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BY
I do not do so in the way of appeal. The vague romance of "carrying my wrongs to the foot of the throne," forms no part of my intention: for I
know the throne is powerless to redress them. I know those pleasant tales of an earlier and simpler time, when oppressed subjects travelled to the presence of some
glorious prince or princess, who instantly set their affairs to rights without reference to law, are quaint old histories, or fairy fables, fit only for the
amusement of children.
I connect your Majesty's name with these pages from a different motive; for two reasons: of which one, indeed, is a sequence to the other. First,
because I desire to point out the grotesque anomaly which ordains that married women shall be "non-existent" in a country governed by a female
Sovereign; and secondly, because, whatever measure for the reform of these statutes may be proposed, it cannot become "the law of the land" without your
Majesty's assent and sign manual. In England there is no Salique law. If there were,--if the principles which guide all legislation for the inferior sex
in this country, were carried out in their integrity as far as the throne,--your Majesty would be by birth a subject, and Hanover and England would be still
under one King.
It is not so. Your Majesty is Queen of England; Head of the Church; Head of the Law; Ruler of millions of men; and the assembled Senate who meet to debate and
frame legislative enactments in each succeeding year, begin their sessional labours by reverently listening to that clear woman's
voice,--rebellion against whose command is treason.
In the year 1845, on the occasion of the opening of the new Hall of Lincoln's Inn, your Majesty honoured that Hall with your presence: when His Royal
Highness Prince Albert was invited to become a Barrister: "the keeping of his terms and exercises, and the payment of all fees and expenses, being
dispensed with." It was an occasion of great pomp and rejoicing. No reigning sovereign had visited the Inns of Court since Charles II., in 1671. In the
magnificent library of Lincoln's Inn, seated on a chair of state (Prince Albert standing), your Majesty held a levee; and received an address from the
benchers, barristers, and students-at-law, which was read by the treasurer on his knee: thanking your Majesty for the proof given by your
presence of your "gracious regard for the profession of the law,"--offering congratulations "on the great amendments of the law,
effected since your Majesty's accession;" and affirming that "the pure glory of those labours must be dear to your Majesty's heart."
To that address your Majesty was graciously pleased to return a suitable answer; adding,--"I gladly testify my respect for the profession of the law;
by which I am aided in administering JUSTICE, and in maintaining the prerogative of the Crown and the rights of my people."
A banquet followed. The health of the new barrister, the Prince Consort, was drunk with loud cheers. His Royal Highness put on a student's gown, over his
Field Marshal's uniform, and so wore it on returning from the Hall; and then that glittering courtly vision--of a young beloved queen, with ladies in
waiting, and attendant officers of state, and dignitaries in rich dresses, melted out of the solemn library; and left the dingy law courts once more to the dull
quiet, which had been undisturbed by such a glorious sight for nearly two hundred years. Only, on the grand day of the following Trinity term, the new Barrister, His
Royal Highness Prince Albert, dined in the Hall as a Bencher, in compliment to those who had elected him.
Now this was not a great mockery; but a
great ceremony. It was entered into with the serious loyalty of faithful subjects: with the enthusiasm of attached hearts: and I know not what sight
could be more graceful or touching, than the homage of those venerable and learned men to their young female sovereign. The image of Lawful Power, coming in such
fragile person, to meet them on that vantage ground of Justice, where students are taught, by sublime theories, how Right can be defended against Might, the poor
against the rich, the weak against the strong, in their legal practice; and how entirely the civilised intelligence of the nineteenth century rejects, as barbarous,
those bandit rules of old, based on the "simple plan,"
"That they should take, who have the power,
And they should keep, who
can."
It was the very poetry of allegiance, when the Lord Chancellor and the other great law officers did obeisance in that Hall to their Queen; and the Treasurer knelt
at a woman's feet, to read of the amendments in that great stern science by which governments themselves are governed; whose thrall all nations submit to;
whose value even the savage acknowledges,--and checks by
its means the wild liberty he enjoys, with some rude form of polity and order.
Madam,--I will not do your Majesty the injustice of supposing, that the very different aspect the law wears in England for the female sovereign and the
female subject, must render you indifferent to what those subjects may suffer; or what reform may be proposed, in the rules more immediately affecting them. I
therefore submit a brief and familiar exposition of the laws relating to women,--as taught and practised in those Inns of Court, where your Majesty received
homage, and Prince Albert was elected a Bencher.
A married woman in England has no legal existence: her being is absorbed in that of her husband. Years of separation of
desertion cannot alter this position. Unless divorced by special enactment in the House of Lords, the legal fiction holds her to be "one"
with her husband, even though she may never see or hear of him.
She has no possessions, unless by special settlement; her property is his property. Lord Ellenborough mentions a case in which a sailor bequeathed
"all he was worth" to a woman he
cohabited with; and afterwards married, in the West Indies, a woman of considerable fortune. At this man's death it was held,--notwithstanding the hardship of the case,--that the will swept away from his widow, in favour of his mistress, every shilling of the property. It is now provided that a will shall be revoked by marriage: but the claim of the husband to all that is his wife's exists in full force. An English wife has no legal right even to her clothes and ornaments; her husband may take them and sell them if he pleases, even though they be the gifts of relatives or friends, or bought before marriage.
An English wife cannot make a will. She may have children or kindred whom she may earnestly desire to benefit;--she may be separated from her husband, who
may be living with a mistress; no matter: the law gives what she has to him, and no will she could make would be valid.
An English wife cannot legally claim her own earnings. Whether wages for manual labour, or payment for intellectual exertion, whether she weed potatoes, or keep a
school, her salary is the husband's; and he could compel a second payment, and treat the first as void, if paid to the wife without his
sanction.
An English wife may not leave her husband's
house. Not only can he sue her for "restitution of conjugal rights," but he has a right to enter the house of any friend or relation with whom she may take refuge, and who may "harbour her,"--as it is termed,--and carry her away by force, with or without the aid of the police.
If the wife sue for separation for cruelty, it must be "cruelty that endangers life or limb," and if she has once forgiven, or, in legal phrase,
"condoned" his offences, she cannot plead them; though her past forgiveness only proves that she endured as long as endurance was
possible.
If her husband take proceedings for a divorce, she is not, in the first
instance, allowed to defend herself. She has no means of proving the falsehood of his allegations. She is not represented by attorney, nor permitted to be considered
a party to the suit between him and her supposed lover, for "damages." Lord Brougham affirmed in the House of Lords: "in
that action the character of the woman was at immediate issue, although she was not prosecuted. The consequence not unfrequently was, that the character of a woman
was sworn away; instances were known in which, by collusion between the husband and a pretended paramour, the character of the wife has been destroyed. All this
could take
place, and yet the wife had no defence; she was excluded from Westminster-hall, and behind her back, by the principles of our jurisprudence, her character was tried between her husband and the man called her paramour."
If an English wife be guilty of infidelity, her husband can divorce her so as to marry again; but she cannot divorce the husband
a vinculo, however profligate he may be. No law court can divorce in England. A special Act of Parliament annulling the marriage, is
passed for each case. The House of Lords grants this almost as a matter of course to the husband, but not to the wife. In only four instances (two of which were
cases of incest), has the wife obtained a divorce to marry again.
She cannot prosecute for a libel. Her husband must prosecute; and in
cases of enmity and separation, of course she is without a remedy.
She cannot sign a lease, or transact responsible business.
She cannot claim support, as a matter of personal right, from her husband. The general belief and nominal rule is, that her husband is
"bound to maintain her." That is not the law. He is not bound to
her. He is bound to his
country; bound to see that she does not cumber the parish in which she resides. If it be proved that means sufficient are at her disposal, from relatives or friends, her husband is quit of his obligation, and need not contribute a farthing: even if he have deserted her; or be in receipt of money which is hers by inheritance.
She cannot bind her husband by any agreement, except through a third party. A contract formally drawn out by a lawyer,--witnessed, and signed by her
husband,--is void in law; and he can evade payment of an income so assured, by the legal quibble that "a man cannot contract with his own
wife."
Separation from her husband by consent, or for his ill usage, does not
alter their mutual relation. He retains the right to divorce her after separation,--as before,--though he himself be unfaithful.
Her being, on the other hand, of spotless character, and without reproach, gives her no advantage in law. She may have withdrawn from his roof knowing that he
lives with "his faithful housekeeper": having suffered personal violence at his hands; having "condoned" much, and being able to prove
it by unimpeachable testimony: or he may have shut the doors
of her house against her: all this is quite immaterial: the law takes no cognisance of which is to blame. As her husband, he has a right to all that is hers: as his wife, she has no right to anything that is his. As her husband, he may divorce her (if truth or false swearing can do it): as his wife, the utmost "divorce" she could obtain, is permission to reside alone,--married to his name. The marriage ceremony is a civil bond for him,--and an indissoluble sacrament for her; and the rights of mutual property which that ceremony is ignorantly supposed to confer, are made absolute for him, and null for her.
Of course an opposite picture may be drawn. There are bad, wanton,
irreclaimable women, as there are vicious, profligate, tyrannical men: but the difference is this: that to punish and restrain bad wives,
there are laws, and very severe laws (to say nothing of social condemnation); while to punish or restrain bad husbands, there is, in England, no adequate law
whatever. Indeed, the English law holds out a sort of premium on infidelity; for there is no doubt that the woman who is divorced for a lover and marries him,
suffers less (except in conscience) than the woman who does not deserve to suffer at all--the wife of a bad husband, who can inflict what he
pleases, whether she remain in her home, or attempt to leave it.
Such, however, is "the law": and if anything could add to the ridicule, confusion, and injustice of its provisions, it would be the fact, that
though it is law for the rich, it is not law for the poor; and though it is the law in England, it is not the law in Scotland!
It is not law for the poor.
Since the days of King Henry VIII., for whose passions it was contrived, our method of divorce has remained an indulgence sacred to the aristocracy of England.
The poorer classes have no form of divorce amongst them. The rich man makes a new marriage, having divorced his wife in the House of Lords: his new marriage is
legal; his children are legitimate; his bride occupies, in all respects, the same social position as if he had never previously been wedded. The poor man makes a new
marriage, not having divorced his wife in the
House of Lords; his new marriage is null; his children are bastards; and he himself is liable to be put on his trial for bigamy: the
allotted punishment for which crime, at one time was hanging, and is now imprisonment. Not always offending knowingly,--for nothing can exceed the ignorance of
the poor
on this subject; they believe a Magistrate can divorce them; that an absence of seven years constitutes a nullity of the marriage tie; or that they can give each other reciprocal permission to divorce: and among some of our rural populations, the grosser belief prevails, that a man may legally sell his wife, and so break the bond of union! They believe anything,--rather than what is the fact,--viz., that they cannot do legally, that which they know is done legally in the classes above them; that the comfort of the rich man's home, or the indulgence of the rich man's passions, receives a consideration in England which the poor need not expect to obtain.
It is not the law of Scotland. In your Majesty's kingdom, nothing
but
"The rapid running of the silver Tweed"divides that portion of the realm where women are protected by law,--from that portion
where they are unprotected, though living under the same Sovereign and the same government!
