The Shadow of Great Britain-Chapter 668 - 327 - : The Mountain Rain is Coming

London, Westminster Palace.

Passing through the extensive corridors of the palace and pushing open the substantial doors, the sight of over four hundred green leather seats in the House of Commons sprang into view.

Although the size of the chamber was considerable, the influx of more than six hundred Members of Parliament along with journalists, citizens, and petitioning groups in attendance rendered it exceedingly crowded.

In the bustling environment, no one would notice that a Scotland Yard inspector was presently standing on the second floor of the chamber.

Although Arthur’s status had changed significantly from past days, even brushing against the fringes of true high society,

compared to the gentlemen present here, his title still seemed quite ordinary.

Many of the gentlemen here had business cards embossed with titles ranging from Knight, Baronet, to Lord.

The reason why titles such as Baron, Viscount, Earl, and other higher honors weren’t present in the Commons is that these distinguished gentlemen all sat in the neighboring House of Lords.

Although the Commons was known as the House of the People, in 19th century Britain, it would be a grave error to consider the gentlemen of the Commons as actual commoners simply because they lacked noble titles.

To exemplify the commonplace presence of the title "Lord" in the Commons, there are only two possibilities for one to hold the title of Lord.

One possibility is that the title holder is genuinely a Baron or holds a higher rank such as a Viscount, Earl, Marquis, or even Duke, all of whom could be collectively referred to as Lords.

However, typically people would only refer to a Baron as Lord while addressing higher-ranked nobility directly as Duke, Marquis, and so on.

The reason for this is quite simple.

It’s obviously to avoid embarrassment.

It’s like automatically dropping the prefix ’Deputy’ when addressing a Deputy Director or Deputy Manager, directly calling them Director or Manager.

Naturally, the Lords appearing in the Commons were not even Barons; they belonged to a different special case.

That is, their fathers were nobility, and their fathers were still alive.

For these nobles’ sons, following traditional customs, Britons would courteously address them as Lords.

For example, the current Home Secretary, Viscount Melbourne, was always referred to as Lord while his father was alive and he served nearly thirty years in the Commons due to his commoner status.

Once his father passed away, after inheriting his father’s titulary, the Viscount of course had to leave the Commons and move to the new world of the House of Lords.

Not everyone was as lucky as Viscount Melbourne, who was the eldest son in his family and merely had to wait for his father’s death to ascend to the House of Lords.

For those younger sons within a family, they would lose the title of Lord upon their father’s death.

But most fathers understood their sons’ situations well and would often send their younger sons to the military for seasoning during their lifetime. Once the time and resume were sufficiently built up, they’d pull some strings to secure a knighthood or a baronetcy for them.

Although Knights and Baronets still carried the status of commoners in the British social hierarchy, at least they could have a title of Sir on their business cards, couldn’t they?

And the most successful one who followed this path was none other than the Duke of Wellington, Arthur Wellesley.

As a younger son without rights to inheritance, and having shown no special talents as a child, he was sent to the military academy at Angers, France after graduating from Eton College.

After graduating from the military academy, his elder brother Edward Wellesley secured him an Army Lieutenant position in Scotland’s 73rd Highland Regiment through a donation.

After several years of military experience, Wellington himself scraped together promotions up to the rank of Army Colonel.

Then, with the outbreak of the Great Revolution in France, the young Duke of Wellington was dispatched to the Netherlands to participate in the operations against France, where he faced his first and only defeat in his life.

Perhaps drawing valuable lessons from this defeat, the battle-hardened Duke of Wellington was unstoppable from that moment on.

After recovering from his injuries, he first joined his elder brother, Richard Wellesley, in India, where he was promoted to Colonel and tasked with commanding the 33rd Infantry Regiment against the Kingdom of Mysore.

During his five years in India, Wellington achieved remarkable success, almost single-handedly helping Britain win the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War.

And with his solid military credentials, he saved his father a substantial sum of money that would have been used to secure a knighthood.

With his achievements in India, the Duke of Wellington was knighted as a Knight of Bath immediately upon his return to Britain, promoted to Army Major General, and simultaneously took up the post of Secretary of State for Ireland in the Cabinet.

In the subsequent Peninsular War, the Duke of Wellington continued to rise in ranks and titles, stepping on the heads of several French Marshals.

In 1808, after defeating French Marshal Jean Andoche Junot at the Battle of Vimiero, Wellington was promoted to Lieutenant General and was made Baron Wellesley of Duro in Somerset.

In 1809, after ambushing French Marshal Jean-de-Dieu Soult at the Battle of Talavera and capturing the strategic town of Porto in Portugal, he was further titled Viscount Wellington of Talavera and Somerset.

In 1810, at the Battle of Busaco, upon defeating Marshal Andre Massena, he was elevated to the Earl of Wellington.