The Sun.
London, England, 1862-01-30 00:00:00

zirE WINDII,I3I CASE.

The adjourned inquiry into the state of mind of
Mr. W. F. Windham, of Felbrigg-hall, Norfolk,
was resumed yesterday in the Westminster Sessions

House, before Mr. Warren, Q.C., one of the Masters
in Lunacy, and a special jury.
Mr. Chambers resumed by calling the attention of
the jury to the marriage of Mr. Windham—a mar-
riage, he said, in which a bridegroom was not taken
to the altar, but a victim was led to the slaughter.
He contended that if the marriage stood alone no
man who gave his cool and impartial consideration
to the case would hesitate to say that it was the
marriage of an imbecile, and not that of a sane man.
From first to last, Miss Willoughby seemed to have
treated Mr. Windham like a child. At one time
she told him that her father had left her £6OO per
annum, but shortly afterwards the representation
was changed, and then she said she had an allow-
ance of £2,000 a year from the gentleman under
whose protection she was living. The poor idiot
appeared to have believed every word she uttered,
and he really imagined that Agnes Willoughby, nee
Rogers, was going to descend upon him, like an-
other Jupiter, in a shower of gold. When the time
came for preparing the marriage settlement Mr.
Windham had mind enough to make a feeble
struggle against the extortionate demands of his in-
tended bride, but he was speedily overpowered, and
Miss Willoughby easily persuaded him to settle
upon her, not for her life, but in perpetuity, an
amount of money so extravagantly large in propor-
tion to his means that no reasonable being could
ever have dreamt of entering into such an engage-
ment. The learned counsel reflected with severity
upon the conduct of Mr. Bowen May, the solicitor
who drew up the marriage settlement, and ex-
pressed a strong doubt whether such a document
was ever prepared in a respectable office before.
He maintained that Miss Willoughby knew the
state in which Mr. Windham was at the time
of the marriage, for she had been previously in-
formed of it by Mr. Johnson, the surgeon, in
Saville-row, and ridiculed the idea that after
the marriage an enormous quantity of jewellery
was presented to her by her husband, as compensa-
tion for an injury which, in every sense of the
term, was self-inflicted. He minutely described
what he called the desecration of the marriage cere-
mony, which took place in the church of All Saints,
St. John's-wood, on the morning of the 29th of Aug.
last, and dwelt with some humour on the motley
crowd assembled on the occasion. One of the prin-
cipal personages in the scene was a venerable lady,
the widow of the late Rev. Mr. Rogers, but she
was supported, rather unfortunately, by three
clowns disguised as gentlemen. He did not allude,
of course, to Mr. Bowen May, who was the very
pink of fashion, and in all respects worthy of fol-
lowing the Royal staghounds. Nor did he refer to
Dr. Whidborne, the paterfamilias, who took part in
the ceremony with a couple of broken ribs ; but the
jury would recollect that, besides the eminent soli-
citor and the eminent physician, in addition to the
venerable Mrs. Rogers and her fascinating and
accomplished daughter, Mr. Windham was sur-
rounded on the most fatal day of his life by three
individuals who seemed to have been picked off the
streets, taken into a ready-made clothing establish-
ment, and there rigged out for the occasion. The
learned gentleman accompanied the happy couple
to Paris, where they spent the honeymoon, re-
turned with them to London, went down with them
to Felbrigg-hall, and related the events and inci-
dents which occurred at that place. He stated that
during the residence at Felbrigg Mrs. Windham
twice left her husband, for the purpose of following
a person whom she had addressed in post-nuptial
letters as " My dear, dear —," and with whom
there could not be a shadow of doubt she had acted
the part of an adultress. Meanwhile, how was Mr.
Windham conducting himself ? In the month of
October, or about that period, there was a sum of
£1,908 standing to his credit in a bank in Norwich.
By the middle of December the whole of that money
had vanished, with the exception of something like
£l7, and no funds remained for the payment of the
bills held by Emmanuel, the jeweller,to the amount
of £13,000. On one day Mr. Windham gave his
wife two cheques, one for £3OO and the other for