When, in Queen Anne's reign, the legislative union of Scotland was completed, the laws relating to trade, customs, and excise, were assimilated to those of
England; but other laws
remained untouched; and in nothing is there a larger difference than in all matters relating to marriage, divorce, and legitimation of children.
In Scotland, the wife accused of infidelity defends herself as a matter
of course, and as a first process,--instead of suffering by the infamous English action for "damages," where she is not allowed to interfere, though
the result may be to ruin her.
In Scotland, the property of the wife is protected; rules are made for
her "aliment" or support; and her clothes and "paraphernalia" cannot be seized by her husband.
In Scotland, above all, the law has power to divorce a vinculo, so as to enable either party to marry
again; and the right of the wife to
apply for such divorce is equal with the right of the husband; that license for inconstancy, taken out under the English law by the English husband,--as one of
the masculine gender,--being utterly unknown to the Scottish courts.
This condition of the English law; its anomalies, its injustice, its actions for damages and crim. con., and its perpetual contradictions, have long marked it out
for reform. At various
times, and on various occasions, it has been pronounced,--not by wailing, angry, and complaining women, but by men,--senators and
judges,--to be
"barbarous"--"indecent"--"oppressive"--"anomalous and preposterous"--"utterly
disgraceful." When the Marriage Reform Bill was brought in, the late Lord Beaumont
stigmatised the examinations before the House of Lords in divorce cases, as "disgusting and demoralising." Lord
Campbell spoke of passing Bills of Divorce through the two Houses of Parliament as a "scandalous practice." Lord St. Leonards, while
he affirmed that no measure would be satisfactory, that did not reconcile the conflict of our jurisprudence with the Scottish law, declared the present English
action for "damages" to be a
"disgrace to the country"--"a stigma on the law of England"--"an
action which shocked one's sense of what was right." Lord Brougham,--so long as sixteen years ago,--spoke of the law as regards a
woman's earnings in this most forcible language,--"Could anything be more harsh or cruel," he said, "
husband repaid her with harshness and brutality, he all the time rioting and revelling in extravagance and dissipation, and squandering in the company of guilty
paramours the produce of her industry? The law was silent to the complaints of such a woman."
of Lords of the power of granting divorces, and yet made the House of Lords the court of appeal "en dernier ressort," from
the proposed new tribunal. It proposed to "leave the law as it stood," with regard to the right of the wife to apply for divorce; and, in reality,
created a new, definite, and anomalous limit; for whereas at present the power of applying for (if not of obtaining) a Divorce Act, exists
for all women who conceive themselves wronged--the Chancellor proposed to classify what were insupportable wrongs, and grant the remedy only to such women as
could plead them. Stripped of confusion and technicalities, the object of the bill was simply this; to make it statute law, (instead of Parliamentary practice, as at
present,) that marriage should be dissoluble in England; that husbands should divorce their wives, but not wives their husbands; and that the richer class should
have the benefit of their riches, by the process remaining comparatively expensive. Only that all this was to be arranged by a different and more decent method. The
bill was discussed; opposed; and withdrawn. No lawyer, of whatever eminence, ever yet proposed a measure in either House of Parliament, that all the other lawyers
did not rise one by
one to tell him that they "objected to the machinery of his
bill," and that its provisions were "wholly impracticable." They did so on the present occasion. In one thing only they generally agreed, they
congratulated Lord Cranworth upon that portion of his plan which provided that Justice should have her scales ready weighted in favour of the stronger
party--viz., that women should by no means be discouraged from forgiving their husbands, by enacting that adultery in the male sex should be considered a ground
of divorce--"as in Scotland."
on the decks of the emigrant vessels which crowd the harbour of Leith, groups of melancholy cast-off husbands may be seen, bidding
reproachful farewell to that inhospitable country where they only exist to be repudiated!
that if English women could once obtain the same privilege of divorce,
which is accorded to Scotch women, two Englishmen out of three would immediately be discarded by their helpmates; in that startling proportion recorded by Sir Walter
Scott in his poem of the Bridal of
Triermain:--
with Scripture" that adultery is no sin in a man? Are not men warned not only against sin, but even against wandering desires? For whom is the
text--"Whoso looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart"? Or to whom was the reproach
addressed--"For the hardness of your hearts Moses gave you this law"? Are we to have one religion for women and another for men, as we have already
one law for women and another for men,--ecclesiastical law for the woman, and common law for the man?
chance. Your Majesty's subjects north and south of the Tweed are all "at sixes and sevens" as to what should be the law. Yet they are all the
subjects of one Queen; the English ladies whom no amount of ill-usage can divorce, and the Scotch ladies who can divorce so easily. Nay, in the same
family different persons find themselves under different laws. I am myself united to one member of a family in which there are five marriages; in two of
which, (being Scotch marriages), the right of divorce would be equal,--while three (being English marriages) could only be dissolved in favour of the husband,
and by Act of Parliament. Here, then, are five of your Majesty's subjects, born in one home; of the same parents: and three of the brood are drafted off
to be under the English law,--and two to be under Scotch laws, which contradict the English law in every particular! Is that, or is it not, a ridiculous
state of things to exist in any kingdom?
riage was held indissoluble in times of Popery, but is not
held so now; and on that very account a judicial instead of an
ecclesiastical jurisdiction ought now to be established. While Mr. Phinn, in the other House, thus clearly defines the position laid down by Lord
Campbell:--"An important alteration has been made in the law of the country. Up to a recent period it had been a question agitated by lawyers,
whether marriage was not a religious contract, requiring the sanction of the church. That question has been settled by the Legislature, and marriage is now a Civil
Contract."
granted only to husbands;--but can he convince your
Majesty's Lord High Chamberlain, the Marquis of Breadalbane, and the Scotch Peers who come from the other side of the Tweed, where the law is precisely
reversed in both those particulars?
amending the laws for women, but really "the subject is so surrounded with difficulty."
dren,--with the rights of speculative industry. We find no difficulty
in controlling the merchant in his factories, the master with his apprentices, nor in the protection of persons in all other dependant
positions. We find no difficulty in punishing the abuse of power, or
discovered crime. It suffices that it be proved that wrong was committed, and punishment follows as a matter of course.
way-side inn. He is two hundred miles away from his real home. He came from the thrifty North, and will plod back there with his
savings. Return? No! he will never return. The sharp knife is out--his blood sinks in the short turf where the moorland sheep have been feeding; his moan
is lost on the midnight breeze; and his pack is stolen. Is there no law for him? Go and listen in
the assize court. There, in the hot glow of summer, amid the buzz of
insects and voices, and the loud oratory of declaiming men, you will
hear the stillness of that murderous night described; and how its silence and darkness, and the lonely stretch of the apparently deserted
heath, failed to shield the modern Cain from the observation of that one
"chance witness," whom God seems ever to leave standing sentinel to watch for undiscovered crime. Who would have thought the treasure of that poor
pedlar's pack was worth two men's lives? Yet one was taken by murder, and now this other is forfeited to Justice; to prove--that the poorest of the
Queen's subjects shall not wander on her highways without the same protection of life and property, that guards the fringed canopy of a duke's
bed!
Is happiness nothing? Is reputation nothing? Is the law only able to ward off the assassin's knife, or make restitution of stolen coin? Is it able to protect
the poorest, the meanest, the most apparently helpless persons in the realm, and not able to protect women? Are
the only laws in England "so surrounded with difficulty" that they cannot possibly be re-modelled to any pattern of equal justice, the laws
between man and wife?
could still be proceeded against by what was termed "edictal
citation,"--(or reading the citation aloud at the market-cross of Edinburgh, and the pier and shore of Leith), an
average of twenty couples only, availed themselves of the law, the existence of which so alarms English legislators.
the Commissioners were appointed in 1563 down to the present time; and that the conjugal relation "stood not less, but infinitely more
sacred and secure in Scotland" since total divorce was made possible, in lieu of separation under ecclesiastical law. Indeed, it will
scarcely be urged that it is a more favourable condition for morality, that a woman should remain for life nominally married to a man who has deserted
her (as under the English law), than that she should have power to divorce him and marry again, as under the Scotch law.
"If adultery on the part of the husband is to entitle him to a divorce,--inasmuch as the husband (which may be bad morality, but it is the fact)
suffers little on that account in the opinion of the world at large (for it is notorious that, while the wife who commits adultery loses her station in society, that
punishment is not awarded to the husband who is guilty of the same crime) he may, without any great sacrifice on his own part, but by merely being a little
profligate, get rid of his wife whenever he chooses to do so."
bable, as at present, but made utterly impossible for the
woman to obtain.
--or whether, wronged, outraged, and forsaken, she has borne to the last verge of endurance before she appealed to the law! With these judges, and not with
the wife, remains the great decree which will pronounce whether "condonation" was or was not absolutely impossible, under the circumstances she pleads as
her argument for liberty.
condemn to punishment: if we add the love of children; the dread of breaking the bond which shall perhaps help a step-mother into the mother's
vacated place: if we add the obvious interest, in almost every instance, which the woman has to remain in her home; and the horror most women must feel at the
idea of the public exposure and discussion of such wrongs; it is evident they would not be so very eager to avail themselves, in usual cases, of the
extreme remedy.
only by public opinion: but he is also held harmless by LAW.
well to "condone," for she was utterly at his mercy. If, in the course of the long years of loneliness which her future was to bring, the husband
imagined there was anything in her conduct which might bear evil construction, he had the same right to divorce her he had before they parted; but she
could not divorce him. Under no circumstances,--of libel, insult, or attempt to defame her without cause,--though he added half a dozen
mistresses to the first, could she break her marriage with him. He would have the right, for any number of years, to dog her from place to
place, sending attorneys to "make enquiries" at all her places of residence, calculated to slur her reputation, even if he succeeded in nothing more. Her
pleading his desertion, or their separation, would not bar his right. The English law takes no cognisance of separations, and does not divorce for the
husband's adultery and desertion, as in Scotland. Neither (unless by special settlement, contract through third parties, or suit for alimony following a suit
in the Ecclesiastical Courts) would he be bound to support her, or pay any debt of hers, if she had an income of her own, sufficient without his aid. She could not
marry any other man: but must remain, as
the Lord Chancellor things it just that women should remain in such cases, married to the name of the husband, who has free
leave, in law, to forsake her, spend his fortune on his mistress, or mistresses, watch his opportunity (if possible) to divorce her, and
"suffering little in the opinion of the world at large," remain, himself, triumphantly, undivorceable through life! In an instance of desertion some
years ago, the husband lived at an hotel, calling his mistress by his wife's name, and took lodgings for her in his wife's name, with perfect impunity.
