Caroline Norton Balancing the Scales of Justice

A beauty, but an unusual one, dark eyed and flirtatious, and entirely too smart by nineteenth century standards. A writer married her self to an abusive husband who, as rumor had it, had once pushed her so hard he had caused a miscarriage. The woman's name is Caroline Norton, rumored vixen, close friend, and maybe more of the Prime Minister. But as the spectators who came to see her quickly realize,

Caroline Norton isn't there in the courtroom. She's elsewhere, holed up with her mother, away from her children, waiting for a messenger's horse to gallop toward her with news of her fate. It was only right in a way that she wasn't in the courtroom on that drizzling day in June, because in the year eighteen thirty six in the United Kingdom, a married woman like Caroline had no legal existence. Unmarried women looked down upon as they were existed as legal

entities in the court system. Unmarried women had custody rights over their children born out of wedlock. But when Caroline Norton was accused of infidelity, as far as the legal system was concerned, she didn't exist. She could stand to lose everything, her children, her access to her earnings as a writer, her social standing. Yet her legal identity was fully subsumed into her husband, and it was her truly bad luck to be married to a man named George Norton.

Mister Norton had once asked his more popular, vivacious wife to use her ties with the Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne to advance his own career. Now mister Norton was suing the Prime Minister for criminal conversation with his wife. Criminal conversation or krim con was a euphemism that meant adultery. Though it took two titango. Only men could be hauled to court for the crime. Because Caroline Norton was married, she couldn't be sued. She was not a legal entity.

What she was was the legal property of her husband that may have been devalued by the Prime Minister. The story of Caroline Norton is the tale of a bold woman of the nineteenth century, a writer of sparkling wit, trapped by the law and by the culture of her time. Never a feminist by her own description, and yet a

staunch campaigner for women's rights. It's the story of a sad woman cut off from the children she loved by an abusive man, and it's the tale of the long legal battles that finally earned basic rights for women in the United Kingdom. Caroline Norton was the popular author of five novels and twelve poetry collections. She was the close

correspondent of Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein. She was daughter in a line of writers, a wife unable to obtain a divorce from an abusive husband, a loving mother who adored her three boys, and a grieving woman who was kept away from them. She was the subject of a ton of press and a ton of rumors. Mary Shelley called her spellbinding. The Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne called her husband a stupid brute for whom she was too headstrong. Her own grandfather said he wouldn't want to meet her

in a dark wood. And Caroline Norton pen in hand was behind the fight that would earn married women legal recognition for the first time in British history. I'm Danish schwartz and this is noble blood. Caroline Norton was born Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Sheridan on March twenty second, eighteen eight in London. The Sheridan family name was already famous for

both art and scandal. Her grandfather, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, was the author of the famous play The School for Scandal, an aptly titled satire of the world of social status and gossip, which might sound familiar if you listen to our episodes on the Duchess of Devonshire, who ran the social circle that that play was mocking. While Caroline's mother was pregnant with her her father was convicted of criminal conversation that had taken place before he was married, but

before his mistress was married. This was the buzzed about atmosphere in which dark eyed Caroline was born. Her earliest life was marked by tragedy. When she was only five and a half, her father left to tend to his health and died. After that, Caroline was sent to Scotland, where she didn't see her mother for four years. But everything picked up for Caroline as she entered young adulthood. She reunited with her mother and siblings and they all

moved to Hampton Court Palace in London. Like many young writers to be, Caroline and her sisters wrote little books, except unlike many young writers to be, a publisher printed fifty copies of Caroline's book when she was about eleven years old. She grew up as the middle of three sisters who were known as exuberant beauties, all like men, eyes twinkling with the knowledge of what they were doing

to these hapless gentlemen around them. They called to mind the three Bronte sisters who were born about ten years later. The Sheridan girls were just fun, more like the three social Skuylar sisters as portrayed in the musical Hamilton. And if we're going with the Schuylar comparison, Caroline was definitely the Angelica. She was the wittiest, the most gossiped about, the slyest, the most outrageous and playful, and egotistical and irreverent.

