Dilke

by Roy Jenkins

  This was an astonishing story, first, because there was no overt acquaintance between Chamberlain and Mrs. Crawford; and, secondly, because Chamberlain never informed Dilke of the call. This can hardly have been through lack of opportunity, for within a few weeks of the incident they were to spend more than a month together at Highbury. Nor is it likely that the visit escaped Chamberlain’s memory. During Dilke’s period at Highbury the question of Mrs. Crawford’s motive must surely have been frequently discussed. It is hardly conceivable that in the course of these discussions it should not have occurred to Chamberlain to tell Dilke of her visit to him. Why did he not do so? This was a question to which Chamberlain, in Dilke’s view, never provided an adequate answer. Dilke recorded the explanation given by Chamberlain (after the detective’s notebook had become available) and his view of it in three separate places. On the copy of the detective’s notes he wrote: “Chamberlain confirms the call but says that she did not find anyone at home or go in.”25 On Bodley’s letter (the one which referred to both Rosebery and Chamberlain) he noted:

  “Keep in letter-box for memoirs: it is interesting as a specimen of the kind of advice one got from the ablest people. I do not reject all faith in human nature, and do not believe in the awful wickedness of bosom friends. The man who wrote this knew that Butcher, the detective of Crawford, when we bought his notes of what had passed before the confession, showed us that she had been at Chamberlain’s house the afternoon before and had been lost there, but though the explanation was not satisfactory I do not believe one word of the innuendo.”26

  Then again apparently some years later, Dilke wrote a note saying:

  “I and Emilia (Lady Dilke) always rejected Bodley’s view that Mrs. Crawford’s visit to Chamberlain at that moment was more than a chance. What Bodley will not see and what Emilia and I can is that though a ‘Red Indian’ Chamberlain is loyal to friends and incapable of such treachery.”27

  Dilke’s rejection of Bodley’s suspicions was therefore based on faith in Chamberlain’s character and not on any convincing, innocent explanation of the Princes Gardens incident.[16] It seems indeed as though Dilke was disinclined to believe Chamberlain’s statement that Mrs. Crawford did not go into his house. This is not surprising, for it is almost impossible that had she merely rung the bell, spoken to the footman, and turned away from the door, a trained detective, operating in full daylight, could have lost her there. Equally difficult is it to believe that, had the call been of such a casual and ineffective nature, Chamberlain, while not remembering it in the following month, should have recalled it two years later when challenged by Dilke. The first part of Chamberlain’s statement—that he was not at home when Mrs. Crawford called—is not in dispute. It is confirmed by Butcher’s evidence that he arrived in a cab soon afterwards; and is in a sense doubly confirmed by Chamberlain having told Dilke that he could recall the incident of the cab-horse falling down to which Butcher referred. But this merely suggests that her call was pre-arranged with Chamberlain. Otherwise, being unknown to his servants, she would hardly have been admitted in his absence.

  Of course, even a pre-arranged two-hour call, about which Chamberlain was first silent and then untruthful, would be far from proving that he was a party to a conspiracy. Even for those whose faith in Chamberlain’s character is less firm than was that of Dilke’s there would be difficulty in explaining why he should have wished to promote such a plot. Superficial reasons could easily be suggested. If there was to be a radical Prime Minister, Dilke and he were clearly alternative candidates, and Dilke’s recent selection as chairman of their “cabal” strengthened his position.[17] Dilke’s own testimony, indeed, was that only a week before the case broke it had been agreed that he should be the future leader. On the other hand it was clear, first, that Dilke and Chamberlain united were far stronger than either without the other was likely to be; and secondly, that in any Dilke cabinet, Chamberlain, probably charged with a general supervision of home policy, would have occupied a commanding position.

