The Beauty of Her Age: A Tale of Sex, Scandal and Money in Victorian England

by Jenifer Roberts

  One problem was that Tatham failed to define the word ‘issue’. Stephens had intended it to mean the children and grandchildren of his four uncles but, because the word was not defined, the court gave it the widest possible interpretation. Every beneficiary had to prove his or her pedigree. This took time and it was not until 1863 that a definitive list was drawn up with ninety-three names.

  The term ‘living at my decease’ was taken to include infants still in the womb at the time of Stephens’s death. There were four such infants, born between June and November 1860. The last of these may not have been conceived in time, but this was a difficult matter to prove. There were rumours of lawyers attending the birth of at least one of these children to certify the safe arrival of a beneficiary.

  The person who did most to help Tatham prepare the claims was the elderly Virgil Stephens Lyne, who provided information for a family tree several yards long. ‘It was at Mr Tatham’s special request,’ he wrote to his brother in December 1863, ‘that I undertook to procure the necessary information as to births, marriages, deaths, christenings, etc. I did so at a time when I was a great invalid and scarcely able to go through with it. It not only occasioned me much trouble but also subjected me to much expense and, notwithstanding Mr Tatham’s repeated request, I refused all remuneration.’

  The beneficiaries on Tatham’s pedigree were a diverse bunch, ranging in age when Stephens died from a (maybe) not-yet-conceived foetus to a geriatric widow in Liskeard. Many of them were clergymen and lawyers, stockbrokers and shipowners, typical of the professional middle classes of the time. Several had moved to the colonies, spreading the Lyne Stephens net into many corners of the globe.

  They varied from establishment figures, such as General Sir Frederick Glubb, to the eccentric, one of the oddest of whom was Joseph Leycester Lyne, the self-styled Father Ignatius who tried to re-establish monasticism in the Anglican Church. A sanctimonious man of astonishing hypocrisy, he built a ‘monastery’ in the Black Mountains of Wales, where he subjected his band of followers to a regime of austerity and discipline while he lived more comfortably in what he called the ‘superior’s quarters’. He would have preferred to restore one of the great ruined abbeys of England. As he wrote to the London Standard on 20 October 1865:

  We are most anxious to restore an old ruined priory to its original purpose. Would any gentleman who owns such a thing kindly give it to me? By my late cousin Lyne Stephens’s will, I am to have some few thousands of pounds myself. I would give every penny towards the building up of an old desecrated monastery … I should very much like to have Bolton Abbey, or Fountains, or Kirkstall in Yorkshire, or Llantony Abbey in Monmouthshire, or Vale Crucis Abbey near Chester, or Furness in Lancashire, or Tintern on the Wye … As for Westminster Abbey, at present I am almost afraid we cannot obtain that.

  His self-professed ‘monks’ and ‘nuns’ were adult volunteers, unlike the two-year-old boy he adopted as an ‘infant oblate’. This was a medieval custom, ‘whereby mere babies could be dedicated to the service of God by being adopted by a religious House, clothed in its habit, and in time … professed as a vowed son of its cloister’. Ignatius took ‘the Infant Samuel’ from his impoverished mother and brought him up as a miniature monk. It was, he explained, ‘a pleasure and solace to have the patter of tiny feet about him, and a spotless soul which from the very dawn of its infant perceptions he might train and fashion from bud to blossom as an oblate of unsullied purity’.3

  Pope Pius IX thought differently when Ignatius visited Rome in February 1865. ‘Remember,’ he told him, ‘a habit does not make a monk.’ The writer Augustus Hare was in St Peter’s when Ignatius, leading the Infant Samuel by the hand, emerged from his interview with the pope:

  He has come to Rome for his health, and has brought with him a sister (Sister Ambrogia) and a lay brother to wash and look after the Infant Samuel … He vowed him to the service of the Temple, dressed him in a little habit, and determined that he should never speak to a woman as long as he lived. The last is extremely hard upon Sister Ambrogia, who does not go sight-seeing with her companions, and having a very dull time of it, would be exceedingly glad to play with the little rosy-cheeked creature.