She was also the most unusual looking, it was generally agreed, but that only made her more captivating. She was known to lower her big eyelids and look up from under them in descriptions that remind me of little of Princess Diana. Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, discribed Caroline far better and more sensuously than I could. Quote. I never saw a woman I thought so fascinating. Had I been a man,

I should certainly have fallen in love with her. I would have been spellbound, And had she taken the trouble, she might have wound me round her finger. There is something in the pretty way in which her witticisms glide, as it were, from her lips end quote. If you're hearing a lot of famous women in the comparisons I'm making here, there's a reason bright literary Caroline was born into an era when many authors were women. Jane Austen,

George Eliot, Elizabeth Gaskell, Caroline's own mother. Yet any married woman of the era, no matter how much her own writing earned, would find that her copyright and her earnings belonged to her husband, and artists didn't make much of a living then or now, so the Sheridans were not rich.

Caroline would have little dowry to offer a husband. That didn't matter to her first love, Ralph Levison Smith, with whom she fell in love when she was around seventeen, But by her nineteenth birthday, Ralph had fallen ill and died. Caroline would look back on this first lost hope for decades to come, always wondering how differently her life might have been if she had been able to marry the

boy she had truly loved. Instead, she married George Norton, younger son in line for the title of Lord Grantly. He had been totally heartstruck over Caroline from the moment he first laid eyes on her. She was nineteen when she married him, and he was twenty seven. He may have been obsessed with his vivacious young bride, but even so he was late to his own wedding. The Norton couple lived together in a home called Story's Gate, which sounds like a fairy tale, but their life wound up

more like a nightmare. Things were all right at first. Caroline hosted salons of high society writers and thinkers, still able to use her sparkling wit and sly personality. George Norton was a member of Parliament, and he could walk from their front door to the House of Commons in a matter of minutes. And when Caroline moved aside her white muslin curtains and peered out her window, she could

almost see Downing Street, home of the Prime Minister. Within the span of four years, Caroline, one of three beautiful sisters, gave birth to three sons, Fletcher, Brynn, and little Willie. Her pregnancies were called being quote on the sofa. Another little euphemism, just like adultery, was criminal conversation. Her three boys were the light of her life. She loved them dearly, deeply,

and immediately. She published books and edited magazines while caring for the babies, sounding exactly like a working writer to day. She even wrote her own books while nursing. But it didn't take long for George Norton's infatuation with his young, vivacious bride to be Caroline Sheridan, to turn into violent abuse toward his wife, Caroline Norton. He kicked her, shoved her, burned her hand with a tea kettle. When she miscarried in eighteen thirty five, rumor had it he had pushed her.

She stayed away from her husband for a little while after that, but inevitably she had to come back. She was a writer and her byeline was Missus Norton. Her earnings belonged to her husband. She was supporting him in every possible way, including when he lost his seat in Parliament. That was when George Norton first asked his wife Caroline

for help. He wanted her to use the popularity and charm that had first charmed him and now enraged him to intercede with the government's Home Secretary, a certain William Lamb, also known as Lord Melbourne, future Prime Minister. Caroline adored Lord Melbourne. He was a handsome, successful man, the opposite of her husband, and he was a true bright spot in her life, and Lord Melbourne seemed to adore the beguiling care Norton right back. They exchanged letters that were

always friendly, often teasing, usually flirtatious, occasionally romantic. She joked about making a future daughter of hers his second wife. His first wife, who had died a few years earlier, had been Caroline Lamb, lover of Lord Byron, whose story we have covered on this podcast. Basically everyone in this social circle was having affairs. Lord Melbourne called on Caroline Norton at home once she even gasp took his hand in parliament. They both were infatuated. At the least, they

found an entrancing, exciting, sweet joy with each other. Caroline at least may have been in some form of love. Lord Melbourne had already paid off a former criminal conversion charge, so he was certainly willing to engage in extramarital dalliances. He and Caroline may have heavy petted, they may have had sex, but there's not really concrete evidence to suggest

they did. The letters between them read to me at least like heterosexual friends with a romantic or flirtatious spark between them, people who recognize that in different circumstances they almost certainly would have been together. But they definitely are flirtatious letters. We just don't know for a fact what went on with the two of them behind closed doors. Of course, flirtatious ambiguity rarely matters to an abusive husband. In April eighteen forty six, George and Caroline had another

