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* This episode is in an omniscient person point of view.

From the next episode, the story will go back to Edward VII's point of view.

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1578 Summer

England's Queen, Maria from Austria gave birth to a stillborn prince. Also, even though the King - who was her husband, Edward VII - gave special pardon to all prisoners, she and was sick in bed and unconscious for 4 days, then died of puerperal fever. The king was greatly dismayed and held a state funeral for her and her stillborn baby. James, the cardinal of England, was in charge of the funeral mass. At the ritual, several proctors sent by Catholic rulers of entire Europe were present.

When the young king showed tears as he has Maria the last farewell kiss 3 times, the cardinal became speechless and the mourners also cried.

After the graveside ceremony, the King proclaimed a 1month memorial period and ordered the citizens of London to refrain from drinking and dancing. Since the king, himself wore rough black wool clothes, and stopped eating meat and ate only oat porridge, and prayed to God every day during that period, even the most hideous criminals were silent at that time. And that made the citizens of London both delighted and felt sorry for the tragedy that happened to their good, young King.

When the funeral and the mourning were over, the king again held a 2-week festival to compensate the merchants who had to endure losses during that time. These luxurious festivals were funded by the taxes which were collected from the Netherlands. It was so splendid that even some pompous nobles from Spain came to have a look.

During the festival, the king went to the streets and consoled the poor patients, who came from the streets of London and small towns in rural cities in England. Since they had a superstitious belief that when the high noble touches their skin they would be cured, it was an effort to gain popularity from the people and to follow Christ's footsteps in the Bible for the young king.

Anyway, on the last day of the festival, the young king proclaimed the Constitution of Great Britain, which was confirmed after a long and bitter argument with the Parliament. The Constitution's main article was the following five.

Ⅰ. Great Britain is a United Kingdom of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. The King of Great Britain is also the Lord of the 17 provinces of the Netherlands.

Ⅱ. All free men have the right to not be arrested, put into custody, to be investigated besides the reason which is regulated in the Criminal law. The “freemen” refers to a 25-year-old or much older male, who faithfully pays taxes and earns at least 2£ a year. And the freeman has suffrage - the right to vote, the right to become a public servant, and the right to run for public office.

Ⅲ. The King can neither stop the effect of the law nor stop the execution of the lawful process without the Parliament's consent. The Parliament can neither enact the law nor dismiss the cabinet and hold re-election without the King's consent.

Ⅳ. The King is the Commander-in-chief of all army reserves in the Kingdom of Great Britain, and the existence of a private army and navy, which has no consent from the king is high treason. The King can't increase the size of the army reserve nor increase the military asset without the Parliament's assent. The King can't wage war nor make peace with foreign countries without the Parliament's consent. The King can't impose martial law on civilians without the Parliament's consent.

Ⅴ. Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Netherlands, and London has its' own self-ruling Parliament, which is separate from Great Britain's Parliament. The self-ruling Parliament has the duty to pay a certain percentage of tax to the central government every quarter and to obey the Constitution. Instead, the self-ruling Parliament has the freedom to enact its' provincial laws, the freedom to control its' own finance, and the freedom of self-administration. The percentage of taxes which should be submitted to the center is decided by Great Britain's Parliament every quarter. The self-ruling Parliament can have police power to have ordered at the province.

Besides these, there were People's duty and rights, Parliament's duty and rights, General administration, Election Administration, Economy, Constitution revision process, etc. And the total was 10 Chapters, 60 Articles but the main was those five in short.

Of those five, the Ⅱ. was a hot nut, which resulted in a severe conflict between the House of the Lords and the House of Commons. Since it was about regulating the rights and the extent of the “Freeman”, the two houses were fighting till their last breath.

The House of Lords was against increasing the rights of the “Freeman” while the House of Commons opposed extending the extent of the “Freeman” The former was good news to the Gentry and the Yeoman in the House of Commons, which made the Feudal Lords and High priests in the House of Lords disagreed. The latter was the opposite since it would also give rights to the serfs who were also serving the Gentry and the Yeoman.

However, both houses had to make a compromise in both issues - increasing the rights and extending the extent of the “Freeman”- in the end, because they had a common purpose - check and restrain the Crown.

But neither of these 2 were more against this Constitution than Catholic Church - Patrimony of (St.) Peter, or Pope, to be exact. The Catholic Church claimed that placing this law above the Church law was a challenge to the Church and the Pope. They argued that the fact that the Constitution coming above other Secular laws - like Roman Law, enactment of the Feudal lords, Common Laws of each province - was not their concern, but since Church Law was straight from the Vatican, it shouldn't come beneath the Constitution.

So, the Pope sent messengers along with his affiliate and expressed concern. But the young king refused to meet them, with the excuse that he's still mourning for his deceased wife and can't take care of the nation for the moment. Meanwhile, the newly joined Protestant merchants and low-rank feudal lords - who were allowed to join by the Constitution - took control of the House of Commons of Great Britain and Scotland's, Netherland's self-ruling Parliament, thanks to the King's attitude. And those congressmen put pressure on the Pope's messengers, forcing them to leave London and return to the Vatican, without seeing the King face to face.