  The Infant is now four years old, and is dressed in a white frock and cowl like a little Carthusian, and went pattering along the church … by the side of the stately Brother Ignatius … exciting great attention and amusement amongst the canons and priests of the church. A lady acquaintance of ours went to see Brother Ignatius and begged to talk to the Infant. This was declared to be impossible, the Infant was never to be allowed to speak to a woman, but she might be in the same room with the Infant if she pleased, and Brother Ignatius would then himself put any questions she wished.4

  Another oddball among the beneficiaries was the stone-deaf Lewis Jedediah Lyne who lived on a goldfield in South Australia. He had sailed for Australia as a young man and thereafter avoided all contact with his family. He found employment in various merchant companies, but ‘was very obstinate and determined and would not work one minute (literally) after the clock struck the appointed hour’. By the mid-1850s, he was working as a stable-hand in the Burra mine at Kooringa.

  He fell ill at the time of Stephens’s death and, for the first time in thirty years, wrote to one of his brothers, Richard Benjamin Lyne, who replied with news of the death of his wealthy cousin and explained that, under the terms of the will, he was entitled to a share in the Lyne Stephens fortune. Lying in the makeshift hospital at the mine, Lewis Jedediah was befriended by the medical officer and, after his death in January 1861, the doctor wrote to Richard Benjamin in London:

  When your late brother came under my care, he was put on the benefit club and received fourteen shillings a week sick pay. When he became worse, I made enquiries as to his comforts but he always replied that he required none. One could get nothing out of him. He associated with no one … He was very deaf indeed and this may have had a great deal to do with his almost misanthropic disposition. I became interested in him and treated him as a friend. I felt so distressed at his miserable existence that I proposed he should enter the hospital here, but he was so proud that it was difficult to get him to consent. He died very quietly and was kept up for a long time before his dissolution by brandy alone. I must mention that he believed in brandy and took more than was good for him.

  He left no will. He drew a sketch of a will which I sent to a lawyer to be properly drawn, but I could never get him to sign it. I can tell you what his intentions were. He informed me that, on the death of a lady, a cousin of his named Mrs Lyne Stephens, he would become possessed of several thousand pounds and he wished it to be divided equally between his brothers and sister.

  It was too late for Lewis Jedediah, but Stephens’s will changed the lives of hundreds of members of the Lyne family, even if they did not live to receive their inheritance. Ninety-three beneficiaries (and their heirs) were waiting for Yolande to die, after which they would be enriched by the equivalent of £1.3 million in today’s money. The will also split families, the difference of a few days in the presumed date of conception or a few hours in the time of death determining whether an individual became a beneficiary or was excluded from all interest in the Lyne Stephens estate.

  Several beneficiaries sold their reversionary interest in the will, although shares sold in the 1860s, when Yolande was relatively young, achieved less than a third of their full value. ‘As soon as the contents of the will were known,’ wrote Francis Lyne, ‘every son and every daughter throughout the Lyne family were set free of their parents’ control, and thousands upon thousands of pounds have been lost to the family by the sale of reversions.’5

  Over the years, thirty-nine beneficiaries sold their interest, sometimes to relatives but mostly to assurance companies. The first share was advertised for auction in The Times on 24 December 1860, just ten months after Stephens’s death:

  The absolute reversion to a share, supposed to be one ninety-third part of the re
sidue of the estate of Stephens Lyne Stephens … the estimated value of which is £972,800. 13s. 7d., or thereabouts, receivable on the decease of a widow lady, now in her 48th year, to be sold by auction at the Mart, Bartholomew Lane, opposite the Bank of England, on Thursday 3 January 1861, at 12 o’clock.