  Some ambitious men would not have been satisfied with this. Disraeli might not have regarded it as the “top of the greasy pole.” Even Gladstone might have felt that it showed a lack of divine confidence. But Chamberlain, as his whole career goes to show, was unusually interested in power as opposed to place. He could be brutal to enemies and ruthless with friends. But he had a clear-sighted judgment; and it is most unlikely that he would have wished to destroy a valuable ally on the hypothetical chance that this would secure to himself more of the trappings of office. If Dilke had been a serious hindrance to Chamberlain, the latter would have been a dangerous man for him to have as an intimate friend; but in the summer of 1885 this was hardly the case.[18] Nevertheless, there remains a substantial element of mystery about this visit of Mrs. Crawford to Chamberlain. It is difficult to believe that it did not have some purpose which he was anxious to conceal from Dilke. Perhaps, even if he did not instigate her, he let slip a crucial opportunity of deflecting her from her purpose.

  Others, who came to know even more about the case than Bodley, believed not in political but in private conspiracy. Steavenson, for instance, who had worked more on the papers and seen a greater number of the witnesses than anyone else, believed that Mrs. Rogerson was closely involved. As late as 1914 he wrote to Miss Tuckwell, Dilke’s official biographer, to protest against her plan to ignore rather than refute the charges in the projected work.

  “A book would sell by the 100,000,” he encouragingly began, “that could have for a hero (a man) in real life who was ruined, or even most probably ruined, by a conspiracy of two women. (1) Mrs. Rogerson who wanted to marry him and revenged herself when she found she could not. (2) Mrs. Crawford, a foolish woman, who was tired of her useless husband and was as putty in the hands of the other. The worst details were the invention of two shockingly immoral women.”28

  Lady Dilke, on the other hand, believed that Mrs. Crawford’s mother, Mrs. Eustace Smith, was a more central figure. Lady Dilke knew that her husband had been receiving frequent anonymous letters for some years; that he remembered them as having begun in 1880 when he ceased to dine with the Eustace Smiths; that none of them mentioned any woman by name, but that one, probably received in 1882, mentioned “the house in Tottenham Court Road where you take your mistresses,” and another, probably in the year 1884, referred to “the two women who live with you”; and that it was the firm belief of the Dilke investigators that they had traced the authorship of these letters, as well as of the earlier ones which Crawford received, to Mrs. Eustace Smith’s maid, who acted as the agent of her mistress. On the basis of this knowledge Lady Dilke summed up her belief in the following words:

  “The anonymous letters came from a source bitterly and revengefully hostile to Charles and they in the first instance suggested to Mrs. Crawford the opportunity of gaining her freedom while protecting her lovers. Later in the history of the case it is certain (if the opinion of experts is of any value) that she herself was the writer of anonymous letters involving my husband.”29

  What, at a distance of seventy-five years and from a less partisan standpoint, should the reader now believe?

  Chapter Sixteen

  What was the Truth?

  In a Sea of doubt one point stands out as being beyond dispute. Mrs. Crawford lied in the witness-box. She lied about Forster; she lied about Warner; and she lied about one of the nights she claimed to have spent in Dilke’s house. This does not prove that all her other statements against Dilke were untrue; but it does mean that the impression she made upon the judge and jury must be discounted. They heard her contradict Dilke and they decided that she was a witness of truth. In this they were mistaken. It follows that no automatic reliance can be placed upon her uncorroborated evidence.

  Furthermore, it seems overwhelmingly likely on the basis of the evidence of George Ball and others relating to February 13th, 1883, that she was on this occasion accusing Dilke not merely out of her imagination but by transference. What
she claimed had occurred with him had in fact occurred with someone else. The possibility that this was so with regard to other dates as well cannot be excluded. There were three others which she specified. There was February 23rd, 1882, the date of the alleged first seduction at Warren Street. Dilke’s alibi against her earlier version—that he had visited her at Sydney Place in the morning and arranged to meet her at Warren Street in the afternoon—was complete. Against her second version—a morning visit arranged a few days before—it was not formally complete, and was not accepted by the judge as such. But it was such as to make it highly unlikely that he could have found the time for such an expedition. Once it is accepted that Mrs. Crawford was capable of telling elaborate lies under oath the balance of plausibility in regard to this day is clearly heavily on Dilke’s side.

