6.2.2. George Mallia, (1875–1966 Ohio USA)., married (1) 1894 Civil at Valletta to Laura Grace Culme-Seymour (d. Valletta 1895) (daughter of Admiral Sir Michael Culme-Seymour, 3rd Bt), married (2) 1899 London to Laura Lopes, with issue.10
An enquiry to the owner of this website revealed that ‘a lot of the data on the Marchese di Fiddien was provided through private donors’ and has not necessarily been confirmed from official documentary sources.11 Nevertheless, the information regarding Laura’s official date of death does appear to be correct, in so far as this can be checked (but see below). If the account of her marriage to George Mallia is also true, then when the Culme-Seymours declared unequivocally in 1911 that Laura had died unmarried, they would have been lying. However, there now appears to be no surviving record of any marriage of Laura Culme-Seymour in the Public Registry in Valletta.12 Since she allegedly married George Mallia in Valletta in 1894, her name should have been recorded in the Maltese marriage registers for that year. Interestingly, the Maltese registers presented in court in 1911 covered only the period to 1893. Was history perhaps being edited for the trial?
What is even more curious is the fact that attempts by the present writer to find an official record documenting the allegation that Laura died in Malta in 1895 encountered many difficulties. The British General Register Office appears to have no record of this event, either under the surname Culme-Seymour or under the surname Mallia. Likewise no record of Laura’s death is available in response to an in-person enquiry at the Maltese Public Registry under either of these surnames. Attempts both by myself and by a Maltese colleague to order a full death certificate from the Maltese Public Registry online also received the response that no such record was available. It subsequently transpired, however, that an extract death certificate could be ordered online. The resulting statement of death describes Laura as a spinster and gives the date of her death as Friday 22 November 1895. Because it is only an extract and not a full certificate, key items of information are omitted. No cause of death is stated, nor is it specified by whom the death had been officially notified. Details of the attempt to obtain Laura’s death certificate are given in Appendix 4.
Meanwhile, the Ta’ Braxia cemetery in Malta certainly contains a grave inscribed:
IN LOVING MEMORY OF
LAURA GRACE
DAUGHTER OF ADMIRAL SIR MICHAEL
AND LADY CULME SEYMOUR
BORN JULY 18 1873
FELL ASLEEP NOVEMBER 22 1895
WHEN I AWAKE UP AFTER THY LIKENESS
I SHALL BE SATISFIED WITH IT13
The grave (vault Z 11) was once surmounted by a cross, which has collapsed, and which now lies on the surface of the gravestone. The monument is situated beside the wall on the southern side of the cemetery. It is interesting to note that the inscription on the gravestone gives no information regarding Laura’s surname at the time of her death. It merely records the surname of her parents.
The king himself did not appear in court in 1911, despite the fact that Mylius would have liked to subpoena him (and sought to do so). In fact it is very clear that the whole trial epitomised what one recent writer on the subject has described as ‘legal and constitutional realpolitik … [for] the prosecution of Mylius is an example of the legal process having been intentionally constructed to help secure a particular outcome … [Moreover] as an exercise of the Attorney General’s powers it was arguably an abusive prosecution’.14 Evidently the government of the day – including the Home Secretary, Winston Churchill – took a very heavy hand in the proceedings. In addition, in a curious sequel to the problems encountered in locating the record of Laura Culme-Seymour’s death in Malta (not to mention the confusion surrounding her relationship – if any – with George Mallia), we should also note that the surviving records of the 1911 court case, both in the British National Archives and in the Royal Archives at Windsor, now appear to be incomplete, implying that they may subsequently have been tampered with.15
Although the king was not present at the trial, after the verdict had been given a statement on his behalf was made by the Attorney-General, who said:
I am authorised by His Majesty to state publicly that he was never married except to the Queen and that he never went through any ceremony of marriage except with the Queen.16
This is as clear and precise as the statements which we saw earlier from King Charles II (see above), and in the light of the overall evidence presented at the trial it would seem that we must accept it. Questions remain, however. First, if Mary Culme-Seymour lied under oath about her meetings with George [V], and if she and her father both lied about Laura’s marriage to George Mallia, can we have any confidence that they, or the other members of her family who testified, told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth in other respects? Second, why was it apparently assumed throughout the court case that the daughter who was alleged to have had a relationship with George [V] was Mary Culme-Seymour? No Christian name had been published in any of the accounts of the liaison. Thus, the story could well have referred not to Mary, but to her younger sister, Laura (who was apparently unavailable to be questioned in 1911). If it did refer to Laura, even if there was no evidence of a marriage between her and George [V], it is nevertheless possible that she enjoyed a relationship of some kind with the future king, and perhaps bore him a child or children. Most curious of all are the problems which seem to surround both records of Laura’s life and death and the official records of the 1911 court case. Do Laura’s remains really lie under the gravestone at Ta’ Braxia?
