Wild Romance: A Victorian Story of a Marriage, a Trial, and a Self-Made Woman by Schama Chloë

Author:Schama, Chloë [Schama, Chloë]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Walker Books
Published: 2010-08-01T04:00:00+00:00

The interior of the House of Lords, photographed around the time Theresa’s case appeared.

On April 6, 1864, in the faux Gothic buildings next to the River Thames, the lords took up the case that had been in and out of the courts for more than three years. At this point it was clear that Theresa was never going to lead a conventional married life no matter what the courts decided. Even after Theresa had been declared Yelverton’s wife by the Dublin court and then the appeals court in Edinburgh, she had not spent a single night with him. But the lords felt that the ambiguity surrounding her position—and marriage law in general—still warranted their attention.

Hoping to establish her status immediately, Theresa submitted a petition asking that Yelverton pay five hundred pounds in order “to defend her interest.” As her husband (according to the Scottish Court of Sessions), he was responsible for her expenses. The lord chancellor was doubtful of the legitimacy of this maneuver, but precedent instructed that Yelverton should pay something toward her legal fees. The lord chancellor and Yelverton’s lawyers settled on £150. Theresa’s momentum would not last. On July 28, 1864, three of the five law lords who had listened to the case ruled against her.

In his decision, Lord Chelmsford complained that the proceedings—in previous trials and in the current one—had strayed from their proper course. Narrative had overtaken reason. “It appears to me,” he said, “that there was a great deal of preliminary matter dwelt upon at considerable length in the course of the argument . . . which is not very material to the question being decided.”46 Both parties had indulged in a dangerous degree of sentiment. Chelmsford also thought that the evidence was mystical and vague: “The enigmatical character of the correspondence, which might be intelligible to the parties themselves, renders it extremely difficult for a third person to be certain that he had put a correct interpretation upon it.”47 This was the basis of his decision; the writings were too circuitous and indirect to establish that there had been a promise of marriage.

The majority of the law lords were more concerned over Emily’s fate than Theresa’s. To allow a man to escape his second marriage without consequence would be “adducing a new peril to our law of marriage,” not to mention the damage it might do to the second wife.48 Only one lord saw it differently: “Mrs. Forbes can have no right to say that it is injustice to her that the law should give Miss Longworth her legal rights.”49 For this dissenting lord, the decision set a dangerous precedent; any man who married a woman in private, then married another, might escape his obligations to the first wife by claiming that the second wife stood to suffer. He could not concur in such reasoning. “I see neither law nor justice in it,” he wrote.50 The Times printed the full decision the next day as well as two editorials.51

Theresa attempted an encore but met with little success.

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