70 St James's Palace

Felipe looked through the window of his appropriately sized Carriage and saw St. James Palace, the primary residence of the monarchy of the UK. It was not the famous Buckingham Palace that the 20th —and 21st-century world came to know as the primary residence of the King/Queen of England. 

The St. James Palace has a brick wall exterior, and unlike the future Buckingham Palace, the St. James Palace looks rather shabby, almost as if it was another residential building block with no divisions inside, so it was called a palace. 

Aside from the superb lawn on the back, there was nothing else; a huge clock was on top of the main entrance—something normal people would look at in awe.

'What an ugly-looking thing!' Felipe thought, noting that he was not from the early 19th century and had become accustomed to 21st-century luxuries that would be accessible to any normal man. 

It's not that he was the one to judge; they had no castles or palaces per se, but they lived in the state legislation palace. In other words, they were quite well off but had no palace. They might have big villas, but they all were converted into agricultural processing, packaging, etc. 

'Better than anything… I have not been there, but I can already feel the stagnated air of CO2; this will be an annoying stay.' 

Hygiene has advanced greatly across the entire civilized world, yet it was not advanced enough for the people of the civilized world in the 21st century. 

When he left his Carriage, he was met by a barrage of staff already looking to be at his service. He had nothing to carry as he was not of visits, so they just stood there making a small passage to the main entrance. 

He entered with Aurelio behind him as his companion.

"Welcome to St James's Palace, Your Majesty, The Prince of the Colombian Empire and Gran Duke of Venezuela."

'Right… titles.' Felipe thought as he just smiled at the head of the majordome.

His peripheral vision gave him insight into the people on the second floor, trying to get a glimpse of himself. 

"This way, please, the reception alongside the King is waiting for you."

"So I am aware." 

The majordomo just smiled and showed the way into the palace steps that looked more like some residence steps; nothing was glorious besides the walls garnished with oil paintings worth small fortunes each. 

Aside from that, the architecture could have been more elegant. Still, considering it was made around 300 years ago, the architectural designs of the whole palace make sense and show sophistication and luxury. 

When he was ½ steps through the steps, he saw everyone on the second floor looking at him. They were all wearing wigs, women and men alike, accompanied by tight clothing for men and very pompous dresses for the ladies. 

Felipe saw no king's insight, but he somewhat recognized other important figures that he had studied with the notes his ambassador gave him a day ago. Printed faces of the people were quite a thing for people of large statues like nobles, and even though they were not 1 to 1, you could easily find the similarity between the real face and the print. 

The small talk happened as if it were rumours as people began to open a path to the main room of events. 

There, he could finally see the King of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland sitting in a chair that would look too weak to support such a fat person. 

His lack of a wig and normal hair quickly stole everyone's attention! The people who knew him for what he was were more interested in his face, and those who had just heard of his fame and had gone with the flow were looking at his hair. 

He finally arrived in front of the King and the Queen Consort.

"Your Majesty… Your Highness." Felipe used the proper titles as he looked at George, who did not stand up, which he most likely thought he could not do, aside from wanting to do so. 

"Your Majesty, I am grateful and honoured that you have come from Windsor Castle to meet with us."

"… I did not do such a thing; it just so happened…. It just so happened that I wanted to come here, that is all." George said as he struggled with the very basic function of speaking as there was not enough air pressure in his lungs. 

'My quarrels with England will end by themselves; unlike the death of Bolivar, this one seems sure in less or about three years,' Felipe thought as he began to feel pity for the old King; George the 4th would die at 67 in 1830, which was a little bit less than three years away from doing so.

The King of Bolivia was also historically going to die in 1830, but at the very young age of 47, due to a virus. The probability of Simon Bolivar's death within the same timeline was minuscule. However, the King of England was another thing.

A face full of grease and sweat from the struggle of just existing showed a grim, short future. No matter how much effort he made to start to reduce weight, it would not be enough time to significantly impact what was left of his life. 

"Then I am thankful Your Majesty was willing to host us this afternoon. It has been long since I returned to my second home. I am now pleased to meet the King of the lands from which I got the opportunity of bringing glory to my family once again." Felipe could only kiss ass at the moment.

He was basically in enemy lands. 

"Humm…. Your hair looks funny," he said, chuckling as he struggled with his diaphragm, trying to move inside his body. 

'And you are a fat piece of shit.' Felipe just smiled as some loyal nobles to the King began laughing. 

"It is indeed unorthodox. However, the heat of the tropics has made me appreciate this hairstyle, but more often than not, I do not have time for any haircut," Felipe said pleasantly. 

"I would never understand the decision of going to a former colony… one must be mad to do so," he said once again, as the concept of restraint was foreign to the old King. 

"I like to think that fate is not written in stone for much that it appears to do so," Felipe said as he answered with little effort to make sense.

"A former colony would still be a colony even if you added the word empire to its name.," he said bitterly. 

Even though the United Kingdom was more of an empire than a kingdom, it was still a union and not an empire. 

The Austro-Hungarians had an empire, the Russians had an empire, now even a former colony had an empire, yet he was just a king; that was the main bitterness of the King towards Felipe… then it was the popularity of Felipe which he did not understand fully—he has asked to be explained why Felipe was popular. However, every time was the books he had written, yet, he still didn't understand; they were just fucking books, nothing else. 

That Changed multiple months ago when the news of the Balle of the Orinicco Valley came to his ear; the young prince led less than 10,000 soldiers against other similar-sized armies and won… or at least lived to tell the story. 

Now he understood it was prestige, something tangible for his consciousness. 

"Indeed… But… Would not you say that Britania was a colony of the Roman Empire?" Felipe asked 

Everyone shut up and looked at Felipe as they heard that. 

"So, hopefully, in a couple of thousand years, my family will be fully able to give honour to our ancestors., Felipe said very lightly. 

Yet, his implications were deeper than any shallow-minded person could pick up on. His family was the last dynasty to rule the Roman Empire! At least, the East Roman Empire, but even then, the Eastern Roman Empire was still part of the Roman Empire, thus making England the colony of the Empire that the Palaliogos Family once ruled, be it in part. 

"Hah! Yeah, maybe in two thousand years, your little Empire will be able to reach what the UK has," he said with pride.

Felipe felt a bit weird as everyone looked at them, talking as if it was a debate between two scholars or something of the same magnitude. 

Still, the ones with some rational thinking would not dare to speak. After all, they knew that the Americans could kick out the British in less than half a century. Who knows what two millennia would do to the Americans if they continued improving by so much every time? 

"Pretty much…" Felipe had had the urge to end a conversation so much since he met the Governor of South Carolina; at least he introduced him to Nancy and her father, which was the nicest thing that came from that stop in his journey, but he felt the more he continued talking, the more he would lose control and pass from subtle passive aggressive to right out offensive.

"This seems to be a party—a reception before the Banquet. I can not wait to taste the delicacies prepared," Felipe said with a smile. 

"Good, I am also hungry. Let's skip this and eat," he said, moving his fat chin and head to search for his servants to help him move. 

'No doubt.'