Even more scandalous allegations of secret marriage have been published involving George V’s elder brother, Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, known as ‘Eddy’. These allegations link the Duke of Clarence with the Whitechapel murders of Jack the Ripper. The allegations have appeared in various forms, but the most recent and colourful version claims that the Whitechapel murders were an attempt by the royal family’s doctor to protect the reigning dynasty from the consequences of the Duke of Clarence’s secret and illicit marriage to a Catholic girl called Annie Elizabeth Crooks. This alleged marriage reputedly produced a daughter called Alice Crooks, whose potential claim to the throne was thought to pose a threat to the future of the dynasty.
The Duke of Clarence is an unfortunate prince who has been harshly handled, both by his contemporaries and by some historians. His early death has been described as fortuitous for the future of the royal house, and he has been accused of immorality and homosexuality. It is difficult to offer a fair assessment of his true character.
There is no doubt whatever that he did seriously contemplate marriage with a Catholic, but the consort he had in mind was no commoner but Princess Hélène of France, daughter of the Orléanist pretender to the French throne, who was then living in exile in the United Kingdom. After initial opposition from his grandmother, ‘Eddy’ and Hélène did eventually succeed in convincing Queen Victoria that they were in love, and the queen was then willing to countenance the alliance. However, Princess Hélène’s father and Pope Leo XIII proved harder nuts to crack, and eventually the planned alliance was abandoned.
As for the Whitechapel murders, of course these did really take place in 1888. However, it is easy to demonstrate that they could not possibly have been committed by the Duke of Clarence in person, because he had clear alibis for all the traditionally accepted Jack the Ripper murders. Nevertheless, as we have seen, the case against Clarence, as most recently presented, does not argue that Eddy committed the murders himself, but rather that they were carried out by Queen Victoria’s physician, Dr Gull, in an attempt to protect the royal family from the possible consequences of the Duke’s secret marriage to Annie Crooks.
It was said that Annie, who had been hospitalised and driven – or at least certified – insane by Gull, had left her royal daughter Alice in the care of Mary Jane Kelly, her co-religionist, and the last of the traditionally accepted Ripper victims. The Ripper murders were allegedly designed to intimidate – an
d ultimately to get rid of – all those of Annie’s friends who had knowledge of her royal marriage and of the birth of her royal daughter.
Like George III’s alleged bride, Hannah Lightfoot, Annie Elizabeth Crook was undoubtedly a real person. Moreover, she did give birth to a daughter called Alice Crook, at Marylebone Workhouse on 18 April 1885. Alice’s birth certificate names no father. A link has been proposed (though not proved) between Annie Elizabeth Crook and a woman called ‘Elizabeth Cook’ who was living at 6 Cleveland Street in the 1880s. Annie was said to have met the Duke of Clarence for the first time at 15 Cleveland Street – at the studios of artist William Sickert, where Annie was working part-time as a model.
