James Plaisted Wilde, 1st Baron Penzance, (12 July 1816 – 9 December 1899) was a noted

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

judge A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a panel of judges. A judge hears all the witnesses and any other evidence presented by the barristers or solicitors of the case, assesses the credibility an ...

and rose breeder who was also a proponent of the

Baconian theory The Baconian theory of Shakespeare authorship holds that Sir Francis Bacon, philosopher, essayist and scientist, wrote the plays which were publicly attributed to William Shakespeare. Various explanations are offered for this alleged subterfuge ...

that the works usually attributed to

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

were in fact written by

Francis Bacon Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), also known as Lord Verulam, was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Bacon led the advancement of both ...

Background and education

Born in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, he was the son of Edward Archer Wilde, a solicitor, and Marianne (née Norris).thepeerage.com James Plaisted Wilde, 1st and last Baron Penzance
/ref> His younger brother Sir Alfred Thomas Wilde was a

Lieutenant-General Lieutenant general (Lt Gen, LTG and similar) is a three-star military rank (NATO code OF-8) used in many countries. The rank traces its origins to the Middle Ages, where the title of lieutenant general was held by the second-in-command on the ...

in the Madras Army, while Sir

John Wylde Sir John Wylde (or Wilde; 11 May 1781 – 13 December 1859) was Chief Justice of the Cape Colony, Cape of Good Hope and a judge of the Supreme Court of the colony of New South Wales born at Warwick Square, Newgate Street, London. Member o ...

(Chief Justice of the Cape Colony) and

Thomas Wilde, 1st Baron Truro Thomas Wilde, 1st Baron Truro, (7 July 178211 November 1855) was a British lawyer, judge, and politician. He was Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain between 1850 and 1852. Background and education Born in London, Truro was the second son of ...

(Lord Chancellor) were his uncles. He was educated at

Winchester College Winchester College is a public school (fee-charging independent day and boarding school) in Winchester, Hampshire, England. It was founded by William of Wykeham in 1382 and has existed in its present location ever since. It is the oldest of the ...

and

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by Henry VIII, King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge ...

(matriculated 1834, graduated

B.A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

1838,

M.A. A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...

1842). He was admitted to the

Inner Temple The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as the Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court and is a professional associations for barristers and judges. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wal ...

in 1836, and

called to the Bar The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...

in 1839.

Legal career

He became a successful lawyer himself and was appointed a

Queen's Counsel In the United Kingdom and in some Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth countries, a King's Counsel (Post-nominal letters, post-nominal initials KC) during the reign of a king, or Queen's Counsel (post-nominal initials QC) during the reign of ...

in 1855. He was

knighted A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the Christian denomination, church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood ...

in 1860, shortly after his appointment as a

Baron of the Exchequer The Barons of the Exchequer, or ''barones scaccarii'', were the judges of the English court known as the Exchequer of Pleas. The Barons consisted of a Chief Baron of the Exchequer and several puisne (''inferior'') barons. When Robert Shute was a ...

.Sir John Sainty (comp.) ''The Judges of England, 1272-1990: a list of the judges of the Superior courts'' (Selden Society: Supplementary Series 1993, 10), 132. He presided over the Court of Probate and Divorce from 1863 until his retirement in 1872, being raised to the peerage as Baron Penzance, of

Penzance Penzance ( ; kw, Pennsans) is a town, civil parish and port in the Penwith district of Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is the most westerly major town in Cornwall and is about west-southwest of Plymouth and west-southwest of London. Situated ...

in the County of Cornwall, in 1869. He was the judge in the sensational Mordaunt divorce case.''Pall Mall Gazette'', 11 March 1875 In 1875, he accepted the post as

Dean of Arches The Dean of the Arches is the judge who presides in the provincial ecclesiastical court of the Archbishop of Canterbury. This court is called the Arches Court of Canterbury. It hears appeals from consistory courts and bishop's disciplinary trib ...

and presided over a number of notorious trials; Bell Cox, Dale, Enraght,

Green Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 Nanometre, nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by ...

and

Tooth A tooth ( : teeth) is a hard, calcified structure found in the jaws (or mouths) of many vertebrates and used to break down food. Some animals, particularly carnivores and omnivores, also use teeth to help with capturing or wounding prey, tear ...