  The next date—again an alleged visit to Warren Street—was May 6th, 1882. Dilke’s alibi for this occasion, as presented to the court, turned on his wife’s evidence, which is not perhaps the most legally convincing that a man can have, and which was politely rejected by the judge. There is, however, a difference between legal and moral conviction. Lady Dilke might in the circumstances have been prepared to lie to the court. It seems much less likely that, had she not then been telling the truth, she would have written, four months later, in a private letter not intended for publication: “I can never be too glad that this woman fixed on the 6th May, for whatever may be the value of my evidence in regard to the public to me my certainty on this point is of the greatest satisfaction.”1 Lady Dilke, it should be remembered, was a woman of strong character and decided views.

  It therefore seems highly likely that, of Mrs. Crawford’s four allegations relating to specific dates, three were complete fabrications. The fourth—the suggestion that she also spent the night of December 7th, 1882, at 76, Sloane Street—cannot be rebutted with evidence of the same force. But it rests only upon the uncorroborated statement of Mrs. Crawford. If her three other allegations were false there seems little reason to believe this one either.

  In addition there were her allegations, not related to specific dates, of constant adulteries at Sloane Street, at Sydney Place, and at Young Street. No corroboration for any of these charges was forthcoming. On the contrary, the evidence of Bodley, of the fencers and of Dilke’s indoor servants was all strongly against the Sloane Street story; that of Anne Jamieson and of Catherine Ruddiman, Mrs. Crawford’s own servants, was against the Sydney Place story; and that of Charles Grant, Dilke’s coachman, against the Young Street story. In these circumstances the conclusion of the Dilke investigators, in their pamphlet published in 1891, does not seem unreasonable. “Now, for a husband working in the dark to find evidence against a wife who denies adultery may often be difficult,” they wrote; “but for a wife charging herself with adultery, extending over a lengthened period, at four different houses, on innumerable occasions, assisted by the ablest solicitor in England and a whole battalion of detectives, to be unable to find a vestige of corroboration seems impossible if the story were true.”

  There was of course some evidence against Dilke, which undoubtedly made an impact on the mind of the public. But it was all purely prejudicial. It may have been damaging to Dilke’s character, but it was in no way corroborative of Mrs. Crawford’s story. There was his admission of a liaison with Mrs. Eustace Smith. There was the statement of Mary Ann Gray that one morning she saw a lady in his bedroom; but she did not believe that it was Mrs. Crawford, and her recollection was such as to suggest that the incident occurred after the alleged relationship had ceased. There was the statement of Shanks, Dilke’s footman, that he had been told to clean the dining-room and drawing-room windows because a lady was coming to the house; but there was nothing to suggest that the lady was Mrs. Crawford, and the preparations he was told to make were hardly the most obvious ones for a clandestine and illicit meeting. More important, there were the statements of the Hilliers that Dilke was in the habit of meeting a lady at 65, Warren Street; but they were certain that the lady was not Mrs. Crawford and that the visits took place in the afternoons and not in the mornings. Also, unknown to the public, there were Anna Dessouslavy’s subsequent and sweeping accusations; but these, manifestly, in no way involved Mrs. Crawford.

  One of the aspects of Mrs. Crawford’s story which gave it a great air of verisimilitude was the wealth of detail which she was able to supply. Her account of changing cabs, of passing messages, of arranging meetings—the whole paraphernalia of deceiving her husband—carried a note of conviction. But once it is accepted that she had a considerable experience of intrigue with others and that she was ready to make what had in fact occurred with one man the basis of her accusations against another, this ceases to be even moral evidence against Dilke. This consideration may also be taken to apply to her sensational three-in-a-bed story. If it were not true how could she possibly have thought of it? This was the natural and general reaction. But it might have been less general had the details of her activities with her sister, Mrs. Harrison, and in particular their relationship with Warner, been known to the public.

