in this country a woman is punished severely for faults which in the husband are overlooked. For a single slip she is banished from society. And yet if justice is to be done to Lady Ellenborough, can anyone overlook the gross neglect on Lord Ellenborough’s part that has led to the unhappy events of the past couple of years? Ought not the charge to be read as one of criminality against Lord Ellenborough, who had permitted and even encouraged his wife’s association with the persons responsible for her downfall, rather than one of marital infidelity against an unfortunate lady whose youth and immaturity ought to have been safeguarded by her natural protector? What is a young lady to do who is neglected by her husband? Is she to stop at home all day long?
Touching upon the present line of questioning, in which the prosecution were clearly suggesting that while in the closed chaise together Lady Ellenborough and the prince indulged in a sexual encounter, Mr Hume asked seriously: ‘would anyone believe that a lady dressed to go out to dinner could be guilty of anything improper?’ Indeed, with the stays and panniers, wigs and feathers of a decade earlier, impropriety might have been difficult. However, fashions had changed in recent times, and the ribald laughter and sallies which greeted the Honourable Member’s final remarks left no one in any doubt that a number of members of the House had experienced little difficulty in misbehaving under similar circumstances.
Next the prince’s maid provided evidence that on the frequent occasions when Jane had called on her master the couple had usually spent the afternoon in bed together. How could she tell, asked the prosecutor? By the rumpled and marked bedlinen, replied the maid.
Miss Margaret Steele’s evidence served to damn Jane completely. She gave her answers quietly, so quietly that The Times journalist in the gallery missed some of her answers and complained about it indignantly in his column. She acknowledged that she was a personal friend of Lady Andover and Lady Anson and that for six years she had taken responsibility for the upbringing of Lady Ellenborough prior to her marriage. She told how she had been summoned to Roehampton on the occasion of the couple’s separation, how she accompanied Jane to the West Country, of her discovery that Jane was pregnant and of Jane’s confession that she had spent the night with the prince at the Norfolk Hotel:
Q: Did you ask Lady Ellenborough any questions as to why she supposed the child was not Lord Ellenborough’s?
A: When she first disclosed the circumstances of her guilt to me, I was told to keep it a secret. I think I made no further inquiry, and seeing me much agitated, and being very much agitated herself, she merely said to me, as I have stated, ‘God knows what I shall do, for the child is not Lord Ellenborough’s but Prince Schwarzenberg’s.’ That is to the best of my recollection. At that time I asked her no further questions. She was always very modest in her manner to me.
Miss Steele explained that Jane had asked her husband if she might sleep alone, having told him that she did not wish for another child. Questioned on the state of the marriage generally, Steely said she thought the couple had always appeared very happy together. ‘You do not recollect seeing Lord Ellenborough ever treat her with harshness, either in word or manner?’ On the contrary, replied the witness, ‘he was always remarkably kind and attentive to her.’ Indeed, she said, she had found Lord Ellenborough to be an unfailingly kind and considerate husband in every way. Indulgent? Very much so, indeed! She had been astonished when the separation occurred.
Her memory failed her only when it came to the conversation she had had with Lord Ellenborough a year earlier on the subject of his wife’s behaviour. She recalled that Lady Ellenborough had been ‘indiscreet, giddy and very regardless of consequences’. She could not recall exactly in what manner, nor from whom she had heard the report. Her answers were weak, and she knew it, and so did her interlocutor:
Q: What particular acts were indiscreet?
A: I heard of her riding a good deal.
Q: Was there anything indiscreet in a lady riding?
A: I think in her riding alone there was.
Q: Did she ever ride without a servant?
A: No, with a servant. I thought it very indiscreet.
Q: Is that all the acts of indiscretion you ever heard of?
A: … I cannot recollect.
She did, however, recollect that she had advised Lord Ellenborough about some of the friends to whom he had introduced his wife before their marriage, and who were frequent guests of the Ellenboroughs. Making it clear that she placed the full blame for Jane’s behaviour on the example set by these unnamed persons, she nevertheless hedged and weaved for what must have been some twenty minutes of questioning. When asked directly for names she murmured a short reply which was drowned in loud cries of ‘No! No!’ by angry members.
Q: Were these associates men or women?
A: Both … I thought them very bad companions … I cannot mention names, it might implicate many persons.
Q: Were they persons universally accepted at respectable houses in London?
A: At houses called respectable. (Laughter.)
Q: In the best society in England?
A: In fashionable society. (Laughter.)
Q: Can you recollect what answer Lord Ellenborough made to your warning?
A: He laughed.
Several times during the long interrogation Miss Steele asked to be allowed to sit down and sip at a glass of water. Later the men and women she alluded to were identified by the broadest of hints in the newspaper leaders, and they would complain loudly that their behaviour had been judged by a person they thought their social inferior.
It was undoubtedly an ordeal for Steely. This modest and moral woman elected to stand up before several hundred men and discuss the sexual behaviour of her former pupil, knowing that it would be widely reported in the newspapers. No one would have forced her to do so, but Lady Andover had begged it as a favour and Steely complied, knowing that her evidence would clinch Lord Ellenborough’s case. She must have known that this would ensure a decision that would provide the freedom Jane wanted, but only at the cost of Jane’s reputation.
The last of the twenty-one witnesses (many were called twice or three times during the Commons’ exhaustive hearing, the rest consisting of prying neighbours and hotel staff, post-boys and coachmen, maids, grooms and lawyers’ clerks) was Thomas Kane, the Ellenboroughs’ butler. He testified that as far as he and the other servants could see their master and mistress lived in happiness and affection, they generally called each other Edward and Janet, and had until two years ago frequently gone out together in the evening, less often after that. Prince Schwarzenberg had never been a guest at either house. All the servants (there were many) knew that the Ellenboroughs latterly slept in separate beds. Yes, it had been discussed in the servants’ hall but no one had taken it to mean that the couple were estranged.
After Kane stood down, the Honourable Members debated the matter. The arguments raged back and forth. Jane had many champions who said that Ellenborough ought to have been more vigilant, that an experienced and worldy man ought not to have left his young wife so alone and unprotected that she had opportunity to behave so badly. Besides, said several, she had behaved no better nor worse than her peers, people who were also personal friends of her husband. And how had this husband reacted when warned by those closest to his wife that she was in moral danger? He had laughed. When one speaker asked what arrangements had been made to secure Lady Ellenborough’s future he was advised by Ellenborough’s barrister that Lord Ellenborough had made arrangements which ensured ‘she should not want for any of the comforts and conveniences which her rank in life required’. The barrister then produced what he described as a letter written by Lady Andover to Lord Ellenborough absolving him of responsibility for the break-up of the marriage, but the members of the House refused to allow it to be admissible.
Those who supported Ellenborough argued that a husband could not possibly watch over his wife every minute of the day. There was no man in the House, said one Member, whose wife and daughters did not go