THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 23, 1997 TAG: 9702220048
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E17 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LIZ SZABO, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 107 lines
THERE'S something about the story that sounds familiar.
The lawsuit involved a liberal politician with a reputation for sexual indiscretion.
The plaintiff stood to profit from the politician's embarrassment and was linked to a conservative party still bristling after recent political defeat.
The trial in question is not Paula Jones' sexual harassment case against President Clinton but the adultery trial of the prime minister of England. No sitting American president has ever been sued in a civil trial. But William Lamb, Lord Melbourne, faced charges very similar to those Jones has lodged against Clinton.
The year was 1836.
Their clothing may have been different, but some things apparently never change. Politicians of all eras seem to attract scandal. And even in pre-Victorian Britain, sex scandals always got the most attention from the press.
Clinton's lawyers argue that presidents should be immune from civil suits while in office, contending that the president could fall victim to frivolous lawsuits and partisan attacks.
Melbourne certainly saw his trials in just this light. Tory members of Parliament denied being behind it, but Melbourne, his lawyer and the accused lady in question all were convinced that the prime minister's political enemies had conceived the plot to discredit him. Whether Melbourne was found guilty or not, the trial was certain to drag his name through the mud.
Melbourne's accuser, it should be noted, was not a wronged woman but a man. George Norton accused the prime minister of ``criminal conversation'' with his wife, Caroline. Melbourne denied everything, claiming the only thing he shared with Norton was a love of the Greek dramatist Aeschylus.
Caroline Norton was a well-known writer and granddaughter of playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan, author of (appropriately enough) ``School for Scandal.''
However, Caroline was forbidden to speak at the trial. In those days, men did not prosecute their wives for adultery. They sued the other man - for ``damages.''
Although born of aristocratic stock, George Norton was the younger brother in the family; as such, he inherited little, least of all a work ethic.
Lacking funds, not to mention affection for his estranged wife, George Norton came to the trial looking for cash. His conservative Tory friends, Melbourne's defense countered, were looking to cash in - and destroy the reputation of the liberal Whig leader who had come to power just months earlier.
In suing Melbourne, Norton found a vulnerable target. Melbourne's first wife was Caroline Lamb, a former lover of the poet Byron. And anyone tainted by Byron's sexual escapades, even indirectly, became notorious by asso-ciation.
The trial was sensational, exciting ``an extraordinary degree of interest,'' according to a transcript published by someone named T. Richardson of Chancery Lane.
Richardson noted: ``Long before the time appointed for the opening of the Court to the public, the galleries were crowded, it being generally understood that as much as five guineas had been given for seats. . . . When the door was opened, there was a tremendous rush from the hall, and the court in every corner was instantly crammed in.''
The seamy details flowed from Caroline Norton's disgruntled former servants - several maids and a groom and ragseller named John Fluke, who admitted that he often ``had a drop too much.'' He insisted he was not drunk at that moment.
Fluke testified he had seen Melbourne and Caroline alone together in the Norton home. Caroline was lying on the floor with her ``clothes in disorder,'' her skirt falling in such a way that he could see her thigh.
It eventually came out that the witnesses were receiving money from George Norton's brother.
Both sides admitted that it was a case of one person's word against another's. It was a question of character - and character assassination.
Melbourne's lawyer's contrasted the prime minister's character with that of Norton's witnesses. To the jury - composed of one gentleman and 11 middle-class merchants - there was no comparison. One was respected as a head of state; his accusers were dismissed as merely servants. Although both plaintiff and defendant were members of the gentry, Melbourne was a social reformer who had supported extending the vote to the middle class.
And class had much to do with the verdict.
Melbourne's defense put it this way: ``By whom were the charges made in the present instance? By discarded servants - a race, the most dangerous in all cases.'' He dismissed Fluke as ``a drunkard and a swindler,'' one of the maids as a woman who ``prefers to lie as a mistress rather than wife.''
The jury's verdict was swift.
The men ``conferred a few seconds'' before deciding in favor of Melbourne, finding him not guilty. Their announcement ``was received with loud bursts of applause, an expression of feeling which was promptly re-echoed by shouts from the mob without the doors.''
Melbourne, having defended his honor, put the trial behind him and continued as prime minister, later serving as adviser to the young Queen Victoria. For Melbourne, the trial was just a ``nine days' wonder'' - his phrase for 15 minutes of fame.
George Norton lost the suit but continued to pocket all of his wife's earnings, thanks to British laws that denied wives any rights to their incomes. He also took their children, one of whom died because of neglect during an illness.
The injustice galled Caroline Norton so much that she vowed to never write again - except for feminist political tracts to advance women's rights. Her lobbying efforts were successful, and women gained the right to their children and their incomes.
All three central characters in the case continued to make headlines in the press for years to come. MEMO: More information about Melbourne and Caroline Norton is available
online at http:// www.engl.virginia.edu/ tildemhc/norton.html ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Paula Jones has accused President Clinton of sexual misconduct.