A Fugitive Englishman

by Roy Lewis

  Contents

  Prologue

  Part 1

  1, 2, 3

  Part 2

  1, 2, 3, 4

  Part 3

  1, 2, 3

  Part 4

  1, 2, 3, 4

  Part 5

  1, 2, 3, 4

  By the same author

  Afterword

  PROLOGUE

  You know, Joe, the first thing I noticed about President Lincoln when I met him at the White House was the piercing intelligence in his dark, deep-set eyes.

  After your mother and I retired last night, I was talking to her about him, and we fell to reminiscing about life in New York in the 1860s. She was already living in the city when I arrived there in 1861, but I guess you must have been away at that time, learning seamanship on your first voyage to Australia, while your father cavorted around pretending to teach cavalry techniques to New York volunteers in preparation for Civil War battles to come. He was always a boastful, preening sort of charlatan.

  What? Yes, of course, back to Lincoln. . . .

  I was invited to the White House within weeks of my arrival in the United States. My reputation had gone before me and the invitation to meet the president was not unexpected. Certainly it was not something to be ignored: after all, I needed to carve out a new legal and political career for myself.

  As he advanced along the line at the soirée in Washington that evening, greeting his guests, I was aware of his tall, ungainly shamble of a walk; my excited, newly acquired wife Marianne nudged me nervously at the sight of plump Mrs Lincoln, all frills and unsuitable furbelows, affecting a haughty, condescending air but betrayed by the obvious pleasure she took in presiding over such a distinguished gathering – the cream of Washington society, judges, senators, foreign ambassadors – and Mr and Mrs Edwin James.

  It was probably the ultimate height I achieved in my marriage, attending the president’s levée that evening. Marianne was delighted and excited and proud. For me also, it was a most pleasurable experience. President Lincoln advanced towards me, Secretary of War Stanton just behind him, and when I was introduced the president nodded, moved on and then paused. He hesitated, turned back, and held me with that keen glance of his. Then, to my surprise, he spoke directly to me, in words that I immediately recognized.

  ‘Tell the prosecutor that the verdicts of English juries are founded upon eternal and immutable principles of justice! Tell him that no threat of armament or invasion can awe you! Tell him that though six hundred bayonets glittered before you, though the roar of French cannon thundered in your ears, you will return a verdict that your own breasts and consciences will sanctify and approve, careless whether it pleases or displeases a foreign despot or secures or shakes and destroys forever the throne which a tyrant has built upon the ruins of the liberty of a once free and mighty people!’

  I stared open-mouthed at the president, almost unable to speak. At last, awestruck, I managed to mutter, ‘My speech in defence of Dr Simon Bernard, when he was accused of involvement in the assassination attempt against Napoleon III. . . . I am, sir, astounded.’

  ‘I read that published speech with interest,’ President Lincoln said with the hint of a smile on his gaunt, lined features. ‘And parts of it I committed to memory.’

  ‘I am flattered, Mr President. Overwhelmed.’

  Amusement glinted in his deep-set eyes. ‘I am aware it was a rabble-rousing speech, Mr James. Nothing to do with the law in the case, of course. But a speech that struck a chord with the jury. A speech that over here the Confederacy might have approved of. But here you are as my guest . . . so you are for the Union, it seems!’

  ‘Certainly, Mr President,’ I affirmed stoutly as Marianne pressed my arm in excitement. ‘The Union and the Constitution.’

  A certain grim smile touched the corners of his mouth and his careworn features relaxed a little. He nodded, thoughtfully. ‘We appreciate your support, and welcome you to America. I am sure a lawyer of your calibre will do well here. We must talk again, on some other more intimate occasion.’

  But we never did. Secretary of War Stanton saw to that, when he involved me in the intricacies of the intrigues that swirled around Washington and New York politics. Marianne was due to be disappointed, of course, but within a matter of months she and I would have our own personal problems leading to her taking drastic action against me and against my fledgling legal career in New York.

  What? You’re getting confused? But you are right, I am getting ahead of myself again, the perils of age. . . .