The story of Clarence, Annie, Alice, Dr Gull and Jack the Ripper sounds exciting and has naturally attracted wide interest, but unfortunately – like the case of the ‘Tudor Rose/Tudor Prince’ theory which we examined earlier – real evidence to substantiate the ‘Clarence/Ripper’ hypothesis seems to be completely lacking. Moreover, assuming that Annie Crook’s pregnancy was of the normal duration, then the Duke of Clarence could not possibly have been Alice’s father because he had been in Germany in July and August 1884. Moreover, there is absolutely no evidence to substantiate the claim that Annie Crook was a Catholic – although her alleged religion was supposedly one of the key elements in the secret marriage allegation against the Duke of Clarence.
20
REVIEW OF SECRET MARRIAGE
ALLEGATIONS IN THE
MODERN MONARCHY
The situation governing marriage in general – and royal marriage in particular – in the final section of our study was very different from that pertaining previously, and it shows enormous changes when compared with the situation in the medieval period. The cases of George [III] and Hannah Lightfoot, and of George [IV] and ‘Princess Fitz’, show clearly that, even in an alleged secret marriage, the need for documentary evidence was now accepted, and an attempt could be made to meet it. At the same time, however, religious bigotry had now become a matter of legislation, as had the requirement for the formal consent of the reigning monarch. The consequence of such legislation was that royal marriage was now something unique – a thing set apart from the marriage of the general public. Thus, if George [IV] had not been royal, his marriage to Maria – even though it had been clandestine, and had not been preceded by the publication of banns – would probably have been universally accepted as legal and binding.
The set of royal marriage regulations in force from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries is one which has – quite wrongly – been seen until recently as typical of royal marriage throughout history, leading to misleading generalisations such as the one which was quoted in our first chapter. Thus for many years there was the expectation that English royalty would marry foreign, Protestant, virginal, royal brides in public ceremonies arranged – or at least approved – by the reigning sovereign.
But our exploration of the past has already shown us very clearly that such rules did not always apply. In the later Middle Ages Plantagenet princes – whether Lancaster or York – actually experienced very little difficulty in marrying non-royal brides: even brides who had been married previously and who already had children. Likewise the so-called ‘Tudor’ monarchs and their family felt the same freedom, so that Henry VIII and his sisters married – and his daughter Elizabeth considered marrying – English commoners just as readily as they considered marrying foreign royalty. And during the sixteenth century there was still no requirement for the consort to have been previously unmarried.
Later, the Stuarts showed similar flexibility. Mary Queen of Scots, James II and ‘Charles III’ chose spouses for love, not status, as did many of the children of Charles I’s sister, Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia – including, as we have seen, her son, Prince Rupert. Moreover, throughout this very long period, and even after the Reformation, no questions were asked about the religion of potential royal spouses. Elizabeth I cheerfully considered the claims of Catholic suitors, while her Catholic cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, could marry a Protestant. And Elizabeth’s Stuart successors mostly married Catholics – though their children were then brought up as Anglicans.
It is only with the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688 that the element of bigotry was introduced into the selection of English – or British – royal consorts. From this time onwards religious conditions had to be met by prospective royal spouses. And it is only in the days of ‘mad king’ George III (who sadly seems to have been thwarted in his own choice of a bride for love) that we finally encounter the introduction of draconian rules which preferred foreign (preferably German) ‘princesses’ to the fairest, most moral and most accomplished native-born potential royal marriage partners. Moreover, these German ‘princesses’ were frequently not princesses in the usual English meaning of that word. That is to say, they were not the daughters or granddaughters of kings or emperors.
Fortunately the rules governing royal marriage have recently been interpreted with much greater flexibility. Indeed they may now, at last, be approaching their legal end. Thus the late twentieth century witnessed, for the first time since the troubled episode of ‘Princess Fitz’, the appearance of Catholic spouses in the British royal family. The notion that a royal consort should be of royal – and hence probably foreign – birth had been questioned even a little earlier, and during the course of the twentieth century the selection of spouses who were clearly not royal by birth once again became acceptable. Even so, in 1936 a virgin bride was apparently still considered a requirement. Also, following the abdication of his brother, Edward VIII, the accession of George VI (whose wife was non-royal) was initially questioned. Some politicians expressed a preference for a younger son of the late George V – the Duke of Kent, whose wife, Marina of Greece, was a foreign princess, rather than the daughter of a British peer.