£157, while Roberts obtained from him no less a
sum than £137. For what was that money paid
by Mr. Windham ? Several witnesses had ex-
pressed the opinion, founded upon personal obser-
vation, that Mr. Windham was entirely ignorant
of the value of money. Their statement was con-
firmed in the most conclusive manner by the way
in which he squandered away the £1,900 placed
to his credit in the Norwich Bank, and the jury
could not fail to see that Mr. Windham, whatever
might be said of him in other respects, was utterly
incompetent to the management of his affairs. The
learned gentlemen next dealt with the timber con-
tract, which he said was unfair in its terms, and
enough in itself to prove the mental incapacity of
Mr. Windham. Roberts, he declared was the real
author of the contract, and the object of it was to
cheat a poor imbecile. He directed attention to
the extraordinary will which, according to Mr.
Bowen May, Mr. Windham executed after his mar-
riage. By that will he left the whole of his pro-
perty to his wife for her life, with the remainder
to her two sisters, the one who married first to take
the name and arms of Windham. A more alarm-
ing act could not be conceived with reference to the
evil and pernicious influence exercised overMr.Wind-
ham, and certainly no argument could be required to
prove that he ought to be protected from a repetition
of the same piece of madness. It was true the will
had been destroyed; but Mr. Windham was againre-
conciled to his wife, and he might at any moment be
persuaded to make an equally disgraceful disposition
of his property. The law of England, said the
learned gentleman in conclusion, distinctly declared
that there was a state of mind existing between ab-
solute idiotcy and positive lunacy, which disabled
a man from managing himself or his affairs. Such
was the doctrine laid down by Lord Eldon and Sir
John Nicholls, and the medical joined with the legal
authorities in establishing the existence of an im-
becile condition requiring the protection of the law.
As crimes were punished and property was pro-
tected in England, so the weak and imbecile were
under the guardianship of our happy constitution,
and the Sovereign, as she reigned over all her sub-
jects with justice, reigned over the meanest, the
youngest, and the most helpless with kindness and
benevolence. It was in the spirit of benevolence
and kindness—a spirit which pervaded our law in
all its branches—that protection was given to un-
happy youths who were made the subjects of depre-
dation and destruction in wealth, in health, in cha-
racter, and in life. There were. certain ugly birds,
which, the moment they saw a feast spread out
upon the ground, left their darksome recesses and
descended, not merely to devour voraciously the
viands arrayed before them, but to pollute and con-
taminate everything they touched. Sir Hugh Cairns
had culled from classical literature a quotation which
was strictly
applicable to the present condition of
of Mr. Windham, and to what his state would be
if the jury were to pronounce him sane and compe-
tent to manage his affairs. His learned friend had
quoted from the description by Virgil of the horri-
ble condition of the man who, by the invention of
an ancient tyrant, was chained to a dead body. Mr
Windham, not by the invention of an ancient tyrant,
but by the cunning and craft of modern sharpers,
was chained to corruption of the
vilest kind, and
would continue in that condition unless they de-
clared him to be entitled to the protection of the
1 iw. They had been told that by returning a verdict
of sanity they would do an act not only of justice,
but of kindness and benevolence to Mr. Wind-
ham. Vain and empty words ! Let Mr. Windham
be pronounced sane, and what would follow ? Fell-
brigg Hall, the scene of his early and childish en-
joyments, and Fellbrigg estate, the boast of his
little mind, would speedily pass from his posses-
sion. The ugly birds would fly into the portals of
the ancient mansion, and Mr. Windham would be
turned adrift, a beggar and an outcast. Whither
would he go ? Would he return to the metrorolis
and revisit his old haunts in the Haymarket ? The
hospitable doors of Mr. Barnes would before long
be closed against him, and if he attempted, in his
rags and wretchedness, to renew his acquaintance
with the " pretty horsebreakers" in Rotten-row, he
would be made to feel all the humiliation and de-