Counsel’s Duty to his Client
When King George IV tried to divorce Queen Caroline with maximum embarrassment, her barrister warned that two could play at that game.
1820
King George IV 1820-1830
When King George IV tried to divorce Queen Caroline with maximum embarrassment, her barrister warned that two could play at that game.
1820
King George IV 1820-1830
IN 1820, George, Prince of Wales (who had been Regent for his father since 1811) became King George IV. At once he began divorce proceedings against his estranged wife Caroline, who was living in Italy, and boasted he would expose her private life to public ridicule. Defence counsel Henry Brougham delicately reminded the House of Lords that George had a secret that would rock the monarchy — were it made public.
abridged
LET no man vainly suppose that not only I, but that any, the youngest member of the profession, would hesitate one moment in the fearless discharge of his paramount duty. I once before took leave to remind your lordships, — which was unnecessary, but there are many whom it may be necessary to remind, — that an advocate, by the sacred duty which he owes his client, knows, in the discharge of that office, but one person in the world, that client and none other.
To save that client by all expedient means, — to protect that client at all hazards and costs to all others, and among others to himself, — is the highest and most unquestioned of his duties; and he must not regard the alarm — the suffering — the torment — the destruction — which he may bring upon any other.* Nay, separating even the duties of a patriot from those of an advocate, and casting them, if need be, to the wind, he must go on reckless of the consequences, if his fate it should unhappily be, to involve his country in confusion for his client’s protection!*
* Their lordships would not need to be told what Brougham was hinting at. In 1785, a lovestruck George had gone through a wedding ceremony with Mrs Maria Fitzherbert, twice a widow. It was hastily struck down as illegal, on the grounds that the heir to the throne cannot marry without the monarch’s consent, but it was nonetheless embarrassing because Maria was a Roman Catholic, and the spouse of a Roman Catholic is barred from inheriting the crown. Were anyone to push the issue, there might even be a Constitutional crisis, and George might have to forfeit the crown. Brougham assured the House that he would not bring out such heavy artillery unless he really needed it, and in fact never did, but the threat was laid out as plain as day. Maria had remained George’s mistress until 1811, when his role as Prince Regent (standing in for his ailing father) meant he could not longer keep such a relationship quiet.