Sir Eyre Crowe, a friend valued for his own as well as for his father's sake (Sir Joseph Crowe, to whom Sir Charles was much attached), wrote at the time of Sir Charles's death: 'How he bore for long years the sorrow and misfortunes of his lot had something heroic about it. I only once talked to him about these things, and was intensely struck by his Roman attitude.' It was the only attitude possible to such a man. Placed by his country's laws in the situation of one officially acquitted by a decision which was interpreted into a charge of guilt; forced then, in defence of his honour, into the position of a defendant who is debarred from means of defence; assured after long effort that no legal means were open to him to attempt again that defence, he solemnly declared his innocence, and was thereafter silent. 'By-and-by it will be remembered that as a fact the issue was never fairly represented and never fairly met,' was the estimate of Sir Francis Jeune, afterwards President of the Divorce Court. And from the first there were many lawyers and thinking men and women who would have endorsed it. From the first also there were those who believed Sir Charles's word. Among such faithful friends, Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, Sir Robert Collins, Mr. Cyril Flower, Mrs. Westlake and Mr. Westlake, Q.C., Mr. Thursfield of the _Times_, Mr. Chamberlain, Sir Francis and Lady Jeune, Sir Charles's old college friend Judge Steavenson, stand out in memory. He himself says: 'I received after the trial ... a vast number of letters from people who wrote to express their belief in me. Some, as, for example, from Dr. Hatch' (the eminent Oxford theologian) 'and his wife, and from Dr. Percival, Head-master of Rugby, [Footnote: Dr. Percival was President of Trinity College, Oxford, till 1887, when he went to Rugby. He became Bishop of Hereford.] and his wife, were from firm friends of Emilia, brought to me by their belief in her; some from friends, some from political foes, of all sorts--all breathing confidence and devotion.' Mr. Chamberlain wrote: 'I feel bitterly my powerlessness to do or say anything useful at the present time.' In such a case the testimony of intimates is weighty, and Sir John Gorst sent in June, 1913, his recollection of words used by Mr. Chamberlain in the autumn of 1886: 'I assure you that, as a man of honour, I don't believe the charges made against him. If you had been in and out of his house at all times as I have been, you would see they were impossible.'