Chapter 19

A short while later, the noble ladies gathered at Kensington Palace began raising their voices over newspapers carrying Viscount Palmerston’s remarks, even as they chatted about the upcoming social season.

[Laudanum: The Hidden Helper of Women’s Liberation?: Viscount Palmerston Points to the Core of the Controversy with Foresight Ahead of His Time]

“Good heavens. Has that gentleman lost his mind? To think he claims women were able to enter society thanks to laudanum. That is the most absurd piece of logic I have ever heard in my life.”

Mrs. Stanley muttered as if flabbergasted. Her voice carried a special brand of insult that went beyond mere anger—the particular fury a human feels when stories concerning their own life are arbitrarily interpreted by someone else’s hands.

“Indeed. Are they trying to suggest that while we were floating around in a laudanum haze, the servants did all the chores and our husbands handled affairs of state in Parliament?”

Sneers and sighs burst out from all around. Viscount Palmerston’s sophistry was nothing more than a ridiculous comedy to them. Naturally so, seeing as they were the very people who had barely managed to escape laudanum’s horrific addiction.

Clap. Clap. Clap.

At the unheralded sound of applause, the gazes of the ladies-in-waiting focused.

“Thank you all for attending despite the uncooperative weather.”

“Your Majesty!”

At my appearance, the ladies performed deep courtesies, then approached me with utterly bewildered expressions to ask:

“Your Majesty has read The Morning Chronicle as well, hasn’t you? Whatever can Viscount Palmerston be thinking to say such a thing?”

“Well, I cannot claim to know his exact thoughts, but one thing is certain.”

“And what might that be, Your Majesty?”

At Mrs. Stanley’s query, I offered a faint smile.

“It seems he believes we still require laudanum.”

“Oh, surely not.”

Mrs. Ashburton, who had been quietly sipping her tea, approached me with a worried expression.

“Not at all, you say? Just think. What do you suppose people reading that article will believe? Ah, they will think noble ladies are enjoying elegant social lives thanks to laudanum, will they not? Yet what was the truth?”

I asked, slowly glancing around the parlor. The ladies fell silent. Truth was always better suited to silence than speech, especially in front of a truth that concerned oneself.

They knew. The nights when their hands would shake without laudanum. The mornings when they snapped over trivial matters. The moments when, waking at dawn plagued by nightmares, they stared at themselves in the mirror and felt like strangers.
Liberation?

It was no such thing.

It was bondage bound in silken threads—chains that kept them from even realizing the fact that they were tied down.

“Do we not know how utterly false those words are? Had it not been for your own resolve, you would still be living today with your souls mortgaged to that terrible medicine.”

I emphasized the word resolve.

In truth, what had saved them was the chamomile tea I provided and the shock of the newspaper article I handed them. Yet grace loses its luster the moment the giver declares it. The greatest gift to offer another is to let them believe they rose up by their own accord, for self-esteem is a fortress that becomes truly one’s own only when built by oneself.

At that moment, Mrs. Stanley spoke up cautiously.

“Still… isn’t it strange? Why on earth is Viscount Palmerston making such claims all of a sudden? It feels as though he’s just blurting out whatever comes to mind because he’s losing ground in the committee…”

Hearing this, Mrs. Ashburton and others began voicing their respective opinions.

“Isn’t it because we stopped buying laudanum, so his market dried up and he grew anxious? Just think of how massive London’s high society market is.”

“Does that mean… since we won’t buy it, now he intends to sell that wicked thing somewhere else?”

“Naturally. Look at the other pages of the newspaper. Articles about the trade disputes with Qing China keep popping up, don’t they?”

As they flipped through the newspapers, it wasn’t just articles about the Laudanum Select Committee that caught their eyes.

Pages were filled with reports on Qing China’s opium suppression issues, British merchants’ grievances, and the growing tensions flowing between the two nations.

“Good heavens… Then the poison we threw away as garbage is now to be sold to the people of Qing China?”

“How could they do such a thing! It’s a villainous act!”

