One reason for this unaccountable failure for the participants to think things through may have been timing. The tribunal hearings took place in July 1926. Alva, who was most likely to be affected and by far the most political of those involved, had spent much of June dealing with the setback caused by Carrie Chapman Catt’s vindictive exclusion of the National Woman’s Party from the International Women’s Suffrage Alliance. Immediately after the tribunal hearings her attention was diverted once again because her sister Jenny Tiffany, who had been one of the witnesses, died suddenly. The Duke then travelled to Rome to be received in audience by the Pope, a move which Consuelo later blamed for the story breaking. One likely cause of Alva’s ill-temper when she arrived back in New York in late October 1926, therefore, was that she knew it was only a matter of time before the dam of publicity burst.
When the story appeared in The New York Times on 13 November it started a bitter controversy that would rage for several weeks. The Bishop of New York, Bishop Manning, led the attack. His first position was one of ‘amazement’, saying that he could hardly credit the authenticity of the despatch from abroad: ‘It seems incredible to me that the Roman Catholic Church which takes so strong a position against divorce, should show such discrimination in favour of the Duke of Marlborough … It would be a serious thing indeed, and most dangerous in its implications, if the Roman Catholic Church should claim the right to annul a marriage such as this, which was entered into in entire good faith, which resulted in the birth of two children and which was accepted as binding by both parties to it for many years.’54 Bishop Manning’s suggestion that dukes were somehow favoured by the Catholic Church was quickly rebutted by an anonymous English prelate declaring: ‘Nothing more can be done for the Duke than a tramp.’55 Indeed, throughout the whole affair the Vatican repeatedly pointed out that the social importance of the persons involved had nothing to do with the case and that Vanderbilt wealth had no influence. The ‘Sacred Rota Tribunal’ had been in existence since 1326, and had famously refused to annul the marriage of Henry VIII to Catherine of Aragon; more recently Count Boni de Castellane had made no fewer than three attempts to have his marriage to Anna Gould annulled and had failed every time.
The following day the news was even more sensational. It was the former Duchess who had brought the suit, on grounds of coercion, and The New York Times had it on good authority that the tribunal had accepted Madame Balsan’s plea that undue pressure had been brought to bear when she was not yet of age by her mother and other relatives. The Duke had not contested the plea either, and so the judgement had been promulgated accordingly. Madame Balsan had married a French Catholic and as one priest put it, she doubtless wished ‘to regularize his position with the Church which had become irregular by his marriage to a divorced woman’.56 It was pointed out that this was an ecclesiastical action with no civil effect and that the legitimacy of the Marquess of Blandford and Lord Ivor Spencer-Churchill was not affected. This, it was hoped, would lay the matter to rest.
However, earlier that year Alva had picked a fight with Bishop Manning and had made him look foolish. She was already on record attacking the Church for its treatment of women. She took particular exception to the church’s habit of accepting female support and money while denying women the right to be priests, and had taken a radical swipe at the ecclesiastical hierarchy for ‘dictatorial discrimination’ in her article ‘Women as Dictators’ in 1922.57
In April 1926 a bureaucratic blunder by Bishop Manning’s office gave Alva the perfect opportunity to show everybody what she meant by ‘dictatorial discrimination’. Years beforehand Alva had founded the Trinity Sea Side Home for Sick Children near Islip on Long Island, run by Protestant nuns. It had been her first foray into public life and for this reason perhaps she was particularly attached to it. Alva had long been aggrieved that after her divorce from William K. Vanderbilt, Bishop Manning had forced her to stand down as president of the children’s home and then list her subsequent donations to the organisation as ‘anonymous’ because she was a divorcee. In April 1926, Alva received a routine solicitation from the Bishop’s office requesting funds to complete the building of the Cathedral of St John the Divine. Alva, who always enjoyed an epistolatory spat, saw her chance and decided to retaliate.
