A petition has been filed in the Divorce Court by Mr Langtry. HRH the Prince of Wales and two other gentlemen are mentioned as co-respondents.
—TOWN TALK
On his allegorical painting The Wheel of Fortune (1875–1883), Edward Burne-Jones memorably depicted Lillie as Dame Fortune, “clad in grey draperies, a tall, very tall figure, with resolute and pitiless face, turning a huge wheel on which kings, princes, statesmen, millionaires, and others rise, reach the top, and then fall, to be crushed by the ever-revolving wheel of Fate.”1 This vision of Lillie crushing men beneath her pitiless wheel was a typical Victorian conceit. It was also an inaccurate prediction of Lillie’s own destiny. Far from crushing the life out of lesser mortals, Lillie endured her own struggle with Dame Fortune, emerging at intervals triumphant but by no means unbroken. Lillie’s protracted battle with Town Talk was a case in point.
Society might have retreated to its Highland castles and country estates for the summer of 1879, but at the meager offices of Town Talk, Adolphus Rosenberg had no intention of taking a break. On August 30, 1879, Rosenberg returned to his attack on the Langtrys, with the announcement in Town Talk that: “A petition has been filed in the Divorce Court by Mr Langtry. HRH the Prince of Wales, and two other gentlemen, whose names we have not enabled to learn, are mentioned as co-respondents.”2
There followed a vicious article entitled “Who Is Mrs Langtry?” which accused Lillie of posing for photographers in “suggestive attitudes,” enabling any passerby to make indecent remarks about her and disgusting “all respectable thinking women at the public exhibition she makes of her charms.”3 When this verbal assault failed to produce the popular outcry that Rosenberg was anticipating, he took it one step further: “No attempt has been made to contradict the statement published in these columns last week as to the Langtry divorce case, and my readers may be assured that it was no invention.”4 Announcing that the Langtry divorce case would be one of the first trials when the court reopened in November, Rosenberg added that “it has been finally decided to try the case in camera and so scandalmongers will be deprived of a fine opportunity.”5 Stating that he believed Lillie had denied the adultery, Rosenberg continued that the case was of such grave national importance that the home secretary, Viscount Cross, had ordered music hall proprietors to ban references to the case during comedy routines.6
But by October 4, the situation appeared to have changed, and Rosenberg told his readers that Ned Langtry had withdrawn his divorce petition. “The case of Langtry v Langtry and others is therefore finally disposed of, and we have probably heard the last of it. It is useless for the sixpenny twaddlers to deny that Mr Langtry ever filed a petition. He did, and as I have said before, an application was made to Sir James Hannen to hear it privately, and he consented.”7 Rosenberg added that “Mr Langtry will shortly be appointed to some diplomatic post abroad.”8 The Langtry divorce case appeared to have been laid mercifully to rest, in return, Rosenberg insinuated, for Ned’s diplomatic posting.
In the same edition of Town Talk Rosenberg turned his attentions to another glamorous society figure and mistress of the Prince of Wales, Patsy Cornwallis-West. Rosenberg ran a story mocking Patsy Cornwallis-West’s fascination with photography, alleging that she charged photographers commission for taking her picture and personally drove from shop to shop collecting the fees for the sale of her photographs.9 In attempting to lambast Patsy, Rosenberg had made a grave error of judgment. While Ned Langtry might be apparently powerless in the face of defamation, Patsy’s husband had an entirely different attitude and took out a lawsuit against Rosenberg.10 At his first hearing before the Guildhall magistrates, Rosenberg was horrified to see another lawyer rise to present a further, unrelated charge against him: that six issues of Town Talk magazine had libeled Mr. and Mrs. Langtry.11 There was to be a Langtry trial after all, but it was not the one that Rosenberg had anticipated.
When the case was heard at the Old Bailey on October 25, 1879, Adolphus Rosenberg found himself up against the Langtrys’ high-powered legal team, while the trial judge was the notoriously vindictive Mr. Justice Hawkins, who had a reputation as a “hanging judge.” In another shocking development, the Earl of Londesborough, who had also taken out a libel action against Rosenberg, was in court that day, permitted to sit on the bench alongside the judge. The Town Talk libel case had become a cause célèbre and the court was packed, with an overflowing public gallery and a regiment of newspaper reporters.12
The Langtrys’ team was led by John Humffreys Parry, who held the ancient legal rank of “Sergeant at Law,” and had defended Whistler in his suit against John Ruskin.13 Rosenberg’s own counsel consisted of a Mr. Willis, QC, and his junior, Mr. Grain. Rosenberg’s printers, William Head and Henry Mark, were also charged with libel. They were defended by Mr. Horace Avory, later to become another merciless “hanging judge.” Rosenberg’s defense consisted of claiming that he had been misled by a source whom he wanted to name but was forbidden to. His counsel was reduced to pleading in mitigation that Rosenberg was a hardworking man of good character, who had a wife and family to support at his home in Brixton Hill. But this approach proved futile.