  Many beneficiaries who retained their interest would die during Yolande’s lifetime, their shares falling into their own estates, to be passed on to further beneficiaries. Lewis Jedediah was the first to die. Meaburn Tatham divided his share between his brothers and sister, and advised on the matter of death duties. In a letter written in May 1865, he recommended immediate payment:

  The present value of a share may be roughly taken at £3000. The duty thereon payable by (say) a brother succeeding to such share in right of a deceased brother or sister would be at 3 per cent. In other words, if paid now, £90. This share when it falls into possession will be (say) £9000. The duty payable at 3 per cent would be £270, supposing it not to have been already paid … If the course I have suggested be adopted, there will be a saving of much trouble by and by, and of some expense. I am of the opinion that, in order to keep matters clear, the duty should be cleared whenever a share devolves by death on others.

  Each time a reversionary interest changed hands, lawyers were employed to draw up the documents. An example of this absurdity was the short life of Frances Nicholas, one of the beneficiaries still in the womb at the time of Stephens’s death. The court accepted her claim on the grounds that she was born eight months and three weeks later, although she lived for less than a year. When she died in August 1861, her one ninety-third share passed to her father as next of kin; and when he died two years later, it was bequeathed to his wife, herself a beneficiary, who then became entitled to two ninety-third shares.

  It was not only beneficiaries who became involved in complicated genealogy. Because the money was placed in Chancery, fraudsters had taken up the matter and were persuading large numbers of people to make erroneous claims to the fortune. Normally, when estates were put into Chancery, it was because the heirs could not be found. Lists of estates held by the court were published in the London Gazette, allowing fraudsters to circulate local newspapers with exaggerated reports of fortunes waiting for heirs to claim them. Most editors believed these stories to be true and published the details, whereupon the fraudsters advertised in the same newspapers, offering to claim the fortunes on a fee basis. Whole families were deceived in this way.

  ‘No public office causes more heartbreak among the ignorant public, or raises more unfounded hopes, than this branch of the Supreme Court,’ said a member of parliament when the matter was raised in the House of Commons:

  It is believed by many persons that the amount of unclaimed funds in Chancery reaches something like £100 million. There exist, not only in London but also in the provinces, flourishing agencies which lay themselves out to deceive the public. One adventurer has been spending as much as £350 a week in advertisements, suggesting that people apply to him for information which will lead them to realise fortunes in reference to those funds.6

  While genuine beneficiaries employed lawyers to prove their claims, families in Cornwall were defrauded by the conmen, a widespread deceit which continued throughout the period the Lyne Stephens fortune remained in Chancery, a total of forty-eight years. Families with the name of Stephens invented ancestors who had gone to Portugal and built glass factories; even today, there are puzzled family historians whose pedigrees contain the names of the Stephens brothers, dropped fraudulently but hopefully into unconnected family trees.

  Letters from a William Philp of Liskeard to a family in St German’s are just one example of how people in Cornwall were led to believe they had a claim to the fortune. His first letter was written on 23 January 1862:

  As a Christian, I feel it my duty to inform you that there has been a meeting held at Liskeard concerning the money which was supposed the late Stephens Lyne, by some unlawful means, had defrauded the Stephens family of. Their family connections are now making their claims and, since your late husband’s mother was called Nanny Stephens previous to her marriage, you will do the same by getting your husband’s register and his mother’s. From what I can hear, there is every probability that you will get the money and their counsel informs them that it will be settled in March.

  On 3 February, he wrote again:

  From making further enquiry into your business, I am informed that this gentleman who accumulated such amount of money was called Stephens and died at Lisbon some thirty years since, leaving Stephens Lyne a certain amount of his property and the sum of £700,000 to the nearest relation he had. Where this money has been during this time, I do not know but, at present, it is in Chancery for the nearest in kin who will make claim for it.

