FICTION AND FACT: A BIZARRE COINCIDENCE
Edgar Allan Poe is chiefly remembered for his short stories, which demonstrate a macabre imagination. Had he lived long enough, he would have been delighted with a bizarre coincidence – and his powers of prediction – regarding his only novel and a subsequent legal controversy in 1884. It proves the old adage that fact is indeed just as strange as fiction.
In Poe's 1838 work The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, a character by the name of Richard Parker meets a gruesome, untimely end. He is one of four crew members of the capsized Grampus, facing starvation, who draw lots to determine which of them will be sacrificed to satisfy their ‘cannibal designs’. Splinters of wood are fashioned for the drawing of lots: Richard Parker draws the short splinter and is fatally stabbed in the back. His blood appeases the ‘raging thirst’ of the three survivors, who consume his body piecemeal over the following four days.
We now leave the world of fiction and fast-forward 46 years to 1884. Henry Want of Sydney purchased a sailing yacht, the Mignonette, and arranged for its delivery from Southampton. He commissioned a 31-year-old captain, Thomas Dudley, to sail it halfway across the world. Dudley signed on three crew members: Edward Stephens, Edmond Brooks and a 17-year-old cabin boy named … Richard Parker. They commenced their journey on 19 May 1884. In the South Atlantic the Mignonette experienced heavy seas and capsized. The four crew survived in a lifeboat, but their only provisions were two small tins of turnips. They were in the middle of a vast ocean; because of the storm they had drifted outside regular shipping lanes. Using their clothing for sails, they headed forlornly towards Rio de Janeiro. While they had salvaged little food, Dudley had managed to rescue the Mignonette’s chronometer, sextant and compass. They were at least 1,000 miles from land, travelling on average no more than two miles per hour.
On their fourth day in the lifeboat they caught a small turtle, consuming it and the turnips by judicious rationing until day 12. They ate nothing more for the next eight days. There was no fresh water, apart from rain that was gathered from their oilskin capes. Richard Parker was very ill, extremely weakened by starvation and the consumption of sea water. In desperation, Dudley suggested that lots should be cast, to determine who should be killed, the dead body providing a means of sustenance for the rest. Brooks dissented from this course of action. A few days later, Dudley and Stephens agreed that Parker should be killed. Dudley put a knife into Parker's throat on 25 July 1884, bringing the cabin boy's life to an end. Brooks overcame his earlier reservations, with the three men feeding upon Parker's body for four days. On the fourth day, 29 July 1884, they were rescued by a passing vessel, the Montezuma, returning to Cornwall on 6 September 1884. Ironically, the vessel's namesake, Montezuma II, an Aztec emperor killed during the Spanish conquest, was no stranger to human sacrifice. Human victims, dedicated to the Aztec gods, were sometimes cannibalised.
The survivors did not suffer from any reticence in recounting their awful experience. Dudley's admissions to the Collector of Customs and Harbour Police at Falmouth resulted in his immediate arrest. All three were shortly charged with murder, but subsequently the murder charge was withdrawn against Brooks, who was later called to give evidence for the prosecution.
Unsurprisingly, this case attracted a great degree of public interest and sympathy, with regular reports in The Times and the Illustrated London News. In an initial hearing at the Winter Assizes before Baron Huddleston at Devon, recommendations for clemency were made by both that judge and the jury. Huddleston suggested to the jury an antiquated procedure that had not been used for 89 years – a special verdict – by which the jury found the facts of the case, but then referred them to a higher court. The Queen's Bench, comprising five judges including Huddleston, would then have the responsibility for determining whether those agreed facts constituted murder. The final decision was handed down by Lord Coleridge on 9 December 1884. Dudley and Stephens were found guilty and sentenced to ‘be hanged by the neck until you be dead’. The Home Secretary, Sir William Harcourt, whose office ordinarily followed recommendations for clemency from juries and judges as a matter of course, agreed with some reluctance to commute the death sentences to six months’ imprisonment.
R v Dudley and Stephens Footnote 1 forms a staple diet for law students in English-speaking, common law jurisdictions as they study defences to murder. The case became authority for the proposition that necessity was not a defence to murder, whereas it was always accepted that self-defence, proportional to the immediate threat, could constitute justifiable homicide.