  So, I suppose I need to explain how it was that I ended up in America, a fugitive Englishman, at the very height of my professional and political career at the English Bar and the House of Commons. I had enjoyed a rapid, dazzling rise and my success resounded throughout England – and even in the States. But the devastating crash when I fell . . . that was even greater. . . .

  You are wide-eyed! Ah, well, this was the way it was, my boy. . . .

  PART 1

  1

  You know, when I look back, I believe I was at the height of my powers that May in 1860. My rise since becoming a barrister at the Inner Temple had been rapid: from the early, heady excitement of the Running Rein case in 1844 when I had made my reputation, to the flood of briefs in sensational cases that drew crowds to the Old Bailey, the prosecution of the poisonous Dr Palmer, my renowned speech in defence of Dr Bernard in the Napoleon III assassination attempt, and all the crim. con cases like Lyle v Herbert when I clashed with Gladstone, the Swinfen inheritance case and the rest of it. . . . Yes, by 1860 I was at the height of my profession, reckoned by Lord Chief Justice Campbell himself to be the best nisi prius lawyer in practice at the Bar. He liked my jokes, too.

  I had learned from my early days that juries liked sly humour. It was in 1836, I recall, in the Norton v Melbourne hearing that I first appreciated the impact an apparently innocent remark by counsel can make upon the courtroom. It was William Follett, leading for the prosecution of the criminal conversation case brought by Lord Norton against Lord Melbourne, then Prime Minister, who showed me how it could be done. I was lucky to get a seat as a spectator in the Queen’s Bench court that day – the sensational nature of the case had drawn all the fashionable crowds to the hearing – and I heard Follett state that Lord Melbourne had taken to visiting Caroline Norton in the afternoons when her husband was at work. Follett went on to state, ‘I do not know whether much importance in the result may be attached to it or not, but the house had two entrances, one leading from Birdcage Walk – the public entrance – and one in the back from a passage leading off Prince’s Court. Lord Melbourne,’ he added after a pause, ‘invariably went in by the passage behind.’

  The court erupted into a roar of laughter – which Follett underlined by an air of presumed innocence of the salacious meaning that could be attached to his words. I noted his performance well, and used such techniques to great effect over the years when I rose rapidly to considerable eminence as a leader at the Bar.

  Yes, in those days I walked among legal and political giants: Cockburn, Ballantine, Hawkins, Campbell, Lord Palmerston . . . indeed, I was a giant. A confirmed Radical in the House of Commons and I was the man the attorneys always sought when they had an important case to win. The first man they sought. Take the case I was involved in that May. I was briefed as the leader in the Queen’s Bench hearing. I had Roundell Palmer and Dick Bethell as my support. Both men later became Lord Chancellors, Palmer as Lord Selborne and Bethell as Lord Halsbury. As for me that day, I had already been told by Prime Minister Palmerston that he was determined to make me a Law Officer of the Crown, as Solicitor General, as soon as possible, whereupon I was to be knighted and would therefore be on the almost automatic pref
erment route to Attorney General and then Lord Chancellor. And on that particular day I had facing me both the present Attorney General and the Solicitor General for the defence.

  I wiped the floor with them.

  The case? Ah, I tell you it had all London buzzing, and New York was alight with expectation also, because it arose from the much-heralded Great International Championship Fight between the English bare-knuckle champion Tom Sayers and the American pugilistic hope John C. Heenan, also known as the Benicia Boy. Heenan had not won that many fights, in fact, but he had come up the hard way as a bully-boy in New York, a shoulder-hitter providing the muscle for politicians at Tammany Hall when they needed to persuade reluctant voters which way to vote, but his challenge to Tom Sayers was the talk of England and America too.

