The Sun.
London, England, 1861-03-05 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, AIARCti 5, 1581;

iBLVERToN jitARP:f-Ai-IS CASE.

in our yesterday's impression we brought the
proceedings in this extraordinary and protracted
case clown to the commencement of Mr. Whiteside's
reply, on Saturday afternoon, on behalf of the
plaintiff. The learned gentletnan, in conclusion,
said,—The sacred privacy of the confessional was
never violated by any counsel until it was on this
trial violated by the counsel for the defendant. Not
satisfied with torturing, that witness for three days
on the history of her life, she answering with the
dignity of a virtuous woman, and the ease of an
accomplished gentlewoman, he suddenly demands
of her whether in the confessional she told Mooney
that this gentleman was a Protestant. There was
that expression of feeling in court which always
follows such an extraordinary question; your lord-
ship refused to rule the objection with The, and she
told to the court what she told to her God, that she
never did tell him so either In the confessional or
elsewhere. (Cheers.) She declared that Yelverton
stated what she had sworn—what he was at War-
renpoint, at Edinburgh, at Bordeaux, and What she
believed him to be from his conversation. There
is no proof that he ever took the sacrament in the
Protestant Church. Pour or five soldiers were
called tit) in row to prove nothing that they were
required to prove. Mooney was told by this lady
that her husband was a Roman Catholic before her
marriage, and by himself that he was a Protestant
Catholic at the tnarriage, and he told me that he
did not marry them at all. I don't say there is
evidence in this certificate, but to estimate the value
of the evidence of Father Mooney, and to assist
you, gentlemen, in deciding the question) whether
3 on will believe the evidence of Teresa Longworth,
corroborated as it is by all the facts and circum-
stances of the ease, I shall refer to this document
which I hold in my hand. [Reads letter from Mrs
Yelverton to Mr. Mooney.] He undertook to make
the whole business certain. Whether Biddy
Brennan, who was actually in the vestry, heard
and knew what was going on we don't know.
There is nothing in that letter to touch her crodit.
As to the observation as to her desire to obtain the
coronet of the house of Avonmore, in order that
it might encircle her brow, why an elder brother
was then living, married to a young, amiable,
accomplished, and pious person. There was every
hope of a long and happy life, but he was taken
away from the evil to come suddenly when Teresa
Longworth gave her heart, her love, her affections,
and all she had in the world, to the younger son
of an Irish Viscount, without any great prospects
in the world. That is my answer to the observation.
Father Mooney could not be influenced by the
" syren" at a distance. He had an opportunity to
think and act. He writes her a letter [reads letter
from Mr. Mooney to Mrs. Yelverton, enclosing the
certificate of marriage, signed by Richard Sloane,
Elizabeth Brennan, and himself.] This is a certifi-
cate of marriage, which any divine in the country
or all of them in solemn conclave, will tell you is a
certificate of a proper marriage according to the
Church of Rome. How was this to be met ? By
an act of Parliament passed in the reign of George
11., forbidding a priest to marry any one who had
professed the Protestant religion twelve months
before. Now what they want you to believe is that
Yelverton was a Protestant twelve months before
the service. They lay great stress on " professing,"
because it is one thing to profess and another thing
to be. That must have come from Scotland.
(Laughter.) If a man declares to a lady, "lam a
Roman Catholic," if he repeatedly attends mass, if
he reasons and argued with her upon the doctrines
of the Church, if he accompanies her to Roman
Catholic churches at home and abroad, if he enters
for the purpose of marriage a church of that faith,
and says there—" I am a Roman Catholic" for the
purpose of making his marriage • good, he is a
Roman Catholic; and furthermore if there is no satis-
factory evidence that for twelve , months before that
time he.was a Protestant—
Chief Justice—Within twelve months.