Outcries of indignation erupted. The conflict with Qing China, which until recently felt like a distant affair happening to someone else, suddenly felt vividly real.

The moment a poison rejected by oneself is passed on to another, that poison is no longer a substance unrelated to oneself. An invisible thread called responsibility connected these women to unfamiliar faces across the sea.

“Is there nothing we can do?”

“Come to think of it, commoner housemaids from Kensington Palace went and testified at the committee, didn’t they…”

At one lady’s words, the atmosphere in the parlor grew heavy. Everyone lowered their heads.

And within that lowering of heads lay a small trace of shame.

Even housemaids found the courage—what have we done?

Privilege was both a shield and a shackle.

The noble ladies’ silk dresses and pearl necklaces warded off the world’s harsh winds, yet simultaneously blocked their voices from reaching the world. When the protected fail to act, they were just beginning to realize that protection itself becomes a crime.

Everyone’s gazes converged upon me. Before I knew it, I had become the axis of this high society.

Just as the axis of a spinning top remains motionless while making everyone else move, I stood in a position that set everyone in motion without appearing to move at all.

“Each of you has a reputation and interests to maintain, so you cannot simply go out to Parliament and deliver speeches.”

At my words, everyone nodded.

“However, does that mean there is no way for your voices to be heard at all?”

As I glanced sideways toward the visiting book inscribed with the list of afternoon tea party attendees, Mrs. Ashburton’s eyes lit up.

Two days later, at a salon hosted by Mrs. Ashburton, she gathered the noble ladies and put forward a single proposal.

“I’ve been thinking, and I’ve found a way for us to make our voices heard. How about a joint petition?”

“A joint petition?”

“Yes, submitting an official petition signed by all of us noble ladies to Parliament.”

The ladies murmured at the unfamiliar proposal.

Directly meddling in politics was considered taboo, but this was no time to stand on such customs.

“Still… wouldn’t it be troublesome if we appear to be stepping into politics?”

“That is precisely why we must be all the more prudent.”

Mrs. Ashburton was resolute. That resolution was a new internal pillar she had quietly cultivated over the past few months. The woman who used to lean on a sofa, intoxicated by laudanum, and the woman standing in the center of the parlor now were completely different people. Or rather, the same person had finally arrived at her true self.

“Our petition must not become a political demand. This is not a matter of politics; it is, above all, a matter of honor.”

Honor.

That single word clad her joint petition in the armor of legitimacy.

Language was such a delicate craft. Depending on what name one gave to the same action, it was either permitted or forbidden. Women could not engage in politics, but if it was a matter of protecting their family’s honor and the nation’s honor, they could leap right into the fire.

Mrs. Ashburton rose from her seat and walked to the center of the parlor. Then, she spoke with emphasis toward all the noble ladies gathered there.

“Here is the preamble of the petition.”

Pausing to catch her breath, she continued in a clear voice, as if reading an invisible speech:

“As those who serve Her Majesty most closely, and as mothers and wives of this nation, we cannot help but express grave concern regarding the harms that the laudanum trade inflicts upon Britain’s morality and honor.”

At her words, the ladies’ eyes began to shine.

“We do not wish to become a cowardly nation that destroys the souls of other countries’ citizens merely to earn a few coins. This goes against the will of God, and it will become a shameful history handed down to our children.”

To our children.

In that phrase, her voice trembled slightly. The ancient power carried by the word “mother” resided within that trembling. The desire to leave behind a world of which their children need not be ashamed. It was an instinct of humanity older than any ideology.

“We earnestly petition that Parliament and the government not commit the folly of tarnishing Britain’s honor, blinded by immediate gains, but instead move forward on the right path.”

As the speech ended, applause burst out inside the parlor. Gone were the noble ladies who had once leaned helplessly against sofas, intoxicated by laudanum; in their place, eyes that knew what they needed to fight for shone with a brilliant, intelligent vigor.

From that day onward, Mrs. Ashburton’s parlor became the hottest political salon in London.

Of course, not a single person gathered there believed they were engaging in politics.
For the pens held in their hands were quills, not hammers or banners.