  Heenan came over from the States that April with Dan Bryant as his second. Bryant was a founder of the black-faced minstrel show, you know, but he didn’t black up for this performance! The prizefight took place at Farnborough Common in an open space behind the Ship Inn. Such occasions were still illegal, of course, but thousands turned up nevertheless, to crowd around the roped-off ring. The House of Commons and the Lords emptied. Politicians and judges, the aristocracy, the ‘fancy’ and the swell mob, dukes and duchesses, they all flooded to the area at the back of the Ship Inn. I caught sight of Dickens there, and Thackeray, as well as the Prince of Wales; Alexander Cockburn was with me, along with Ballantine, and my political supporters Sir James Duke and Lt Colonel Dickson of the Tower Hamlets Militia were at my shoulder: I tell you, it was like Derby Day all over again. I regularly lost money on Derby Day and it need hardly be said I also lost money on the fight . . . but then, so did most people because it ended indecisively when the referee called it a draw and fled for his life in the uproar that followed. I believe he did not lose money on the result.

  The fight itself . . . well, the two pugilists had battled for thirty-seven bloody rounds, over two and a half hours. English champion Tom Sayers was shorter and older, and ended up with a broken left arm, while at the conclusion of the battle Heenan was almost blind. But after two hours, the two fighters were still at it until Heenan attempted to strangle Sayers in the ropes at which point the crowd charged forward in their disputatious enthusiasm. The referee cut the ropes to save Sayers’s life and then took to his heels after shouting it was a draw. The two dazed but doughty pugilists continued for another five bloodied rounds but when Sayers finally refused to come up for the mark, Heenan claimed the win amidst a considerable uproar. The trouble was, the referee was nowhere to be found, and controversy started, with both groups of supporters claiming the victory.

  The question was then raised: who was to hold the Championship Belt? The referee did not dare to make an award; he was in hiding, under threats to his life by enraged supporters of both fighters. The Sayers supporters claimed Tom had not been beaten so was still champion. The Benicia Boy argued that it had all been a ‘fix’, that Sayers had not been able to rise from his second’s knee to continue the battle, that the ropes had been cut to avoid a decision and so he was entitled to the belt. Newspapers in the States were frantic in their denunciation; they claimed it was all a conspiracy to cheat their champion, and an international incident was threatened.

  So Heenan finally decided to have recourse to law . . . and who else would he choose in his corner? Naturally, he chose Edwin James, QC, MP. I was to be his champion.

  Heenan’s long since dead now; he succumbed, I believe, at the age of forty-two after ending his career as a bookmaker, but I can still see him in my mind’s eye, seated massively in my chambers at 5 Inner Temple Lane, over six feet tall, a clean upper lip since he had removed his dark-drooping moustache for the fight, shaven-headed, great shoulders hunched and straining in his coat, his handsome face swollen, bruised, battered and yet still imposing even with his half-closed eye. It was our first meeting, but not our last, for our lives became somewhat entwined again later by way of his tavern in New York and his relationship with Adah Menken, the sensational actress who had married him bigamously and who in due course was instrumental in the ending of my own marriage. Ah, yes, Adah. . . . She was the toast of America and England and the whole of Europe . . . and J.C. Heenan was the best-known pugilist in England and America. I remember meeting him again at the offices of The New York Clipper where I was engaged as theatre critic. . . .

  What? Yes, I digress again. Rambling, like all old men, hey? I am sorry. Pass the brandy and water. . . .

  Yes, Heenan v Sayers, at the Court of Queen’s Bench. You know, my boy, it tells you much about the intense interest surrounding the hearing when I point to the fact that the old ogre Lord Chief Justice Campbell himself took the case, flanked by Justices Wightman and Erle. When I took my seat in the crammed courtroom as counsel for Heenan, I caught sight of that old hypocrite Gladstone seated beside the judges, along with my patron, Viscount Palmerston. Lord Alfred Tennyson was up there, wild-haired and heavily whiskered; so was the political economist John Stuart Mill, various dukes and ladies of eminence including the Duchess of Sutherland. . . . It was a glittering, noisy, chattering array surrounding the three judges, I tell you! The Bench was so crowded the judges had difficulty wielding their pens to take notes. And the whole sporting world seemed to be present in court to hear my demand: that the court should make the ruling that John Heenan deserved the Championship Belt that was presently been held back by the referee!

