THE MORDAUNT CASE There was only one matter involving moral considerations which ever emerged from the low region of back-door insinuation to the upper air and it was threshed out in a _cause celebre_--that of Lady Mordaunt. Her husband, an English baronet, sued for divorce before the Court of Divorce and Matrimonial Causes, alleging the usual grounds, and naming as co-respondents, Viscount Cole and Sir Frederick Johnstone. The case was heard on February 16th, 1870, and following days, and the defence on the part of Lady Mordaunt was insanity. The Prince of Wales, though not specified in the indictment, was so widely gossiped about as being connected with the case that he asked to be heard and swore positively that there had been no improper relations between himself and the defendant. Two of the Judges on Appeal--Lord Penzance and Mr. Justice Keating--agreed with the jury's verdict that Lady Mordaunt was insane, while Chief Baron Kelly differed. The woman in the case was for years afterwards confined in a lunatic asylum, and it has long since been quite well understood that the only basis for scandal was the fact that a Royal visit which had been paid upon one occasion was made under the invariable rule of etiquette, which prescribes that no other caller shall be received while the visit lasts. Before and after the trouble Lady Mordaunt's sisters, and especially the Dowager Countess of Dudley, were amongst the Princess of Wales' warm friends, while the daughter of the plaintiff in the case was, in later years, received at Sandringham, and was given many beautiful presents by the members of the Royal family upon her marriage to the Marquess of Bath. Such conditions would have been absolutely impossible to imagine with the Princess of Wales had she entertained the slightest belief in the stories floating about regarding that famous trial. During the succeeding thirty years, however, there was never even an apparent excuse for the repetition of such stories, and the happy home life of the Prince and Princess was patent to all who were willing to believe the evidence of their eyes and ears.