The Sun.
London, England, 1861-03-18 00:00:00

LAW INTELLIGENCE.—(This Day.)

HOUSE OF LORDS.
(Peers present—The Lord Chancellor, the Lord Bishop of
Carlisle, Lord St. Leonards, Lord Cranworth, Lord
Chelmsford, Lord Wensleydale and other peers.)
BROOK V. BROOK-MARRIAGE WITH A DECEASED WIPE'S

SISTER ABROAD.
This was an appeal from the Court of Chancery. The
appellants are James William Brook, Clara Jane Brook,
Amelia Brook, and Sarah Helen Brook, all infants, under
the age of 21 years, by their next friend ; and the respon-
dents are Charles Brook, jun., John Edward Armitage, and
Edward Armitage, trustees of the will of William Leigh
Brook, late of Meltham-hall, near Huddersfield, Yorkshire,
and her Majesty's Attorney-General. The questions in •
volved are whether a marriage duly solemnised on the 7th
June, 1850, at the Lutheran church of Wandsbeck, near
Altona, in the duchy of Holstein, in the kingdom of Den-
mark, between the said William Leigh Brook and Emily
Armitage, the sister of his first wife, Charlotte, then deceased,
is or is not a valid marriage P and whether the issue there-
of are not legitimate, or are not to be considered to be
entitled to succeed to real or personal property of their
father, as legitimate according to the laws of England, the
said marriage being valid and the issue thereof being legi-
timate according to the law of the said duchy? and whe-
ther Charles Armitage Brook, deceased, one of the children
of the second marriage, having died, the appellant, James
William Brook, the son by the first marriage, is not his
heir at law, and as such capable of inheriting hie real
estate ; and the appellants, James William Brook and Clara
Jane Brook, Charlotte Amelia Brook and Sarah Helen
Brook, are not his next of kin, and as such capapable of taking
his personal estate. William Leigh Brook married on the
20th May, 1840, Charlotte Armitage, who died in 1847, and
had by her two ehildrsn—namely, the appellants, James
William Brook and Clara Jane Brook. In 1850 he married
at Wandsbeck, near Altona, Emily Armitage, the sister of
his former wife, and by her, who died only two days before
himself, had three children—viz., the appellants, Charlotte
Amelia Brook, Sarah Helen, and Charles Armitage Brook,
since deceased. Up to and at the time of the second mar-
riage, as alleged by the respondents, the parties were domi-
ciled in England, and had no permanent residence in the
country where it took place. The father made his will
19th September, 1855, by which he gave to his oldest son,
James William Brook, his mansion of Meltham-hall, with
gardens, house, ground, and farmer's cottage and land
adjacent to it, not to include his mill property of any
description. He then gave to his second son, James Wil-
liam Break, his daughter, Clara Jane Brook, to his " re-
puted" son Charles Armitage Brook, and his " reputed"
daughters, Charlotte Amelia and Sarah Helen Brook, the
rest of his property, share and share alike, except that he
gave to his two sons a double portion of the property dis •
posed, the property of Meltham-hall being already appro-
priated to his eldest son, with reversion to his second
and " reputed" son Charles, in the event of his eldest
son dying during his minority. In the event of
both sons dying before the age of twenty-one,
the property of Meltham-hall was to be realised at the
discretion of the trustees of his will, and the proceeds
to be divided in equal portions between the surviving sisters
and "reputed" sisters who should attain the age of 21. The
testator died of an attack of cholera at Cologne on the 19th of
Sept., 1855 ; and on the 26th of Dec., 1855, letters of admi-
nistration, with the will annexed, were granted to the
trustees named therein ; and they have ever since continued
in possession of his large real and personal estate as trustees
and executors. The children by the second marriage, on
the Bth of March, 1856, filed a bill against the trustees and
James William Brook for the administration of the estate ' •
but before the cause came on for hearing Charles Armitage
Brook, the son by the second marriage, died, and, according
to the appellants, his rights to the real estate vested in
James William Brook as his brother and heir-at-law ; and
as to his personal estate, the other children, the appellants,
became entitled thereto as his next of kin. The title of
the appellants to the real and personal estate of the said
Charles Armitage Brook was denied by the Attorney-
