Eventide Marauder (Moriarty the Patriot Fanfic)

Chapter 54

AN: OC Pov... This chapter is quite difficult to write. I bullshitted my way through this chapter.

Also. I am so very happy with my Gacha on the Project Sekai 2nd anniversary I got all of the cards except Miku.. (Miku why?!)

Chapter 54: Joint Sitting

   After a week of absence, the foreign honorary lord temporal has started attending once again in the parliament seating. His attendance was mixed with various reactions.

" Lords, I apologize for my lack of attendance for the past few days. "

The Lord Chancellor inclined his head and permitted him to take a seat. The other members of the House of Lords are mixed with various reactions of false sympathy, showing their clear dislike for Raoul or not just caring about him in general.

For the head of the lord spiritual and its members, towards Raoul, their general attitude was one of indifference.

Today's sitting happens to be one of the special cases. Aside from the members of the House of Lords, the members of the House of Commons are currently in attendance.

Usually, the seatings of Lords and Commons happened in separate chambers in Westminster Palace. For two of the Houses to be together, today's sitting is important and a special case.

Today's sitting was guaranteed to be a long one and it would involve heavy discussions.

Baron Cromwell, one of the members of the House of Lords prepared himself for the events of today's sitting/meeting. Baron Cromwell was one of the lowest-position members of the House of Lords. He becomes a member of the House of Lords parliament by the Hereditary Title like most members of the House of Lords, unlike the Life Peerage. The membership of the House of Lords is divided into temporal and spiritual. And under the temporal is where Baron Cromwell belongs since members of the Spirituals are from the Church.

Before the arrival of the foreign honorary lord temporal, Baron Cromwell was the youngest member of the House of Lords. He was of the age of 25. Second to him by being the youngest before the arrival of the Honorary Lord was Earl Moriarty who was of age 27.

Eventually, the sitting that had an attendance of both of the lords and commons started. Baron Cromwell withheld a sigh as some of the House of Lords started discussing the passing of the Goldswin Act of 1879. It was an act to authorize the granting of building and improvement of state leases devised by Sir Irvin Leo Goldswin a Marquis Noble.

Truthfully,  Baron Cromwell wants this act to be not implemented. He was one of the nobles who raised his hand on agreeing to talk about this act to the next sitting. Aside from state leases, the Goldswin Act has been defined as granting building and improvement leases for other purposes. It was too vague for his liking. Baron Cromwell has also heard some unsavory rumors about Marquis Goldswin. It was best to delay the Goldswin Act until it was decided to be not implemented.

Eventually, they move on to the discussion of the private act. Usually, in the House of Lords sitting, it was the last thing to be debated but for this setting,  the private acts which usually consist of acts for various nobles were the first to be debated.

Various nobles ignored willingly the implications of the private act being seen as unimportant in a joint sitting of the House of Lords and Commons. But Baron Cromwell could see the implications loud and clear.

He doesn't mind that the private acts are the first to be debated today. Baron Cromwell is secretly joyous. And it doesn't have to do with his jealousy of those higher-ranking nobles.

After the private acts was a mix of various general public and local acts debates.

Annual Turnpike Acts Continuance of 1879 which was seen as unnecessary with the presence of Railways. The member of the House of Lords who proposed it was criticized by various members of the Commons. Pointing out the flaws of this act.

Civil Procedure repeal acts, Consolidated Funds 1-4, Health Acts, and Education Acts were proposed by most of the members of the House of Lords to be delayed much to the outrage of the various members from the House of Commons. Various railway acts were debated heatedly by the members of the House of Lords and Commons.

The House of Lords wanted those acts to be passed as it would benefit them and saw the railway acts as profitable while the MPs found the various railway acts to be too much and too specific. Some of them proposed to repeal a few railway acts which were rejected by the nobles.

Both the House of Lords' head representative and the House of Commons agreed that today's discussion would go nowhere. The Railway Acts will be discussed once again in the next joint sitting.

After the general public and local acts, it was time for the most anticipated part of the sitting.

The proposal of new acts.

As it started, one of the MPs from the House of Commons declared his proposal.

Expansion of Voting Rights to the public.

Baron Cromwell look at the MP of the House of Commons with a complicated expression.

He doesn't know how should he react. Should he be outraged like the various nobles and lord spirituals or react to those various MPs of the House Commons who were looking at the MP with admiration?

There was also the reaction of some nobles like Viscount Baskerville who looked like they wanted to murder the man with their hands. And there was Lord Albert Moriarty who was smiling and looking at the show that everyone was putting in front of him.

Baron Cromwell moves his gaze away. Despite being the one near his age, Baron Cromwell decided to stay far away from the Earl. Not only because they weren't in the same station but because his gut was telling him that Earl Moriarty was dangerous.

His intuition has saved him a lot of times and he would always trust and follow it. After all, failing to trust his intuition resulted in various painful consequences.

Moving his gaze away from Earl Moriarty, Baron Cromwell decided to take a glance at the honorary lord temporal who had been silent and sitting obediently through the whole sitting.

What he saw gave him a shiver in his spine.

The poor MP Adam Whiteley was being stared at by the young lord Raoul Oxford-Maximillian like he was the best thing that happened to the young lord.

Baron Cromwell wasn't a religious man, but he decided to pray for the honorable MP.

' God save his soul. '