Mr. Whiteside—Do you remember the letter
written to him by his sister while at Thelwall's
house, asking "is it true you have turned a Roman
Catholic ?" He was not asked a single question on
that ; nor was Mr. Thelwall or Mrs. Yelverton.
Half his family were Roman Catholics; therefore you
have a family in which some members are of one
Church, some of another, and not one member of
that family is produced. Miss M,Farlane said he
always leaned to the Roman Catholic side. Mrs.
Yelverton swears he went to Warrenpoir.t Chapel
with her, and that she went to confession after-
wards; and it is an extraordinary fact that there
was no evidence that he had taken the sacrament
in the Protestant Church. He went when he could
not help it to hear a sermon in Alderney, in 1856,
and when on his way out in the Transit he heard
the prayers on deck, and read the service once,
which must have been very edifying to the flock.
(Laughter.) Therefore, I say, even on that penal
and pernicious statute—even in reference to the
question of religion, there is a balance of evidence
at the one side and the other, and the weight of
that evidence is in favour of his being a Catholic
for twelve months before that marriage. Counsel
then proceeded to refer to marriage law cases, which
he said he had very great pleasure in doing before
his lordship. In 9 Carrington and Payne, a case
was reported of a trial for bigamy, before Chief
Baron O'Grady. In 1806 the man was married to
his first wife by a Roman Catholic priest, who was
a Roman Catholic ; in 1815 he married another wife,
he professing to be a Protestant; and the prisoner's
counsel contended that as the first wife was not a
Protestant the marriage was null and void ; wit-
nesses were called to prove that up to the time of
the first marriage the prisoner went to church. His
lordship ruled that the law was right, but left the
question of religion to the jury, who found that he
was a Roman Catholic at the period of his first
marriage, and the prisoner was convicted. The
second case was one in which a similar trick was
endeavoured to have been played on an English
jury, and the same rule of law was held. Bruce v.
Burke, 2 Adams, 471. My lord, do you remember
the evidence of rs. Yelverton, that after the mar-
riage he did read with her the prayers of the
Church ?

The Chief Justice—Oh, I have no doubt at all
that at the time of the marriage there is evidence
he was a Roman Catholic ; but the part of the case
I shall require some assistance in is as to whether
he was so for twelve months previously.
Mr. Whiteside—Your lordship will find what
you require particularly at page 421 of the very
voluminous judgment which I have mentioned.
Your lordship will be sure to ask the opinion of
the jury on the Scotch marriage, and then their
opinion upon that other question, which, if it be
put to you, gentlemen, separately, will, I trust, be
decided in our favour, and that question is—what
religion do you believe this gentleman to have been
for twelve months past. I wish I could bring you
into the solitary chamber of Teresa Longworth,
where he was impressing upon her mind that he
sympathised with her in her faith—when he argued
with her as to the nature of the sacrament that
parties can confer on themselves—when he went
with her to chapel at Warrenpoint—when he
prayed with her in the ritual of the chapel—when
he had gained her by this marriage at Rostrevor.
Lastly, I would call your attention to that letter in
which the fact of his having embraced the Roman
Catholic religion was distinctly stated in his pre-
sence and admitted by himself ; and to this, the
crowning fact, that when he entered the chapel to
be married by a Roman Catholic priest he
answered the question of that priest in a shuffling
prevaricating way, stating that he was a Protes-
tant Catholic, and, according to the evidence of the
lady herself, stating that he was a Catholic, and,
again, that he was no Protestant. Unite all those
facts. I submit that they are not countervailed by
the doubtful evidence of regiments who go to
church to sleep—of men who are seen within the
walls of a church once in a year—unaccompanied
by any one solemn act of religion. such as the ac-
ceptance of a sacrament. Look, then, to the ques-
tion of marriage that his lordship shall put to you.
I submit if you come to the conclusion that he did,
on the day that he knelt down before priest
Mooney, and clasped the hand of the woman that
was by his side—if.he did then represent, by his
conduct, by his language, by his actions, that he
was of the Roman Catholic religion, law, reason,
justice, morality—that religion which had been
the argument on the part of the defendant—all
that induces you to find your verdict for the
plaintiff. He will be bound by this marriage,
which is good according to the argument of
his counsel, as good as it had been performed by
the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury. Good in
conscience, good in the sight of God, and good in
the face of the church and of the world if it were
not for the penal statue of the time of George 11.,
which was never passed to meet such a case as this
(applause). The great question in the case is,
whether you believe Miss Teresa Longworth ? In
order to rob her of that which alone she prizes—
that which is dearer to her than life itself—they
say that she parted with the rich jewel of virtue.
How was it proved P. Look to the reasons first,
and the facts afterwards. He says he admired her
—he says she ie agreeable, and that in the convent