THE LIBEL ON THE KING

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1076, 15 March 1911, Page 4

THE LIBEL ON THE KING

.PROSECUTION OF MYLIUG. w cl BRITISH PRESS OPINIONS. ?* ,■■'•> 11! . . tl Tho following comments of leading tf British-papers : dn tho • trial of E. F, oi Mylius for publishing a- libel on King cl George'will be read with interest:—, tl .;' [ "The Times." j After sentence had been pronounced, di the trial came to a dramatic conclusion, |< tho, Attorney-General reading from a *! document, signed by the.King himself, C] the .statement that tho King • "was c j never married oxcopt to the Queen, and ol never-Went through the, ceremony <f marriage, except with the Queen." His Majesty added that ho would have-at- - tended to'give evidence, had he not tr been advised by tho law officers of tho a> Crown that.it would be unconstitutional »' for him to do so. AV,c "trust that these m plain words, with tho total collapse of | v the defendant's .case,, will have their pro- ' J a per.effect, firston the people who reck-. ™ lessly swallow this kind of malicious '"; gossip,- and secondly upon the organs of Jjj are, happy to think,, "j foreign—which circulate them. This ■[' charge has utterly broken' down, and it' ■would bo the same with others, such J. .'as the preposterous suggestion that, tho King, one of tho most temperate of ~ men, is too fond 'of- wine'. It is a false charge, and a silly one. His Majesty y ■is one of tho finest shots in his dominions, and nobody could bo that except '; :a .man whose nerves were in perfect g ■order, and not shaken by' indulgence. :The gossip, however, is a sample of tho wicked scandals circulated about great personages by malicious, or sometimes j; ■merely-reckless, people. Let it be si- jy 'lenced.on.ee for all, together with tho - n graver insult formulated by the crea- j t ture who skulks in Paris, and spread by u 'his agent who was on .Wednesday sent s( .to prison. ' Of one thing all..who know ,j anything of their Majesties are certain s . —that a'more blameless pair, or. a pair y ;more happily mated, never occupied the a \ position' of : King and Queen of ; this t, :realm.' ' : ' '■.'•' tl "The Dally Mall." Tho sentenco of twelve months' im- .. prisbnment passed .upon the.njan Mylius for circulating tho baseless and, cruel • story that the King was married pre- ■ yiously to,his union with. Queen Mary , is richly desorved. ■'. Nobody can pretend that' tlic prisoner has ndt had . a fair trial, for the procedure of the Court was'carefully chosen in to give v , him,every opportunity, of .defending him- tj'solf.'" It was open to the Law. Officers jj ;of tho Crown to indict Mylius for sedi- I itious libel. But that process would Ji ,have.prevented any pica of justification, whereas the charge of criminal t .libel left'open the 1 plea of justification j Tand offered the'defendant every chance s •of establishing the grounds, if. there '.{, ■had been any, on .which;he based.this t .'criminal and malicious libel. Tho wis- .( .dom:of/this-choice of procedure 'is ob- : vious, for.it'has shown to the .whole 0 world that there is not a shadow: of a j ,shade of foundation, for the •story of a v morganatic marriage. No justification j of the libel ..was: even attempted. by tho -j defendant, and no ovidence of any. kind * was/put forward to support ■ the story q that in 1890 the King married in. Malta. .. the' daughter of Admiral Sir -Michael ■{; . Culme-Seymour... ....We trust that' wo s , have ; heard -the last of "these! wicked' and 0 'cruel stories, ... ; ..,,,...- : _' . ■• "Westminster Cazotto." J In;one'6f ! .the repofts;of yesterday's ■> Royal libel action the proceedings" were i describedin ■ a bold headline as "the c ■vindication of tho King." Wo en- r i tirely demur ..to that description of it. c It was very right and proper that the vj any effect, a' cruel slander should be ] ; duly i punished, but the King did not stand in need of any "vindication." 1 The Igreat mass of tho EnglishV people \ .have; known him forryears past as an j 'upright man of irreproachable conduct,' ( who had placed himself beyond reach of. t petty cavillers and slanderers. The '-K.ingj.haß tho same right as any of his ( subjects to protect himself from the.ah- j 'noyahce. of foolish arid malicious gos- ( : sip, .'and we are imfejgnedly,. glad, that, .j the'final coup de grifteff- should ;' have ; -'( been/ given to the fantastic' lie which ( formed the subject of yesterday's trial. , Butjto speak of these proceedings as ' the "vindication of tho King" is to pay, ] ■far too high a'compliment to Mylius : < ■ and This kind. i T "The Guardian." < For nearly twenty years the story . has .been familiar,, although . every \ •sensible person recognised its grotesque i ' absurdity. The King was not in Malta 1 'between 1888 and his marriage in 1893; ; nobody named Seymour was married in j Malta at the time suggested; neither of the daughters of Admiral • Culmo-. I Seymour ever was in Malta until after ' the King's marriage. One, who is dead, ; never, spoke to him; the other, Mrs. Napier, went into tho box to deny a story which facts and dates mado impossible. Unpleasant as the business is, it is well that theso malignant Seasons, which must necessarily have given' pain to many, people, should be finally sot at rest. The King is- not' tho first English Prince who,has' suffered fromVthern. Queen Victoria; indeed, declared that sho had never knowii a male member of her family of whom a . similar story had not- been told,- . and that'ignorance and malevolence had evenVgone the length of describing her own 'husband as a bigamist. "Tho Dally N3W3." The King and his advisers are to 'be congratulated on their' decision, so finely executed yesterday, to kill in the most formal, public, and .conclusive manner a gross slander upon his Majesty which has circulated only too long!: It is now many years since, tho legend has passed from mouth to mouth that'the King had contracted a morganatic marriage prior to his marriage with the Queen. . . . The King resolved to clear the world of this atrocious legend as soon , as a man should appear who would assume the responsibility of giving it definito shape. The opportunity came with tho publi- . cation in terms exceptionally gross of a version in a paper printed in.'Paris, and professing to propagate the Republican ; idea. The paper was obscure; but it was the first time tho libel had ap- , peared in print, and a, hand 'could be laid upon a person who circulated it. Mylius was at once arrested, and the procedure adopted by the Crown enabled the case to come to trial with -the briefest possible delay. It has ended ; with .as .complete a ; vindication of the King and as absolute an annihilation of the legend as any man could desire. "Weakly Scotsman." Had the lie been let alone,'there can he no doubt that it would have left a trail behind it. There are always plenty of people ready to batten on slander, and to believe the worst of persons in high estate. It is as true now as it was ir> Samuel Butler's time that a section of the world -"Is naturally averse To nil tho truth it sees or hears, But swallows nonsense and d Ho With greediness and gluttony." A little neglect, and the lapse of a little 1 , time and tho vile story might have grown to bo a plaiisiblo tradition —a -historic doubt, difficult or incapable, of being either proved or 'disproved. Fortunately, it was decided to nail it to the counter as a baso, coinage. Fortunately, also, it was a lie'circumstantial ; it mentioned place, and date, and the names of the other persons al-leged-to bo concerned besides tho King. The most'oursory inquiry might have satisfied tho libeller that there was not

