Inconvenient People by Sarah Wise Read Free Book Online

himself heard above the jeering laughter that erupted throughout his testimony. Similar hilarity greeted much of Burrows’s evidence. He must have sensed which way the tide was running, as the doctor now claimed that he wanted rid of Edward from the Retreat, and that the certification had been intended only as a short-term measure until the inquisition got under way. Loud applause broke out when Burrows declared that he would relinquish care of Edward regardless of the decision of the jury. Brougham ascertained from Burrows that the doctor had had few personal interviews with Edward, as he visited his own asylum just twice a week, for a couple of hours. Yes, said Burrows, it was perfectly in order to take a family’s version of events as the basis of certification, as these were the very people best placed to spot a change in behaviour and to note down examples of oddness. Mrs Bywater had probably saved her own life, he said, by her prompt calling in of the doctors, and if the jury were to find Edward of sound mind, it might lie heavy on their conscience if Mrs Bywater were subsequently murdered by her pistol-carrying son. This statement elicited visual signs of disapproval and disgust on the faces of the jurymen. In a final flourish, Burrows declared that Edward was clearly insane because he had been following the daily reports of his case in the newspapers and had told him that the doctors – ‘men of character and honour’, as Burrows called them – were telling falsehoods about him at the inquisition. Only a madman would come to such a conclusion.
    A doctor from the London Hospital stated that Edward had a ‘delusion of manner about him’ – a form of words abruptly described as ‘Nonsense!’ by Edward’s counsel. Hissing and jeering broke out in the room when Dr Algernon Frampton said that the reason he had concluded that Edward was insane on 7 December was the patient’s refusal to admit that he had been insane on 8 August. Commissioner Phillimore threatened to clear the room if the spectators would not cease their abuse of the witnesses.
    Other witnesses came forward to say that the danger on the Hornsey roads was a perfectly good reason for Edward to have bought pistols; that £7,000 had been the correct market price for Oakfield House; and that tea dealers Gibbs’s and Varnham’s testimony might be coloured by their known desire to become partners in Hodgson & Davies.
    Dr John Haslam was asked by Brougham if he had read through all the affidavits collected by Edward’s accusers before holding his own interview with the patient, and he said that yes, he had. This mode of proceeding – reading up on the alleged delusions first, and then trying to confirm their existence – was jeered at by both Brougham and the spectators, because of its lack of methodological rigour.
    On the tenth day of the inquisition, Christmas Eve, the jury went to see Edward for themselves at the Retreat; although alleged lunatics could attend their own hearings, many (including Edward) chose to spare themselves the ordeal. They were back at the coffee house again at eleven o’clock on Boxing Day morning, and the foreman of the jury told Commissioner Phillimore that there was no need for the case to continue – the jurymen were unanimously decided and they believed they knew what was being attempted against Edward Davies, and why. This was a highly unusual development in a lunacy hearing, and the Commissioner informed the jury that the family had the right to continue to put its case, but it is clear from the tittering that punctuated the remaining testimony how the entire room was minded. The ongoing laughter ‘was difficult to suppress’, the
Morning Chronicle
reporter stated.
    Mrs Bywater’s counsel plodded on – for four hours – telling the jury that ‘Mr Davies had not only thought himself a Pitt in finance, a Fox in eloquence, a Byron in poetry, but an Apollo in beauty’. He accused Edward’s legal team of