Although Doris Stevens tried to persuade her to tone down her response, Alva wrote a furious public reply, whilst castigating Doris for being ‘too mild’.58 ‘Will you allow me to remind you, dear sir, that it is only a few years back you would not permit my name to appear as the President of the Trinity Sea Side Home for Sick Children … What I fail to understand is only this change on your part, dear Bishop. My status remains the same. I am still a divorced woman.’ Her response appeared on the front of page of The New York Times under the headline ‘Mrs Belmont Twits Bishop About Gift’.59 The only reaction was an embarrassed admission from Bishop Manning that his recent request for funds had been an office error, and the press could not resist noting with glee that Alva had made him look a fool. Alva’s ‘stinging precision’ had driven Bishop Manning to cover, wrote the Chicago Tribune. ‘She has become famous for the vigor of her speeches, and for the swiftness and pungency of her retorts … The present Bishop of New York knows, or ought to know, something about this.’60 It all gave Alva great satisfaction at the time, but it was a piece of teasing that she would live to regret. As Elsa Maxwell later remarked, offending Bishop Manning was tantamount to social suicide.61
Confronted with the annulment of the marriage of Mrs Belmont’s daughter, Bishop Manning now behaved like a man whose time had come. On 15 November, he graduated from being ‘puzzled’ to saying that the matter was ‘amazing and incredible’ and that this was one of those moments when one was required to stand ‘four square like the tower of your church’.62 As far as he could see, this annulment was nothing less than a direct attack on the sacredness of the marriage tie itself – a sacred tie of which the Roman Catholic Church had always been a doughty defender. The problem, in his view, was that Mrs Belmont and those like her wished to sweep away not just the male-dominated hierarchy of the Church but the sacred institution of marriage itself with their attitude that divorce represented liberation. It was extraordinary that the Catholic Church should support this, lamented Bishop Manning, and in any case what right did it have to annul an Episcopalian marriage?
This last point became the focal point of a battle fought in an atmosphere of unending confusion over the religious and civil nature of a Vatican annulment and a general feeling that it was one more sign that society was going to hell in a handcart. Some, disregarding the fact that the parties were already divorced, saw the annulment as divorce by the back door. Canon Carnegie of St Margaret’s, Westminster, opined that ‘if such action could stand, no one’s marriage would be safe’.63 ‘Everybody’s prayers,’ said the Rev Dr S. Edward at the Bedford Presbyterian Church, Nostrand Avenue and Dean Street, Brooklyn, ‘should be offered for the confused young people of today’.64 One Episcopalian magazine suggested that if there was no distinction in the mind of the Rota between a duke and a tramp, the Church should produce the tramp; and that since there had been no marriage the Duke might like to consider returning his American millions.65 The Church Times thought it might herald revolution. ‘It is disconcerting that this annulment should be announced at a moment when it is reported that marriage is entirely abolished in Russia,’66 it said.
This provoked a sharply personal counterblast from the Tablet. ‘The Vanderbilt nullity has been pronounced on grounds which every man, and especially every woman, should respect, namely that the Catholic Church rejects the heathen practices of marriage by capture and of marriage by purchase, however plausible their renaissance may be dissembled by professing Christians of vast wealth and high position.’ The ‘vulgar’ barter of coronet for dollars had taken place in Bishop Manning’s diocese complete with ‘20,000 sprays of lilies of the valley, eight miles of roses, chrysanthemums equal in bulk to a haystack’67 and the Anglican
clergy should have paid more attention.
On 25 November, Bishop Manning came charging back in again with a statement read from the pulpit before the sermon at the Thanksgiving Day service in the Cathedral of St John the Divine. He called the annulment ‘an unwarrantable intrusion and an impertinence, a discredit to the Christian Church and an injury to religion’.68 His second point, however, came in response to accusations that Anglican clergy had turned a blind eye to the Marlborough marriage. ‘Many who were present at the marriage, and were associated closely with the Marlboroughs at the time, have informed me they saw no sign that the bride was acting under compulsion but quite the contrary,’69 he said. Dr Brown had made enquiries at the time and was satisfied that gossip about coercion was untrue. It was a ‘preposterous’ claim, said the Bishop. And finally he turned his attack from Alva to Consuelo. It was a scandal that a woman of middle age should be able to make such comments about the behaviour of her parents when at least one of the parents was no longer alive to defend himself against the claim.
