by Paula Byrne
In February 1931, she left for Cheshire, having first visited her youngest son Richard at his boarding school near Broadstairs in Kent. He was just fourteen. From this time forward, he would spend his holidays with her, not at Madresfield. The girls, with the exception of the eldest, Lady Lettice – who had recently married a guardsman, Richard Cotterell, the son of a Herefordshire baronet – divided their time between ‘Mad’ in the country and Halkyn House in London.
A pious but poignant letter survives from the first days of Lady Beauchamp’s exile, which clearly reveals her sorrow at being absent from Madresfield on the day of her youngest daughter’s birthday:
My darling Dorothy,
It is such a lovely spring morn: – I am just waiting for the Car to take me to Eaton [the Grosvenor seat], for the Celebration in the Chapel there at 9.30 a.m.: so I write this ere I leave, to tell you that my Prayers will be for you – I wish you were with me today, but as it could not be, I know that nothing can really separate those who love one another – and perhaps from a distance, we can help each other more – I found this green-edged paper on which to write to you – and I live over again, past happy birthdays, and you and Mary in snowdrop wreaths, which ‘Dewy Bunty’ used to make you – they (snowdrops) are lovely in the garden here. I thought of sending you some – but know how Madresfield garden is filled with them, to greet you on your birthday morn: I had a sunset walk in Eaton gardens yesterday eve. So heavenly – the Spring House, filled with hyacinths and wisteria – and another one, with different sheds of cyclamen.
Later – it was Beautiful this morn in Eaton chapel – bathed in sunlight. The organist did not turn up – so I played the great organ, which I loved – hymns (A and M) 323 – 322 – and 164 – also ‘Nunc Dimmittis’ to the Barnby tune. I had a talk after, with Mr Okell – Nurse Gray was there – and many others – so I was able to remember your birthday in a heavenly chapel. I found this prayer, which Granny used to say for us, in one of her books, so I send it you for your P.B. [Prayer Book] – to keep always. In a few days, I hope to send you a beautiful book, with coloured illustrations, which belonged to darling Granny. It is for you and Mary – and I have written something for you to read in one of the first pages. God bless you, my darling Dorothy – every loving wish always, from Mummy.
p.s. I have a found a little Seal – which translated means (‘Mizpah’) ‘The Lord watch between thee and me, while parted one from another.’ It is a message for you all 3 – with my blessing and all my love.
Enclosed with the letter was a ‘Prayer for My Children’: ‘My Lord, I pray Thee for the children of my love, keep Thou the little faces pure, and the white raiment undefiled, and the dear feet steadfastly walking in the way that leadeth to Eternal life.’ Tentative plans were made for Coote and Maimie to visit their mother in March. But their thoughts and concerns were much more with their father.
On his return from Australia and America, Lord Beauchamp made a brief visit to Madresfield, where his wife informed him that she was leaving him. He returned to Belgrave Square, where he hosted a coming-of-age dinner-dance for Maimie. Halkyn House was decorated with pink flowers and green candles, but it was difficult to celebrate in such circumstances. Something would have had to be said about the absence of Lady Beauchamp. A few days later, acting in his capacity as Chancellor of London University, Lord Beauchamp hosted a dinner for the president of Columbia University. Despite the escalating rumours in society, he was carrying on as normal. Three weeks later, he gave a large reception, again in his Belgravia home, for the Eighty Club, which had a membership of senior Liberal Party men. Most of the guests were accompanied by their wives. Lady Beauchamp was conspicuous by her absence. Among those attending was Lord Buckmaster, the only one who knew what was really going on.
On the last weekend in March, Lord Beauchamp entertained a house party at Madresfield Court, guests including Mr and Mrs Stanley Baldwin and the exceedingly handsome Sir Michael Duff, a bon vivant and society figure, and a favourite of the royal family. He was also a bisexual, as was his second wife. This was to be Boom’s last big country house party. He was gathering his supporters around him as the net closed in.
