by Neil McKenna
Not to put too fine a point on it, the case against the four young men was all at sea. Everything was upside-down and inside-out and back-to-front. The judicial cart was being put before the horse. Instead of being tried for the crimes they had committed, these four young men were on trial for crimes they had yet to commit, for crimes they might have thought about, or talked about, or imagined for a moment in their mind’s eye – or not, as the case may be. No wonder that some were reminded of nothing so much as the strange topsy-turvy trial of the Knave of Hearts for stealing the tarts in Mr Lewis Carroll’s curious and entertaining book, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
A ll the might and main of the great Ship of State had been brought to bear upon the Young Men in Women’s Clothes. Every cannon had been primed and loaded and trained and targeted upon Fanny and Stella, ready to fire a deadly broadside. The Attorney-General himself was to lead the charge, which was a rare and notable occurrence, usually reserved for only the gravest of grave cases, for the most serious of seditioners and for the highest of high treasoners. And even then, it had been many a long year – long beyond the memory of most there that day – since the Attorney-General had stripped down to his long drawers and stepped into the ring for a bare-knuckle, bloody fight, ably seconded by the Solicitor-General brandishing a sponge soaked in vinegar. And it had been centuries, quite literally, since an Attorney-General had personally prosecuted a case of sodomy – two hundred and forty years, almost to the day, in fact, since Sir Robert Heath, Attorney-General to Charles I, had stood up in Westminster Hall to denounce the Earl of Castlehaven for multiple acts of sodomy with his servants.
Defending Fanny and Stella (and Louis Hurt and John Safford Fiske, who might just as well have been numbered among the absentee and absconded defendants for all the notice anyone took of them) was the flower of the British Bar, if that was not too great a stretch of the imagination to describe the half-dozen or so overstuffed, barrel-chested, bewhiskered and bewigged barristers who formed the thin red line bravely holding back the massed and powerful armies of an outraged Britannia.
Any prosecuting counsel worth his salt (and the Attorney-General was generally allowed to be well worth his salt) knew only too well that his opening address to the jury could make or break the case. A good opening speech was half the battle won, it was the first and most deadly salvo, ripping through the defence with devastating accuracy. A clever prosecutor was like a skilled general, carefully choosing his ground, exploiting the topography and marshalling his forces to maximum advantage. Indeed, a clever prosecutor could often outwit his adversary and win his case by the brilliance and vigour of his opening address.
But today, as he stood up to deliver his opening speech, it was clear that the Attorney-General was not his usual self. He was not comfortable, he was not confident and he was not easy. It was plain to all that Sir Robert Collier would rather be anywhere than in the Court of Queen’s Bench in Westminster Hall leading the prosecution in a trial about which he clearly had his doubts. For all the rhetorical flourishes and folderols of his opening address, it was evident that his heart was not really in it. His speech was weak and colourless, the thinnest of thin gruel, insubstantial to the point of incorporeality. It was not so much what Sir Robert said, or even the way he said it, it was simply that he lacked conviction. And, because he lacked conviction, his words fell on stony ground.
It did not take long before the causes of his unease became apparent. ‘This is a prosecution that I open with peculiar reluctance,’ Sir Robert began rather unpromisingly, going on to explain that he had ‘no choice’ in the matter. With much beating about the bush and with a great deal of umming and aahing and ahemming, Sir Robert let it be known that the prosecution was at the request and at the behest of the Home Secretary, Mr Henry Bruce. That worthy gentleman, Sir Robert said, had ‘felt it his bounden duty to undertake the most searching investigation in order to ascertain as far as possible whether an apprehension – a popular apprehension – that a crime held in peculiar detestation in this country had been committed was a well-founded apprehension’.
