The Petticoat Men by Barbara Ewing Page A

for our country under Sir Robert Peel, and later Secretary of State for the Colonies under Lord Palmerston!’
    Handel rang out as if to underline the credentials.
    ‘Do not forget his notorious mother.’ But that comment was muttered rather than uttered.
    ‘It is of course possible that the young gentlemen already arrested – these – these “Petticoat Men”’ – the voice now speaking was filled with disgust – ‘may themselves mention – other names – if they fear the courts.’
    The bishop who had blessed the large supper at the ball at Porterbury’s Hotel banged his whisky glass violently on a pile of hymn books. ‘Then they must immediately be stopped from doing anything so improper and immoral.’
    ‘But they are already held in custody at the Clerkenwell House of Detention, Julius! Who knows what pernicious untruths they may already be disseminating!’
    ‘Surely they are gentlemen and would not speak.’
    (The slight titters that followed the unfortunate use of the word gentlemen in this context were quickly quashed.) Voices rose.
    ‘But it is exactly this that looks so bad, so unlikely: that they are not Post Office delivery boys or waiters or labourers – that is what arouses such disgusting and popular excitement and lascivity. This is an anathema to Church teaching. These two prisoners must somehow be spoken to.’
    ‘No, no! I tell you it will be the mention of Lord Arthur’s name and the – the avenues to which that event may lead, that will destroy us – ah – when I say us, I of course mean this country and its respectable upper classes!’
    ‘I think you are being overdramatic!’
    When another cleric answered dryly, ‘We are part of an overdramatic profession,’ the convenor of the meeting, one of the senior bishops who sat in the House of Lords, said: ‘Gentlemen, we must now bring this meeting to a close. All contacts must be used to find out more—’
    ‘Tomorrow someone must speak to that magistrate, that Mr Flowers.’
    ‘Tomorrow someone must speak to – it would likely be more effective – the Prime Minister.’
    ‘—but we must now, as I said, bring this meeting to a close,’ reiterated the senior bishop firmly.
    Slowly glasses were emptied, cigars extinguished.
    ‘I think we all agree on two important things. The Church’s view on this immoral and terrible subject must be preached, as always. And for the sake of the British Empire itself, Lord Arthur Clinton, a member of the English nobility, must not appear and we must hope that he has the sense to make himself disappear. We must fervently hope that the case will be dismissed this week as a silly prank. This is the defence case, I have been advised, and this outcome is devoutly to be wished for. Let us pray.’
    … lead us not into temptation, and deliver us from evil , prayed the churchmen.

    Across the river, in the Houses of Parliament, so dangerous was the subject, such mental turmoil were some of the Honourable Members undergoing, that they did not even dare – some of them – to hold a meeting that Sunday in a committee room, as they might, in other circumstances, have done. There are many back stairs and dark corridors in the inner labyrinths of the honourable building. It was there that unthinkable words were whispered along dark passages: life imprisonment and ten years’ hard labour and penal servitude.
    They were at a loss to know whom to approach among the more powerful political figures (who were indeed holding their own private meetings elsewhere). Everybody knew that any connection, of any kind, to the Gentlemen in Female Attire would be political ruin and social suicide.
    An air of apprehension and unease – indeed, of fear – stalked the green-patterned carpets – and the red.

    Meanwhile the Prince of Wales, still wounded by the recent ignominy that had attached to him with regard to the Mordaunt divorce case, was taking no chances this time. That same Sunday, having already been