Where was the remedy? There was none.
who had already suffered irreparable wrong and degradation on account of its birth,--I do not know, but this I do know,
that this claimant of his illegitimate child has the same right, under the
English law, to the guardianship of his legitimate children, as any other
husband would have: a right to interfere with their possession by his wife,--though his legitimate children are girls; and his open claim of his
illegitimate child, and his having been the public cause of the divorce of its mother, gives his wife no right whatever to divorce him "
--a gentleman distinguished in his own branch of the legal
profession: and by the Hon. Edmund Phipps, brother to the Marquis of Normanby, your Majesty's Minister at the Court of Tuscany, and to the Hon. Charles
Phipps, Treasurer to the Prince Consort.
tradesman was tried for bigamy, and convicted. The second wife deposed, that he had courted her for six years; had no money with her; on the contrary, supplied her
with money since his apprehension; had always been very kind; and that they had a child of his, residing with them. The undivorced wife was living with an omnibus
man, and had been in a lunatic asylum. Mr. Russell Gurney, in deciding the case, observed, with epigrammatic truth, that "this was one of those unfortunate
cases, in which, in the present state of the law, if a man was not possessed of wealth, he had no power to remedy his situation:" and
knowing (as we do know), that if, instead of plain Mr Gray and obscure Mary Adams, these parties had been Lord Grayton and Lady Mary, we should simply have had
"Grayton's Divorce Bill" going quietly through the House of Lords, we can scarcely wonder if murmurs arise, against this
wonderful system of legislation.
him for some poor lunatic, and send him to Bedlam; yet I can see no reason why a countryman should not be divorced at Quarter Sessions, as well as a nobleman in the
House of Lords." Nor I--if divorce is to be allowed at all.
although women are not protected in England, property is guarded by the most stringent rules; and to balance the indignation we might feel
at broken contracts, earnings wasted on mistresses, and general oppression, we are comforted by knowing that in February, this year, Sir Baldwin Leighton having
convicted his gamekeeper of sending a present of two dead rabbits to a person in Shrewsbury, after he had agreed to look after 2,000 acres of land, without
perquisites,--the magistrates,--with expressions of regret (several country magistrates coming forward to give the gamekeeper an excellent character),
sentenced him to imprisonment, as "guilty of what the law called larceny." And we are further edified by an incidental statement of Lord Brougham (in
discussing a bill now pending), that, in 1849, three men, each approaching 70 years of age, were tried at different sessions, in a county, the name of which he would
not mention. One was sentenced to six weeks' imprisonment with hard labour, for stealing to the amount of about 1d.; another to eight weeks'
hard labour for stealing to the amount of 1/2d.; and a third to four weeks' hard labour for stealing to the amount of 1/4d.
Nor had he reason to believe that there were any aggravating circumstances
in their cases. He knew, indeed, of another case, in a different county, in which a man in his 70th year, was sentenced to twelve
months' imprisonment with hard labour for stealing to the amount of 3d. But he assumed that in that case there must have been
aggravating circumstances.
over the woman "sworn in" as his special wife. She is bound to afford him every assistance; to be "true till death"; to be obedient to his
will; and to "condone" his guilty pleasures--and he is bound to nothing at all, except a
nominal union, much resembling in its principle that singular invention, the Russian "Drosky," in which we see one horse harnessed within shafts, and
drawing the weight of the carriage, and the other caracoling and frisking in the most light agreeable and ornamental manner by its side, but bearing no part of the
restraint imposed.
through the gospel pages, their faith, their sorrows, their errors, are
held up as obtaining attention and mercy from the divine "Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief," who wept with the sisters of
Lazarus, and comforted the widow of Nain. A sneer is the only answer to Mr. Gladstone's "gospel" doctrine; and the only text on the subject
acknowledged by Parliament, is the Old Testament text: "and he shall rule over her." We keep the doctrine of the Fall--not of the
Redemption.
the various events of different reigns, it must be a satisfaction to him to
remark, how widely different has been the measure dealt to sinful Kings and erring Queens. We trace the incontinence of the former by successive creations in the
peerage; and the faults of the latter, by records of imprisonment and death on the scaffold.
--if I am guilty, I am not worthy to be your Queen; if I am innocent, your King is not worthy to be my husband:"--
umberland--St. Alban's--Somerset--and
Richmond;--two of which titles--Grafton and St. Alban's--remain in direct line from Charles, down to the present time. We know, that his court
was an example of the most extravagant and unpunished licentiousness: that Sir John Denham and the Earl of Chesterfield were both accused in his reign of
poisoning their wives (the latter administering the poison in the wine of the Holy Communion); and that the King's "merry" favorite, the Duke of
Buckingham, killed the Earl of Shrewsbury and held a love appointment with the Earl's wife the same evening. We know, that his brother, James II. had, by Mrs.
Churchill (sister of the Duke of Marlborough), the Duke of Berwick--the Grand Prior--and others; and, by Mrs. Sedley, a daughter created Countess of
Dorchester, and one, divorced from the Earl of Anglesea, who became Duchess of Buckingham. And we know that the husband of the slandered and imprisoned Dorothea of
Zell, having married her only for the sake of uniting the dominions of the family, was utterly unfaithful to her; that Madlle. Schulenberg (created Duchess of
Kendal)--Madame Kilmanseg--and that "best beloved mistress of the King,"--the beautiful Countess of Platen, afterwards Countess
of Darlington--accompanied him to the England which his lawful wife was held unworthy to see, and supplied her place in his affections, and his royal palaces,
while she lived and died in prison.
queen, no one would desire to dwell. But Dr. Lushington had courage, in pleading her cause, to remark on the ridicule of a man "seeking to be divorced at the
age of sixty, from a wife from whom he had been twenty-four years separated, by his own act, and for the gratification of his own appetites." Her death
did not appease him. The chief Magistrate of London, Sir R. Baker, resigned on account of the King's displeasure at the royal corpse being suffered to pass;
and Major-General Sir R. Wilson was removed from the army by royal order, for the part he had taken in the Queen's favour; on which occasion the public
feeling was manifested by a public subscription being raised to compensate the General for the loss of his commission, to the
extent of #10,000.
peals, in the dreary month of December, to the secretary of that bloated
and triumphant monarch; pleading, not for life or liberty, but that his clothing was so rent that it did not keep him warm, and his diet so
slender that he was well nigh starved, being often given food he was too feeble and aged to eat. What then? In that Tower of London we pass as we go down the river
to kindly Nell Gwynne's hospital at
Greenwich, the weak old bishop was left to starve and shiver through the inclement winter, and was executed in the pleasant month of
June: and in a year from that time, the "Defender of the Faith and Father of the Reformation" had cut off the head of his
adored Anne Boleyn, and was dressed in white and silver as an exultant bridegroom, to marry a fresher love; declaring the children of his former marriage (our Queen
Mary and Queen Elizabeth), to be both bastards.
economy: that the extreme expense of the train of
attendant carriages, baggage-waggons, etc., necessary when he made progresses through his electorate with that respected princess his legitimate wife, was
really more than the finances of the country would bear; while with the Countess de Saal he would feel justified in adopting a much more simple style of travelling;
(an historical warning to woman, against too many imperials!) Luther, like Cranmer, bowed to the reasoning of his ruler,--and Lord Campbell may think the
Electress could not do better than "condone"; but I much fear the judges' wives would be a good deal startled by its being held reasonable, when
their husbands go circuits, that they and their many travelling trunks should be superseded in favour of a young lady (if there be such a young lady), who would
content herself with a single bandbox. Society at large, however, would be satisfied. We have it on the authority of the Lord Chancellor (and, indeed, on the
evidence of our own experience), that the profligate husband "suffers little or nothing in the opinion of the world." The stereotyped homily for the two
sexes is different. To the man, the law of the land and the law of custom,
speaking by the mouth of the Lord Chief Justice of England, says thus:--
indeed, all were easy! To the irrevocable shame, to the inevitable
forsaking, to poverty and oblivion--let her pass! it is doom--but it is also justice: it is the mighty arm of the Law which has seized her, and
will fling her from the Tarpeian rock of social condemnation, into the dark gulf of overwhelming disgrace.
dreary days. To be slandered, tormented, insulted; to find the world, and the world's law, as the Lord Chancellor truly observes, utterly indifferent to her
wrongs or her husband's sin; and through all this to lead a chaste, unspotted, patient, cheerful life; without anger, without bitterness; and with meek respect
for those English edicts which, with a perverse parody on Scripture, pronounce that "it is not good for MAN to be
alone,"--but extremely
good for woman. Hard that a husband should not divorce an adulterous wife! Hard that he should not form a "purer
connection!" Hard (though he has a career and
occupation out of his own home), that a second chance of domestic happiness should not again greet him!--But not the least hard that his weaker partner,
elevated, according to Mr Gladstone, to an equality with him, since the Christian advent,--she, who if she has not a home has nothing--should be left
stranded and wrecked on the barren sands, at the foot of the world's impassive and impassable rocks.
the woman may say: "Would I had been indeed a sinner and divorced, rather than live this life of torment, injustice, and
mockery!" Wild words: terrible sinful words: are they not? A bad, shocking woman to say so; nothing of the saint and martyr in her
composition. But also a bad law I think. A bad, wicked law, which makes it utterly indifferent whether she can or can not claim to be an innocent woman: and
whether her husband is or is not a bad worthless man.
to be unendurable wrong; he said merely, that he had been excited by the bill to examine the whole subject of divorce, and that he was of the opinion the remedy was
not confined to the husband. That the principle should be,--the impossibility of reconciliation. He said,--"Why do you
grant to the husband a divorce for the adultery of the wife? Because he ought not to forgive; and separation is inevitable. Where the wife cannot forgive,--and
separation is inevitable by reason of the crime of the husband,--the wife is entitled to the like remedy. Why should she be condemned, for
no principle of common sense can it be fit that there should exist cases of wrong in which the law cannot judge, for that sets a limit to the
possibility of justice.
they had avenged me and scorned him, and he vowed to treat me kindly for the future. To my lasting injury,--(even now I will not write, to my lasting
regret),--I "condoned."
