Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur OrtonAnonymous
History
Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton
Anonymous
Impostors and imposture -- Biography
Some allowance may perhaps be made in the defendant's favour for the
singularly unskilful and damaging character of his counsel Dr.
Kenealy's two addresses to the jury, which occupied no less than
forty-three entire days. This barrister not only made violent personal
attacks on every witness of importance for the prosecution, without,
as the judges observed, "any shadow of foundation," but he assailed
his own client with a vehemence and a persistence which are without
parallel in the case of an advocate defending a person against a
charge of perjury. He gave up statements of the defendant at almost
every period of his extraordinary story as "false;" declared them to
be "moonshine;" expressed his conviction that no sensible person could
for a moment believe them; acknowledged that to attempt to verify them
in the face of the evidence, or even to reconcile them with each
other, would be hopeless; set some down as "arrant nonsense,"
denounced others as "Munchausenisms," and recommended the jury "not to
believe them" with a heartiness which would have been perfectly
natural in the mouth of Mr. Hawkins, but which, coming from counsel for
the defence, was, as one of the learned judges remarked, "strange
indeed." But the doctrine of the learned gentleman was, that the very
extent of the perjury should be his client's protection, because it
showed that he was not a man "to be tried by ordinary standards."
When, in addition to this, he laboured day after day to persuade the
jury that Roger Tichborne was a drunkard, a liar, a fool, an undutiful
son, an ungrateful friend, and an abandoned libertine--declared in
loud and impassioned tones that he would "strip this jay of his
borrowed plumes," and indignantly repudiated the notion that the man
his client claimed to be had one single good quality about him, the
humour of the situation may be said to have reached its climax. Yet Dr.
Kenealy at least proved his sincerity by not only insinuating charges
against the gentleman who disappeared with the "Bella," but by
actually calling witnesses to contradict point blank statements of his
own client which lay at the very foundation of the charges of perjury
against him. There were, it is true, many unthinking persons of the
kind that mistake sound for sense, who considered Dr. Kenealy a vastly
clever fellow. If he be so, then the world in general, and the
constitution of the English bar in particular, are wrong; but anyhow
one thing is certain, that the counsel damaged the case materially,
and showed himself eminently unfitted for the position of leader. Mr.
Hawkins' powerful address quickly disposed of Dr. Kenealy and his
crotchets. The inquiry was raised into a calmer height when the Lord
Chief-Justice commenced his memorable summing up, going minutely
through the vast mass of testimony--depicting the true character of
Roger Tichborne from the rich mine of materials before him,
contrasting it with that of the defendant as shown by the evidence,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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