In an attempt to extinguish this firestorm the Vatican decided to make public the text of the Rota’s reasons for granting the annulment. When this appeared it stoked the flames of the controversy higher for it presented a version of the story that would not have been out of place in a Gothic novel by Mrs Radcliffe, its effect greatly heightened by the translation of the text from English into Latin and French and back into English again. This highly coloured version of events was then reflected back in the American press.
Consuelo was a girl of ‘youth, beauty and a great fortune’ and ‘endowed with every womanly grace’ who had ‘plighted her troth to Rutherfurd, whom she violently loved, and her mother, who strongly opposed the match, brought overpowering forces into play to wrest the heart of her daughter from that man and prevent her marrying him’. Alva, meanwhile, ‘driven by her desire for a title of nobility, substituted another man for the one whom Consuelo loved passionately’. Consuelo, as the appellant, was quoted as putting her case in similar style: ‘My mother tore me from the influence of my sweetheart. She made me leave the country. She intercepted all letters my sweetheart wrote and all of mine to him. She caused continuous scenes. She said I must obey. There was a terrible scene in which she told me that if I succeeded in escaping she would shoot my sweetheart and she would, therefore, be imprisoned and hanged and I would be responsible …’ It seems a little unlikely that Consuelo would really have called Winthrop Rutherfurd ‘my sweetheart’ three times in as many sentences, but that was certainly the phrase favoured by the translator quoted in The New York Times.
Corroborative witness statements had to convince the tribunal that there had really been coercion, and ‘in this connection the appellant party must produce proofs which shall cause moral certitude that intimidation was actually used’. Even allowing for the effect of translation and a desire to make the charge of coercion stick, most witnesses appear to have stuck carefully to their own version of events and did their best to avoid saying that there had been outright intimidation in the case of Consuelo’s engagement to the Duke. The Duke of Marlborough said that Consuelo told him ‘that her mother had insisted on her marrying me, that her mother was strongly opposed to her marrying Rutherford [sic] and that she had used every form of pressure just short of physical violence to reach her end’. Aunt Jenny Tiffany said: ‘My sister was continually causing scenes and tried to soften her daughter by saying she was suffering from heart disease and that she would die if she continued to cross her.’ Mrs Jay confirmed that Consuelo had disliked the Duke for his arrogance. Even Alva managed to avoid saying that she had actually tortured Consuelo to the altar, though she did say she ‘ordered’ her. ‘I forced my daughter to marry the Duke. I have always had absolute power over my daughter, my children having been entrusted to me entirely after my divorce. I alone had charge of their education. When I issued an order nobody discussed it. I, therefore, did not beg, but ordered her to marry the Duke … I told Consuelo he was the husband I had chosen for her. She was very much upset … I considered myself justified in overriding her opposition, which I considered merely the whim of a young inexperienced girl.’