I knew I was not myself faultless; I was deeply touched by his imploring phrases; and I returned to the home and the husband I had abjured. My family, however, did
not choose to resume terms of intimacy with him; and he quarrelled with me on that account. I insisted on my right
to take my children to my brother's house, though my brother would not receive him. Those children were kidnapped while I was with my sister, and sent by my
husband to a woman who has since left him money, and of whom he knew I had the worst opinion.
were of high rank), where the husband deserted his wife; claimed the babe born after his desertion (having already his other children); and
left her to learn its death from the newspapers! A fourth, in which the husband living with a mistress, and travelling with her under his wife's name, the
latter appealed for a separation to the Ecclesiastical Court; and the adulterous husband, to revenge himself, claimed from her his three infant girls. In all these
cases, and in all other cases, the claim of the father was held to be indisputable. There was no law then to help the mother, as there is no law now to
help the wife. The blamelessness of the mother signified nothing in those days, as the blamelessness of the wife signifies nothing in this present day. The father
possessed precisely the right the husband still possesses--namely, to do exactly what he pleased. Mr Norton, then, took my little children (aged two, four, and
six years); and I traced them to the house of that vile woman, who threatened to give me "to the police" when I went there and claimed them.
against him, he would retract all he had said against me"--that Mr Norton took higher ground than his real
cause of anger,--and appeared before the world in the character of "an injured husband." He brought an action against Lord Melbourne; who was in no
way connected with our quarrel; who had been a most kind friend to us; and with whom, the last time I had ever seen him in my home,--my husband was on the best
possible terms, endeavouring to procure from him a loan of money! The infamous opportunity afforded to unscrupulous men, in the English "Action for
Damages" (which Lord St Leonard's has lately termed a "disgrace to the country"--"a stigma
on the law of England,"--"an action which shocks one's sense of what is right") was suggested as a temptation
and a bait. Lord Melbourne declared that, so far as Mr Norton was concerned, he believed the action to be brought entirely as a means of obtaining money. And, as to
the persons who were known to have instigated the proceedings, he considered it was a political plot on the part of a small section of the Tories, to ruin him as
Prime Minister. And I know that in this opinion your Majesty's Uncle, King William IV., entirely concurred.
and had actually resided till the time of the trial at the country-seat of Lord Grantley, Mr Norton's elder brother. The jury listened with incredulity
and disgust to the evidence; and without requiring to hear a single witness for Lord Melbourne, or leaving the jury-box, they instantly gave their verdict
against Mr Norton: a verdict which was received with cheers which the judge could not suppress: so vehement was the expression of public contempt and
indignation.
"others" on whom he himself depended, would not permit him to send back his children, as it would appear to justify me, and so prove the trial a
mockery.
confessions of the grossest personal violence towards his wife.... Mr Norton admitted to me his firm belief of his wife's innocence of the charge he had
brought against her and Lord Melbourne.... I consider there never was a more deeply-injured woman, and that his conduct to her
certainly had been marked by 'the grossest cruelty, injustice, and inconsistency,' that ever any man displayed."
I believe men have no more notion of what that anguish is,
than the blind have of colours; and I bless God that at least mine was one of the cases which called attention to the state of the law as it then
existed.
quired if they could not prove my marriage a Scotch one, all Mr Norton's property being in Scotland, his father a Scotch Baron of Exchequer, and his mother of
a Scotch family,--but without success.
and were signed "Yours affectionately." Two of them (in allusion to my fear of meeting him) bore the playful signature of "
GREENACRE,"--the name of a man who had been recently hung, for enticing a woman to his house by promising marriage, and then
murdering and cutting her into pieces.
believe, the only man of his own rank in life who ever resorted to that measure.
to the actions, and that his defending them will be attended
WITH LOSS OF CHARACTER, as well as great expense. He should agree to the arrangement that you propose, or any other that can be made. I will write to Grantley
to tell him that I have advised a settlement on ANY terms."
husband himself has published, the reason of my non-success. Here are Mr Norton's printed words:--"Lord Abinger, who
tried the cause, upon a suggestion of my counsel" (Sir Fitzroy Kelly), "that Sir John Bayley had been my advocate and referee,
REFUSED TO HEAR HIS EVIDENCE."
the author,--proceeded, in language strange rabid and virulent, to abuse the writer; calling her a "SHE-DEVIL"
and a "SHE-BEAST." No less than one hundred and forty-two pages were devoted to the nominal task of opposing
the Infant Custody Bill, and in reality to abusing me. Not being the author of the paper criticised, I requested my solicitor to prosecute the Review as
a libel. He informed me that being a married woman, I could not prosecute of myself; that my husband must prosecute: my husband--who had assailed me with
every libel in his power! There could be no prosecution: and I was left to study the grotesque anomaly in law of having my defense made
necessary,--and made impossible,--by the same person.
to improve the estate left him by the woman to whom my children were at first taken.
by his own signature, and those other signatures, to a formal deed. He defied me to prove it,--"as, by law, man and wife were one, and could not contract
with each other; and the deed was therefore good for nothing."
covered and forsaken pedestal of "the injured husband"; he met the mother of his grown-up sons, with the accusations he had admitted to be a
falsehood in their childhood: bruising those boyish hearts with forgotten slanders, first raised, and first retracted, when the eldest was but six
years old!
Mr Norton printed the wonderful falsehood, that Lord Melbourne had given him the place he held, "before he knew Mrs Norton!" The ridicule of
this--(even if true)--might have struck any one; this new way of dividing the ledger; this abhorrence of a man "because of the seduction of my
wife"--but satisfaction in the place obtained from him, because it was "before the seduction of my wife." But I proved it
not to be true, by Lord Melbourne's own letters. It was a sheer invention; and given with the most careful detail. Yet Mr Norton,--convicted
of its being utterly false,--contented himself with saying, "the matter had happened so long ago," he made an "unintentional mistake."
How many more of his slanders against the dead and the living are "unintentional mistakes"?
asserting a just claim. INSULT is not DEGRADATION: Queens have been insulted, as I was: and
the famous summons in Henry VIII.'s time--"Katherine! come into court,"--was about as just as that which called me
there! It is enough to know, that in this dispute between the existent husband and the non-existent wife, the existent husband had every advantage. The
dead friend and patron was scurrilously abused, by the man who still holds place under his appointment. The living but
"non-existent" wife, was publicly insulted, by the
husband who had written her the Greenacre letters, and entreated her return home on the plea that she might "forgive" the trial, since he disbelieved in
its accusations! The "existent" husband subpoenaed my bankers; compelled them to produce their books, and sent his attorney to make extracts at
their bank, of all sums entered in my private account. He also subpoenaed my publishers; to compel them to declare what were the copyrights they held of me, and
what sums they had paid me: for, (amazing to say,) the copyrights of my works are his, by law: my very soul and brains are not my own!
And, when all was done, this great dictum was impressed upon my memory; that the contract was nil, because the fiction of
the law is, that "man and wife are one,"--and not two contracting parties; and Mr Norton, therefore, was not bound "in law," only
"in honour."
circumstances of the trial,--the residence of the witnesses,--and the nearness of connection. No other choice was proposed. Mr Norton either felt, (as he
may truly feel), that no unprejudiced gentleman in England, would support him in his legal quibble:--or he had never intended to propose a choice which
could be accepted,--which is more than probable.
in particular, a manuscript of which Lord Melbourne himself was the author, (when a very young man,) which Mr Norton resolutely refused to give up.
link to his name), a right to everything I have in the world--and I
have no more claim upon him, than any one of your
Majesty's ladies in waiting, who are utter strangers to him! I never see him:--I hear of him only by attacks on my reputation:--and
I do not receive a farthing of support from him. His reply, by attorney (dated 10th of April, this session), to any such demand--is to bid the creditor
"examine the will of my mother in Doctors' Commons" (thereby throwing off the mask of pretence he wore, and standing openly on his legal
irresponsibility): and when we first separated, he offered me, as sole provision, a small pension paid by Government to each of my father's children;
reckoning that pension as his!
contract, the plaintiff was Mr Thrupp, one of the coachmakers "by
appointment" to your Majesty. Mr Thrupp lost his cause as against Mr Norton; and perhaps the uninitiated imagine it was merely a question which of us should
pay him; or pay any other creditor. Those who think so, are mistaken. In consequence of this rule of my "non-existence," Mr Thrupp, and the group
of creditors, can claim payment from no one. They cannot sue the "non-existent" married woman; the husband cannot
contract with the "non-existent" married woman; and the "non-existent" married woman cannot be compelled to pay,
if she refuses to discharge the debt. "Oh! but you will not refuse; you will pay, surely," say the bystanders. How? My husband owes me
#1,500, or three years' income. I have no means of raising this large sum; no one would lend money to a married woman; she can give no security. Besides,
I am in debt to my bankers: obstinately disbelieving in the possibility of the law's injustice (before it was proved to me), I borrowed from
them, when Mr Norton stopped my allowance: and that loan, with interest, is still unpaid. I am in debt to my printers; for work arising out of
this very injustice. I have persons who receive
regular instalments every year, on past dues; I have other employment for my money, than making up Mr Norton's defalcations.
I do not consider this as MY cause: though it is a cause of which (unfortunately for me) I am an illustration. It is the cause of
all the women, and of a large proportion of the tradespeople, in England. If I were personally set at ease about it to-morrow, that would not
alter the law. The same injustice might happen next day to some woman who could not struggle, or earn, or write; for whom no one would come forward; and
to some petty tradesman,--not like Mr Thrupp, coachmaker to your Majesty, in a large way of business,--but grievously injured by the loss of even a small
sum. What is needed, is not the arranging of one particular case, but a Tribunal of Control, a Tribunal for Marriage and Divorce; to decide
ALL such cases;--and to prevent the possibility of the shame to England and to English law, entailed by throwing the sum secured
by a magistrate's signature, the signatures of two peers' brothers, and a lawyer,--among a tradesman's list of "bad debts."
actual debt; and he loses the expenses of applying for that debt
unsuccessfully. Is that, or is it not, a ridiculous confusion of laws, to exist in any kingdom?
after our parting, wrote to me, of Mr Norton's "amazing assertions," and his attempt to obtain a retraction of their falsehood. Lord Melbourne gave
his word of honour that the accusation on which the action for damages was based, was false; and he believed it was brought for money. My brother (through his
solicitor) declared every word of my husband's advertisement against me in the papers in 1839 to be false. Lord Wynford in 1838 declared the discrepancy to be
so great between Mr Norton's real case, and his pretence of being an offended husband, that the public knowledge of it must be attended "with loss of
character." Mr Norton's own counsel, Sir John Bayley, published, in 1853, this declaration; "nearly every statement he made me, turned out to be
untrue." Sir F. Thesiger said his promises seemed made "apparently for the opportunity of breaking them."