Members of the public who had hoped to see Lillie put in the witness box were disappointed. Lillie was not required to appear in court, and unusual as it was for Lillie to shun the limelight, she made the right decision by staying away. While she might have played a blinder in the witness box by appearing compellingly innocent, a thorough cross-examination by Rosenberg’s counsel could have presented her in an unflattering manner. But Ned was there, unusually spruce and sober. When asked if there was any truth in the rumor that he was planning divorce, Ned replied, “not a single word.”14
Was there any truth in the rumor that Langtry had been offered a diplomatic assignment?
“Not a word,” replied Ned.
“I am very glad to hear that,” replied Avory, somewhat ambiguously.
Ned had never, he said, filed for divorce, and was still living “on terms of affection with my wife at Norfolk Street.”15
Rosenberg’s counsel took a different approach. Mr. and Mrs. Langtry might have been “content to rely upon their own consciousness of perfect purity and upon the domestic happiness which they continued to enjoy,” began Mr. Willis. “Far be it from me to suppose that the Prince of Wales could for a moment depart from that morality which it is his duty to exhibit.… But have not men in high stations fallen before now? Has a luxurious age not sometimes corrupted men placed in an exalted position? Is it the case that such a thing as this could not possibly happen? I leave out the Prince of Wales, but has no peer of the realm been before now co-respondent in the Divorce Court?”16
Summing up, Mr. Justice Hawkins declared that it was not for the jury to decide whether or not Mr. and Mrs. Langtry could have stood on their own reputation, without taking action against their libeler. The jury’s verdict was swift. Rosenberg was found guilty without the jury even retiring. He was sentenced to eighteen months in jail, with Mr. Justice Hawkins wistfully regretting that he lacked the power to sentence him to hard labor.17 Rosenberg had been made into a terrible example, one to discourage other journalists from lurid speculation. From this point on, every newspaper in the country was compelled to be circumspect in its references to Lillie Langtry.
Rosenberg was already in prison by the time that Town Talk published its final remarks on the case, in the form of a reference to the recent death of Sergeant Parry, who “did not long survive his exceptionally vindictive speech against Mr Rosenberg.… The amount of forensic ammunition which this portly advocate wasted on that occasion was noticed even by persons unfriendly to Mr Rosenberg. But I never forget the ancient aphorism, De mortuis nil nisi bonum, and instead of saying anything further of that cause célèbre, I simply inscribe on the late Sergeant’s tomb RIP.”18
The legal battle with Town Talk had been won, but Lillie’s future had become increasingly uncertain. Not only had her relationship with Bertie been damaged by the impact of the libel trial, but her marriage to Ned continued to deteriorate, mainly as a result of their appalling financial problems.
“By now our waning income had almost touched vanishing-point and … Mr Langtry also enjoyed the pastime of quiet squandering, so that, as time went on, we began to find ourselves unpleasantly dunned by long suffering tradesmen.…”19 When bailiffs appeared at the door, Lillie would gamely pass it off as a joke, while her maid, Dominique, resorted to cramming Lillie’s jewelry and trinkets into the pockets of anyone who came to visit. “In this way some very distinguished friends departed from the beleaguered house with their pockets full, all unconscious that they were evading the law.”20
In another cruel twist of fate, Lillie’s father, Dean Le Breton, had been forced to leave Jersey with his reputation in tatters after his philandering had become public knowledge. The sole consolation for Lillie’s mother was the fact that she could spend more time in London with Lillie. This moral support was doubtless welcome at the most difficult time of Lillie’s life.
