Part 12 Charles, Lord Highgate, stared into the camera. His trademark white hair and beard had been trimmed back at the order of his gander-physicians but he had insisted on retaining the beard. Let them quibble that to the burghers in Keswick the beard made him look untrustworthy! He knew that for every vote lost there there were two parlor maids in London who would vote for the avuncular look it gave him. His eyes twinkling, he spoke, "Women and Men of the Union, next week sees the most important election in our great land's history. You will choose whether we withdraw and go back into the past or move forward into the bright future of the European Commonwealth. Backwards with the Covenanters or forwards with the Democratic Levelers. "Mark my words, only the Democratic Levelers have the plan, the policy and the people to provide strong governance for the Union. Lord Wellesley presides over a disunited, disorganised party." Quite so, thought Charles as he made a dramatic pause. Once the election is over the knives will be out for Praise-the-Lord Wellesley. The most likely replacement will be Do-As-You-Would-Be-Done-By Disraeli. Out loud he said, "No-one wants the Union to return to the fifteen years of Covenanter misrule. On Thursday the 8th you face a simple choice. Between hope and fear. Between prosperity and decay. Between the future and the past." It was time to repeat the Big Slogan the gander-physicians had devised, "Secure your future with the Democratic Leveler Party." It was wrap up time, "Good night and God bless." Charles looked earnestly into the camera as the director made finger gestures. "And finito! That was wonderful Chuckie chuck! Your best ever!" the director blathered. Lord Highgate exhaled deeply. He hated this. He'd much rather face five public rallies than one of these broadcasts. And yet, in a very real sense, he had meant the words he said. Well, some of them. The European Commonwealth was important. Very few people remembered history these days. The Thirty Years' War. The Great War against the Cardinals of France and their Spanish Hapsburg allies. Overthrowing the Cardinals hadn't done any good. The anti-clerical Bernadotte had risen to power. Only he wasn't just anti-clerical but anti-foreign, anti-semitic and damn near anti-everything-else. It had taken six years of hard fighting in the Second Great War before 'Butcher' Bernadotte had hung himself in an auto-erotic adventure gone horribly wrong. There had been a proposal for a Second Treaty of Hesse-Nassau, to divide France into independent principalities so as to never again threaten the peace of Europe. But the Commonwealth of Europe was a better way. This way no country could threaten the peace of Europe. Imagine a federation the size of the continent of Europe, with no fears of conflict within its borders! Just imagine how productive that country could be, without costly wars between the states or having to maintain armies to deter such wars! And this might just be the beginning, thought Charles. If the Commonwealth is successful he could launch his pet scheme of an international body that unites the human race. He began humming to himself. He hated campaigning. Once this was over, he promised himself, he would spend more time with Jenny and the children. Maybe break out the ukulele and have a family sing-song.

The five members of the Radical Leveler Party (Lillburnist-Frondist) lounged around the flickering light of the communal electro-vision. From the horn they heard the voice of the man known throughout the country as 'Lord Charles' transmitted in tinny tones. "Secure your future with the Democratic Leveler Party. Goodnight and God bless." The next program was a worthy documentary about the fiftieth anniversary of the combustion engine. Viscount Nigel Fortescue turned the electro-vision off. Such programs were only of interest to military buffs or citizens of the New Colonies. For those living in Europe or the Americas the cities were given over to pedestrians and light rail. There was no room or need for the petroleum burning mono-carriages. "I do hope," said Nigel, "that once Lord Charles has been returned for his second term we will finally see some true Leveler policies." Adrian Molesworth looked thoughtfully at the other four. "You know, if Lord Charles is re-elected I think he'll move the DLP even further to the right." Adrian wasn't quite sure why he said it. He couldn't quite explain to himself this feeling he had. Already he could see the others looking incredulously at him. "I can't believe what I just heard," declared the Honorable Penelope Cholmondeley-Smythe (pronounced 'Smith'). "How could Digger Adrian use such a manualist word in this day and age?" "What I was trying to say, Digger Penny is that Lord Charles has some sinister..." "Handedness again, Digger Adrian!" rebuked Lady More-valuable-than-rubies Fairfax, known by the others at her insistence as Digger Jools. Adrian tried again, "...that Lord Charles will maliciously..." It was no good. When the RLP(L-F) smelled blood they were like sharks. This time it was the turn of Lord John Douglas, the party's leading intellectual, to weigh in. "Malicious, from the French 'mal' meaning bad and left-handed. You are being an unrepentant manualist, Digger Adrian!" "Honestly, Digger Adrian," sighed Nigel, "if there's ever going to be any change..." By now Adrian had had enough. As the only fluent Latin speaker in the party he was able to say the equivalent of "screw you guys, I'm going to bed" without causing further offence. As he lay on his big brass bed he wondered. Where had everything gone wrong? Was it the late development of technology as the RLP(L-F) had always argued? The steam engine not coming along until the 16th century, millennia after the first cities, allowing wage-slavery to develop. Or could it be, a heretical thought here, the other way around? That the steam engine had been discovered too soon, before political ideas had been mature enough to embrace it. Leonardo had made his discovery well before even rudimentary representative democracy had evolved. What if his discovery could have been delayed by even two centuries? Adrian Molesworth slept fitfully, his rest interrupted by a succession of dreams. The seaside. Ice lollies. A holy city with pink spires thrusting up, up, piercing the clouds. And Lord Charles, his beard bushier than ever, laughing, laughing. Adrian awoke. It was a new dawn. He had a fresh confidence. He knew that there could be a better world than this England of 1865. [The End]