The words coming from their lips were not revolution and power, but honor and the children they loved.

Yet history was often forged by the hands of those who lacked even the awareness that they were writing history.

“Now, please come this way and sign. Use this quill here. Once you’ve signed, the housemaids will sprinkle fine powder (pounce) so the ink doesn’t smudge.”

Mrs. Ashburton guided the noble ladies with the grace and skill of someone accepting donations at a charity bazaar. In the exact center of her parlor, where finger foods and sandwiches would normally rest, a table held a rolled joint petition, a bottle of fine ink, and dozens of quills arranged neatly.

The very first to sign was Mrs. Stanley.

“My hands are shaking so much since this is my first time doing something like this.”

“Oh, my, what is there to shake about? It’s bound to be less nerve-wracking than writing a love letter to a young gentleman you met at a ball.”

“Oh really, Mrs. Ashburton!”

Blushing, Mrs. Stanley pressed her name down firmly with the quill, and a housemaid immediately sprinkled fine powder over the spot.

A name was the first gift a person received upon birth and the sound called out most often during a lifetime, yet carving that name onto paper with one’s own hand was an entirely new experience.

Starting with her, every lady present continued to sign in turn.

Even those who initially hesitated found courage upon watching the person ahead of them, falling naturally into line; this bizarre petition drive spread across London’s high society like the latest fashion.

In one corner of a tea party parlor hosted by the Duchess of Sutherland, a small table was set up with a sign reading “Joint Petition Signing Place for the Opposition to the Laudanum Trade.” The noble ladies murmured at the unfamiliar sight.

“My word, that must be the rumored joint petition.”

“I heard it started at Mrs. Ashburton’s residence, but it has already made its way here.”

“Should we sign? Somehow it feels a bit… frightening.”

Right at that moment, the hostess of the party, the Duchess of Sutherland, appeared holding a teacup and spoke up.

“What is there to hesitate about? This is a matter for the honor of our respective houses. Her Majesty the Queen must surely know our intentions as well—would remaining idle not be the true disgrace?”

At her words, resolution settled onto the faces of the hesitant ladies. One by one, they approached the table and began writing their names.

A few days later, beneath the glittering chandeliers of a ballroom hosted by the Rothschild family, another scene unfolded in a corner of the waltz-filled hall.

“Line up right here!”

Mrs. Ashburton moved her fan incessantly, performing traffic control bordering on the miraculous, and the room was packed to the point of standing room only with young noble maidens eager to sign.

“Why, what are all of you doing here instead of dancing?”

An elderly count asked with a cluck of his tongue, to which his daughter retorted, arms crossed.

“Father, you are the one who knows nothing! If you don’t sign this joint petition in London these days, you can’t even mingle properly in high society anymore.”

“W-what?”

Unable to resist his daughter’s prodding, he peered into the room and his jaw dropped wide open. Unfolding before him was a spectacle where the cream of London’s elite young ladies left dancing and young gentlemen by the wayside, lining up with serious expressions in front of a mere stack of paper.

Petition forms had usurped dance cards in popularity, and the scratching of quills echoed more loudly than sighs of courtship.

Though a ballroom was fundamentally a marriage market, tonight, a very different kind of market was operating in its corner.

This bizarre trend swept throughout all of London. Noblewomen who had never once raised their voices collectively in history had begun to stir.

Though their movements took place beneath the surface, sub-surface currents sometimes move ships far more powerfully than surface waves.

One month later, on April 1, 1838.

The scrolls in Mrs. Ashburton’s hands had multiplied into dozens, and the inscribed names numbered well over a thousand.

“One thousand… one hundred twenty-three.”

Mrs. Stanley read the final tallied figure in a trembling voice.

“Good heavens… what on earth is this…”

Numbers were inherently unfeeling symbols.

Yet within that number 1,123 lay 1,123 stories.

1,123 moments of hesitation, 1,123 resolutions, 1,123 nights, and 1,123 instances of a quill scratching paper.

It was also the moment when an era’s women discovered the word “we” for the very first time.