of their many fights. By this time, Lord Melbourne was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Caroline didn't know how bad the fight with her husband had been until after she left to visit her sister, and upon returning, found that her husband had taken her children away from her. Caroline Norton was a writer, a flirt, a hostess, but more than anything. If you had asked her, she would have said she was a mother. She adored her three boys with an overwhelming love. I have done nothing but cry,

she wrote to Lord Melbourne. I could hear their little feet running merrily over my head while I sat sobbing below. Only the ceiling between us, and I am not able to get at them. The problem was, at the time, fathers had full custody rights to their children, the opposite of most custody disputes today, which generally favor the mother. Ironically, if Caroline had had illegitimate children with George Norton, the

children would have been herbs. But she had the bad luck of being married, and divorce was only possible by an Act of Parliament, which was granted only in the rarest of cases. Between April and June, Caroline wrote to Melbourne, half despairing over her children and half fuming at her husband. Her outrage reads very modern. Quote Here is a man who was mad to marry me at eighteen, who turns me out of his house nine years afterwards and inflicts

vengeance as bitterly as he can end quote. And the sharp knife of her writer's pen is evident when she writes, thank god, everyone in the house hates him, so they'll tell me what's done. But it wasn't entirely true that everyone hated her husband. So when spiteful George Norton sued the Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne for criminal conversation with his wife, it wasn't at all certain that he would lose. The trial took place on June twenty second, eighteen thirty six.

It was a classic drizzly day in London, but the rumors came like a flood. Political cartoonist punned on Melbourne's family name Lamb to publish lampoons in the papers. Wiggs, in Melbourne's party, accused the Tories of bringing the suit for political purposes. Pamphlet promised an extraordinary trial, damages set at ten thousand pounds three exclamation points. One more literary cameo. A twenty four year old Charles Dickens reported from the courtroom.

The place was completely packed, the hot breath and sweat of the men in attendance mingled with the excitement in the air. They were going to hear salacious stories of the forbidden love that had sprung up between the famous literary beauty Caroline Norton and the Prime Minister himself. The crowd sat at the edge of their seats, their pulses racing, waiting for the scandalous details. But what the crowd heard

was lackluster. The servants and former servants of the Norton household were the main witnesses, and all they could offer by way of evidence felt like innuendo at best. Melbourne and Caroline closed the door when they were together. Sometimes her hair looked a little out of place. Sometimes she washed her hands. After his visits. Melbourne once wrote her a note that said how are you without first addressing her by name. The men of the jury found it

as pathetically unconvincing as you might listener. They took about a minute to decide against George Norton. The prosecution had proven only conversation of the regular, non criminal sort. The observers went away, disappointed, out into the moonlight. Charles Dickens would later caricature the trial in his novel The Pickwick Papers. So Lord Melbourne had won the trial against George Norton, he had not legally committed adultery with Caroline Norton. That

meant Caroline had won two, albeit vicariously. She was happy to emerge victorious, but the worst blow, after the loss of her children, was still to come, and it would come from Melbourne himself. He had always counseled her to stay with her husband, to bear everything, as he put it, but around the trial he went cold on her. She had loved him, however familial, romantic, consummated or unconsummated. We

might judge that loved time to be. But now that their relationship had public consequences, Melbourne seemed to be backing off. In a message that feels exactly like a woman to day texting a man who used to care and just doesn't any more, Caroline wrote, quote, my heart sinks and chills at seeing how little I am to you. I am to be a childless mother for my supposed power to charm strangers, and yet the man whom I have been charming ever since I was twenty and two, well,

I beg pardon. I don't want to torment you. All I say is worse women have been stood by. So Caroline had, through Melbourne, won a sensational trial. But if she had some sense that it wasn't much of a victory, she was absolutely right. Caroline Norton was alone after the trial. Caroline was publicly cleared of wrongdoing, but privately she was still the legal extension of her abusive husband, and George Norton wasn't the type to keep his head held high.

