From the Annual Register of World Events, this account of a remarkable bigamy trial (or trials) in the Dublin Commission Court in 1846, culminating in a challenge to a duel issued by the prosecution solicitor to leading defence counsel. In the past, this would have resulted in one or possibly two deaths. Times had changed, however, and duelling had fallen out of fashion with Queen’s Counsel…
“EXTRAORDINARY TRIAL FOR BIGAMY
The law courts of Dublin have produced a most extraordinary series of prosecutions on charges of bigamy. The trial of the case of ‘The Queen v Mary Jane Scott’ commenced in the Commission Court on Monday the 13th, and did not terminate until this afternoon… The prisoner, a short time since, was tried for marrying Mr. Scott of Cahercon, while Mr. Galway, her first husband, was still alive, and was acquitted on a point of law, it being proved that Galway was not her first husband, but a person named Carter. She was now tried for having married Galway, Carter being alive.
It appeared from the evidence for the prosecution that the prisoner’s maiden name was Coburn, and that she was a native of Letterkenny, county Donegal, where she married Carter in 1813. After a short time they separated, when she came to Dublin and took the name of L’Estrange; and having become acquainted with Galway, was married to him by the Rev Mr. Wood in the Haymarket. Galway, who appears to have been a loose character, and lived with two or three women to whom he was not married, afterwards separated from her in London. She then went to Paris, and having married Mr. Scott, she was tried for bigamy, and, as before stated, acquitted.
The prisoner, who was now nearly fifty years of age, was still possessed of no ordinary share of personal attractions, and maintained the greatest composure throughout this lengthened trial, and was elegantly and fashionably attired.
On the third evening, the jury retired to consider the evidence; at half-past eleven at night there appeared to be no change of their agreeing on a verdict; they were locked up, and it was not before half-past one p.m. on the following day that they decided upon returning a verdict of Not Guilty, on the ground that Carter, the first husband, was a Protestant, and not a Presbyterian, and that consequently the prisoner’s marriage with him was invalid.
There seems to have been some especial motive at work against this woman, for another indictment had been prepared for the contingency of her escaping this; the next indictment charged her with having married Antony Galway, her first husband, Carter, being alive. Immediately upon her acquittal on the previous indictment, the prisoner’s counsel announced his intention of bringing this second to an issue; an attempt was made by the prosecutors to postpone the trial in order to procure evidence; but this being refused by the court… the prisoner was finally acquitted.
The prisoner has, therefore, experienced the following lucky escapes. In 1813 she married Carter; in 1821 she married Galway, Carter being alive; and in 1833 she married Scott, both Carter and Galway being living. Shortly after the last marriage she was indicted for marrying Scott, Galway being alive, and escaped by producing Carter, and proving him, and not Galway to be her real husband, she was now indicted for marrying Galway, Carter being alive, and escaped by proving the marriage with Carter invalid; and lastly for marrying Scott, [Galway] being alive, and was acquitted on the same ground.”
Mary Jane Scott’s defence counsel was the famous barrister and politician Isaac Butt QC. Referring disparagingly to the conduct of eminent prosecution solicitor, Frederick Jackson, Butt denounced in court as a vile ‘persecution’ the second indictment brought against his client.
In the short space of time between Mary Jane Scott’s acquittal on this second indictment, and the preferring of the third indictment against her, Butt went home to Leeson Street for dinner. While there, he was visited by a friend of Jackson’s, Captain Blackwood, who delivered to him the following written communication:
“Harcourt Street, Dublin
Making all due allowance for the liberties conceded to counsel, and the privilege claimed by advocates, it is absolutely necessary that I should known whether in the observations made by you it was your intention to convey anything offensive to myself in my capacity as a gentleman or derogatory to my character as a professional man. FREDERICK JACKSON”
Declining to reply until the third indictment was disposed of, Butt took advantage of this breathing space to consult with colleagues at the Bar, all of whom declared that he was imperatively bound not to give any explanation as to what had happened in court. The next Monday, the third indictment was called on, and no evidence being offered in support of it by the prosecution, Mary Jane Scott was acquitted and discharged.
Following the acquittal, Butt replied to Jackson as follows:
“72 Leeson Street, Tuesday, April 21st
Sir- I have to acknowledge the receipt of your note of Friday. Whatever observations I made on the occasion to which your note refers I made in the discharge of my professional duty… I had no other motive… I cannot recognize your right to call me to account for what I have done in the discharge of my professional duty; and anxious as I am to give the fullest explanation to any gentleman who might feel himself aggrieved by anything I may have said, I feel that I owe it as a duty to my profession to say in reply to your note that I do not feel myself called to answer the questions which it puts to me – I have the honour to be your very obedient servant, ISAAC BUTT.”
Captain Blackwood, having read this letter, said it was not satisfactory, and asked Butt to ‘refer him to a friend.’
‘For what purpose?’ Butt asked
Captain Blackwood replied, ‘For a meeting’
‘A hostile meeting?’ inquired Butt.
‘Certainly,’ was the reply.
Isaac Butt refused to grant a meeting, and some days later received a further letter from Frederick Jackson:
“Sir – Your letter… has been handed to me by my friend, Captain Blackwood. In it I find you shelter yourself from the personal responsibility which one gentleman necessarily incur, and to which every person in society who has the pretension of being a gentleman is liable when he gratuitously insults another, under the subterfuge of ‘professional privilege’ and allegation of ‘acting in the discharge of a duty’
Both please… are untenable and untrue. The solicitor by whom you were employed gave to me personally and to my counsel his unqualified denial – and that denial was voluntary – of having instructed you to use any observation of an offensive nature towards me, and his total dissent from their application as regarded my conduct in the case.