ALL accused him of untruth; at all times; down to that unpardonable (and unpardoned) day of August, 1853, when he met me in a law court
with a fictitious plea of slander, and was contradicted on oath by the witnesses: to that 24th August, when his letter of explanation was
disproved by me, and his false account of his appointment by Lord Melbourne publicly
exposed: to that 31st of August, when the solicitor who drew up the contract declared of his statement with reference to that matter--"the entire
paragraph is untrue;" to that memorable 13th of September, 1853, when Sir John Bayley finally contradicted, point by point, every invention and slanderous
assertion he had put forward. That such a man,--proved to be so recklessly false,--should have any power at all over the reputation of the
dead or the living, arises out of the law which permits an "action for damages," as a sort of gambling speculation, without defence or contradiction
being possible to the wife; and the law which allows the breach of contract on a plea of "non-existence" of the wife; for it is on these two
links of opportunity that Mr Norton has connected the long chain of falsehoods against Lord Melbourne and myself.
of equal degree. Certainly there can be no entire friendship, where there is no real equality; but there may be memory of service and an
earnest regard; and I will not believe (for he would not have believed it) that the abuse of Lord Melbourne was indifferent to your Majesty. Leaning on
the hand of that loyal and true friend and servant, your Majesty ascended the throne of your ancestors; and the Queen of three kingdoms said to her minister,
"Help me,"--as she placed her foot on the steps. Soon after your Majesty's accession, he read to you (in that magnificent and melodious voice
which many still remember), those verses from the Third Book of Kings, where the youthful Solomon, being asked by God in a dream, what gift he will desire at the
beginning of his inexperienced reign; asks, not "long life, nor riches, nor the lives of his enemies,"--but "
an understanding heart; to judge the people, and discern between good and evil." Lord Melbourne held then, a position which
has scarcely a parallel in English history;--the extreme youth and sex of his Sovereign, mingling with his duties as counsellor something of the character of a
guardian. That he fulfilled those anxious duties, while he lived, with devoted
zeal, and was worthy to fulfil them, no one has ever doubted.
than that the wife's goods and chattels should be at the mercy of the husband, and that she might work and toil for an unkind father to support his family and
children, while the
Page 18
In short, the gentlemen of England--members of both
Houses--have severally denounced in the most unmeasured terms, the present laws for women; and unanimously agreed that they ought to be reformed. Commissioners
were accordingly "ordered to report," and they reported. Lord Cranworth undertook to bring in the measure which was to set all to rights; and after some
delay, he presented a bill, with his plan for future alterations. Any one would have imagined, after the decided admissions of evil on the part of all concerned,
that this bill would have proposed some sweeping change; the establishment of a judicial tribunal, as in Scotland and France, which should have complete
power in matrimonial causes; and better laws of protection for women. Not at all. The gist of the new bill, was simply to take away power from the
Ecclesiastical Courts, and transfer it to the Court of Chancery. It was full of contradictions. It professed to deprive the House
Page 19
Page 20
It is with timid reluctance, that I permit myself to allude to the social condition of that unhappy country. To all loyal minds it must be matter for grave and
sorrowful reflection, that while your Majesty is surrounded with faithful wives and discreet ladies in London,--Windsor,--and Osborne,--the less
cautious portion of the realm in which Balmoral is situated, is plunged in the grossest immorality. England is virtuous; but Scotland is "a hot-bed of
vice." It is a land dedicated to Cupid. Statues of Venus are set up in all the principal squares of Edinburgh. The marriage-tie is a mere true
lovers' knot. The ladies who present themselves at Holyrood are triumphant Messalinas. And
Page 21
The Scotch ladies will deny their guilt. They will deny that the upper
classes of their nation have proved themselves more immoral than the upper classes in England. But they are contradicted by the Lord Chancellor and the whole house
of English Peers. That body of senators have pronounced, that to permit women in England to have the privilege accorded to the women of Scotland, would be productive
of the grossest immorality and of multitudinous divorce. Now, to support that position, one of three things must be capable of proof. Either, having witnessed the
effect of the Divorce Laws of Scotland,--and perceiving its women to be a nation of lost creatures,--English legislators refuse to copy those laws, lest
English women become as profligate as Scotch women; or else (and this is a reason to be carefully considered) they fear to trust English women with a privilege which
their colder Caledonian sisters are less likely to abuse: or, lastly, the extreme and universal profligacy of English husbands leads them to dread
Page 22
"And still these lovers' faith survives,
Their truth so constant shewn;
There were two who loved
their neighbor's wives,
And ONE--who loved his own."
Oh! is it not a sad and marvellous thing, that professional prejudice, and the prejudice of sex, can so warp and bend high and honourable minds, that a man
like Lord Cranworth, in Lord Cranworth's position,--the most responsible for justice in
England;--should take the view Lord Cranworth took--to use the arguments Lord Cranworth used--in support of what? In support of a measure to
legalise a special indulgence to the animal passions of men.
Lord Campbell, when some doubt is expressed whether divorce ought to be permitted at all, to either sex, rises and says divorce of the wife is
"in accordance with Scripture." In what portion of Holy Writ does he find it in "accordance
Page 23
The holy Roman Catholic rule is, that marriage is indissoluble for
either party. That rule all can understand and reverence. But
that marriage should be dissoluble for one sex only, and only for the wealthy of that sex; that it should be made a sacrament for the poor and for women, and a civil
contract for gentlemen,--who is to
understand that?
Roman Catholic countries are governed by one general rule; but your
Majesty governs a kingdom "divided against itself." Split up into different forms of religious dissent, and the law following that dissent into holes and
corners; so that justice becomes a sort of game of hide and seek, and they who find her, light upon her by
Page 24
But as if that did not make the grotesque confusion sufficiently
obvious, it appears that even south of the Tweed, your Majesty's
Peers and Commons cannot in the least agree among themselves what is, or ought to be, the law with respect to marriage!
Page 25
Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act, of 1754, declared null, all
marriages not celebrated by a priest in orders: and made it
indispensable that the ceremony should take place in some parish church, or public chapel, unless by special license from the Archbishop of Canterbury. But Lord John
Russell's Act, of 1836, permits person, on the contrary, to be married according to any form they choose; they need never see a church or a priest; but by
merely repairing to the "Registrar," giving certain notices, and procuring certain certificates, they acquire a right to have the ceremony performed, in
places registered and appropriated for the purpose.
More recently, Lord Redesdale,--speaking on the Lord
Chancellor's Bill,--says he shall oppose any
divorce law, and considers marriage should be "indissoluble:" But Lord St. Leonards affirms, that "it won't do at this time of
day" to speak of the indissoluble nature of marriage; and that the only question is, what shall be the machinery of the new law for its dissolution? Lord
Clancarty (an Irishman) complains that Ireland is not mentioned in the bill, and speaks of marriage as a "divine ordinance." But Lord Campbell (a
Scotchman) pooh-poohs the idea of its being a divine ordinance, and says that mar-
Page 26
Lord Redesdale,--reluctantly succumbing to the Chancellor's "civil contract" views,--thinks, at least, divorce should not be made too
cheap, as it would then become too common; on which, Lord Brougham (who many a day of his long energetic life, has stood sentinel to guard the rights of the people),
shrewdly enquires whether his lordship means that the proposed new divorce law "shall not apply to 19-20ths of the inhabitants of this country, but only
to the 1-20th who can afford to pay for it?"
Then your Majesty's Lord High Chancellor defines it as his opinion, that divorce a vinculo should remain
moderately expensive, and be
Page 27
Finally, Lord Clancarty says, if there must be a law of
divorce, he cannot for the life of him see how we can establish a
distinction between the sin of the man and the woman, which never was established by divine law;--while the Bishop of Oxford,
religiously ignoring Lord John Russell's Bill of 1836, Lord
Cranworth's opinion, Lord Campbell's explanation, and the actual law of the northern portion of your Majesty's dominions,--says he shall move
to omit all the clauses of the Bill
countenancing any divorce whatever.
And at the end of this confused skirmish of opinions, the Bill drops,
and is given up; the Chancellor, like the Runic sorceress, exclaims,--
"Leave me, leave me, to repose:"and all go away home; like a party of miners who have given up the attempt to dig out persons buried in
superincumbent earth! They would be very glad to do something towards
Page 28
Why is it so surrounded with difficulty? Why is England the
only country obliged to confess that she cannot contrive to administer justice to women? Why is it more difficult than in France? Why more difficult than in
Scotland? Simply because our legists and legislators insist on binding tares with wheat, and combining all sorts of contradictions which they never will be able
satisfactorily to combine. They never will satisfy, with measures that give one law for one sex and the rich, and another law for the other sex and the
poor. Nor will they ever succeed in acting on the legal fiction that married women are "non-existent," and man and wife are still
"one," in cases of alienation, separation, and enmity; when they are about as much "one" as those
ingenious twisted groups of animal death we sometimes see in sculpture; one creature wild to resist, and the other fierce to destroy.
Nor does all this confusion arise, because the law is professedly too
weak for the necessary control which would prevent it. The law is strong enough when it interferes with labour,--with property,--with the guardianship of
chil-
Page 29
The poor cabin boy is on the high seas. The steward, or the captain, or a brutal messmate, maltreats the boy. He is bruised,--he is
maimed,--he is miserable,--that meagre shuffling over-worked lad, whose very surname perhaps nobody knows: some little outcast Tom, Jack, or
Jim, sent to sea by the parish. Is there no law for him? Is it "so surrounded with difficulty" that no punishment shall reach
those who maltreated him? Read the police report. Though that life seemed as unimportant as a grain of sand, it is cared for. The Spirit of Justice moved with that
ship "over the face of the waters," and English law and public government avenge him, who perhaps had not one private friend in the world.
The wandering pedlar trudges over the moor--his pack is heavy; his step is slow; he is dogged by some villain who saw him rest by the
Page 30
Protection for life and property. Is that all?
Page 31
I think not. I think if men would approach them with the same impartial
wish to make rules of protection, that is brought to bear on other subjects, they would find the same facility in applying those rules.
Now, with respect to the condition and effect of the laws for women in
Scotland, it came out incidentally in the debate on the Marriage Bill, that the total amount of all the divorces in that misguided country, during the last five
years, only averaged twenty in all classes; and this was not stated in defence of Scotch morality, but as a means of calculating what might be expected in England
under a new system.
In Scotland, then, though the right of divorce be equal,--and the process so easy that even if the party accused left the kingdom, he or she
Page 32
Very sparing, indeed, are the cases recorded as disputed precedents.
Towards the end of the last century the Duchess of Hamilton divorced the Duke, as a Scotchman, though married by English ritual in England. In 1810, Lady Paget
divorced Lord Paget, though he pleaded a reconciliation after his original desertion. In 1813, Catherine Pollock divorced Russell Manners, for desertion for ten
years andinfidelity. Previous to which cases, Sir T. Wallace Dunlop had the singular good fortune of being proceeded against for divorce by both his first and second
wife. The first wife succeeded; but the second failed; not for want of proof of his misconduct, but because her marriage was held to be an English
marriage, and so, indissoluble by the Scotch Courts.
It is expressly stated that the number of Scotch cases in proportion to
the population, remained nearly the same at all periods, since
Page 33
But Lord Chancellor Cranworth argued the question in a very singular
manner; and I give his argument as it stands in the printed report of the debate of June 14, 1854:--First, as to the lighter causes of divorce, admitted
in Scotland, he says:--"If marriages could be dissolved for cruelty or desertion, the husband may dissolve his marriage whenever he pleases;
he has only to be tyrannical to his wife, or to desert her, to effect the very object he has in view.
Therefore I do not at all propose to alter what has been--I will not say the law,--because in point of fact there has been no law--but the practice on
this subject."
Then, as to that graver interruption of domestic quiet, inconstancy, he
says:--
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And Lord Campbell, in a subsequent debate, July 1, strikes out another
suggestion; he objects to granting divorces to women,
on account of the ease with which adultery in the husband is (or ought to be) forgiven by the wife!
"He thought his noble and learned friend had wisely abstained
from following the example of Scotland and other countries, in
which the wife had a right to have the marriage dissolved on account of the adultery of the husband. The moral guilt incurred by the husband was the same,--but
in most cases it might be CONDONED."