Sir Robert had bewildered and confused the court almost before he had begun. No one in court was quite sure of his exact meaning. ‘An investigation to ascertain whether an apprehension that a crime had been committed was a well-founded apprehension.’ It did not seem to make any sense. And that was putting it politely. Who, or rather what, was on trial here? Was it the perpetrators of the crime itself, the crime ‘held in peculiar detestation in this country’ (by which, presumably, Sir Robert meant sodomy)? Was it Boulton and Park and Hurt and Fiske, and all the divers other sodomites, named and unnamed, alive and dead, known or unknown, who were on trial? Or was it the ‘popular apprehension’ of sodomy that was on trial? Was it Sir Robert’s task to test the truth of the widespread belief that sodomy had gained a foothold – more than a foothold – in England? Was he there to prove that sodomites were daily becoming bolder and more brazen? That they were daily becoming proselytisers? That by their tricks and their ways and their wiles, and especially by their dressing and passing as women, they were daily deceiving, corrupting and recruiting the flower of English manhood? That their sodomitic stalking-ground, mission field and battlefield all rolled into one was England’s green and pleasant land?
The answer appeared to be that everything and everyone was on trial. Sodomy in thought and sodomy in deed was on trial. Sodomites in particular and sodomites in general. Effeminate men and men who dressed as women. England’s manhood and England’s morality and England’s masculinity. They were all on trial. So the trial was not really a trial at all but an investigation and a deliberation, and the defendants were not really defendants but symbols and representatives of the fearful sodomitic threat that hovered darkly over fair Albion.
It was clear that Sir Robert Collier hoped, perversely, that the evidence would lead to an acquittal. ‘Perhaps I am not going too far,’ Sir Robert declared, ‘when I say that you and I and all of us will experience a sense of relief if we come to the conclusion that the popular apprehension was unfounded.’ If Boulton and Park and Hurt and Fiske were found to be not guilty then there could and would be general rejoicing that our island nation, our granite fortress sailing serenely in a silver sea, had repelled the piratical and parasitical sodomitic boarders, that it had fought off the sodomitic threat from without.
‘But,’ Sir Robert gravely warned the Jury,
if the evidence leads you to the conclusion that the prisoners are guilty, you will not hesitate to perform a public duty than which nothing can be more important. You will do what in you lies to stop this plague which, if allowed to spread without check or hindrance, might lead to a serious contamination of our national morals.
A guilty verdict would mean that sodomy had broken forth in the land, that the contagion had been unleashed and was spreading silently, infecting and contaminating all who came into contact with it. A guilty verdict would mean that all of them – Fanny and Stella, Louis Hurt and John Safford Fiske, the absconded Comical Countess, Miss Sissy Thomas and the mysterious Mr Somerville, even the dead-and-buried Lord Arthur Clinton, even the ‘divers others’ and the ‘persons unknown’ of the indictment; all the sodomites and all the buggers and all the Mary-Anns; all the He-She’s and the She-He’s; all the effeminate men and masculine women; all the young men in women’s clothes and all the young women in men’s clothes; all the androgynes and all the hermaphrodites and the in-betweens – all of them must be punished. All of them must be purged. All of them must be prevented from spreading the taint and poison of sodomy. A guilty verdict would mean the preaching of a new national crusade to hunt down and extirpate the sodomites from the nation’s midst.
It was almost too terrible a prospect to contemplate, and it was no wonder that all those present in the Ancient and Honourable Court of Queen’s Bench felt a sudden and collective shudder of horror, as if someone or something had walked across their graves.
27
The Most Sensational Event
By sometimes dressing in female costume, sometimes in male costume, with a studied air of effeminacy, powdering their necks, painting their faces, by amatory airs and gestures, the Defendants endeavoured to excite each other’s passions, and to make themselves objects of desire to persons of their own class.
Opening speech of the Attorney-General, 9th May 1871
W ho was the strikingly handsome young man who made his way into the court in the company of the eminent and silver-tongued barrister Sir John Karslake on the second morning of the trial? Was this dark and soulful-looking young man one of the missing defendants in the case? William Somerville, perhaps? Or Cecil Thomas? Or Martin Luther Cumming?
Rather more sensationally, might it be a contrite Lord Arthur Clinton, back from the dead; back from foreign parts; back from whichever hole he had crawled into to hide after leaving his catamite to face the music? Such a spectacular resurrection and return of this missing-declared-dead peer and politician would greatly add drama and piquancy to a trial that already seemed to be listing and foundering under the freight of its own expectations.