Bendor struck again. Baldwin was close to becoming de facto Prime Minister on account of the Ramsay MacDonald government’s failure to put together an adequate response to the Great Depression. On discovering that the Tory leader and his wife had both spent the weekend at Madresfield, Bendor wrote to Baldwin suggesting that in the circumstances this was highly inappropriate. For good measure, he persuaded his other sister, Lady Shaftesbury (known as Cuckoo), to write a similar letter.
Lord Beauchamp carried on with his duties, but the strain was telling. Given Buckmaster’s role in the business, it was not easy for Beauchamp to speak just before him in a House of Lords debate in early May on the Agricultural Land Bill, a subject dear to his heart. Then the following week, at the Presentation Day Ball following the University of London degree ceremony, he was accompanied by his daughter, Sibell. His wife’s absence could only continue for so long without being remarked upon.
The offer from Bendor, via the senior lawyers, was clear. The alternatives were public disgrace for Lord Beauchamp or a marital separation without formal divorce, resignation from all duties – ill-health could be cited – and departure from the country, with a written undertaking never to return. But Beauchamp would never willingly relinquish his public duties and the appurtenances of office and status. Let alone abandon Madresfield and his children. His opponents now considered that they were left with no choice but to deliver an ultimatum.
Reluctant as she was to make any public statement, the countess placed a notice in the papers saying that she had separated from her husband and was in good health. She regretted even the little amount of publicity that this caused, but maintained that it was necessary because of Boom’s refusal to agree to the conditions.
Urged on by her brother, she then took a step from which there was no turning back. On 14 May 1931 she filed a petition for divorce in the High Court. The grounds for the petition were laid out in an affidavit sworn by the countess the previous day in front of a commissioner for oaths at her brother’s home, Eaton Court, near Chester, and then dispatched to her London solicitors, Lewis and Lewis of Holborn. The contents of this document were so explosive that when it was filed in the Public Record Office it was stamped to remain closed until the year 2032.*
The Humble Petition of Lettice Mary Elizabeth Lygon, Countess Beauchamp, for dissolution of marriage begins innocuously enough in standard format. The date of marriage to William Lygon, the Earl Beauchamp (‘hereinafter referred to as the Respondent’) is recorded – 26 July 1902 – and the dates of birth of the seven children are listed. But in paragraph five, on the second page, the grounds are given. It would have been possible to allege cruelty, neglect or a trumped-up fiction of adultery of the kind that occurs in Waugh’s novel A Handful of Dust. But the duke had insisted on the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. His sister’s blushes would not be spared. The grounds were: ‘THAT the Respondent is a man of perverted sexual practices, has committed acts of gross indecency with the male servants and other male persons and has been guilty of sodomy.’
The following paragraphs then lay out the litany of evidence that had been gathered by Westminster, Buckmaster and their detectives:
6. THAT throughout the married life at 13 Belgrave Square, Madresfield Court, and Walmer Castle, aforesaid, the Respondent habitually committed acts of gross indecency with certain of his male servants, masturbating them with his mouth and hands and compelling them to masturbate him and lying upon them and masturbating between their legs. The said servants with whom the Respondent committed the said acts of gross indecency were John Scown, Samuel John Scown, Redvers George Rolfe, Edward Hyatt, George Roberts, Frank Webb, William Cann and Ernest Edward Tippell.
7. THAT from the month of may 1909 to the month of April 1912 in the Chauffeurs rooms at 13 Belgrave Mews, West, th
e Respondent frequently committed sodomy with the said Samuel John Scown.
8. THAT on an occasion in the month of january 1911 at 13 Belgrave Square, aforesaid, the Respondent attempted to commit sodomy with one Frederick Moore.
9. THAT from the year 1922 to the year 1925 at the Garage, 13 Belgrave Square, West, the Respondent frequently committed sodomy with Redvers George Rolfe.
10. THAT in or about the month of october 1924 in the Library at 13 Belgrave Square, aforesaid, the Respondent committed sodomy with a man named Cook.
