Arthur Lionheart shut himself inside his study and spent an entire afternoon reflecting on the intelligence report detailing the planned Chartist general strike.
This challenge was unlike any he had faced before.
He could not simply overturn the table, as he had done with the East India Company.
Because this time, it was not greedy merchants seated on the opposite side—
but millions of Britain's laboring backbone, angry, exhausted, and cornered.
Direct suppression?
The most foolish of options—an open invitation to civil war.
Total compromise?
Equally disastrous. It would validate the "street politics" of threats and paralysis, eroding the authority of both government and Crown. If one crisis could be settled by intimidation, then every future policy would be at the mercy of the same crude formula:
cause chaos, extract reward.
He needed something else—
something light as a feather, yet able to move a thousand pounds.
A new thought. A subtler weapon.
His eyes drifted onto a newspaper lying nearby—the latest issue of the Daily Mirror.
The front page featured a serialized chapter of Dickens's newest tale, The Little Match Girl, penned in prose so sensationally moving that even the stoniest London banker might feel his eyes moisten.
As Arthur read the powerful narrative—its grief, its indignation—an idea struck him like lightning.
A bold strategy, using public opinion as a weapon of separation and redirection.
By the time he finished reading, the entire plan had taken shape.
He summoned his private secretary instantly.
"Go. Bring Mr. Charles Dickens here—quietly."
That same evening — a modest reception room in Buckingham Palace
Dickens stood before the prince, visibly nervous, visibly conflicted.
He, of all men, understood perfectly the tempest raging outside London—the Chartist ferment his own writings had helped inflame.
He did not know whether the Prince had summoned him to condemn him… or to enlist him.
"Charles, my friend," Arthur said without ceremony, handing him the intelligence report.
"What do you make of this?"
Dickens read in silence.
His expression tightened.
After a long pause he spoke, his voice roughened by sincerity.
"Your Royal Highness… I understand them. I have seen their misery with my own eyes. Their anger is real— and it is justified."
"I quite agree," Arthur replied, to Dickens's surprise.
"I have no intention of condemning the workers. But the method chosen by O'Connor and his circle—
a general strike, a march that paralyzes all of London to force political demands—
is reckless. And perilous."
"Your Highness, what are you suggesting?"
"Charles," Arthur asked quietly, "what is it that ordinary workers truly want?
Is it really those elaborate slogans of the People's Charter—many of which they barely understand?"
"No," Dickens answered immediately.
"What they want is simple.
A loaf of bread that doesn't cost half their wage.
A warm coat in winter.
Children in school, not crawling under factory machinery."
"Precisely!"
Arthur clapped once, sharply.
"What they want are tangible gains—not the abstract 'isms' those radical leaders preach.
And that is exactly what my Threefold Reform is giving them.
The repeal of the Corn Laws—cheap bread.
The Factory Act and Education Act—protection for their children.
Modern sewers—health and dignity."
His tone cooled.
"But now O'Connor uses their anger to coerce the entire nation into radical politics. This is no longer the struggle for workers' rights.
This is an attempt to hijack Britain itself."
"He is sabotaging the fragile, hard-won process of reform from above."
Dickens's sharp mind understood instantly.
"Your Highness… you intend to divide them."
"Exactly."
A glint of the statesman—a cold, precise brilliance—lit Arthur's eyes.
"Charles, I need you to launch a new campaign through the Daily Mirror.
With your pen—the sharpest in Britain—we shall shape the battlefield of opinion."
"On one side," he continued, pacing slowly, "you will write with compassion, exposing worker suffering, denouncing heartless factory owners. We must place the entire nation on the moral ground of sympathy for the workers."
"But on the other side," he said, voice shifting, "you will publish the most rational, piercing editorials that ask the public—
Are violence and paralysis truly the only paths to reform?
Tell them the truth:
Her Majesty and I have seen their hardships and are already acting.
The Factory Act itself is proof."
"Tell them that the Crystal Palace—and the tens of thousands of jobs around it—are the Crown's effort to provide opportunity. And that O'Connor, by provoking a nationwide strike, seeks to smash the very rice bowls the workers hold."
"And you must challenge O'Connor by name."
Arthur's voice dropped to a deadly calm.
"What do you truly want?
Bread in the hands of the workers, or your political manifesto on paper?
Are you fighting for labor's welfare, or exploiting their tears to fulfill your personal ambition?"
"I want your pen to draw a clean, merciless line between the ordinary workers and the radicals who manipulate them."
Dickens's pulse quickened; his blood was aflame.
The strategy was brilliant—subtle, elegant, and devastating.
"I understand, Your Highness," he said with conviction.
"I will begin writing at once."
"No need to hurry," Arthur said softly. "That is only the pen."
He turned to Barrett, who stood silently behind him.
"Barrett."
"Yes, Your Highness!"
"Do you remember the Workers' Armed Corps we organized in the early days of the factories?"
Barrett's face lit with fierce loyalty.
"I remember every man, every battle, Your Highness!"
"Good. Tomorrow you will go to Manchester and Liverpool. You will bring 'good news' to the factory owners who hesitate."
"Tell them this:
Any model factory that abides by the new Factory Act, raises wages, and improves conditions—
may apply to establish its own Factory Guard Team under our Future Industrial Group."
"We will provide instructors and weapons—free of charge."
"I want a line of disciplined, reliable guards—trained by our retired veterans, armed with modern breech-loading rifles and revolvers—stationed at every lawful factory gate."
"Let us see," Arthur murmured, lips curving into a cold, thin arc,
"what O'Connor's agitators will do when they next attempt to storm a factory."
"What will greet them will not be merely Dickens's editorials."
A pen to win public sympathy and divide the masses.
A pistol to protect allies and deter threats.
Softness in one hand, steel in the other.
Such is the art of government—
the twin strategy of civilian and military power.