Much to the disappointment of some, Mr Simeon Solomon was neither an absconded defendant nor a revivified Lord Arthur. He was an artist and a man of self-confessed ‘irregular affections’, and his presence in the Court of Queen’s Bench that morning could be attributed to an admixture of vulgar and prurient curiosity to see Lady Stella Clinton and Miss Fanny Winifred Park in the flesh, a strong sense of solidarity in adversity with them, and an overwhelming fear that his own name, or the name of his intimate friend and fellow sodomite – or ‘Dolomite’, as they were fond of calling each other – Mr Algernon Charles Swinburne, the infamous young poet, might come up.
‘Boulton is very remarkable,’ Simeon Solomon wrote to Swinburne. ‘He is not quite beautiful. But supremely pretty, a perfect figure, manner and voice. Altogether, I was agreeably surprised at him.’ Solomon was less impressed by John Safford Fiske, ‘the writer of those highly effusive letters’, who ‘looks rather humdrum’.
In his preliminary canter through the evidence, the Attorney-General had made much of the mass of epistolary evidence available to him in this case and insisted on reading aloud, and in full, no fewer than thirty-one letters. Many of these letters had already been aired in Bow Street a year earlier and subsequently widely reproduced in the newspapers, much to the dismay of Mr Collette of the Society for the Suppression of Vice, who fretted that evidence of such ‘a very revolting nature’ might inadvertently be read by ladies at the breakfast table.
But if Sir Robert Collier hoped that these letters would be the first deadly salvo in the battle to come, that they would leave the lines of the defence rent and tattered, he was disappointed. Many, if not most, of the letters seemed to fall somewhat short of the mark or to miss their target completely. It was surprising how quickly the host of ‘My Dears’ and ‘My Darlings’ and the endless and ardent declarations of love had lost their power to shock. Most of those present had heard it all or read it all before. And, regrettably, Sir Robert’s sonorous style of recitation hindered rather than helped matters. Sir Robert was no Mr Poland. He lacked that rotund gentleman’s vulgar quality of showmanship and his ability to lubriciously underscore and point up certain phrases in the letters, which had added greatly to the gaiety of nations.
Sir Robert’s slow and deliberate readings added a good hour to the length of his address and, though the case had barely begun, there was already a distinct air of ennui and a palpable sense of impatience in the court. When would the Attorney-General get to the point? When would he get to the meat and drink of the case? It was all very well to listen to these endless ejaculations of love and friendship, but it was sodomy and buggery that were the order of the day and where were they? The tedious wait reminded those present of the fabled dinner where guests were first tantalised and then tortured by the delicious smells of a promised feast that never materialised.
It was true that Sir Robert had up his sleeve a few new letters which, like the vigorous application of birch twigs on the posterior parts, helped to stimulate – momentarily – the flagging passions of the court. There was the intriguing letter to ‘Dear Stella’ from Mr Edward Henry Park – or ‘Harry’ as he signed himself – the older brother of Frederick or Fanny Park, a letter which seemed to suggest that he was no stranger to sodomy. He had written, in that incautious postscript, of the ‘Glycerine’ and ‘filthy photos’ he had left with Boulton, but surprisingly, Sir Robert Collier made no attempt to amplify the meaning nor explain – let alone exploit – the significance of these comments, much to the frustration of his auditors.
Then there were two letters from the absconded defendant Mr William Somerville, addressed to his ‘Dearest Stella’ and signed ‘Willy’ with his ‘fondest love’ and ‘many kisses’. ‘You imagine I do not love you,’ he had written. ‘I wish to God it was so, but tell me how I can prove it and I will willingly do so.’
These letters from Harry Park and Willy Somerville served only to illustrate one of the very central contradictions of the case: why was it that some young men were indicted on the slightest of slight evidence while others, against whom the evidence seemed much stronger, were not? Willy Somerville had been named as a conspirator in this plot to inveigle the flower of the nation’s manhood to knowingly or unknowingly engage in sodomy – and yet the only evidence offered against him was these two letters, the letters of one lovesick youth to another, of so bland a character as to send everyone soundly to sleep.
