Constance Bitteridge

Bitteridge, 1985

**Constance Bitteridge** was the First Minister of Justice in Artemis and following the end of President Edward Bromswell, she was appointed as Vice Chancellor by Claude Stewart. During her tenure in both positions, she took part in reforming the legal system and organising it into a way to assist Claude Stewart undermine the Bromswell presidency.

## Appearance

Constance Bitteridge was known for her greying brown hair with blue eyes. Her lifestyle kept her healthy and she was always seen wearing glasses, due to short sightness. She was always seen in business clothing while at work and always dressed in business casual while at home, for she always had a sense of duty, even having emergency phones for emergency phones in case of power outage.

## Personality

In her tenure, Bitteridge was calm, cool and collected, and always coming up with ideas, one still existing being the Rapid Response unit of the Artemis City Police Force. After her shooting in 1991, her mental fortidue did suffer, however, she luckily went through evaluation and holidays to bring her to stability. In her final years, she was prone to infrequent episodes of anger, yelling at those who made minor incidents like they had commit terrible crimes. Her concerned actress daughter Evie took her mother to the doctors where her days were revealed to be numbered, sending her to be depressed as she perished on January 27th.

## Life

### Early Life

Constance was born in the typical upper-middle class family of Kensington. Her mother was a stay at home one, while her father was a magistrate for the courts. In her youth, she was a playful child, who’s companion was a small Yorkshire Terrier named Toodles, the family pet. As she grew into her secondary school years, nearing 1946, she was noted as a girl who seemed to have the only goal in life of studying. Due to this, she excelled and received academic praise by her teachers.
Once she left secondary school, she managed to get into college, this being 1952, and then, after 4 years studying law, moved onto university to gain a doctorates, where at this time, she met her husband, and they began courting. 4 years later the question was asked, and met with a resounding yes, and they married days after her final exam of which she passed. She began work as a prosecutor for the country in 1964, after a long time of going back and forth, having 2 children, twins, and losing her father. She rose through the ranks and was often a prosecutor in court cases that gained infamy.
In 1978, she was approached to work as the permanent secretary, which she agreed to. In 1981, her name was put into a hat by a small committee organised to replace the minister of justice, and she was chosen. She was immediately put to work, and did astoundingly, after running for a seat on Parliament, which she did gain.
In 1983, in the middle of a Friday afternoon, a call came in, and she was approached by the incoming chancellor Claude Stewart, asking her to come to Artemis to oversee the creation of the law for Artemis and to assist him in government. She moved there with her twins and 3 dogs, 2 adults A Corgi and a Yorkshire Terrier and a puppy mix.

### Artemis Years

#### Bromswell Tenure, Minister of Justice

Mrs Bitteridge would go to the city of Artemis on January 1st with the newest citizens of the lunar city, and began her work the following day after settling into her home with her daughters Penny and Evie, along with their five dogs.

She would become useful 3 months into her tenure in March of 1985 as she de-escalated a scandal caused by Minister of Defense Samuel Elworthy, who bugged Emilia Stewart, the Chancellor's wife to gain information on the family. Luckily, she was brought in and read from Section 8, Article 4, Paragraph IIV, where she unveiled documents showing the illegal tapping of Athena's Eye servers to conduct his surveillance on the Stewarts, which ultimately led to Elworthy's arrest, and execution. She also revealed he was conspiring with British and French officals in an bid to take over Artemis. Her services would be again brought into assist Bromswell when a poison led to the death of Bromswell's maid and traumatised his adoptive son to suicide. In the following year, by pure dumb luck, Daniel Hunt, Director of Research and Development at Mistros, a leading company ran by Emilia Stewart, owned up to an unregulated lab, breaking law and was thus arrested, where investigation showed the chemicals used in the attack, Bitteridge showing this to Bromswell who signed a death warrant and oversaw Hunt's execution.

In the next years, Constance was a workaholic, but became friends with Chancellor Claude Stewart, who told her of his plan to remove Bromswell from office. Bitteridge, a firm believer in the right to democratically elected leaders, would accept his cause and in 1991, the pair announced the United Future Party, dedicated to reform of the Presidency, and for Claude's idea to progress. The election came and a landslide victory was brought upon by the September voters. But all was not well as Bitteridge was shot as she announced the leader of the party, the Chancellor himself. Nazi troops of the Outer Reich stormed in and occupied the Deimos district, causing immense panic in the populous. Constance was evacuated to St Panthelon's Hospital by doctors who were unharmed due to the Geneva Convention. Athena's Eye agent Harding would stop the uprising by shooting dead the leader, Lt Hohenstein. This caused immense grief in her daughters.

Luckily, she recovered and returned to office on January 21st of 1991, as the Artemis Authority met to pass the new Constitution until AFD soldiers, under command by the crazed President Bromswell, would storm in and kill more then a third of the MPs, herself excluded from the bloodshed. However, while in hospital, Stewart created a plan where Athena's Eye would assist him in stopping Bromswell by shutting off the power of the city and the assistance in neutralising the AFD soldiers. Stewart called upon the Authority to remove Bromswell as leader, where he'd recieve unanimous vote for it, leading him to execute Bromswell there in his office the same day. The first and only President was dead, and Claude made movement for redrafting the leadership, himself becoming Supreme Chancellor and Constance, Vice Chancellor.

#### Stewart Tenure, Vice Chancellor

Following the events that led to the Stewart administration, Constance would act as Vice Chancellor, and spend most of her political time in her office, or giving speeches to the public. Due to her role in office, and essentially being dubbed as the Supreme Chancellor’s right hand woman, she’d know secrets of the Artemis government never knew by the public, and she’d keep under quiet, not even telling her daughters, who themselves were married in 1991, and jobs gained after their honeymoon was over. Constance would be a leading person in making sure security measures in Artemis increased tenfold, to avoid the incidents Artemis suffered in her first 5 years.

Thankfully, it worked marvellously and major incidents were controlled by a enforcement team ready at any notice. However, in 2005, Constance’s health would take a heavy toll, and one day on the Council Room floor after partaking in a debate between parties, would collapse, and was rushed to hospital for liver issues, and, on January the 27th of 2006, on the 15th anniversary of the beginning of the Stewart administration, surrounded by family, friends and colleagues, she would die of liver failure, and would ask that she was also added to the death count of the September uprising, for the injuries she sustained.

## People Killed

* Daniel Hunt (Unintended)
* Samuel Elworthy
* Ordered the deaths of 3 Officers from the Deimos Military Purge
* Killed hundreds while concentrating power around the Stewarts
* Played a role in the development of the Damocles Operation which killed Millions