, under the

Public Worship Regulation Act 1874 The Public Worship Regulation Act 1874 (37 & 38 Vict c 85) was an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom, introduced as a Private Member's Bill by Archbishop of Canterbury Archibald Campbell Tait, to limit what he perceived as the growing rit ...

arising out of the

Ritualist Ritualism, in the history of Christianity, refers to an emphasis on the rituals and liturgical ceremonies of the church. Specifically, the Christian ritual of Holy Communion. In the Anglican church in the 19th century, the role of ritual became ...

controversy in the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

. In 1866, he presided over ''

Hyde v. Hyde ''Hyde v Hyde'' is a landmark case of the English Court of Probate and Divorce. The case was heard 20 March 1866 before Lord Penzance, and established the common law definition of marriage. Facts of the case John Hyde, an English Mormon w ...

'', a polygamy case. In his ruling, Lord Penzance stated:

What, then, is the nature of this institution as understood in Christendom?...If it be of common acceptance and existence, it must have some pervading identity and universal basis. I conceive that marriage, as understood in Christendom, may for this purpose be defined as the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman, to the exclusion of all others.

This remained the common-law definition of marriage throughout the British Empire and successor states. In Canada, it was overruled by an explicit statutory definition in the '' Civil Marriage Act'' 2005, which allowed for same-sex marriage.

Shakespeare

Wilde argued, following Lord Campbell and others, that the works of Shakespeare are extremely accurate in matters of

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

. In ''The Bacon-Shakespeare Controversy'' (1890) he wrote of "Shakespeare's perfect familiarity with... English law... so perfect and intimate that he was never incorrect and never at fault", arguing that this was evidence that the plays were the work of a legal expert such as Bacon.Brian Jay Corrigan, ''Playhouse Law in Shakespeare's World'', Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, Madison, NJ., 2004, p.195-196. Several other authors followed Wilde's arguments about the legal expertise used in Shakespeare, including Sir

George Greenwood Sir Granville George Greenwood (3 January 1850 – 27 October 1928), usually known as George Greenwood or G. G. Greenwood, was a British lawyer, politician, cricketer, animal welfare reformer and energetic advocate of the Shakespeare authors ...

. Opponents of Wilde's view argued that Shakespeare's knowledge of the law was not exceptional.

Family and gardening

He married Lady Mary, daughter of

William Pleydell-Bouverie, 3rd Earl of Radnor William Pleydell-Bouverie, 3rd Earl of Radnor (11 May 1779 – 9 April 1869), styled Viscount Folkestone until 1828, was the son of Jacob Pleydell-Bouverie, 2nd Earl of Radnor and Hon. Anne Duncombe. Career After studying at the University of ...

, in 1860. There were no children from the marriage. The couple resided at Eashing Park,

Godalming Godalming is a market town and civil parish in southwest Surrey, England, around southwest of central London. It is in the Borough of Waverley, at the confluence of the Rivers Wey and Ock. The civil parish covers and includes the settleme ...

. At his garden in

, from ''

Rosa eglanteria ''Rosa rubiginosa'' (sweet briar, sweetbriar rose, sweet brier or eglantine; synonym (taxonomy), syn. ''R. eglanteria'') is a species of rose native to Europe and western Asia. Description It is a dense deciduous shrub 2–3 meters high and acr ...

'' and ''

Rosa foetida ''Rosa foetida'', known by several common names, including Austrian briar, Persian yellow rose, and Austrian copper rose, is a species of rose, native to the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains in Georgia. It has yellow flowers with a scent whic ...

'' he produced two new

rose A rose is either a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred species and tens of thousands of cultivars. They form a group of plants that can be ...

s named Lady and Lord Penzance. He went on to produce a further 14 roses named after characters in the

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...

s of Sir

Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels ''Ivanhoe'', ''Rob Roy (n ...

, including the Jeanie Deans Hybrid Rose.

Bibliography

Dewar, Mary. (1964). ''Sir Thomas Smith: A Tudor Intellectual in Office.'' London: Athlone. Strype, John. (1698). ''The Life of the Learned Sir Thomas Smith, T. D.C.L.'' New York: Burt Franklin, 1974. . Wilde, J.P. (1902) ''Lord Penzance on the Bacon-Shakespeare Controversy - A Judicial Summing-Up'' Wilde, J.P. (ed.) M.H. Kinnear (1992) ''Lord Penzance's Trial of Shakespeare: Verdict for Bacon''

Arms

References

;Attribution

External links

Rose fancier's page

from '' Country Life'' 1889 {{DEFAULTSORT:Penzance, James Wilde, 1st Baron 1816 births 1899 deaths 19th-century English judges English gardeners English rose horticulturists Rose breeders English literary critics English Anglo-Catholics Barons in the Peerage of the United Kingdom Baconian theory of Shakespeare authorship British King's Counsel Shakespeare authorship theorists Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge Barons of the Exchequer 19th-century British journalists British male journalists Members of the Inner Temple Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Members of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council Peers of the United Kingdom created by Queen Victoria