In sharp contrast, Harry Park’s name had not figured in the indictment. And yet it was clear, crystal clear, that Harry Park was up to his elbows in this sodomitic conspiracy. He had spoken of ‘Glycerine’ and ‘filthy photographs’ and even the purest of pure minds could not fail to apprehend (at least in part) his meaning. Besides, as everyone knew only too well, Harry Park was currently detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure, having been convicted of indecently assaulting Police Constable George White. So why had his name not been added to the roster of conspirators? It seemed an inexplicable omission.
And then there was the presence of Mr Cecil ‘Sissy’ Thomas on the indictment. No letters from him or to him were presented as evidence. Indeed, the only ‘evidence’ against him was hearsay. It was alleged that he was the young man in the company of Fanny and Stella on the night they were arrested, the young man who had, in the sodomitic slang, ‘scarpered’ when the police reared their ugly heads. And he had supposedly dressed in drag once or twice at Wakefield Street with his intimate friend Amos Westropp Gibbings, known to his friends as ‘Carlotta’.
If Sissy Thomas was part of this alleged conspiracy, then why had Carlotta Gibbings not been fingered too? The morning after the arrest of Fanny and Stella, Carlotta had cleared the rooms at Wakefield Street of incriminating materials and fled to France, clutching two pairs of her favourite stays. Then she had come back and stood up in Bow Street and declared that she had been out and about ‘in drag’ on many occasions, to theatres, to restaurants and, famously, to the Boat Race, complete with parasol and picnic. She had even thrown a ball for twenty-four couple at Haxell’s Hotel where Heaven knows what had gone on in the Ladies’ Retiring Room, in darkened corners and in back passages.
T he trio of letters from Miss Fanny Winifred Park to Lord Arthur Clinton were by far the most revealing and the most entertaining of the letters read out by Sir Robert Collier. They were also the most bewildering and required a considerable stretch of the imagination on the part of the twelve Jurymen to think themselves into the upside-down, back-to-front, inside-out world of these young men. Everything was at once familiar and yet at the same time strange. Black was white, and white was black. Men were women, wives and sisters, with lovers, husbands and brothers. Ernest, or rather Stella, was the ‘sister’ of Frederick or Fanny. Stella was the ‘wife’ of Lord Arthur Clinton, which made her Lady Stella Clinton, and which in turn made Miss Fanny Winifred Park Lord Arthur’
s ‘sister-in-law’. It was an altogether unsettling experience, like gazing into a distorting mirror. It was a world within a world, hidden, unsuspected and compelling.
The court was frankly baffled by some portions of Miss Fanny Winifred Park’s letters. ‘My cawfish undertakings are not at present meeting with the success which they deserve,’ she had confided to Lord Arthur, ‘whatever I do seems to get me into hot water somewhere but n’importe, what’s the odds so long as you’re happy?’
‘Cawfish?’ It was an odd word to use, unless it was a misspelling for crawfish, and was a reference to the small lobster-like decapod commonly called a crayfish or a crawdad. Was Miss Fanny Winifred Park exhibiting signs of a growing (and manly) interest in angling? Or was she appealing, shamelessly, to one of Lord Arthur’s sporting passions?
Mr Straight, who was assisting Mr Sergeant Parry in Miss Fanny Winifred Park’s defence, was of the opinion that the word was ‘campish’, but Mr Sergeant Parry overruled him peremptorily. ‘It is “cawfish” in my copy,’ he declared emphatically. ‘What “campish” means I cannot understand, but if he had written “scampish” he would not, I think, have been using an improper word.’
The Lord Chief Justice felt that matters were drifting dangerously off the point. ‘Whatever it may mean it is certainly “campish”,’ he decreed firmly.
The Attorney-General had marshalled no fewer than thirty-one witnesses for the prosecution, an impressive array by any standards and one which held the promise of exciting and extraordinary revelations. First to go into the witness box was Mr Hugh Mundell, who had barely changed in the course of a year, except that he blushed and stammered and swallowed and hesitated more than ever. Why the Attorney-General had chosen this bumbling young man, who seemed rather younger than his years, as his star witness whose testimony would encapsulate and exemplify all the sodomitic evils of Fanny and Stella was beyond comprehension.