So what is our final verdict on the allegations of secret marriages involving George III and his brothers, George IV, Queen Victoria and the sons of Edward VII? George III’s brothers definitely contracted secret and non-royal marriages. Moreover, it is at least possible that the bizarre ‘Princess Olive’ was Cumberland’s legitimate daughter – though she was excluded from the royal family because King George III disapproved of her mother. As for George III himself, it seems unlikely that he could have married Hannah Lightfoot – the chronology seems not to fit. However, he may well have loved her, and she might have borne him a child or children.
The love of George [IV] for Maria Smythe cannot be questioned. Nor can the fact that he contracted a secret marriage with her. In their case the problem (and it is a new problem which we did not encounter in any of the earlier cases) was simply the legality of their situation. In an earlier period – even as recently as one generation earlier – it would probably have been impossible to deny their marriage, and hopefully today no one would even try to keep them apart. But under the new legislation current in their day they had a problem.
As for Queen Victoria, there seems no possible reason for denying her affection for John Brown. Moreover, since she was the reigning monarch she could, had she so wished, have approved her own marriage to Brown. In fact, however, there is no surviving evidence of a marriage between them. The same is true in the cases of her two grandsons. There is no surviving proof that Eddy married Annie Crook, or that George [V] married Miss Culme-Seymour. As for relationships in these two cases, we cannot say. Eddy may perhaps have had a brief fling with Annie – though it seems unlikely that he fathered her daughter. George may well have had a relationship with Laura, but the allegation that she bore him children cannot be judged, because no clear evidence on this point has yet come to light.
Indeed, as we have seen, even such basic facts as Laura’s date and place of death have proved difficult to verify. This is a very strange situation. In this context it might, perhaps, be relevant to recall a precedent – namely the fact that in 1468, following the death of Eleanor Talbot, the government appears to have taken deliberat
e action to edit the official record in respect of Eleanor’s death in such a way as to conceal evidence of her relationship with King Edward IV. Eleanor’s inquisition post mortem avoided any examination of her tenure of estates which had probably been given to her by the king.
21
CONCLUSIONS:
THE QUEENS-THAT
-MIGHT-HAVE-BEEN
Since, for chronological reasons, we have, on the whole, dismissed the idea that Elizabeth I was secretly married, and since strong doubts remain about the notion that Queen Victoria may have gone through a form of marriage with John Brown, there seems to be no strong case for English or British male consorts-who-might-have-been. On the other hand, in the case of female consorts, there are several serious possibilities to consider, as well as some contenders for whom the case seems less convincing.
The first ‘might-have-been’ queen is Eleanor Talbot. The idea that she was secretly married to Edward IV has been dismissed far too easily in the past – and chiefly by writers who had taken very little trouble to seek real evidence about Eleanor and her relationship with Edward. Eleanor was a high-born lady. Her family was very well accustomed to exercising power and influence and bestowing patronage. Her younger sister proved well able to do this in her capacity of Duchess of Norfolk (as surviving Paston Letters testify), and her first cousin, Anne of Warwick, took on first the role of Princess of Wales and subsequently that of queen. There is therefore no reason to suppose that Eleanor would have experienced any particular difficulty in assuming the consort’s Crown. Not being a parvenue, she would have had no need to indulge in the nepotism and financial sharp practices which subsequently tended to make her rival, Elizabeth Woodville, unpopular. Eleanor was also a moral and devout lady, which might perhaps have helped her to be a good queen. However, she suffered from one very big drawback as a candidate for the role of queen consort: she seems to have had difficulty in conceiving children. Eleanor was never recognised as queen during her lifetime, and she never sought such recognition. However, her marriage to the king was officially – and probably uniquely – recognised in an Act of Parliament. She therefore has a strong claim not to be continually denigrated as Edward IV’s ‘mistress’ – a title which would unquestionably have shocked and offended her.
Royal Marriage Secrets Page 26
