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'I tell you Dean, Bolingbroke is incorrigible,' exclaimed Robert Harley.

'How so?' replied Jonathan 'Dean' Swift.

'Oh it's the business with France. We criticise the Whigs for their failure to make peace, but we can't do anything! Our hands are tied. But we must have peace. Even if we have to commit treason. The country simply cannot afford it.'

'I agree. Though, it's bound to be more of a problem for you, what with your... connections.' Jonathan tried to be tactful, but Robert was having none of it.

'You mean the followers of our beloved King Jacobus Beyond The Sea? There is no need for veils of rhetoric here, Dean. It is true I would favour a Stuart rather an a Hanoverian succession. But unlike Bolingbroke, it is not an end in itself for me. I desire it only for as long as there is advantage in it. I will not have England tied to some feudal German duchy, but equally I don't wish us to bow and scrape before the Kings of France.'

'Quite the knot you have to untie there.'

'Give me a sword and I would untie it! If only all problems could be solved as easily as Alexander did. But, that is not how one builds an empire that lasts.' A servant entered the room carrying a hatbox.

'A messenger brought this, m'lord.'

'Thank you,' replied Robert, turning to Jonathan he raised an eyebrow, 'A hat? Most irregular. I wonder who could have sent it...' He began to lift the lid, when Jonathan noticed a thread of packing string attached from the lid to some contrivance within. A chill suddenly went through him. He heard the warning catch in his throat, the string go taut, and then pull free. A terrible cracking boom filled the room with smoke, acrid and sulphurous. He felt a flash of pain in his gut and shoulder. Blinking back pain, he peered through the gunsmoke. Baron Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford and Earl of Mortimer had been shot at three points in his torso. His eyes stared at the ceiling, his breath rattling with every draw. Speckles of blood covered his chin as he laboured. Red soaked into his clothing. Jonathan looked at himself. He had sustained two bullet wounds, and he was bleeding. He found himself feeling like an observer to events, watching himself but not feeling as if he were actually there. He bellowed for help and within moments, servants were there trying to help their master and attending to him. But Jonathan was in no doubt. Harley was dead. And if he were dead, what would happen to England? What would happen to him?
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