A Shattered Idol: The Lord Chief Justice and his Troublesome Women

Product Description

A Shattered Idol

“One of the most despicable scandals ever enacted in an English household.”

After the death of his first wife, Lord Chief Justice Coleridge’s unmarried daughter Mildred was expected to serve as housekeeper, hostess and companion to her father, one of the best known figures in Victorian England. But Mildred wanted to marry Charles Warren Adams, the irascible secretary of the Victoria Street Society for which Mildred worked. After disputed accounts of an incident “in a darkened room,” Lord Coleridge forbade the two to meet. And so began a scandal of the rich peer’s daughter and the fortune-hunting journalist that intrigued London society.

Worse was to follow - the threat of a breach-of-promise action as Lord Coleridge tried to end his attachment to a much younger divorcée with whom he had had an affair on a liner returning from America, a libel suit that revealed every squalid detail of his tyranny over his daughter, and public humiliation as he was questioned in his own court by his would-be son-in-law.

Tom Hughes has written the first full-length account of a scandal that enthralled Britain for more than a decade. This is a thrilling and wonderfully told story of “a family which has gone to ruin itself.”

• A story of family intrigue, libel suits and breach of promise
• A scandal that was headline news in Britain, Australia and America.

Reviews

A scandal about what?  A father’s control over his adult daughter’s life. The recently widowed Lord Chief Justice, Lord Coleridge, the most powerful lawyer in the country, refused to let his 37-year-old daughter marry an under-employed journalist.

What happened? Lord Coleridge was publicly humiliated when questioned in his own court by his prospective son-in-law (who couldn’t afford a barrister).

Where’s the drama? There’s an incident in a darkened room, a threat of breach of promise case, a seduction on an Atlantic liner, a libel suit that revealed every squalid detail of The Lord Chief Justice’s tyranny over his daughter and the brilliant court scenes. Trollope to the life.

Who’s the book for?  Anyone who likes a good story wittily and brilliantly told, lawyers, historians, journalists - but above all anyone with an interest in the emancipation of women.

What’s the feminist interest? This is a story of the terrible damage done by the misguided parental control of a father over his daughter. The story demonstrates how far feminism has progressed in the last 150 years.

A fascinating true story, wittily told, that retains the power to shock today.