a vestige of fact to support his tale; a remnant of the sense of shame and discretion, to say nothing of tho sense of justice, would have induced him to withdraw his calumny when it received challenge and flat denial. That would still have left tho suspicion lingering in obscure nooks of greedy gossip that thero might after all'bo "something in tho story." Mylius took the course, oiitsido and insido the Court, that secured that it shoidd bo proved, to the apprehension of every rcasouablo being, that it was from first to last a malicious and baseless • invention. . . . Tho case illustrates tho poisonous and dospicablo arts by which it is sought to promoto and recommend certain extreme views and aims. It suggests the necessity of extreme caution -in crediting the stories that aro put in circulation concerning tho private lives of public men. "Manchester Guardian." It was a simple and short libel caso' that came before tho Lord Chief Justice and' a jury yesterday. One E. F. Mylius, whose name was not known to most of 'us until this week, was charged with having circulated," contrary to the law of criminal libel,' a statement that tho King, before ho married the Queen, had been married at Malta to 'tho daughter of 'an English admiral,: whoso name was given. Such a charge against anyone, King or anybody else, is of course a most grave ono. Tho only'way in which it could be made out to be anything but a libel would be by proving both 'of two separate things—the first, that the charge was true; and tho' see-' ond, that it was for the public interest that it should be mado. Mylius did not prove either. He did not even begin or attempt to prove them. . . . uTho King-and-his wife and his children, have been very'cruelly' wronged in' this' matter; not by yesterday's alone, but.by a very large number of the King's subjects who would perhaps hardly recognise themselves as partaking in • some ■'measure in this man"Mylius's guilt;' The King has shown genuine courago, as well as a good coiir science, in welcoming full publicity. He deserves for it the admiration and *So sympathy of-.his people,-and, above all, their fuller fairness and'charity if ever again they are- called- itpon,--in- his case, to believo the best of ,a man until anything biit'thVbest is ! 'proved/ ; ~-' i:: ' : '