The diplomatic spectacle Arthur staged achieved an unprecedented triumph. With an authoritarian, uncompromising display of pure gunboat logic, he silenced the belligerent Dutch ambassador, who scurried back to his residence in disgrace, avoiding public view like a beaten dog.
From that moment on, no reckless nation dared utter a word about questioning his status as "Prince Arthur." Everyone understood perfectly well: behind this Prince Consort stood the Royal Navy—fully capable of sailing warships straight to one's doorstep.
With that nuisance dealt with, Arthur believed—naively—that he could finally enjoy a peaceful, comfortable winter at Victoria's side, basking in the sweetness of newlywed life and perhaps… experimenting with more demanding positions.
But fate had other intentions.
The winter of 1837 bared its most merciless fangs. Icy winds, sharpened by London's signature fog—a suffocating blend of coal smoke and dampness—wrapped the city in a shroud that refused to lift. Parts of the Thames froze over, forming a thin crust of ice, a rare and unsettling sight.
For aristocrats and wealthy merchants of the West End, this meant little. Their fireplaces burned around the clock, coal stores overflowing. They simply pulled on an extra Scottish wool sweater and hosted even more glittering balls, their grand parlors warm as spring evenings. Ironically, the cold became another backdrop on which to display their wealth and refined tastes.
But for the poor crammed into the filthy, overcrowded slums of the East End, that winter was a hopeless catastrophe.
The freezing temperatures, combined with atrocious hygiene and widespread malnutrition caused by rampant unemployment, rang like a death knell. A vast and deadly epidemic followed.
At first it was nothing more than mild coughs and sniffles—so common that no one paid them any mind.
Then the illness accelerated with terrifying speed, mutating into a brutal pneumonia. Patients burned with relentless fever, their breathing heavy and ragged like broken bellows, each inhalation a stab of agony. They coughed up blood-streaked phlegm, drifting in and out of delirium, until they finally suffocated—strangled by hypoxia and exhaustion.
This plague—helplessly labeled "winter fever" by the physicians of the time—spread through the densely packed slums like oil-fed fire.
Death became the central theme of the season.
Every day, cheap pine coffins, nailed together from the thinnest boards, were carried out of narrow alleys thick with mud and sewage. Most held children whose small bodies lacked the strength to fight, or the bedridden elderly.
A heavy air of despair, panic, and decay settled over London.
Church bells tolled funerals daily, their mournful echo filling citizens with dread. Newspapers that had recently celebrated the royal wedding now printed grim columns about the "Black Winter."
The Times wrote:
"Death, in the shadows of our great city, swings its invisible scythe at whim. And we, the self-proclaimed civil elite, stand powerless—capable only of offering cheap compassion and whispered prayers from the safety of our warm chambers."
Church organizations launched charity drives, handing out bread and a few worn-out winter garments to the poor. But these efforts were drops in an ocean.
Public hospitals overflowed. Even their corridors lay packed with the groaning sick. Doctors exhausted every traditional remedy handed down from their forebears—bloodletting, emetics, purgatives, strange-tasting herbal concoctions—none of which worked against the severe bacterial pneumonia ravaging the slums. They could only watch helplessly as lives faded before them, before signing yet another reluctant death certificate.
Snow fell relentlessly. London gasped beneath it.
Inside Buckingham Palace, in Victoria's warm, springlike study, the world felt painfully far from the misery outside.
Victoria held a recent issue of the Times, scanning the grim report on child mortality in the slums. Her usually radiant face—so often bright with pride and happiness—was now marked by sorrow and severity.
"Arthur… look at this."
Her voice trembled as she handed him the paper. "It says that just last week, in Whitechapel, over one hundred children died of 'winter fever.' One hundred! They were so small… they never even had a chance to truly see this world. They didn't even taste the sweetness of strawberry pudding."
Her eyes reddened instantly. As the symbolic "mother" of the nation, the suffering of her subjects pierced her deeply. She could not imagine the despair of parents who had lost their children.
"Isn't there something I can do for them?" she asked, looking at Arthur with a pleading, almost childlike trust. "I donated a large sum to the Royal Charity Fund—five thousand pounds! I ordered food and medicines to be distributed. But the paper says… it's useless. Money can't bring those children back."
She spoke like a girl who believed she had done something terribly wrong, overwhelmed by guilt and helplessness. For the first time, she realized how powerless she truly was, even as Queen, when confronted with real human suffering.
Arthur read the chilling numbers, the brutal litany of the dead. His expression darkened.
He knew this was no ordinary flu. It was one of humanity's most terrifying killers before the age of antibiotics: Streptococcus pneumoniae. Without a targeted cure, infection was essentially a death sentence. Only one's own strength could save them—and the poor, weakened by hunger and cold, had none left.
This was the reality of the 19th century.
An age where industry soared, steam and steel conquered the world, and yet human life remained so fragile—so cheap—before a microscopic enemy.
He looked at Victoria's eyes: full of kindness, compassion, and despair. Her shoulders trembled under the weight of grief, and something stirred deeply in him.
It was time.
Time to bring out the "great weapon" he had kept hidden—an invention capable of altering the course of history.
He had planned to wait. To unveil "penicillin" during a future war, leveraging it as a strategic resource to maximize political and economic advantage. It had been the rational path.
But now everything changed.
To hell with profit.
To hell with cold calculation.
He did not want to be a perfectly rational puppeteer, always making the optimal move.
He wanted to be a husband who wiped sorrow from his queen's brow and made her smile through tears.
He wanted to help the common people, not stand by while they perished—like the nobles who laughed and danced in ignorance of the suffering outside.
He wanted to bring a miracle to this city suffocating under the shadow of death.
"My love, don't be sad."
Arthur stepped closer, wrapped her in his arms, and gently wiped her tears.
He looked into her eyes, and with a confidence she had never heard from him before—calm, resolute, powerful—he said:
"Of course you can do something for them. Not only can you—you will become their angel of salvation."
"But… the doctors are helpless…" Victoria whispered through her sobs.
"Just because they can't cure it doesn't mean I can't."
A warm, reassuring smile touched his face. "Have you forgotten that your husband is a great scientist and industrialist? I will fix this—with my mind, my companies, and my associations."
"Trust me. Starting tomorrow, every newspaper in London will be dominated by a brand-new name."