To suppose that Shelley (a few months hence to write _Laon and Cythna_ and _Rosalind and Helen_) went to St. Mildred’s Church from any respect for the religious rite would be absurd. I cannot doubt that he went to the Church because Mary (who at this time had him well in hand) meant him to marry her, and because he was under a promise to her to do so at the earliest opportunity. It is improbable that he asked any of his friends whether or no he should make Mary his lawful wife. Of all his friends Peacock was the man to whom he would be most likely to put the question; but on speaking to him so soon after Harriett’s death, Shelley spoke of the marriage as a step on which he was resolved, and merely asked whether he might with decency take the step without delay. ‘He was,’ says Peacock (at that time in almost daily intercourse with him), ‘the first to tell me of Harriett’s death, asking whether I thought it would become him to interpose any delay before marrying Mary.’ The announcement and the question were simultaneous. It was thus that Shelley married Mary Godwin within a fortnight of the day on which Claire gave birth to Allegra, who was born on 12th January, 1816. CHAPTER XI. THE CHANCERY SUIT. Mr. Westbrook’s Petition to the Court of Chancery--Date of Hearing--The _Edinburgh_ Reviewer’s Strange Misrepresentation--Lord Eldon’s Decree--Arrangements for Harriett’s Children--Lady Shelley’s strange Mistake touching those Arrangements--Lord Eldon’s Justification--Mrs. Shelley’s Regard for Social Opinion--Shelley’s keen Annoyance at the Chancellor’s Decree--Delusive Egotisms of _The Billows of the Beach_--Shelley’s Pretexts for going to Italy--His real Reasons for withdrawing from England. It has been repeatedly declared that the first Mrs. Shelley committed suicide in desperation, consequent on her elder sister’s cruelty in shutting the door of her old home against her, when she called at the house in Chapel Street, in order to see her _dying_ father. That Mr. Westbrook was not dying either in November or December, 1816, appears from the fact that in the following year he appeared in the Court of Chancery, as the petitioner in the suit, that resulted in Lord Eldon’s memorable decree, that Shelley was an unfit person to have the custody and direct the education of his two children by his first wife.