience of monarchy to ministerial ends has been attained.

And how quietly this important little bit of const.i.tutional revolution has been carried through!--without any pa.s.sing of laws or pet.i.tion of rights, merely by internal pressure judiciously applied. And Jingalo, that well-represented State governed by the popular will, knows nothing of what has been done; like a body in absolute health it is unconscious of the working of those vital functions so necessary for its const.i.tutional development. Oh, admirable popular will! in searching for your whereabouts and to come into touch with you, old monarchy has had yet another tumble--and at the right and preconcerted time will reach the ground without any outward revolution at all.

If these or suchlike thoughts were in the mind of the Cabinet, just then they were diverted by the sound of opening doors; and there entered, not the King himself, but a Court functionary in full dress attended by two others, and bearing before him on a crimson cus.h.i.+on a sealed doc.u.ment.

A few eyebrows went up; what revival of old forms was this? The functionary advanced and with a low bow presented the doc.u.ment not to the Prime Minister, but to the Lord President of the Council. "By his Majesty's gracious command," said he, "a message from his Majesty the King to his faithful people."

Then, with another bow, the Court functionary withdrew.

The Lord President looked at the seal in some embarra.s.sment, for he did not quite know how to break it; it was very large, some three inches across, and was composed of a wax of specially resistant quality.

"Cut it!" said the Prime Minister, and to that end he presented his pocket-knife.

The doc.u.ment was opened; and the Lord President and Prime Minister, glancing together at its contents, suddenly went white.

"Gentlemen," said the Lord President (his voice and hands trembled as he spoke), "his Majesty the King abdicates!"

II

Around that ministerial board it would have been amusing to an impartial onlooker to see how many mouths of grave and reverend Councilors did actually open and drop chins of dismay. A gust of horror and astonishment blew round the a.s.sembly; it was a word unknown in the Jingalese Const.i.tution; no place had been there provided for it,--it had never been done. Strictly speaking--legally speaking, that is to say--it could not be done. Kings had been deposed, exiled, their heads cut off--all without their own consent--but never without the consent of Parliament, or of some portion of it at all events. Yet nothing whatever could prevent it; for clearly on this point the King could insist; but, if he did, the Const.i.tution would be in the melting-pot, and the consequences could not be foreseen. What right had this pelican in piety to go pecking his own breast and shedding the blood of his ancestors?

Viewed in any const.i.tutional light it was a revolutionary and b.l.o.o.d.y deed.

The Prime Minister was not slow to see its bearing on the whole political situation and on the fortunes of his ministry.

"Gentlemen," said he, "if this abdication is allowed to take effect, our plans are defeated and the Government must go."

"You mean we shall have to resign?"

"We cannot even do that; we are forestalled. Though not yet publicly announced this is an absolute abdication here and now." And then that all might hear, the Lord President proceeded to read out the terms.

"WE, John, by the Grace of G.o.d, King of Jingalo, Suzerain of Rome, Leader of the Forlorn Hope, and Crowned Head of Jerusalem, do hereby solemnly declare, avow, render, and deliver by this as Our own act, freely undertaken and accomplished for the good, welfare, comfort, and succor of the Realm of Jingalo and of its People, that now and from this day henceforward. WE do utterly renounce, relinquish, and abjure all claim to rank, t.i.tles, honors, emoluments, and privileges holden by US in virtue of OUR inheritance and succession as true and rightful Sovereign Lord of the said Realm of Jingalo. And for the satisfying of OUR Royal Conscience and the better safety and security of those things aforetime committed to OUR trust and keeping, under the Const.i.tution of the said Realm of Jingalo; to the preservation whereof WE are bound by oath, therefore WE do now p.r.o.nounce, publish, and set forth, that it may be known to all, this OUR ABDICATION, made in the 25th year of OUR reign and given under OUR hand and signet----"

Then came date and signature; and following these the old form of mixed German and Latin, without which no State doc.u.ment was complete--"Der Rex das vult."

When the reading ended there was a short pause. Here at all events, in their very ears, history was being incredibly made.

"Remarkably well drawn," observed Professor Teller, admiringly: "copied, you may be interested to learn, from the actual instrument wrung by Parliament out of King Oliver the Second under threat of torture four hundred years ago. As legal and regular a form, therefore, as it would be possible to devise."

"You mean we shall have to recognize it?"

"If we recognize anything at all."

"Gentlemen," said the Prime Minister, "it must not be recognized; it would mean for us not merely defeat but disaster. As against the Bishops we have a certain amount of popular opinion to back us; but if once it appears that dislike for our policy has driven the King into abdication, then our ruin will be immediate and irremediable. We have to recognize that during the past year his popularity has greatly increased, while our own, to say the most, is stationary."

"Yes, and he knows it!" said the Minister of the Interior, bitterly.

"I call it a treacherous and a cowardly act!" exclaimed the Secretary for War.

"He is trying to bully us!" said the Commissioner-General.

"I should say that he is succeeding," remarked Professor Teller in a dry tone. "Had we not better recognize, gentlemen, that his Majesty has made a very shrewd hit? Can we not--compromise?"

"Impossible!" a.s.severated the Prime Minister. "It is too late."

Professor Teller leaned back in his chair and let the discussion flow on. His att.i.tude was noticeable; he was the only minister who was taking it sitting down.

"When does this abdication take effect?" asked one. "I mean, how long can it be kept from the press?"

"Who knows? If his Majesty has done one mad thing he may have done another."

"I must see him at once," said the Premier, "this cannot be allowed to go on."

"You will have to take a very firm tone."

"I would suggest that we all send in our portfolios."

"We have tried that once; he would not accept them now, and we have no power to make him."

"No; that is the d.a.m.nable thing! That is what makes his position so strong."

"Do you think he knows?"