11. THAT in or about the month of november 1927, in the Library at 13 Belgrave Square, aforesaid, the Respondent committed sodomy with a man whose name is unknown to Your Petitioner.
One familiar name in this list is that of young George Roberts, whose presence had caused all the trouble in Australia. The specific allegations of sodomy all refer to events in the house in Belgrave Square and the chauffeur’s mews behind it. They were incriminating enough, but Bendor undoubtedly had a further selection of statements from staff at Walmer and Madresfield.
A poignant final paragraph claimed that ‘by reason of the aforesaid conduct of the Respondent Your Petitioner suffered acute mental agony and misery and her health was undermined’. The countess was accordingly petitioning for the dissolution of the marriage, custody of the two children who were still minors (Lady Dorothy and the Honourable Richard Lygon) and ‘such further and other relief as may be just’.
On 19 May a little notice appeared in the ‘Invalids’ column of The Times: ‘Earl Beauchamp is resting at Walmer Castle, where it is expected he will soon recover his usual health. Although indisposed, he attended as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports the ancient meeting of the Courts of Brotherhood and Guestling at New Romney on Saturday, but the exertion overtaxed him, and he had to remain in bed on Sunday.’ A week later, though, he insisted on returning to London to open the University Inter-College Athletic Championship. He then headed home to Madresfield. He had hosted his last public engagement. The ground was being laid for a withdrawal from public life: on 30 May, he was absent from an important Liberal Party meeting to launch a new free trade campaign. He let it be known that his doctors had advised him that he must not undertake any public work for some time to come.
With a heavy heart, he tendered his resignation to Lloyd George on health grounds. The wily old Liberal Party leader sent a graceful reply by return of post:
My dear Beauchamp,
I am very grieved to hear from your Doctor that you are suffering from cardiac fatigue, and that a period of comparative rest is essential to your recovery. Your partial and temporary retirement from the very hard work you have done for us will be a real loss to the Party. We have come to rely so much upon your ready and very effective help in all our difficulties, that we shall miss it more than I can tell you. However, I hope that you will consider your health as first and foremost, so that you may have a full chance of an early restoration to complete vigour.
There was to be no restoration, only another twist of the knife, a final dramatic confrontation.
At the behest of Buckmaster, three of Beauchamp’s fellow Knights of the Garter arrived uninvited at Madresfield just after six o’clock on a warm early June evening. The hope was that they were sufficiently respected by him to stand a chance of twisting his arm. Lord Crewe was a Liberal elder statesman, while Lord Chesterfield could speak for Baldwin and the Conservative Party. Most telling of all, Lord Stanmore was given authority to let it be known that they had been sent upon ‘the highest authority in the land’. With the knowledge that he had lost the support of the King, combined with his wife’s initiation of formal divorce proceedings in such full and explicit terms, Beauchamp knew that the game was up. No written record survives of the meeting, but the Lygon children gained the impression that he had been told that there was actually a warrant out for his arrest, though the police had been given to understand that if he left the country immediately (by midnight, in some versions of the story; within twenty-four hours in others), he would escape prosecution and public infamy.
The children joined him for dinner. He told them that the only honourable thing to do was to kill himself, but that he would arrange matters to make it look like an accident. He would leave the country first, to minimise the impact. They tried to talk him out of it: they would always remain loyal to him; they could visit him abroad. When they said goodbye to him, the girls still feared that he might commit suicide. As for the option of a new life abroad, almost everything would be lost, but at least money wasn’t a worry. Recalling the breathtaking speed with which these events unfolded, one of the daughters casually remarked: ‘Suppose my father hadn’t had any money available? Luckily, he always carried a thousand pounds.’
The undertaking never to return was signed. Bendor ensured that the Home Office warrant for his arrest on the charge of committing acts of gross homosexual indecency was kept on file. This meant that the earl’s legal status was that of an involuntary exile who would be liable for arrest if he re-entered the country.