In short, what between their dread of encouraging the husband to be
"a little profligate," in order to get rid of his wife,--and fear of inclining the wife to be unforgiving, in the prospect of getting rid of her
husband,--they think it best that justice should be not merely impro-
Page 35
Again I say, it is perfectly marvellous what clever and honourable men
will say and do when blinded by strong prejudice! Here are these two great lawyers talking as though the divorce of the wife could be made compulsory on the
wife, or dependant on her simple resolution. Is the wife, after all, to be her own judge? No; the judge is her judge; the Lord Chancellor himself is her
judge; the House of Lords is her judge. The possibility of applying for a divorce a vinculo, does not suddenly invest her
with an authority like that of the patriarch Abraham, to send forth her husband, like weeping Hagar, into the desert world. She is to apply for her divorce to the
judicial tribunal: to that Chancellor who speaks of an adulterous husband as being "a little profligate:" to that House of Lords which has
entertained feminine applications with so much jealousy and reluctance, that there have been but four cases (two of them cases of incest), in which the wife's
petition for divorce has ever been granted. With these judges, and not with the wife, rests the decision whether she has refused that indulgence which ought to be a
part
of her nature, and is the principal charm of her sex,
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No doubt, in numberless instances, condonation is possible.
So far we will grant Lord Cranworth's argument. A man may yield to the temptation of passion, who yet at heart loves and respects his wife; and feels, after
his delusion is over, a real shame and repentance. Nor is want of chastity the only sin in the world;--a woman who is a chaste wife may fill her husband's
days with unendurable bitterness; and a man who has lapsed in his observance of the marriage vow, may nevertheless be a kindly husband and father, with whom
reconcilement would be a safe and blessed generosity. If we add to these admissions, woman's natural lingering love for her companion; love undeniable;
indisputable; love evidenced each day, even among the poor creatures who come bruised and bleeding before the police courts; refusing to give evidence, in a calmer
hour, against the man such evidence would
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But in unusual cases--in cases of the dreary, stormy,
deserted life--where profligacy, personal violence, insult, and oppression, fill up the measure of that wrong which pardon cannot reach,--why is there to
be no rescue for the woman? Why is such a man to be sheltered under the Lord Chancellor's term of "only a little profligate,"--and
"condonation" be supposed the only proper notice of his conduct?
While the laws that women appeal to, are administered by men, we need not fear that their appeals will be too carelessly granted. No statement can be more
incontrovertible than the Lord Chancellor's dictum, that the profligate husband
"suffers little in the opinion of the world at large." It were well if he were held harmless
Page 38
In the very session during which Lord Cranworth's Bill was
discussed, some remarkable cases occurred, both in the upper and lower classes; some of which were public, and some not. I give the latter, therefore, without the
names. It is enough for me; that your Majesty knows these cases did occur; and this record of what the English law was, in your Majesty's reign,
will remain,--when the names shall signify no more than the N. or M. in the Church Catechism.
In the upper classes, a young peer deserted his young wife (then near
her confinement of her first child), informing her as his reason for
doing so, that he had always preferred his mistress, to whom he should now return, and bid his wife farewell for ever.
In that case, whether by the interference of friends, or the generosity
and discretion of the "condoning" wife, a reconciliation was effected: but had this desirable event not taken place, the law of England is as
follows:--
This young deserted wife, not yet a mother, would remain as much the
wife of her deserting husband, as if they were the happiest couple that ever honey-mooned under one roof. She did
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A second case last session, was one in which a married man of rank came to England, to dispute the guardianship of an infant child born of
a double adultery; the married lady who was its mother having been divorced for his sake. The evil bond between them being already broken, each desired to retain
this "pledge of love," the person of the little child. It was seized by the mother; regained by the
father; made the subject of police struggles on the Continent, and of a
threatening scandal in England. What the law would have decided in
that wonderful case, of a man coming to claim under the law, a child born out of the law, from the hapless mother
Page 41
A third case (to which I shall recur) is my own: in which, after
personal violence, ill-usage, an "action for damages," and a long separation, the husband--being desirous to raise money,--procured a
contract to be signed between himself and his wife, containing certain provisions as to his trust-funds, and as to her income, both before and after the death
of certain parties. That contract was witnessed and signed by the husband himself; by the solicitor who drew it up,
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When the income so secured (or supposed to be secured), was claimed for creditors, the husband, in this case, refused to pay it. The law of England proved to be,
that the wife being "non-existent," or one with the husband, could not legally make any contract with him. The signature of the
husband, the signature of the brother of those other distinguished persons in your Majesty's service,--and the signature of the lawyer who drew up the
agreement,--all failed to make it more valuable than a sheet of blank paper. The wife, who might have compelled the execution of such a contract had she been a
menial servant, was left without a remedy, because she was a wife; and without further explanation than that "the law" would hold her
husband harmless, for mocking her and mocking the gentlemen who had added their signatures, by offering this fictitious security.
In lower life,--occurring as an illustration of the divorce laws
for the rich,--a respectable
Page 43
In an old fashioned book (written by a favourite of your Majesty's
Uncle, George the Fourth), the author says: "if a poor man were to appear in the lobby of the House of Lords, praying to be divorced
gratis from his wife, it is likely that the Sergeant-at-Arms would take
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In humble life, again (though no worse off than if she had been provided for by a contract bearing the signatures of one of the Metropolitan Magistrates, and the
brother of your Majesty's Ambassador, and Prince Albert's Treasurer), a Mrs Adsett claimed support from her husband, a gun-maker. The husband very
coolly informed the Magistrate that he could not support her; on the contrary, for some months she had supported him; but she might "come back to
him." The wife replied that he had a mistress, and she had three children. The magistrates remarked that they were "very sorry," but the wife must
go "to the home provided for her:"--mistress or no mistress:--the law of England not making that a ground of special protection.
"Starve, or condone." Take the children, and go to the husband, who is "a little profligate,"--and who is supported by you, that he may
spend his money on his concubine.
That is the language of the law.
It is, however, satisfactory to learn, that
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No "aggravating circumstances," however, on the part of a
husband, can bring the law to bear upon him; and while
the poor man lies in prison a year, for theft to the value of three pence;--while the gamekeeper, hitherto respected and respectable in his station of life, is
consigned for a briefer term, to the same abode of guilt, for sending two rabbits to a tradesman's
kitchen,--the "gentleman," who spends on his mistress the income of his wife, or openly defrauds her on a signed
contract,--laughs in the face of justice, and mocks the power of the law.
In brief, the legal axiom is, that sin is not sin in a man, if it be against a woman; and more especially against the woman he vowed at God's altar to
cherish and protect. Marriage is, according to the great law authorities in and out of Parliament, not a religious bond, but a civil contract. The religious vow,
taken by the man in marriage, is merely to give him civil rights
Page 47
Mr. Gladstone, speaking on the Marriage Amendment Bill, says that
"when the gospel came into the world, woman was elevated to an equality with her stronger companion,"--and that there is "perfect equality
between man and woman as far as the marriage tie is concerned,"--and he asks whether it is now "intended to have one marriage code for men and
another for women?" But I say, there is already one marriage code for men and another for women: and as to the gospel view of woman's
position,--in vain are women pointed out as "the last at the cross, and the first at the tomb;" in vain, one of that humbled sex was made the mother
of the Saviour of mankind; in vain, all
Page 48
There was, indeed, an old-fashioned time when an attempt was made to show legal discouragement to men who were "a little profligate." We read
that in the reign of James I. Sir Pecksael
Brocas--(probably, by his name, a sinner of Dutch extraction)--"having been convicted of many notorious adulteries," was made to do penance, by
standing in a white sheet at St. Paul's Cross, holding a stick in his hand. But for the most part, the state of law, and of public opinion, has been very much
what the Lord Chancellor Cranworth thinks it may fairly remain. If Lord Cranworth goes through that process which the wisest of witty men, and the wittiest of wise
men,--the late Sydney Smith,--called "putting a spine to history," and connects
Page 49
What the exact degree of Anne Boleyn's guilt may have been,
accused as she was of crimes which even at the time no one believed she had committed:--what the balance of indiscretion or vice in that fair Queen of
Scots, who sate in her narrow prison-room in your Majesty's Palace of Holyrood, embroidering head-dresses for her vain rival Queen Elizabeth,
with a weak attempt at propitiation:--
What the real history was, of Sophia Dorothea,--Queen of George I., mother of George II., and grandmother of Frederick the
Great,--who pined away the years of an English reign, in a Hanoverian dungeon; parted from her children; having seen the man for whom she was slandered, die
like Rizzio, poniarded and buried under the floor of her dressing-room: and who yet retained strength and courage for that noble reply, when urged to
supplicate for a reconciliation:--"No
Page 50
How far Caroline of Brunswick was pre-judged and
fore-doomed, when she came to this country, to find the Countess of Jersey already appointed her lady-in-waiting, and to be welcomed--not
as a bride, but as a scrip-share, by that indebted Prince, who had pledged his royal word he was not already married to Mrs. Fitzherbert:--
What the truth was, in short,--respecting all or any of these dead
Queens,--over whose senseless dust contending historians still do battle,--we can never know.
But this we do know; that the punishment,
here, of those sins which have no distinction in Divine law, was meted very differently to them and their royal helpmates: that history describes the tyrant
husband of Anne Boleyn, as one "who never spared man in his wrath, or woman in his lust:" that the great-grandson of
scaffold--sentenced Mary--the son of scaffold-sentenced Charles,--popularly known by the name of "the merry monarch,"--had so
many natural children by various mothers, that they formed quite a group in the peerage; occupying
the Dukedoms of Monmouth--Southampton--Grafton--North-
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This also we know,--that the son of that mournful
queen,--George II., lived as his father had lived--very
cheerfully; and two anecdotes are related of his court, worthy to be
remembered. One, that Mr. Howard, husband of one of the King's mistresses (afterwards Countess of Suffolk), went to St. James's Palace, publicly to
demand his wife; and, being thrust out, sent a letter to her by the Archbishop of Canterbury; who conveyed the summons to the QUEEN, who delivered the letter
to her rival! The other anecdote--equally curious--that when his son, the Prince of Wales died, the King (who had been on bad terms with him,
and had never visited him in his last illness) was playing cards as usual in Lady Yarmouth's apartments. A page arrived to tell him his son was no more. He
rose without emotion, crossed to Lady Yarmouth's card-table, and leaning over her chair, said quietly, "Fritz is dead." And this was a King
whose Queen "condoned" everything.
On the details of the history of George IV.'s
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"There's such divinity doth hedge a king," that it is
rarely their vices find opposition, even in the church. Charlemagne
divorced and married nine wives. When Henry VIII. needed divorces,
convenient Cranmer and the convocation granted three in
succession,--and when the venerable Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, objected to the King's views, he paid for it with his poor remnant of life. His letters
are extant, a neglected prisoner in the tower; writing vain ap-
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Other (though less brilliant) examples of the dazzled way in which the
vices of great and powerful men are contemplated, might be quoted; of which one is pleasant, on account of the ingenious frivolity of the ground of justification.