Then the Pope realized this young king also intends to gain control of England's Church - just like his grandfather, Henry VIII - and lamented

“Why, those arrogant British! If it weren't for the still mighty Ottomans - which are still strong even after the victory of Christianity in the Battle of the Levanto - and those Protestants in the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Northern Germany, I would have excommunicated King Edward VII!”

But the young king - Edward VII - was also not happy after deserting the Catholic Church. So he visited his court priest every day and made sacraments of penance daily.

One day, the young king sighed deeply and told the priest

"Even though I work for my country and my people day and night, I have a hunch that the God himself, who was furious at my arrogance took my late wife - Maria of Austria - from me to heaven.”

At his words, his old court priest replied

“Your majesty, working for this country and this people is following the God and Jesus Christ's footsteps, and why are you obsessed with such superstitions? If you still feel uncomfortable, why don't you go on pilgrimage and ask God himself? I humbly recommend the El Camino de Santiago.”

Those words were plausible to the young king. So, following the old court priest's advice, he named Cardinal James of England as the regent of his kingdom and he went to Spain - his father's country - and set on a pilgrimage at the El Camino de Santiago. Although he was trained as a knight when he was a boy, even for the commander who led a battle of Cornwell - which was against his Protestant aunt Elizabeth - to victory, the pilgrimage was by no means a piece of cake. Since he started the pilgrimage without the luxurious clothes as a king and no servants to wait on, the journey soon turned into a disaster. He lost all his money, having his purse pickpocketed by light-fingered men, - who were eyeing on a novice pilgrim - while he was asleep.

So the young king, Edward VII begged other passing pilgrims for food and picked up wild berries and acorns for a meal. But as days passed his hunger became worse and since he couldn't wash himself and his only clothes, he smelled like a badger, which made him more depressed.

In the end, the young king had had it and shouted towards the sky

"Are you really trying to punish me? Then you should have killed me, not my wife and my son! Do you wish to chastise me or wish to bully me as you did to Job in the Old Testament, almighty God?"

But, unlike Moses or Muhammad, neither answer from God nor the angel's message came to him.

Then the young king realized and muttered to himself

"I was once a 21C British young man, who graduated from Oxford but died of a car accident and reborn as King Edward VII - a son of Bloody Mary and Felipe II. So, I can believe in the existence of a soul and 2nd life."

"But I couldn't experience the existence of Deus Ex Machina. And what does it matter to me, whether it exists or not if I couldn't experience its' presence? And by the way, since the cause of death for my late wife - Maria - and my stillborn child was Puerperal Fever, I should try to prevent it as a King, not wasting any more time and money on this useless stuff!"

So the young king deserted his futile guilty conscience and swiftly finished the remaining journey.

At the endpoint of the pilgrimage - Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela - his father, Felipe II, and the old court priest who recommended this journey were waiting for him, both wearing pilgrims' clothes. Then he realized that his court priest was a spy of his father and gritted his teeth.

"My poor boy, now you realized the true, one and the only road of faith?"

Reaching out his right hand, Felipe II proudly asked his son - Edward VII.

"The only road I witnessed was the filthy, disgusting humans' road, father."

Holding his father's hand, the young king - Edward VII - answered lightly.

"Then, you shall never be the King of Spain! Go back to London!"

At his son's answer, Felipe II ordered him to go away, without a blink of an eye. So the young king - Edward VII - nodded his head to his father - Felipe II - and as soon as he received pilgrimage certificate from the church's priest, he soon embarked on a ship to London and returned to his palace.

As soon as he returned to England, the young king obligated all doctors and midwives in his kingdom to wash their hands with hot water which was added with salt or distilled alcohol before they do surgery or help deliver a child. Also, he established a Royal Medical School in the outskirts of London and invited scholars from Itlay and Germany - Holy Roman Empire - and allowed all males, regardless of their class, to study freely at that school and paid all their tuition fees and other costs for study from the Royal Budget. And gave graduation certificates to all graduates who successfully passed the annual and graduation exams, allowing them to prove they're the doctors guaranteed by the Crown.

Also, with the taxes collected from the Netherlands, he built one public hospital in each city of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and the Netherlands - his domain - and proclaimed a tax relief benefit for those who invest in medical science - donating to a public hospital or Royal Medical School of London or establishing a private hospital and so on.

His decrees face opposition from all doctors(which were also barbers) and midwives, but since many senators at the House of Lords run breweries - although they just borrowed their family names and was operated by their servants or merchants in reality - and many representatives from the House of Commons operated salt mines, they didn't miss a chance to earn money and receive tax relief benefits, these laws were successfully passed.

Nevertheless, the other Europeans ridiculed that the British(&Dutch) King, Edward VII, lost his mind and wasted royal money on useless things, having still not recovered from the shock of losing his wife and stillborn child.