"My God! Is this for real? Ed!" Mary looked at her husband with a look of surprise and a look of disbelief.
"Yes! I think His Majesty thinks highly of me!" Ed shared his wife's rapturous face.
"I think if I give His Majesty a few more jobs this time, His Majesty will definitely remember me in his heart!" Ed said in a speculative tone.
"That's for sure! As long as you impress His Majesty the King! Your hopes of becoming a noble will definitely increase!" Mary looked lovingly at Ina and Rodan who were gulping down bread.
"Our angels will be nobles and won't have to work as hard as we do!"
"Mary! I'll make our angel an upper class person!" Ed held his wife's hands, rough from housework, comfortingly.
"You will also become a noble lady, frequenting high class banquets!" Ed looked at those once jade hands, his tone gradually lowered, "Won't be doing your own chores!"
"Yes! Ed, I think God will bless us!" Mary was touched.
On this side, Edward and Andrei took their time visiting the castle, looking quite naturedly at the castle that had been used as a military base.
As for the Luna sisters and the guards, they had already cleaned up their rooms and set up their belongings, leaving the big man, Sean, alone to follow.
Climbing up to the castle's lookout, Edward saw the whole of Portsmouth in full view.
To the left of the city were parked a large number of naval vessels, their own merchant ships coming and going, and a medium-sized harbor. One by one, the soldiers of the ships and the sailors of the merchant ships disembarked and walked towards a cluttered street near the harbor.
It was also the most prosperous place in all of Portsmouth, a street filled with taverns and brothels, two favorite haunts of soldiers and sailors, as well as fruit stalls, grain stores, and cloth stores that provided supplies for ships.
Other than that, the rest of the place is either aboriginal or navy families, which makes it tedious in comparison to the harbor.
Edward visually estimated that the city only took up a fifth of the entire island, the rest was barely populated, with only a handful of villages providing food and vegetables for the city.
Looking at the busy merchant ships passing through the harbor, Edward couldn't help but ask, "Andre, how many of those merchant ships are the Rioscelli family's merchant ships?"
Andre didn't expect Edward to ask about this for a moment.
"Your Majesty! This I have not counted!" Andrei was embarrassed and added in a hurry not long afterward.
"I've heard those sailors talk about how almost a third of the merchant ships belong to the Southampton family, and another third to his affiliated families!"
"The true merchant marine is only one-third of it, and I have heard it by hearsay! Your Majesty!"
Andre glanced heartily at Edward's face, deeply afraid of angering the lord of England.
How is it that His Majesty isn't as grumpy as people make him out to be? On the contrary, he's still very affectionate, so he's really the rumored surrogate walker.
Edward didn't care about Andre's movements and couldn't help but be amazed in his mind.
He hadn't realized that the Earl of Southampton already possessed a merchant ship of that size, which was almost like a handful of Tudor, withering nobles.
And also very enlightened, able to abandon the traditional way of the nobles to run the land, began to do business, at first glance is later recorded in the history books of the new nobility in the member.
Edward's mind Andre couldn't know, Andre's mind Edward had no way of knowing.
"Andre! Tomorrow, you get that James Leo Shearsley, to meet me here!"
"Aye! My liege!" Andrei curtsied as Ed did, but it was the lack of training that made Edward feel awkward.
When Andre had gone, Edward was left alone again to admire the city as his own.
It's a little embarrassing that London, the capital of all of England, is not under the King's jurisdiction; it's surprisingly self-governing.
The capital of England was not in the hands of the king, but was entirely self-governed by a group of merchants.
This was largely the work of William the Norman Conqueror, who won the Battle of Hastings and was crowned King of England in Westminster Abbey in...
It was he who built the White Tower, the centerpiece of the Tower of London, and who negotiated the tax laws with the merchants and proclaimed the independence of the city of London with the right of urban autonomy.
The king had no power to collect taxes in the capital, no power to manage the appointment of London's officials, which would have been unthinkable in ancient China. And Edward's successive predecessors did not try to take back the administration, but used the king's power to influence the running of London, and just lay back and count the money all the time.
So, while London's urban environment was so bad, Edward couldn't interfere with anything, and the big businessmen wouldn't pay to sort it out anyway.
Portsmouth, on the other hand, was different; it was a naval city, and the whole city was pretty much run by naval officers, and Edward was the one to whom the navy owed allegiance, and Portsmouth could come to be his.
After a bit of mirth, Edward rested, after all, he had been traveling for a few days.
Early the next morning, Andrei arrived at Bojast Castle with James Leo Shearsley, who was dressed as a nobleman.
"Good day! His Majesty the King!" James saluted first, showing his respect for the king.
"Good day! Major Leo Shearsley!" Since James was not the first heir to the Earldom of Southampton and did not hold a title, Edward addressed him directly by his rank.
"Mr. Major! Why don't you accompany me on a tour of Portsmouth Harbor!"
"Of course! It is my honor! It is my duty to serve His Majesty the Great King!" Major James agreed sagely.
Despite being confused as to Edward's intentions in coming to Portsmouth, James had to work hard to cooperate.
Walking on the soft beach, Edward was leisurely rubbing the sand on the beach, talking to James from time to time.
"Dear Mr. Major! What is your opinion of the navy at present?"
"Your Majesty! I think we should still strengthen the naval appropriation!" At the mention of his specialty, James came to his senses.
"Our English navy can only defend itself! It's no match for Spain or Portugal!"
"Even less comparable to the Netherland (Holland)!"
James's thoughts were understandable to Edward; the Navy had always been on the fringes, with small appropriations and no one in charge.
Naturally, there is no merit can be established, for the nobles to come, property inheritance can not be much, the title is also no share, can only make their own way out of this road.
Besides, his father had been kind enough to raise him to the position of Lieutenant Commander in the Navy, and it was unlikely that he would use his family's power to help himself again.
So, the ass determines the head, the navy is strong and valued, so he can rock the boat and really stabilize the chassis.