  I had been briefed to put up a fight in favour of the Benicia Boy, and I did just that, in my usual manner. A stirring speech, larded with jokes of the kind Follett had been noted for and Campbell enjoyed. But my rival the Attorney General didn’t like my quips and sat there writhing as I announced I was representing Heenan as the real winner of the notable battle.

  My client, I informed the court, was a ‘person of the highest standing in his country: six feet two or thereabouts, I am reliably informed’ but the Attorney General then rose to my bait beautifully when I referred to Tom Sayers as the ‘late champion’. It was a deliberate need-ling on my part, of course; Atherton jumped to his feet and protested that since the outcome of the battle had been disputed, Sayers should not be referred to as the late champion, he was still champion, and it was at that point that the whole court erupted, as I guessed it would.

  In the uproar, various insults were thrown by the respective partisans and the Benicia Boy himself was quickly up on his feet, shaking his huge, threatening fist at the Attorney General. He then lunged at that individual, being held back only by his coat-tails by black-face minstrel Dan Bryant. The Attorney General had the sense to cower back behind his colleague the Solicitor General at the perceived threat. As the courtroom resounded with the bellowing of the contending supporters, a regular scrimmage ensued. I was waving my arms about, of course, shouting as I endeavoured to make myself heard above the uproar. I was told later my normally ruddy countenance was somewhat empurpled by the effort. But have no doubt that I was enjoying myself.

  I heard Lord Chief Justice Campbell roaring that he had ‘never before witnessed such a scandalous scene in a court of justice’ and when Heenan was finally dragged back into his seat by Dan Bryant, Campbell fined him £100. It was paid immediately: I had advised Heenan to bring such a sum with him in his breeches against the possibility of such an event. And when things calmed down somewhat I finally proceeded to argue that the court should look at the articles of agreement signed by the two pugilists before the fight. I produced as precedents those agreements that had applied in the notable battles between the Tipton Slasher and the Bendigo Boy, Paddy O’Bralligan and the Hampshire Squeezer and Sambo against the Duke of York. Names to conjure with, hey?

  It was a warm Spring day outside, the benches were packed, the graffiti-covered walls streaming with condensation, and the Attorney General was on his feet making his counter-argument when the courtroom windows were opened to prevent the excessive heat overcoming the ladies with their ineffective fans and nosegays. Heenan began to
complain that with his shaven head he was feeling the draught. Further commotion then took place when an Inner Temple barrister called Fred Smith handed his bar wig to Heenan – who with a broad smile put it on what the New York Times a few days later described as his ‘knowledge box’.

  The whole hearing descended further into farce when Justice Wightman, himself feeling the heat, left the bench, to be replaced by Justice Crompton – who voted for Heenan to be awarded the championship belt, even though the judge had heard none of the evidence presented – and then that idiot barrister Warner Sleigh jumped to his feet, saying he represented the Saturday Review, and wished to be heard.

  ‘I cannot hear you! You have no locus standi here,’ Lord Chief Justice Campbell snarled, now himself thoroughly overheated and out of sorts.

  ‘I stand on my rights!’ Sleigh bawled.

  ‘Then stand on them outside,’ Campbell rejoined. ‘Officer, remove him!’

  Sleigh was hauled outside, shouting and swearing ineffectively; his career as a barrister was always turbulent, as I recall: he never seemed to be out of trouble. He was married three times, divorced twice and bankrupted along the way. And always in hot water with the judges. . . . However, the point is, I won the case for Heenan that day, my fame increased even further, I was named in headlines in the New York papers, and my reputation among the ‘fancy’ never stood higher. As for the championship symbol, well, in the event Sayers and Heenan were finally each given a belt. The two became friends, and made several appearances on the stage together, reliving their contest in sparring bouts in the music halls in London and Paris, before Heenan returned to America and acclaim from the New York mob.

  As for Fred Smith, the now wigless barrister, a subsequent meeting of Heenan supporters in the Blue Boar Tavern in the Haymarket resolved upon a vote of thanks to the Inner Temple man for lending his wig to their hero. They also voted that a copy of their resolution should be sent to Smith’s widowed mother in Lincolnshire. I’m sure she appreciated the gesture.