It took a little more than twenty-four hours to make the necessary arrangements. He said goodbye to his daughters and Madresfield, and returned to London. On 8 June, with considerable sangfroid, he put in an appearance at a reception given by the Royal Institute for International Affairs at Chatham House. The next day, he crossed the Channel. On Wednesday 10 June a notice appeared in The Times: ‘Earl Beauchamp, accompanied by his son, the Honourable Hugh Lygon, left for Nauheim yesterday to take a cure. His daughters will join him later.’ The absence of any reference to Lady Beauchamp was pointed.
Remarks appeared in less exalted newspapers concerning his need for ‘mud baths’. Further letters of resignation were dispatched. The Baldwins remained loyal. Gossip and sneers circulated in high society: ‘Well, you must expect anything from a man that has his private chapel decorated like a barber’s pole and an ice-cream barrow.’
For the purposes of public consumption, the family maintained the fiction that their father was taking a rest cure for heart problems. In a sense, it was not a lie – his heart was indeed broken. Broken by being forced out of his beloved home and away from his children. Bendor and the countess had their revenge.
But Beauchamp had something that his wife lacked – the love and devotion of his children. It was they who decided to fix a rota to ensure that he always had one of them for company. Hugh led the way, again talking his father out of suicide once they were in Germany. As favourite child, he spent more time with Boom than any of the others, later travelling to Australia to be with him and keep him from depression and suicidal thoughts. Though he was doomed to become an exile, Beauchamp kept in constant contact through letters to and from his children. Only Elmley refused to write to him, severing all contact, until he married and his new wife brokered a reconciliation.
Sibell, Maimie, Coote and Hugh took Boom’s side completely and would not hear a word against him. Their unwavering loyalty, despite the fact that he was seemingly the wrongdoer, was a source of anger and sorrow to their uncle, Bendor, and their mother. This caused a bitter rift that never healed.
Lady Beauchamp was determined to tell her side of the story. In May, as things were gathering to a head, she sat down to compose a letter to her children. But she could not bring herself to post it for nearly two years. She wrote copies – with minor variants – for each of the girls. She was determined to convince her children that she was the wronged party, emphasising that she had no part in the hiring of detectives and the threat to expose the scandal. Her dignified and candid account belies the story that she had no idea what homosexuality was. She told her children that their father had been shown the greatest mercy and consideration, more than any man of similar conduct could expect. She confronted the issue as boldly as she dared: ‘I think you should now be told by me first what seems right and necessary about the facts.’
In contradiction to society whispers about her being innocent of her husband’s proclivities, sh
e now confessed: ‘For many years, I had strongly suspected that (with Daddy) all was not as it should be – and that one side of his life and desires went contrary to everything that is right, normal and natural.’ She was at pains to make his homosexuality clear without actually saying the word: ‘I think you are old enough to understand what I mean and that you will not wish me to explain further but if any of you do not understand the seriousness, then I must.’
She continued with great poignancy, saying that for the children’s sakes when they were young she refrained ‘through many years of anguish and anxieties from converting my suspicions into actual knowledge’. Such was her mental anguish that she welcomed physical pain because it helped her to escape from her ‘agony of mind’. In justification for her actions, she asked her children to understand what she had undergone for so many years and asked that the ‘old love will be restored in its fullness and perhaps even increased, for indeed nothing has been done without the greatest and gravest consideration, compassion, understanding and wisdom’. She added that it was for Dickie’s, her youngest’s, sake and his future that she left the marriage – to ‘keep him clear of all the ills that otherwise would doubtless have befallen him’.
She concluded by saying that the hardest thing of all for her to bear was that she would never again be able to see her husband, telling the children to ‘assure him that my forgiveness will never cease and that my prayers for him will be unceasing’. She was clearly finding comfort in her faith: ‘All I can do is to accept the inevitable and trust Daddy to God’s mercy which never fails us when we turn to him … I pray that peace and forgiveness may be granted to him and that his soul may yet find peace and solace – if not in this world, in the world beyond … Out of it let us rise in Newness of Life and may it yet be used for good in helping others.’
