CHAPTER XI.
THE CHANCERY SUIT.
Mr. Westbrook’s Petition to the Court of Chancery—Date of Hearing—The Edinburgh Reviewer’s Strange Misrepresentation—Lord Eldon’s Decree—Arrangements for Harriett’s Children—Lady Shelley’s strange Mistake touching those Arrangements—Lord Eldon’s Justification—Mrs. Shelley’s Regard for Social Opinion—Shelley’s keen Annoyance at the Chancellor’s Decree—Delusive Egotisms of The Billows of the Beach—Shelley’s Pretexts for going to Italy—His real Reasons for withdrawing from England.
It has been repeatedly declared that the first Mrs. Shelley committed suicide in desperation, consequent on her elder sister’s cruelty in shutting the door of her old home against her, when she called at the house in Chapel Street, in order to see her dying father. That Mr. Westbrook was not dying either in November or December, 1816, appears from the fact that in the following year he appeared in the Court of Chancery, as the petitioner in the suit, that resulted in Lord Eldon’s memorable decree, that Shelley was an unfit person to have the custody and direct the education of his two children by his first wife.
On settling in his new home it was only natural for Shelley to wish to see these two children in its nursery. On the other hand, it was natural for Mr. Westbrook to have a strong opinion, that it would be ill for his daughter’s two children to be given into the hands of a father, who (according to Mr. Westbrook’s not altogether unreasonable view of the case) would educate them to be infidels and Free Lovers. Acting on this opinion, Mr. Westbrook refused to give the children up to Shelley, and followed up the refusal by petitioning the Court of Chancery, to take the children under its protection, and confide them to the care of persons, more fit (in Mr. Westbrook’s opinion) than their father to rear and educate them. Filed in January, 1817, with affidavits and exhibits, this petition came on for hearing in March, 1817, on the 17th day of which month Lord Eldon delivered judgment in favour of the petitioner; the result being that the children were formally placed in the joint-guardianship of their maternal-grandfather Mr. Westbrook, and their maternal-aunt, Miss Eliza Westbrook, and eventually under the personal care and tuition of Dr. Hume, a clergyman of the Church of England.
There is a curious conflict of the subordinate authorities, respecting the particular day on which the decree was delivered. Medwin says the judgment was delivered on the 17th of March, 1817, and this date is given by several subsequent writers; but Mr. Rossetti (so careful and conscientious a writer that he seldom errs in a statement of fact) represents, on the authority of a date given in Lady Shelley’s curiously inaccurate Shelley Memorials, that the day of judgment was on or about the 23rd August, 1817. I can have no doubt that on this rather important point Medwin was right, as the first order, made immediately after the decree, appears in Jacob’s Reports under the date of 17th March, 1817, and on the record under the date of 17th March, 1816 (i.e. 17th March of the legal year, 1816, and 17th March of the historic year, 1817). Medwin being right on this point, Shelley was out of his suspense, touching the event of the suit, on 17th March, and his mind in a better state for working at Laon and Cythna in the summer.
Of this decree the Edinburgh (‘Shelley-and-Mary,’ October, 1882) Reviewer remarks, ‘But, as is well known, the paternal claim of Shelley to his offspring was resisted by their grandfather Westbrook, and rejected by Lord Eldon on petition, on the ground, not of Shelley’s misconduct to his wife, but of the opinions expressed in his writings.’ This statement is precisely contrary to the fact. The claim was rejected, not on account of opinions expressed in Shelley’s writings, but on account of his misconduct to his wife, which on inquiry was found to correspond with rules of action laid down in the anti-matrimonial note to Queen Mab. The misstatement of the Edinburgh has been made in various ways over and over again, and has as often been corrected. Yet again to tell the truth of the matter will have no effect on those of the Shelleyan zealots, who are wont to reply to every correction of any one of their misstatements with a stubborn reiteration of the error. They will only smile, and repeat the misrepresentation more authoritatively. Such stubborn persistence in error has never before been witnessed in literary annals. But for the benefit of persons, who wish to know the truth of Shelley’s story, I repeat yet again that Lord Eldon’s decree kept Shelley’s conduct steadily in view. Conduct, conduct, conduct, is reiterated throughout the decree, till the reader grows weary of the word. And yet the Shelleyan enthusiasts go on stubbornly asserting that the poet’s conduct had nothing to do with the decision.
Fortunately the Chancellor gave his judgment in writing, and fortunately the decree was printed in Jacob’s Reports from a copy, furnished to the editor by Mr. (afterwards Vice-Chancellor) Shadwell, counsel in support of the petition.
Here is the whole judgment, given paragraph by paragraph, with a brief note by the present writer to each paragraph:—
Paragraph No. 1.—‘I have read all the papers left with me, and all the cases cited.’—No word here touching Shelley’s opinions.