'July 16th—My case tried again. I not a party, and—though really tried by a kind of Star Chamber—not represented, not allowed to cross-examine, not allowed to call witnesses; and under such circumstances the trial could have but one result, which was that the jury, directed to decide if they were in doubt that the Queen's Proctor had not established his case, would take that negative course. The trial lasted from Friday, 16th, to Friday, 23rd, inclusive, and the jury decided, as they could not have helped deciding, and as I should have decided had I been one of them.'
The situation may be thus summed up:
In the first trial the petitioner failed to produce any legal evidence whatever of the guilt of Sir Charles Dilke; in the second the Queen's Proctor failed to prove his innocence. [Footnote: Technically the verdict, by dismissing the Queen's Proctor's intervention, confirmed the original judgment, which dismissed Sir Charles from the case.]
The verdict of the jury at the second trial was not a verdict of Guilty against Sir Charles; it was a declaration that his innocence was not proven, the question put to the Jury by the clerk after their return into Court following the words of the Act of Parliament, and being whether the decree nisi for the dissolution of the marriage of the petitioner and the respondent was obtained contrary to the justice of the case by reason of material facts not being brought to the knowledge of the Court. The Jury's answer followed the same words. [Footnote: See report in Daily News, Saturday, July 24th, 1886.] When we add to that the conditions under which the question was tried, we see that they were such as to make the proof of innocence impossible.
Those about Sir Charles at this time remember how even at that bitter moment he began to look round for any method by which his case might be reheard. He wrote to Sir Henry James that it would be a proper course for himself to invite a trial for perjury; and though Lady Dilke was so ill 'from sick and sleepless nights' that she had been ordered at once to Royat, he waited for three weeks before accompanying her abroad, to give time for action to be taken, and wrote to Sir Richard Webster (then Attorney-General) practically inviting a prosecution.
He did not abandon hope of a rehearing, and worked for many years in the trust that the evidence accumulated by himself and his friends might be so used, nor did he cease his efforts till counsel in consultation finally assured him 'that no means were open to Sir Charles Dilke to retry his case.'
Sir Eyre Crowe, a friend valued for his own as well as for his father's sake (Sir Joseph Crowe, to whom Sir Charles was much attached), wrote at the time of Sir Charles's death: 'How he bore for long years the sorrow and misfortunes of his lot had something heroic about it. I only once talked to him about these things, and was intensely struck by his Roman attitude.' It was the only attitude possible to such a man. Placed by his country's laws in the situation of one officially acquitted by a decision which was interpreted into a charge of guilt; forced then, in defence of his honour, into the position of a defendant who is debarred from means of defence; assured after long effort that no legal means were open to him to attempt again that defence, he solemnly declared his innocence, and was thereafter silent.
'By-and-by it will be remembered that as a fact the issue was never fairly represented and never fairly met,' was the estimate of Sir Francis Jeune, afterwards President of the Divorce Court. And from the first there were many lawyers and thinking men and women who would have endorsed it. From the first also there were those who believed Sir Charles's word. Among such faithful friends, Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, Sir Robert Collins, Mr. Cyril Flower, Mrs. Westlake and Mr. Westlake, Q.C., Mr. Thursfield of the Times, Mr. Chamberlain, Sir Francis and Lady Jeune, Sir Charles's old college friend Judge Steavenson, stand out in memory. He himself says: 'I received after the trial … a vast number of letters from people who wrote to express their belief in me. Some, as, for example, from Dr. Hatch' (the eminent Oxford theologian) 'and his wife, and from Dr. Percival, Head-master of Rugby, [Footnote: Dr. Percival was President of Trinity College, Oxford, till 1887, when he went to Rugby. He became Bishop of Hereford.] and his wife, were from firm friends of Emilia, brought to me by their belief in her; some from friends, some from political foes, of all sorts—all breathing confidence and devotion.'
Mr. Chamberlain wrote: 'I feel bitterly my powerlessness to do or say anything useful at the present time.' In such a case the testimony of intimates is weighty, and Sir John Gorst sent in June, 1913, his recollection of words used by Mr. Chamberlain in the autumn of 1886: 'I assure you that, as a man of honour, I don't believe the charges made against him. If you had been in and out of his house at all times as I have been, you would see they were impossible.'
Then as now there existed a certain body of opinion which would have discriminated between a man's private honour and his public usefulness, holding that the nation which throws aside a great public servant because of charges of personal immorality is confusing issues, and sacrificing the country's welfare to private questions. Whatever is to be said for this view, it was one to which Sir Charles Dilke wished to owe nothing. He did not share it, and those whose adherence he acknowledged were those who believed his word. From different sources, then, Sir Charles had found confidence and support, but they were small stay in that gradually accumulating torrent of misfortune.