One glimmer of hope had appeared in the form of Bertie’s nephew, Prince Louis of Battenberg, a handsome young naval officer. After being introduced by Bertie, Lillie and Louis had taken an instant liking to each other, and soon fell passionately in love. Bertie, who was losing interest in Lillie, tolerated Louis’s visits to Norfolk Street, while Lillie believed that Louis represented a better, more secure future. True, she would have to divorce Ned to marry Louis, and no divorced commoner had yet married into the British royal family, but ever-confident Lillie set her sights on marrying Louis. Their assignations were conducted with discretion, but the love affair was an open secret among their closest friends. On one occasion, during Cowes Week, Lillie and Prince Louis were invited aboard HMS Thunderer, commanded by admiral-in-waiting Charlie Beresford, one of Bertie’s court jesters.
“All the cabins being below the water line, it was necessary to supply them with oxygen artificially, through air-shafts,” Lillie recalled. “One afternoon, while Lord Charles’ small cabin was being inspected by royalty and others, his love of mischief caused him to switch off the supply of air and to watch the effect of his practical joke with great delight. Very soon our faces became scarlet, our breathing grew difficult, and we began to go through the uncomfortable sensation which must be experienced by a fish out of water. Fortunately, Lord Charles did not go beyond the frightening-limit, or the Beresford joke might have developed into a Beresford tragedy.”21
Alongside her relationship with Prince Louis, for which she had every hope of a positive outcome, Lillie was already busy reinventing herself. Since meeting Sarah Bernhardt, Lillie had begun to toy with the idea of a stage career. Lillie had seen how “the Divine Sarah” had entranced Bertie, and, as her power over him was slowly weakening, perhaps Lillie wanted to captivate him a similar way. Lillie had also come to realize that her notoriety, at first so painful, had its own consolations. Thousands would pay to see her beauty, framed by a proscenium arch, for themselves. Lillie describes the process as a dawning awareness that her future lay elsewhere:
Finally, one night, at a ball given by the Duchess of Westminster at Grosvenor House, I remembered feeling that I must forthwith cut adrift from this life, which we could no longer afford to enjoy, and, prostrating myself in admiration before the wonderful portrait of Sarah Siddons, I recalled the fact that the artist had signed his name on the hem of her gown and had declared himself satisfied to go down to posterity that way. Then from the Siddons portrait I passed on to other great works of art, and became filled with the desire to become a “worker” too. Impulsive as I was in those days, I did not wait for my carriage, but, pushing my way through the throng of footmen clustering round the hall door, I walked, in spite of my white satin slippers, through the wet and muddy streets to my house, happily not far distant, eagerly considering how to remodel my life.22
This decision came not a moment too soon. At last, after the patience of the Langtrys’ creditors had been tested to the limit, the crisis arrived. The little Norfolk Street house was invaded by bailiffs, while Ned went off fishing and left Lillie to deal with the intruders as best she could.23 Lillie and her mother fled to Bournemouth, leaving “the carpet flag” hanging from the drawing-room window, the traditional method of indicating that the house had been repossessed. The contents of “the poor little red-faced house,” as Lillie referred to it in her memoirs, were auctioned off, with souvenir hunters snapping up every item of furniture, even the gilded fans that Lillie and Whistler had painted together in happier times. Lillie’s stuffed black bear, a little tea table with Lillie’s initials on it, and even her skates were all sold. The peacock, a gift from the Earl of Warwick, was rescued by Lady Lonsdale, who kept it for Lillie, but Lillie, believing the bird to be unlucky, sent it to Oscar Wilde following a tiff. Oscar’s friend Frank Miles, unable to believe that Lillie would have sent Oscar such a valuable item after a quarrel, assumed the peacock was meant for him, and took ownership of it. Perhaps the peacock was unlucky: Frank Miles immediately suffered a series of disasters, ranging from the sudden death of his father to arrest on pedophilia charges, before a descent into madness from which he never recovered.24
There was another reason for Lillie’s swift departure from Norfolk Street. One Sunday evening in early 1880, Lillie had been dining with Bertie and Princess Alexandra when she suddenly turned pale and almost fainted. Alix showed immediate concern and sent Lillie home, instructing Bertie’s own physician, Dr. Francis Laking, to examine her. The following afternoon, Alix arrived at Norfolk Street, full of concern. There could only be one topic of conversation between the two women: Dr. Laking had confirmed the fact that Lillie was pregnant. But, given the complexity of Lillie’s relationships, who was the father?
And it is here we must leave Lillie for the time being. Although Bertie would continue to support Lillie during her pregnancy, he could not afford to be seen with her in public. Besides which, Bertie was otherwise engaged, renewing his friendship with an old flame, Jennie Churchill.