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. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

judge A judge is a person who wiktionary:preside, presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a judicial panel. In an adversarial system, the judge hears all the witnesses and any other Evidence (law), evidence presented by the barris ...

and rose breeder who was also a proponent of the Baconian theory that the works usually attributed to

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 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) was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England under King James I. Bacon argued for the importance of nat ...

Background and education

Born in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, 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 military rank 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 battlefield, who was normall ...

in the Madras Army, while Sir John Wylde (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 Chancellor, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain between 1850 and 1852. Background and education Born in London, Truro was t ...

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

Winchester College Winchester College is an English Public school (United Kingdom), public school (a long-established fee-charging boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) with some provision for day school, day attendees, in Winchester, Hampshire, England. It wa ...

and

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

(matriculated 1834, graduated

B.A. A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree ...

1838, M.A. 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 association for barristers and judges. To be called to the Bar and practice as a barrister in England and Wa ...

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 A King's Counsel (Post-nominal letters, post-nominal initials KC) is a senior lawyer appointed by the monarch (or their Viceroy, viceregal representative) of some Commonwealth realms as a "Counsel learned in the law". When the reigning monarc ...

in 1855. He was

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

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

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 tribun ...

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 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a com ...

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, tea ...

, 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 ri ...

arising out of the

Ritualist A ritual is a repeated, structured sequence of actions or behaviors that alters the internal or external state of an individual, group, or environment, regardless of conscious understanding, emotional context, or symbolic meaning. Traditionally ...

controversy in the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

. In 1866, he presided over '' Hyde v. Hyde'', 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 The ''Civil Marriage Act'' () is a federal statute legalizing same-sex marriage across Canada. At the time it became law, same-sex marriage had already been legalized by court decisions in all Canadian jurisdictions except Alberta, Prince Edw ...

'' 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, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the ar ...

. 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. 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 the Hon. Anne Duncombe. Family After studying at the Universit ...

, 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 settl ...

. At his garden in

, from ''

Rosa eglanteria ''Rosa rubiginosa'' (sweet briar, sweetbriar rose, sweet brier or eglantine; 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 across, with the stem ...

'' 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 plant, perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred Rose species, species and Garden roses, tens of thousands of cultivar ...

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

novel A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ...

s of Sir

Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European literature, European and Scottish literature, notably the novels ''Ivanhoe'' (18 ...

, 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