Newspaper companies hunting frantically for gossip never let slip an opportunity like this.

[Rebellion of the Noble Dames! Over a Thousand Noble Women Sign Joint Petition Opposing the Laudanum Trade!]

[Women Who Shatter the Conspiracy of Silence Cry Out for Britain’s Conscience]

[The Petticoat Petition Shakes Westminster]

A petticoat was an undergarment worn in layers beneath a dress.

It required countless hours of labor to manufacture, yet remained entirely hidden from anyone’s eyes.

That very petticoat was shaking Westminster. What had been invisible was now visible; what had remained unheard was now audible.

Had it been called a petition of noble ladies, the incident might have faded away as a mere high society anecdote. But the moment it was christened The Petticoat Petition, it became a historical symbol.

Perhaps the gossiping newspapers had pinned this name upon them with the intent of scorn. Yet in the world of language, moments where names of contempt flipped into names of glory happened often enough; and thus, the petticoat became the noblewomen’s banner.

Meanwhile, Gladstone clenched his fist unconsciously as he read The Times.

…My convictions were not wrong!

Over the past few weeks, fighting against Viscount Palmerston’s cunning sophistry, he had often felt a profound sense of loneliness.

In the world of politics, loneliness was the most difficult emotion to endure.

How small conscience had seemed before the grand name of national interest.
How naive his morality had felt beneath the tower of pragmatism.

Yet now, over a thousand allies stood by his side. They were not members of Parliament.
They were not party organizers. They were the mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters of the parliamentarians.

The faces politicians had to confront at the dinner table. The backs of those they fell asleep next to every night.

Their signatures were conscience itself, infiltrating the homes of politicians.

A few days later, when the Select Committee resumed, the atmosphere in the chamber was vastly different from before.

The gallery was packed with reporters and onlookers eager to witness firsthand the aftermath of the Petticoat Petition, and a subtle tension flowed among the committee members as well.

Viscount Palmerston still wore a relaxed smile, but Gladstone did not miss the faint flicker in his pupils.

“Viscount Palmerston.”

“Respected Mr. Chairman.”

“It appears the noble ladies of London have sent their reply regarding the Foreign Secretary’s theories on women’s liberation.”

At Gladstone’s words, the meeting room fell momentarily silent, and Viscount Palmerston’s brow twitched slightly.

“I saw it in the newspapers. I respect the lofty intentions of the ladies.”

“Did you say you respect them?”

Gladstone parried his words smoothly.

“From what I hear, over a thousand noblewomen have signed in opposition to the Foreign Secretary’s stance, which is said to amount to virtually all of London’s aristocratic women. Might I ask if the Minister’s own wife or sister happened to sign the joint petition?”

At that moment, the smile vanished from Viscount Palmerston’s face for the very first time, and low chuckles erupted from various corners of the chamber. Looking straight at him, Gladstone continued in a resolute voice.

“These are the wives and mothers of the members of Parliament and nobles who guide this nation. Those who guard the beating heart of the country are crying out in one voice that the Foreign Secretary’s assertions are villainous acts staining Britain’s honor.”

Pausing for a moment to survey the room, he saw everyone holding their breath and paying rapt attention to him. Now, it was time to pose a single question to the man.

“Respected Lord Foreign Secretary, is it truly acceptable to continue the laudanum trade as matters stand?”

His final question was quiet, yet it echoed across the entire chamber louder than the roar of any cannon. Cold sweat began to bead on the forehead of Viscount Palmerston, who sat tight-lipped and silent, unable to utter a single word. Silence was sometimes the most honest answer. By remaining silent now, he was formalizing his own defeat.

“Assuming there are no objections, I declare all proceedings of the Select Committee concerning the laudanum issue concluded. The recommendations to be submitted to Parliament will be drafted within a week at the earliest, after which a vote on military action against Qing China will proceed.”

Gladstone’s declarations brooked no hesitation.

Once the recommendations adopted by the Select Committee were sent to Parliament, he believed everyone would deeply sympathize with the issue and raise their voices together.

O Lord! Pray protect Britain’s conscience and honor!