General on the ground that the marriage of his father and
mother was not valid, and his property was claimed for the
Crown. The cause came on before Vice-Chancellor Stuart,
who held the will to be established, but directed an
inquiry whether the children of the second marriage were
the legitimate issue of the testator. The Chief Clerk, by
hii certificate, found that the second marriage was cele-
brated at Wandsbeck, in Denmark; but the parties were
at the time of the marriage, and at the time of their deaths,
domiciled in England, and that their marriage was lawful
according to the law of Denmark. The matter was argued
on further consideration before the Vice-Chancellor, as-
sisted by Sir Cresswell Cresswell, then a judge of the Court
of Common Pleas, who gave his opinion that the marriage
having been solemnised between the testator and his de-
ceased wife's sister, however lawful it might be in the
country where it took place, was, under the statute sth and
6th William IV., c. 54, which declares that such marriages
were absolutely null and void, of no effect, and the children
illegitimate. In this opinion the Vice-Chancellor con-
curred, and made a decree, declaring the marriage, whether
celebrated in the kingdom of Denmark or elsewhere, null
and void to all intents andleurposes, and that the Crown was
entitled to all the real and personal estate of Charles Armi-
tage
Brook, deceased. This decree having been enrolled, the
present appeal was brought. The appellants contended that
the validity of a marriage and the legitimacy of its issue is
to be determined according to the law of the country where
it was solemnised ; that according to the law of Denmark the
marriage in Denmark was valid, as the marriage of a widower
with his deceased wife's sister is not within the prohibited
degrees of consanguinity and affinity in that country ; that
the statute of Wm. IV. is only a territorial law and does not
apply to her Majesty's colonies, or any other place out of Eng-
land and Ireland; that if the statute does apply to such mar-
riages by British subjects wherever they may be solemnised,
yet it only made null and void such marriages as, if the
statute had not been passed, would have been voidable in
the Ecclesiastical Court ; and that the particular marriage,
regard being had to its being valid by the law of Denmark,
would not have been voidable in the Ecclesiastical Court
during the lives of the parties. The respondents urge that
by the Act 5 and 6 William IV., c. 51, every domiciled
Englishman is made personally incapable of contracting a
marriage with a deceased wife's sister either in England
or elsewhere ; that although the law of England admits in
general the validity of a marriage between British subjects
when duly celebrated in a foreign country, yet that rule
applies only to the solemnities required to constitute a
binding contract, and does not affect the original capacity
of the parties to the contract ; and that even if the law of
the place of contract were held to extend beyond the limits
assigned to it in the above argument, it could not be so far
extended as to render valid a marriage between domiciled
English persons, which is incestuous by the law of Eng-
land. great length.
institutional
A fTt
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articular the
writers and several Acts of Parliament, in p
Marriage Acts of Henry VIII. and William IV., and
citing foreign and English decisions on the subject, he said
he had come to the conclusion that the appellant's mar-
riage with his deceased wife's sister was not lawful, and
affirmed the decision of the Court of Chancery, and dis-
missed the appeal with costs.
The other noble to concurred with his lordship.

DISASTROUS COLLISION AT SEA .—LivErtrooL,
Monday Morning.—The Joseph Fish, which sailed from
tll
Liverpool on Thursday last, for Key West, Put back to ,
Liverpool yesterday, having been in collision with the ship
Tuniata, bound from the Mersey to Baltimore. The latter
vessel sank in ten minutes after the contact, and 14 of the
is to
Oxford
b e
i per-
formed e t
ro.
crew are reported missing. The Joseph Fieh was a good
deal damaged.
EnaelsSohn's " Walpurgis
Night"
formed at the next concert of the London Musical Society.
havlet ias Universitynreewpornatoendthtihyaptetrih:ditiofitso
of
wn—
to be entitled
" Old Tom."
The life of the late Professor Donaldson will be
written, we believe, by his brother, Sir Alexander Stuart
Donaldson,