900. Mary Russell Mitford to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 5, 214–215.
Three Mile Cross,
Jan. 13, 1842.
My beloved friend,
Mr. James, who might do better, has made a complete mistake (a wonder) about hanging in chains. [1] At Mortimer Common, a beautiful tract of wild country, now for the most part planted, near us, there is an inclosure of one hundred or two hundred acres, chiefly covered with heath and gorse, and called “The Gallows Piece;” because a murderer had been hanged in chains there, on a bit of broken ground, the scene of his crime. I remember the relics of the gibbet, and finding a hare just under it, which poor May, after killing, brought to me in her mouth full half a mile, and laid down at my feet. We had an old keeper with us who took the opportunity of telling me the story of the murder and of the execution, at which he had been present (having known both the murderer and his victim), and which he described most graphically. The man was hanged with a rope till he was dead, cut down at the expiration of an hour, and then, instead of being placed in a shell, the body was fastened by irons to the gibbet; indeed, some of the rusty “gibbet arms” were still swinging and clanking overhead. My father confirmed this to-night, remembering the circumstance well, and having seen other criminals suspended in the same manner, and often shuddered at the peculiar creaking of the chains. This critique is rather too elaborate for the occasion; but an author like Mr. James ought to take care to be right. Scott did always. It is a part of truth, which in art as in everything, is a grace above all graces.
I hope that one day or other you will know Mrs. Niven. She is a very extraordinary person, the client in a very remarkable cause (she was a Miss Vardill) which, at the end of twenty-one years, she has just won; or rather it was decided in the House of Lords, after two or three adjournments, at the end of last session. [2] The story is too long to tell tonight; but shortly, the question was, whether a Scotch marriage could pass an English estate? And such a marriage! So extreme a case! I must tell it. Her uncle—an old debauchee, living on his fine old place in the scenery which Scott copied in Ellangowan [3] —finding that an old relation, a lady of title, was coming to his house to sleep on a journey, ejaculated: “Eh! my leddy’s coming and we maun hae a gude wife to receive her! Off wi’ ye, loons, to Meg, and Jean, and Katie, and Beenie, and Bakie, and Beckie, and say that she that wins first to the house shall take possession and hae me into the bargain.” Off set his myrmidons to all quarters to summon the usual seraglio, and the first that arrived was introduced to the “leddy,” to her great horror; and as she happened to have a bare-legged boy of some twelve years old, this coarse frolic passed to that urchin eight thousand a year of Scottish estates, and cost more suits than I can well reckon; for it was litigated in every stage, until it arrived at the House of Peers, and argued there in three different sessions (chiefly on account of the obstinacy of Lord Brougham), in order to secure the English property to the real descendant, no drop of the true blood being in the veins of the boy, who came in so curious a way into the Scottish property; at least the probability is exceedingly against it, the mother being as bad as bad could be.
Heaven bless you! The books shall come back in a day or two, with some flowers.
Ever most faithfully yours,
M.R. Mitford.
Text: L’Estrange (2), III, 133–135.
1. In his latest book, The King’s Highway (1840).
2. The case hinged on the legitimacy of Mrs. Niven’s cousin, John Birtwhistle, the plaintiff, who sued to recover English property to the value of some £1,200 a year. It was claimed that his parents had married in secret in 1795, prior to his birth in 1799, the secrecy being necessitated by his deceased uncle’s wife’s disapproval of the match and the fear that, if the marriage were known, she would disinherit John’s father, Alexander Birtwhistle. After her death, a public marriage was performed in 1805. Under Scottish law, this legitimatized him and gave him a clear title to his father’s Scottish estate, regardless of whether there had been an earlier ceremony. Under English law, however, this was not so, and Mrs. Vardill, Alexander Birtwhistle’s sister and Mrs. Niven’s mother, inherited the English property. The case was brought in 1825, when it was found that the private marriage “was unsupported by any credible evidence.” The decision was appealed, and the case progressed by slow degrees to the House of Lords, where, in August 1840, the verdict in Mrs. Vardill’s favour was upheld (see The Times, 4 April 1825 and 12 August 1840). She had died by this time, but her will had stipulated that the estate should accumulate until Mrs. Niven was 52.
3. In chapter 4 of Guy Mannering (1815).
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