He had been publicly humiliated by his wife. After trying to publicly humiliate his wife after the trial, he tried to change their son, Willie's name to Charles, because God forbid their son share a first name with Lord Melbourne. But any and all pettiness would have been better than the cruelty George ultimately chose. He kept Caroline's children away from her. Her legal innocence didn't matter. She had been an object in the krim con trial anyway, not the defendant.

She was collateral damage. That meant she had never really been cleared, not in George Norton's heart anyway. Caroline could not sue for custody, As biographer Antonia Fraser explicitly states, Caroline had no legal existence outside marriage. There was nothing she could do. But Caroline Norton was a writer. No matter what, she could always write. So with strength and fortitude I can only imagine, Caroline used her husband's own

law books to study child custody. She wrote pamphlets lobbying to change the laws so that the mother could appeal for custody of her children up to age seven, and finally, in eighteen thirty nine, three years after the famous krim Con trial, the law was passed. The Infant Custody Bill represented the first time in English history that married woman existed as her own legal entity, But it was a

hollow victory. The law applied to England, Ireland and Wales, but not to Scotland, and Caroline's almost cartoonishly villainous husband had the children in Scotland. The saddest part of the story comes next. Caroline had fought for the rights of women and their children. She had loved her children with her whole heart. She had won a victory for other women,

but not for herself. And in eighteen forty two, when her youngest, Willie was nine, he fell off his pony, a scrape that Caroline knew in her heart she would have cared for properly, but under her husband's carelessness, the severity of the injury progressed. Even George Norton had to finally acknowledge that their sweet boy was very, very sick. The moment that Caroline was called, she raced to her baby as fast as she could. I'm coming, she thought.

She tried to convey it to him across the miles, I'm coming, But her beloved youngest son was lying in bed when he died, calling for his mother, who was still on her way. After Willie's death, George Norton relented a little. Caroline did get to see her sons, Fletcher and Bryn more often. She kept writing. She maintained a friendship with Lord Melbourne until his death in eighteen forty eight.

She spent time with Brinn's children, her grandchildren. She cared for Fletcher until his death at age thirty in eighteen fifty nine. Caroline lobbied for racial justice for the disabled and for the poor. In eighteen seventy three, the law was chained so mothers could appeal for custody of children up to the age of sixteen, and in eighteen seventy five, at last, she was finally freed from her worst prison marriage to George Norton. He died at age seventy four.

By this point, Caroline was also in very ill health, but she wasn't going to let that stop her. At long last, at the age of sixty nine, she became the thing she had never really been before, a bride in love. In eighteen seventy seven, the once famous dark eyed widow Caroline Norton married Sir William Sterling Maxwell. She died three months later. Nearly half a century after that, in nineteen twenty five, the Guardianship of Infants Act gave

mothers full equality in custody proceeds. That's the sad story of Caroline Norton and her fight for legal recognition of married women. But stick around after a brief sponsor break to hear how Caroline made her way into Parliament. After all, when Caroline was involved with the legal system, she had no legal rights as a married woman, She lost access to her children and the laws would not help her.

She had no legal power. It was Caroline's confidante, Lord Melbourne, who was Prime Minister, and Caroline's husband, George Norton, who had been a member of Parliament, but Caroline Norton's image was to hang above where they'd all stepped in the House of Lords. In eighteen forty one, artist Daniel maclease was commited to portray the spirit of justice in a

fresco for Parliament. When the time came to choose who would portray the figure at the center whose image would be used as the model of justice, macleae didn't hesitate. He chose Caroline Norton. He painted her in white robes, holding the scales of justice, looking up toward the heavens, surrounded by a woman holding her child to her breast, an emancipated former slave, and a subdued man with a

knife taken away. Caroline is the model of perfect serenity in the fresco, except if you look closely, she's not quite standing straight. Caroline Norton in the House of Lords has one hip, slightly insolently, even cocked forever, a little audacious, even as she balances the scales of justice. Noble Blood is a production of iHeart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky. Noble Blood is created and hosted by me Dana Shports, with additional writing and researching by Hannah Johnston,

Hannah Zuick, Mira Hayward, Courtney Sender, and Lori Goodman. The show is edited and produced by Noemi Griffin and rima Il Kahali, with supervising producer Josh Thain and executive producers Aaron Manke, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.