The only other person who came close to alleging outright coercion was Mrs Lucie Jay. When asked by one of the judges: ‘Do you believe that the means used to force the marriage were moral persuasion or actual coercion?’ She replied: ‘No persuasion at all. Coercion absolutely. This I am aware of and this I know.’ The tribunal concluded that Consuelo was ‘gentle and mild of character and accustomed to obedience’, and in no way fitted to resist her mother’s ‘ruthless, stubborn temper, intolerant of opposition, imperious in the extreme and ready always to bend everybody to her will. The seventeen-year-old girl’s fear that her mother would die if crossed in her wishes was very real to her, it added, especially as it was confirmed by a doctor.’ ‘Despite all this,’ the tribunal continued, ‘Consuelo did not easily fall in with her mother’s wishes. It is on record that she broke down and wept when first told she must marry the Duke and did so again the next day when her engagement to him was announced in the newspapers. She had no-one to whom she could turn, not even her father, both because her father and mother were separated by divorce and because all the witnesses unanimously declared that she would have fallen under the influence of the obstinacy and imperiousness of her mother.’ Alva testified that she had put a guard on Consuelo’s door on the morning of the wedding. Consuelo’s statements about her state of mind were further supported by the Duke who said: ‘She came very late to the wedding and appeared much troubled.’ The tribunal stressed that it had made ‘very special inquiries about all the witnesses who had testified and received information that they all were worthy of the utmost confidence’, and that it was impressed by the precise nature of the depositions. Under canon law, the Rota simply had to be convinced that Consuelo had felt ‘deferential fear’ for Alva and that she was frightened that her failure to enter into the marriage would result in her mother’s intense hostility. Confronted with ample testimony that Alva was indeed ‘an imperious mother unused to any arguments against what she said and bending everything to her way of doing things’, and, taken together with the further evidence of marital unhappiness evinced by a legal separation and divorce, the Rota upheld the original decision of the Southwark Diocesan Court.70
As controversy seethed about them, all the main characters in the drama remained steadfastly silent. Journalists attempted to speak to all the witnesses but no-one would be drawn. The Duke was said to be secluded in his ‘castle’ although the ‘hamlet of Woodstock’ was ‘getting a thrill’.71 Mrs William Jay was tracked down at the Plaza but refused to make any comment; Winthrop Rutherfurd was eventually cornered in his apartment at 274 Park Avenue and would only say that he had known Miss Vanderbilt at the time and had admired her; and Alva, who was forced to decamp from staying at the Colony Club in New York to the home of her son Willie K. Jr, confined herself to remarking: ‘This is merely one of those adjustments that come into the lives of people.’72 The only person to crack was Consuelo herself who appears to have had an outburst at a reporter from the People, which promptly claimed it had a scoop.
According to the newspaper, the Balsans’ house in Paris was ‘besieged’ by journalists camped outside, and they had received hundreds of telegrams and letters ‘asking for statements and offering blank cheques in return’. These were being returned unopened, or dealt with by secretarial staff and ‘the former Duchess refuses to look at them’. The reporter from the People asserted that Consuelo agreed to speak to him because he knew her family well. He reported that she was furious at the suggestion that she had been forced into a loveless match by her socially ambitious parents and quoted her as saying:
I say, once for all, that the suggestion of undue pressure is the foulest slander that could have been uttered against my father and mother, both of whom thought only of my happiness and would never have been party to a match had they not thought they were studyi
ng my welfare … I may have been a little romantic and consequently over-enthusiastic at the time. To that extent, perhaps, I was easily persuaded in my own heart when the glamour of a first love was on me, that it was for my happiness that I was taking the step; but I want you to be clear that the step was mine and that I alone was responsible for it … It is only because my parents have been attacked that I speak out now.73
But the report should be treated with caution, not least because it contained key factual inaccuracies: the paper referred to Consuelo as Madame Joseph Balsan and incorrectly reported that Alva was on her way to Paris to discuss the original marriage settlement in relation to the Duke and Consuelo’s children, a wholly spurious piece of news, but one of which the man from the People seemed particularly proud. The paper’s so-called ‘scoop’ shared the front page with other ‘leading’ stories, namely: ‘Rain Foils Diabolical Indian Plotters’ and ‘Killed by 39th Lion: Champion Hunter’s Shocking Death’. Consuelo would not be the first person to find that she had apparently ‘given an interview’ to an importunate reporter while showing him the door, only to find an impromptu remark embroidered beyond recognition in next day’s papers. What is clear is that Consuelo’s ham-fisted attempt to play down the extent of the coercion to the People was driven by distress at the portrayal of her parents as unfeeling and socially ambitious tyrants, the last thing she had ever intended. Unfortunately, the ‘interview’ was immediately re-printed almost word for word in The New York Times, giving Consuelo’s so-called remarks more credibility.74 Taken together with Bishop Manning’s assertion, based on hearsay, that she had been a happy bride, this helped to create the persistent impression that the annulment testimony had been a fix.
Consuelo and Alva Vanderbilt Page 47