  I have not the least doubt that you and your family connections are the nearest in kin to that Mr Stephens. I hope you will lose no time in making it known to your family, and also that the Lord will incline the heart of some gentleman to take up your case by putting it in some wonderful counsellor’s hands on condition that you make amends for their trouble. I believe an influential gentleman would be a strong tower to you and delight at the idea of doing good to the poor.

  And again on 1 April:

  All my spare time since I saw you last has been taken up in making a diligent search concerning your affairs. They now find from the Will that John James Stephens left his grandfather’s descendants £30,000. Granny Tucker’s mother must have been his aunt and therefore Granny Tucker and John James Stephens, the last brother that died at Lisbon, must have been first cousins. I trust that you will be able to work up Granny’s claim and send it in before the fifteenth of this month as the Chancery business will then again commence. Bless the Lord, there is hope for all of you now.

  Nine days later, he learnt that the family was becoming disheartened by the lack of progress:

  I am sorry to find you are getting discouraged about the Will. If I was my own master and could afford it, I would search all the churches that was necessary and send in your claims in a fortnight. A poor man by the name of Stephens at a place called Burnt House about five miles from here has sent in his claim. He came in through one of the grandfather’s sons who had a daughter called Jane Stephens after his mother. If so, this Jane Stephens … must have been a sister to him whose daughter you come in by.

  For almost fifty years, this poor and ill-educated family would live in hope. ‘My father died twenty-two years ago,’ wrote a Margaret Dymond to one of her cousins in 1887:

  and I have been trying to find out the mystery ever since … I understand that you have a lawyer working for you. What I know might be of service to some branches of the family if they would only try to link the family and make a claim … The Court knows who the family is that the money belongs to. So if we could not find everything, the Court might make up the deficiency and the right parties would have the money.

  These letters relate to just one family but the conmen persuaded most Cornish families with the name of Stephens to consider a claim on the fortune, money to which they were not entitled. There was never any doubt that the three wills in the case, those of John James, Charles and Stephens, were all valid and clear in their intentions.

  11

  THE STILL SUMPTUOUS DUVERNAY

  Mrs Lyne Stephens … has asked me to manage a good many of her affairs … It is an object to me not to disappoint her.

  Colonel Edward Claremont, 23 September 1862

  While members of the Lyne family set about proving their entitlement to the Lyne Stephens fortune, they took little interest in the woman whose life expectancy would determine when they received their share. At the same time, the men who had stayed on friendly terms with the richest commoner in England felt less inclined to maintain relations with his French Catholic widow. The matrons of Roehampton continued to ignore her and the gentry in Norfolk made no attempt to befriend the lonely woman who would soon take possession of Lynford Hal
l.

  Yolande had no access to the capital in her husband’s estate but the income on his wealth, about £6.5 million a year in today’s values, was more than she could possibly spend. As a result, the money in her own name began to accumulate and she would soon amass a fortune of her own. She was ill-equipped to handle her financial affairs or deal with the lawyers and trustees who were treating her with so little respect. She had neither the skills nor the aptitude for the management of three grand houses, thousands of acres of land, and a large complement of servants and ground staff. She needed someone to look after her affairs – and she found him in Paris in the spring of 1861.

  Colonel Edward Stopford Claremont was the British military attaché in Paris. Forty-two years old, slim, fit and with a military bearing, he was very different from the overweight and ageing Stephens of the last years of her marriage. Six years younger than Yolande, he was the illegitimate son of Anaïs Aubert, an actress in the Comédie-Française, and General Sir Edward Stopford who had served on Wellington’s staff during the Peninsular War. Conceived during the three-year occupation of Paris after the Battle of Waterloo, he was born in the city on 24 January 1819 and baptised in the British Embassy, the Hôtel de Charost in the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré.

  Yolande perceived Edward as a kindred spirit. He had lived with his mother for the first thirteen years of his life, so they shared memories of theatrical Paris; he may even have seen her dance in the Salle le Peletier. They could also speak together in French, a huge pleasure for Yolande who had never learnt to be fluent in English.