The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet. Colleen McCullough

days. My concern over Mary Bennet has nothing to do with expediency — it’s simply prudence. My reputation is my all. Though the Darcys are related to every king who ever sat upon England’s throne, they have escaped the taint of more stupid men — men who snatched at huge honours, great commissions. Now, finally, after a thousand years of waiting, it lies in my power to advance the Darcy name in an absolutely unimpeachable way — as the elected head of England’s Parliament. A duke? An earl marshal of the battlefield? A royal marriage broker? Pah! Mere nothings! England has never sunk so low as under the Hanoverians — petty German princelings with names longer than their ancestry! — but her Parliament has risen in exact step with the diminution of her sovereigns. A prime minister in this day and age, Ned, is genuinely pre-eminent. A hundred years ago it was still an empty title passed around the House of Lords like a port decanter, whereas today it is beginning to be based in the House of Commons. Existing at the whim of the electors, rather than embedded in an unelected oligarchy. As prime minister, I will deal with Europe in the aftermath of Bonaparte. His Russian campaign may have finished him, but he has left the Continent in a shambles. I will mend it, and be the greatest statesman of all time. Nothing