When, in Luther's time, the Elector of Hesse wanted to unite himself to the Countess de Saal, he assured Luther that his main reason was--
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"Plena indulgentia!" Fear nothing! Let what will
happen, nothing can hurt you. Bring your mistresses into your house, or leave your home to reside with them. Give your wife's name to one, and
travel about with her under that profaned designation. You, my poor friend, shall lose none of your rights as a husband and father. Your wife may perhaps resent; but
I hope she will rather see the wisdom of "condoning." Your crime is no crime in the eyes of society; and as to Scripture, the marriage bond is only
a civil contract; what have we lawyers to do with Divine Law? Your wife ought to forgive you. You have not been guilty of incest. There is no earthly reason
she should not wait patiently until you are satiated with your present course of life, and gladly welcome you back. There is nothing to prevent her pardoning the
desertion and persecution of years; even if you have libelled her reputation, and endeavoured to get rid of her by divorce; by accusing her of the sin which at heart
you knew she was not guilty of, and you are.
If she were but guilty, and proved so,--then,
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But if she be blameless: and if, contumacious and resentful, she
harshly refuses to "condone"; if, with blind self-will and arrogance, she has the indecent hardihood to resist, and complain. If she wail and
worry for JUSTICE, and talk of the mother who loved--the father who sheltered--the brother who will protect her,--and
insist on being "separated" from you and your mistress,--then, my poor friend, I fear we must do something; but we will do as little as
possible: we will give her (what, in point of fact, you have already given her), "the Woman's Divorce";--leave to remain
ALONE. Alone--married to your name. Never to know the protection of this nominal husband--nor the joys of family--nor
the every-day companionship of a real home. Never to feel or show preference for any friend not of her own sex; though tempted, perhaps, by a feeling nobler
than passion; gratitude for generous
pity, that has lightened the
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"Oh! she ought to have condoned: she ought
to have been quiet: her friends ought to have hushed it all up."--Perhaps. But there is one other contingency: there is the contingency that
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Either let men renounce the privilege of divorce, and the assertion that
marriage is a dissoluble contract,--or allow the weaker party that refuge from intolerable wrong, which they claim as a matter of necessity for themselves. The
Ecclesiastical law, which denies the dissolubility of marriages, is intelligible, (though not so intelligible how, that being the case, ecclesiastics re-marry
persons divorced by parliament). And the Scotch law, which reverses the ecclesiastical law, and makes marriage dissoluble for both sexes and all classes, is
intelligible. But the Lord Chancellor's Bill, which denies to the poor what it gives to the rich--and grants to the husband what it refuses to the
wife--is not intelligible of any principle of justice.
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In denying women the equal claim, which even the Ecclesiastical Courts admit, as far as they admit any divorce, Lord Cranworth asserts himself to be
wiser than Lord Eldon,--wiser than Lord Thurlow,--and wiser (which is very possible) than Lord Rosslyn; for those three deceased Chancellors, on one and
the same occasion, agreed that the principle on which such claim ought to be admitted was simply this: where there was an impossibility of
reconciliation. It is true that the particular case on which that debate took place, was a case of incest. It was the first instance of a divorce bill passed
in England on the petition of the wife; in the year 1801; in the case of Mr Addison, who had lived with the sister of his wife. But the general argument was not
limited to that one crime by Lord Thurlow; and if it had been, what new confusion is to arise, if the bill now pending, for Marriage with a Deceased Wife's
Sister, should become law? Is Lord Cranworth's exception no longer to deserve that distinction? Or is it to remain incest if combined with adultery; and cease
to be incest when combined with marriage? What is to be the rule?
Lord Thurlow did not attempt to classify, (as Lord Cranworth has done,)
what should be held
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The speech of Lord Thurlow converted Lord Eldon; the principle was
admitted by all; and the Bill of Divorce was granted to the complaining wife.
It is impossible previously to define a limit for unendurable wrong, though it be possible to judge a case when heard. By the Scotch law, desertion
is held to be a sufficient cause; by several of the countries which follow the old Roman law, causes of personal disgust or dislike; this may be erring on the
contrary side, and giving too great facility for divorce; but on
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So long as a husband is not guilty of incest,--a wife, (according to Lords Cranworth and Campbell), has nothing to complain of which she might not
"condone." Yet God knows it seems difficult to imagine what shade of torment, insult, or injury, could be added to what has been endured in
my own case. I have learned the law respecting women, piece-meal, by suffering from every one of its defects of protection. I married very young, and my
marriage was an unhappy one. My family interfered earnestly and frequently in my behalf: and as for me, I forgave and
resented--resented and forgave--till at length I left my husband's for my sister's house. He wrote then, adjuring me to pardon him; beseeching
me, by all that was holy, "not to crush him," but "to trust to him," to return! He said he "knelt to me for
pardon"! He wrote to my family in the extremest and most exaggerated terms of submission. He said he was glad
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At that time the law was, (and I thank God I believe I was greatly
instrumental in changing that law), that a man might take children from the mother at any age, and without any fault or offence on her part. There had been an
instance in which the husband seized and carried away a suckling infant, as his wife sate nursing it in her own mother's house. Another, in which the husband
being himself in prison for debt, gave his wife's legitimate child to the woman he cohabited with. A third (in which the parties
Page 64
It was not till six weeks after the stealing of my children,--after a long, angry correspondence--and after having attempted to condition
that "if my family would retract all that had been said
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Lord Melbourne never for a moment supposed Mr Norton was really jealous of him; but scornfully wrote to me thus,--of my husband,--"
You ought to know him better than I do, and must do so. But you seem to me to be hardly aware what a GNOME he is. In
my opinion he has somehow or other made this whole matter subservient to his pecuniary interest."
I do not know what pecuniary advantage consenting to bring the lost
trial obtained for Mr Norton: though if he had won it, certainly the "damages" would have been excessive; Lord Melbourne being represented by Mr
Norton's counsel, as a profligate old grandee, who had come into this happy home, to seduce the youthful and beloved mother of Mr Norton's three infant
children. I do not know, I say, what base bargain may have been made about it, as Lord Melbourne conjectured there was; but this I believe, that but for the scheme
to oust Lord Melbourne as a Minister, and the feasibility of an action for "damages," this quarrel with my husband might have been arranged--as
other disputes had been, equally bitter.
At the trial, it was proved that the witnesses for the "injured
husband" had received money,
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Mr David Leahy thus described the feeling of the time:--"All the world--whatever their politics may be, or whatever their
opinions about the discretion of the behaviour of all or either of the three principal parties--must acknowledge that the three principal witnesses were
perjured and suborned. I have spoken with almost every person present, and there exists a perfect unanimity upon this point."
After the trial was over, Mr Norton notified to me that my family might
support me, or that I might write for my bread; and that my children were by law at his sole disposal.
And here, again, MONEY was his avowed motive; for he first affirmed that the residence of these infants with me might make him
liable for the debts of my household; and then, that
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His own counsel, Sir John Bayley, gave this account in a published letter last year:--"I found Mrs Norton anxious only on one
point, and nearly broken-hearted about it; namely, the restoration of her children. She treated her pecuniary affairs as a matter of perfect indifference, and
left me to arrange them with Mr Norton as I thought fit. I found her husband, on the contrary, anxious ONLY about the pecuniary
arrangement, and so obviously making the love of the mother for her offspring a means of barter and bargain, that I wrote to him I could be 'no party to any
arrangement which made Money the price of Mrs Norton's fair and honourable access to her children.' I found the taking away of those
children had been the real ground of quarrel, and that not only Mr Norton threw the blame of the subsequent trial on his advisors, and declared that the trial was
brought 'against his judgment,' but that one of his angriest grounds of complaint against his wife was, that she had said she 'never would return
to him;'... I found, under Mr
Norton's own handwriting,
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One of my children was afterwards killed, for want of the commonest care a mother would have given to her household. Mr Norton allowed this child to lie ill a
week before he sent to tell me he was dying; and, when I arrived, I found the poor little creature already in his coffin.
When it was not a case of death, I was not allowed to hear at all. Once, when they were ill, I wrote to ask news of them; and my own letter was refolded and sent
back to me. That husband, whose petition for pardon had touched me so easily, never pitied me. What I suffered respecting those children, God knows,
and He only: what I endured, and yet lived past,--of pain, exasperation, helplessness, and despair, under the evil law which suffered any man, for
vengeance or for interest, to take baby children from the mother, I shall not even try to explain.
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After the action against Lord Melbourne (in which, according to the preposterous English code, I could have no personal defence, nor any means of
showing how I had been treated as a wife): I consulted counsel whether I could not now divorce my husband: whether a divorce "by
reason of cruelty" might not be pleaded for me; and I laid before my lawyers the many instances of violence, injustice, and ill-usage, of which the
trial was but the crowning example. I was then told that no divorce I could obtain would break my marriage; that I could not plead cruelty which I
had forgiven; that by returning to Mr. Norton I had "
condoned" all I complained of. I was an ENGLISH WIFE, and for me there was no possibility of redress. The answer was
always the same. The LAW "Have I no remedy?"--"No remedy in LAW. The
LAW can do nothing for you: your case is one of singular, of incredible hardship; but there is no possible way in which the
LAW could assist you." I tried the Edinburgh lawyers. I in-
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When the woman died, to whom my children had been sent, Mr Norton proposed to me to "forgive" the public trial, and return to him (showing how much
he had believed its accusations.) I received from him a most extraordinary note, saying that he considered our differences "
capable of adjustment," and hoped I would meet him alone, in an empty house, No. 1,
Berkeley-street, where he would wait for me. I received this communication with doubt and distrust. The measures adopted towards me, in the effort to get rid
of me, had been so strange, that I was afraid to meet my husband "alone, in an empty house." But I agreed, on his petition, to come to his
own house. He then besought me once more "to forget the past" and return home. He laid the blame of all that had happened, on his friends and advisers;
said the trial was against his will and judgment, and that he longed "to take me to his heart again." He sent notes almost daily to my house. Those
letters began,"My Carry," "My dear Carry,"
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This planned reconciliation did not take place. Mr Norton's sister informed him that I did not intend "honestly" to return to him. That is that
I did not intend to remain in my home. That I would go back for a triumph; for my reputation and my children; but not to stay. Renewed bitter disputes
took place, and my children were delivered over to his sister.
It cost Mr Norton nothing, to revert to the hypocritical pretence he had adopted in the action of damages. He, who had just written those coaxing letters signed
Greenacre,--who had just begged his wife to "meet him in an empty house," and try to arrange so as to outwit those who had been his
"advisers,"--leaped nimbly up again to the pedestal from which he had descended, and resumed the attitude of an "injured husband."
Actually, the next step after the GREENACRE letters, was to advertise me in
the English newspapers; Mr Norton being, I
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When I saw this wonderful insult gazetted by the husband who had just been wooing my return:--"Whereas on 30th March, 1830, my
wife, Caroline Elizabeth Sarah, left me, her family, and home, and hath from thenceforth continued to live separate and apart from me," &c.,--I
again inquired if I had "no remedy?" None. Only my brother's solicitors were directed to publish a counter advertisement, declaring the whole of
what Mr Norton had stated was false.