With respect to the real cause of your shrinking from a responsibility which you deliberately incurred without, perhaps, fully calculating on the ulterior consequences… I confidently expect that the members of both professions, as well as the public, will draw their own conclusion as to the course you have taken and… come to the conclusion that in adopting it you have been influenced much more by a consideration for your personal safety than actuated by a regard for the assertion of professional privilege. I have the honour to be, sir, your very humble servant FREDERICK JACKSON”
Isaac Butt’s response was to apply for a conditional order against Frederick Jackson for having written a letter to induce the fighting of a duel. An account of what happened next may be found in the Weekly Freeman’s Journal of 18 March 1916:
“[The judges hearing this matter] consisted of the Lord Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Crampton, and Mr. Justice Burton. The defendant’s counsel were Mr. Hatchell QC, Mr. Jonathan Henn QC and Mr. Brereton; and Mr. Butt’s counsel were Mr. Bennett QC and Mr. Napier QC, who afterwards became Lord Chancellor.
Several affidavits were opened in addition to those made by the prosecutor and the defendant, and the case was fully argued in the presence of a crowded court. On the part of Mr. Jackson it was urged, amongst other topics, that Mr. Butt in his speech for Mrs. Scott had said that ‘Jackson’s house in Harcourt-street was made an emporium for the concoction of perjuries.’ Mr. Butt denied that he had so spoken, and in his affidavit said that as counsel for Mrs. Scott he had felt very strongly that the case against her was one of great hardship; and he further said that his instructions for her defense included an answer which she had filed in Chancery to a proceeding against her at the suit of her husband, Mr. JB Scott, in which she made an extraordinary allegation against Mr. Jackson the substance of which was that he had suggested that she should get up a fictious case of matrimonial infidelity against herself in order to enable her to obtain a divorce. This, however, was the mere statement of Mrs. Scott, in support of which no evidence had been given, and Mr. Jackson in his affidavit denied that there was a word of truth in it, and that he had never attempted to obtain perjured testimony. He averred that his personal and professional character had been seriously injured by the language which Mr. Butt had used towards him Mr. Napier in his speech in the court said he appeared not only as Butt’s counsel, but as his friend; that he identified with him in the whole transaction; and that if the protection of the Court were not given to his client the Bar would be a degraded profession.
In the course of the arguments Mr. Justice Burton said the Court was bound to put an end to the practice of sending hostile messages, especially when they were calculated to impede the progress of justice. At the conclusion of the arguments, judgment was reserved by the Court, and on the 18th of June following it was pronounced by the Lord Chief Justice. His Lordship, after reviewing the evidence, said the Court was determined to make the conditional order absolute as an act of public justice.
They thought it due to Mr. Jackson to say that their opinion was that not the slightest stain rested on his character in respect of the proceedings connected with the trial of Mrs. Scott; and though they did not therefore say that the address of Mr. Butt was unjustifiable, they were forced to consider and believe that animadversions of such a nature were calculated to do Mr. Jackson a great and unmerited injury…
Mr. Napier then said, on the part of Mr. Butt, that he (Mr. Butt) believed he had acted honestly in the discharge of his duty; but he felt that a serious injury had been inflicted on Mr. Jackson’s character, which he deeply regretted.
The Lord Chief Justice said that nothing could be more honourable to Mr. Butt than the proposition he now made to the Court, and the opinion he had formed as to the purity of Mr. Jackson’s conduct entirely concurred with that which the court entertain.”
The saga was not over, since before long Isaac Butt was back representing Mary Jane Scott in court this time defending her against a claim by her third (and only legally recognized husband) John Bindon Scott that two bonds and promissory notes executed in her favour had been procured from him due to undue influence and improper pressure.
A subsequent account of the trial of Scott v Scott in Saunders’s Newsletter of 18 November 1846 disclosed that the couple had met in 1832 on vacation at the Penrone Arms, near Bangor, North Wales. A secret marriage did not survive subsequent enquiries made by the groom’s parents, which disclosed his bride’s previous marital history. Bindon Scott moved in with another woman, with whom he quickly started a large family, though financial difficulties necessitated his move to the Isle of Man. It was there that he executed the challenged bonds after a visit from Mary Jane, her then advisor Mr. Lecompt, and an Isle of Man advocate Mr. Blewitt.
According to Mary Jane Scott, Bindon Scott had executed the bonds out of sympathy for her plight, though there may have been a little pressure from her lawyers, too. Certainly, the Court of Chancery censured with great severity the professional conduct of Mr. Blewitt and granted Bindon Scott an injunction against use of the bonds. However, it did not actually cancel them, suggesting that they might still be used as set-off by Mary Jane Scott in any action Mr. Scott might take against her.
Legal costs and the Famine put an end to the Scott holdings in County Clare. The family name did survive, however, in the legal business under the title of Webb, Scott and Seymour solicitors, which operated until the late 20th century. Staunch Protestants, they were involved in several high-profile legal cases in relation to custody of children of mixed marriages – something with which the Scotts were intimately familiar.
The sister of Bindon Scott of the bigamy trial had eloped (by water) with Maurice O’Connell, son of leading Irish Catholic politician Daniel, at a time when her father was head of the Orange Order in Munster. Maurice, who was not faithful, subsequently died in very tragic circumstances when his ‘gentleman’s gentleman,’ who spoke Irish only, misread the label on a bottle of emollient and gave it to him in the belief that it was cough mixture.
Hopefully Mary Jane Scott was spared a similar fate!
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