  Some of the details which Mrs. Crawford gave could not of course have been the result of “transference.” Neither Forster nor Warner would have given her knowledge of the interior arrangements of 76, Sloane Street, or of the existence of a Dilke pensioner at 65, Warren Street. But there were several other sources from which she might have obtained these pieces of information. There was Mrs. Rogerson, who from her long-standing friendship with the Dilke family was probably well informed on both points. If, as Steavenson believed, she was party to a conspiracy, she could have briefed Mrs. Crawford most effectively; and even if she were not, she might have been a gradual source of much useful information. The same considerations apply to Mrs. Ashton Dilke. Alternatively Mrs. Eustace Smith might have planted the seed of the Warren Street idea in her daughter’s mind. It is certain, as is shown by one of the anonymous letters which Dilke received in 1882, that there was some gossip about the nature of the Warren Street establishment; it is probable that Mrs. Smith helped to spread this; and it is unlikely that she would not have included her own family in the list of recipients. There is no difficulty in explaining how, if she had not gone there in the circumstances she described, Mrs. Crawford could have known of Warren Street.

  There is more difficulty in explaining her “invention” of Fanny Gray. It can be seen how she might have conceived the idea of introducing such a character into her confession. Her mind might have been inclined by experience to move in such a direction, and she might have thought, intelligently and rightly, that the addition of this sensational detail would make her story appear more and not less plausible. It is also just possible to see how she might, perhaps from Mrs. Ashton Dilke’s servants, have known of Fanny’s existence. But it is difficult to see how she could have known from this, or any other obvious source, what a good choice she was making. The mysterious and nervous Fanny, who would never appear in the witness-box because there was so much in her life which she wished to conceal, was the perfect victim of a false accusation.

  What are we to believe? We should not of course exclude the possibility that on this point if not on others Mrs. Crawford was telling the truth. But there is no evidence to support her. On the contrary, there is a great deal of evidence against her story that Fanny was in the habit of spending almost every night with Dilke at Sloane Street. It also seems unlikely that, had either this suggestion or that concerning Mrs. Crawford been true, Dilke, while protesting his innocence, would have encouraged his wife and his friends to go chasing Fanny round the Home Counties, seeking statement after statement from her. But it seems equally unlikely that Mrs. Crawford, had she fixed purely by chance upon Fanny, should have been so singularly lucky in her choice. It is not entirely impossible that it was luck and nothing more; but it seems more likely, on the hypothesis that Mrs. Crawford was falsely implicating Dilke, that she had known or at least heard of Fanny through some other source, conceivably th
rough Hill Street or through one of her lovers, and had realised that this girl, with her Dilke connection and her doubtful past, would be an almost perfect choice for the purpose.

  Fanny Gray apart, it is therefore perfectly possible to sustain a view that Mrs. Crawford could have fabricated the whole of her charges against Dilke; and it is just possible, with a certain stretch of the imagination, to overcome the logical untidiness of Fanny. There still remains the question of whether it is psychologically plausible that Mrs. Crawford should have had the desire to perpetrate (and the nerve to sustain) this colossal fraud upon the British public. This question divides itself into three parts. First, could she have wished to do it? Second, could she have maintained her position throughout the period of public enquiry? And third, would she not subsequently, when her Roman Catholicism became the centre of her life, have felt it necessary to make public retribution to Dilke?

  On the first point it was always easy to suggest a half motive for her action. She had become desperate to get rid of her husband, and she did not wish to implicate Forster. But this does not show why she wished to implicate Dilke, as opposed to some other victim. He was by no means the safest man to choose, for she must have known that by so doing she would provoke a national scandal, and subject her own conduct to the closest examination. Did she have some grievance against him? A French writer named Hector Malot wrote an imaginative reconstruction of the story which was published in England, under the title of Josey, in 1887. He assumed Dilke’s innocence, and succeeded in building up a surprisingly convincing portrait of Mrs. Crawford’s state of mind when framing the false charges. He did so, however, on the basis of an assumption that she had been in love with Dilke, had offered herself to him, and been contemptuously rejected. But Dilke never suggested that this was so.