Afterwards, Sir John Bayley (Mr Norton's own counsel) submitted his letters to Lord Wynford (who had been Mr Norton's guardian). Lord Wynford
expressed himself in the strongest and most contemptuous terms with respect to his former ward; and finally--for the express purpose of being shown to Mr
Norton--he wrote the following note (the original of which is in my possession)--
"My Dear Bayley,
"I have been thinking of the correspondence you read to me this morning. I am convinced that George Norton can have no
defence
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"Faithfully yours,
"WYNFORD."
Mr Norton had given his pledged word in writing, to his counsel and
referee, to abide by any decision he might come to. He broke his word, refused to abide by his written pledge, and actually had the effrontery to complain of his
letters "having been shewn"! To which Sir John Bayley bluntly replied, that if he was doing what was right and honest by me, "it
was astonishing he should so dread its being known."
At length, after I had remained for two years without a farthing of
support from my husband; dependent on my family; one of my creditors brought an action against Mr Norton; who once more undertook--(being the
aggressor)--to pretend to be the aggrieved. Once more I, also, struggled to prove, under the blessed English law, what were the real facts of the case. My
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Lord Abinger refused the evidence which Lord Wynford had warned Lord Grantley would be fatal: the evidence of which Lord Wynford had said, that
if it should ever come out, it would be attended "with loss of character" for Mr Norton. It was suppressed: and because
it was suppressed the case was decided for Mr Norton instead of against him, as Lord Wynford had warned him must happen.
After this, Mr Norton proposed once more to have "referees."
He named Sir F. Thesiger, whose opinion I give in his own words:--"The accommodation proposed by Norton is one in which you are to
give way upon every subject, and he is not to recede upon one; and it seems to me to be ridiculous to talk of conciliation upon such a footing. ........ It is
impossible not to be struck with the vacillating and vexatious course which Norton has pursued; exciting hopes only to disappoint them, and making promises
apparently for the opportunity of breaking them."
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Why should there be no tribunal of control over these "vacillating" husbands, who refuse to abide by written pledges, and make promises "for the
opportunity of breaking them"? Why is the absurd fiction of "non-existence", to be kept up in law, when in fact,
two alienated parties exist, with adverse interests, struggling and antagonistic?
One of the episodes of my "non-existence" in law, at this time, consisted in my having to endure a libel of immoderate length and bitterness,
in the "British and Foreign Quarterly Review." I had made little struggle about other matters. I had
yielded to Lord Melbourne's earnest request that, while he was
minister, I would not publish my own account of the case between him and my husband. But resolutely, passionately, and till the final hour of success, I struggled
against the law which enabled another woman to take my children. In the course of that struggle, I wrote two
pamphlets: one, "On the Separation of Mother and Child;" the other, "A Plain Letter to the Chancellor, by Pierce Stevenson,
Esq." The review in question attributed to me a paper I did not write, and never saw; "On the Grievances of Woman;" and boldly setting
my name, in the index, as
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"Oh! but,"--say those who have not studied and suffered under the law, as I have,--"in return for all
this, the husband is responsible for his wife's debts: that we all know!" Do you? I will shew that not only he is not
responsible for his wife's debts to others--but he is not
responsible for his own covenanted debts to her. He is, as I
have said, legally responsible for nothing, but that she shall
not come upon the parish.
In 1848, my husband required ready money
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In order to raise this money on the trust-funds of our marriage
settlements, my signature was necessary. To obtain my signature, Mr. Norton drew up a contract. He dictated the terms of the contract himself; vehemently urged its
completion; and reproached my solicitor
for the delay, distrust, and reluctance, which I shewed before I signed it. I
did eventually sign it; and so did Mr. Norton; and so, also,
as I have already stated, did the Hon. Edmund Phipps (married to the widow of the Hon. Charles Norton, my husband's younger brother). The effect of my
signature was, that Mr. Norton immediately raised the loan from our trust-fund, to employ on his estate. The effect of his signature, and the
signatures of the Marquis of Normanby's brother, and the solicitor who drew it up, was absolutely nil.
In 1851, my mother died. She left me (through my brother, to guard it from my husband) a small annuity, as an addition to my income. Mr. Norton first endeavoured
to claim her legacy, and then balanced the first payment under her will, by arbitrarily stopping my allowance. I insisted that the allowance was secured,
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I confess I thought the fear of exposure would prevent his disputing the
contract; I thought,--this time at least, the memorable words of Lord Wynford,--"George Norton can have no defence to the actions,
and his defending them will be attended with loss of character," must operate as a check upon so unfair, so monstrous an act, as availing himself of the
legal fiction of my "non-existence," to escape from a written bond, which any one not his wife might have prosecuted upon.
I was mistaken. Not only Mr Norton held by the quibble that man and wife could not contract with each other; not only he did this,--but he had the base and
cruel hypocrisy to once more drag forward Lord Melbourne's name, in order to make that seem my shame and my disgrace, which was in
fact his shame and his disgrace; and to pretend wrong, where he knew he had been the wronger. Once more, for the sake of money,--as in
the action for "damages,"--he endeavoured to cover me with opprobrium! Creeping back to his old place; scrambling up on the moss-
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He met me in person in the law court; he instructed his lawyer, in my
very presence, what questions to ask me that could insult me most:
and when that gentleman afterwards apologised for the tone of those questions, he asserted that Mr Norton's instructions went beyond what he had even ventured
to ask!
He affected (O gross affectation!) to be hurt, as "an injured
husband," at my accepting any assistance in money from Lord
Melbourne's sister or family after his decease; and affirmed that he had made conditions with me about it. When I contradicted this on
oath,--disproved it, and commented on the shameful pretence by which, in a dispute about my mother's will, he revived discussions about Lord
Melbourne,--seeing that he himself retained one thousand a-year from Lord Melbourne's patronage,--(steadily preserving
THAT memory of past favors, even through all the reviling of his dead patron),--
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I will not pause over that question. I will not pause over the still
debateable point, whether that signed paper, even if not a contract with me, may not be held good as a contract with my creditors;--a
written and stamped agreement with them, made by a magistrate and a barrister; the sole condition annexed being, that while it is paid they shall not apply to him.
Nor will I enlarge further on the abuse and insult which was showered on me that day in court, only for
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I am not now discussing this, with any reference to him individually.
Gone,--past--buried in unutterable scorn,--are the days in which I appealed, either to him, or from him. I
complain,--not of the existent husband, but of the existent law: and of that "nation of gallant gentlemen," who scarcely care, and scarcely
know, what is the existing law on such subjects.
After the creditor's case was over, Mr Norton enquired, (the old
enquiry!)--whether I would "submit to referees" the point, whether he ought "in honour" to abide by his signature; and whether I
would name a referee on my part. I answered in the affirmative: and I named as my referee, one who may fairly claim to inspire as much confidence, respect, and
universal esteem, from men of all ranks, ages, or parties, as I think it ever was the lot of any person to enjoy:--I named the Marquis of Lansdowne. Mr
Norton proposed his own brother, Lord Grantley; which nomination was declined, as an impossible choice--impossible, recollecting the
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Now I will pray your Majesty's attention to the effect of this
non-existence in law, on the several parties involved in the
discussion of this contract.
And first I will take Mr Norton's position.
From the date of my mother's death, he has withheld entirely, and with perfect impunity, my income as his wife. I do not receive,
and have not received for the past three years, a single farthing from him. He retains, and always has retained, property that was left in my
home-gifts made to me by my own family on my marriage, and to my mother by your Majesty's aunt, H.R.H. the Duchess of
York;--articles bought from my literary earnings,--books which belonged to Lord Melbourne; and,
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He receives from my trustees the interest of the portion bequeathed me by my father, who died in the public service, holding an official appointment at the Cape
of Good Hope, leaving a family of very young
orphans, slenderly provided for. If my father lived, it is to be presumed
there is no man he would see with greater abhorrence than Mr Norton
(considering what the fate of his daughter has been), yet such portion as he was able to leave me, goes from the "non-existent"
wife, to the existent husband, in the general trust-fund of our marriage.
I have also (as Mr Norton impressed on me, by subpoenaing my
publishers) the power of earning, by literature,--which fund (though it be the grant of Heaven, and not the legacy of earth) is no more legally mine than my
family property.
Now again, I say, is or is not this a ridiculous law (if laws be made to
conduct to justice)? I cannot divorce my husband, either for adultery, desertion, or cruelty; I must remain married to his name;
he has, in right of that fact (of my
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That is the position of the husband.
The next startling point, is the position of the trades-people
under this "non-existent" rule; and if the opinion of persons so humble were likely to reach your Majesty, they could tell you what
they think of the law which leaves them utterly without any remedy.
In the creditor's action tried on Mr Norton's
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"Oh! but you should not have other employment: you
should write and earn money, and pay these people; and then economize, and retrench, so as to give up the #500 a year to Mr Norton."
Why?
Why, because I am married to a name,--am I to strive and labour, to enable the owner of that name to commit a direct fraud? Why am I to pay Mr
Norton's debts, to renounce all claim on him, and admit that my legal "non-existence" made our signing that contract a mere farce? simply
because he has grossly and cruelly insulted and slandered me, in an open court of justice, on grounds he knew were false; and with a defence absolutely
fictitious?
I would not if I could! If all England were to agree to raise a shilling subscription,--or if some one were to do what Mr Kennedy of the
Woods and Forests says has been done for him,--namely, come forward and say, "I think this business so unjust, that I will settle for life
the income you lose; now pay your people,"--I would not admit that the matter should end so!
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The tradesman is cheated;--not by me, for I am cheated in my turn; nor (except indirectly) by Mr Norton, for it is his wife whom he defrauds. It
is the LAW that cheats the tradesman. The law,--that should do him justice! He loses justice; he loses the sum due as the
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I will take, now, your Majesty's position; for,--be it said with all respect and loyalty,--this was no common "private quarrel," of
which scarce an echo can reach the throne: but a matter which it would be wanting in reverence to believe, can have been indifferent to you. The
first Prime Minister of your Majesty's reign is scurrilously attacked and slandered in the English newspapers, by an English magistrate. In a long letter
published by that magistrate (expressly, as he informs his readers, in his "public capacity"), he accuses the dead minister, who cannot defend himself,
not only of the seduction of his wife, but of bribery, malversation, corruption, and baseness of every kind.
The magistrate who makes these accusations, has been stigmatised by each successive person, called (even by himself) to interfere in our quarrel, as entirely
regardless of TRUTH. The clergyman of Westminster Chapel, immediately
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I think it is in the Duc de St. Simon's Memoirs, that a passage
occurs, which her Majesty, the Queen of Holland, first pointed out to me; where, speaking of the death of one dear to the throne, the author says that the king
lamented,--"mais un peu a la Royale,"--implying (as many historical and even
Scriptural phrases imply), that the friends of kings and princes are sooner forgotten, and less grieved for, than friends
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When, after his death, rumours and aspersions respecting the
interference of Prince Albert with public affairs, found their way from
conversational gossip into print, and were made a subject of discussion by various organs of the press, Lord Aberdeen in the House of Lords, and Lord John Russell in
the Commons, read aloud, t