Academics and writers have interacted with this case and its tragic circumstances in various ways. It has been the subject of numerous legal articles and books that forensically analyse the reasoning of Lord Coleridge, or the machinations and motivations of Baron Huddleston in having the case determined by the Queen's Bench through the special verdict mechanism.Footnote 2 In the realm of ethics, it provides a useful launch pad for an examination of conflicting ethical frameworks such as deontology and utilitarianism. Is it simply wrong to kill an innocent person, or do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few? It has influenced writers such as Joseph Conrad (Lord Jim), who examined how respectable human beings react in life-threatening situations when a ship is damaged and threatens to sink.Footnote 3 Do necessitous circumstances absolve actions that may be perceived as cowardly?
This article takes a different tack, into more unchartered waters. It considers how Lord Coleridge's Victorian experience and Christian mindset played a prominent and persuasive role in his judgment. Like anyone else, Coleridge was a composite of influences: family and educational backgrounds, religious beliefs, personal encounters and societal norms. The brief sketch that follows will attempt to draw out some of these factors, which may provide some insight into his prejudices and attitudes. While Coleridge no doubt felt that he was acting impartially and objectively whenever he wrote a judgment, his thought processes were still hostage to these influences, especially those embedded deeply and latently in his psyche.
VICTORIAN INFLUENCES AND THE CHRISTIAN MINDSET
Sir John Duke Coleridge, 1st Baron Coleridge of Ottery St Mary, was born on 3 December 1820 in Devon, the eldest son of Sir John Taylor Coleridge. He died on 14 June 1894. His father was also a judge on the Queen's Bench and had formed firm and enduring friendships with key figures of the Oxford Movement, including John Henry Newman, Edward Bouverie Pusey and John Keble (who was Lord Coleridge's godfather). Both father and son were members of the Canterbury Association, made up largely of High Church congregants.Footnote 4
Coleridge's mother, Mary Buchanan, was the second daughter of the Revd Gilbert Albert Buchanan. He was a great-nephew of the poet Samuel Coleridge Taylor. One of his uncles was the Reverend James Duke Coleridge. His sister, Alethea, married John Fielder Mackarness, who succeeded Samuel Wilberforce as the Bishop of Oxford. His brother, Henry James Coleridge, was a Tractarian priest who later became a Jesuit divine in the Roman Catholic Church and the author of many theological works. The family was thus intimately connected with the upper echelons of the Church of England and the legal fraternity.
Coleridge was educated at Eton and Baliol College, Oxford. After establishing his legal career as a barrister, he was elected to the House of Commons as the member for Exeter for the Liberal Party in 1865. Between the years 1868 and 1873, he held the positions of solicitor-general and attorney-general in William Gladstone's government. In November 1873 Coleridge was appointed Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and in November 1880 became Lord Chief Justice of England, a position he held until his death.
In 1846 he married Jane Fortescue Seymour, the daughter of the Reverend George Seymour. She was an accomplished artist who had painted an admired portrait of John Henry Newman. They had four children. After Jane's death in February 1874, Coleridge remained a widower for several years, until he married the much younger Amy Augusta Jackson Lawford on 15 August 1885. They met on board a steamer as Coleridge was returning from an American tour. This voyage across the Atlantic would produce its own controversy. According to a New York report from 16 August 1885, later published in the Clarence and Richmond Examiner:
Her fascinating and vivacious manner so charmed the leading dispenser of British justice that during the voyage he danced almost continual attendance upon her. After his arrival in London however, the aged lover's ardour cooled rapidly and in a short time the thermometer of his affections registered a very low temperature.Footnote 5
It was at this point that Miss Lawford's mother approached Coleridge, reminding him of ‘the fervour of his love-making to her daughter’: ‘powerless to dislodge the match-making mother from her position, and finally, being confronted with the alternative of an action for breach of promise, he yielded: stipulating, however, that the marriage should take place secretly’.Footnote 6 A combination of necessity and duress ensured that Coleridge did his duty.
One of Coleridge's first contributions in the House of Commons debates recorded by Hansard was during the second reading of the Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister Bill, which took place on 2 May 1866.Footnote 7 This Bill sought to render lawful a marriage between a widower and the sister of his deceased wife. Coleridge's speech betrays a strong familiarity with biblical concepts and historical theology:
I admit, Sir, that as a general rule this House is quite unfit for the discussion of points of religious doctrine. And besides, I do not think it is satisfactory in general to force on other persons a view of religious doctrine which they do not accept, or a religious authority the obligation of which they do not admit. And yet, in a matter of marriage I am unwilling altogether to pretermit all reference to moral and religious considerations; it is, perhaps, the one subject as to which within certain limits it is fair to press these considerations upon other people. Very briefly, therefore, Sir, I put the moral and religious part of the argument in this way. If what is forbidden to one sex is forbidden to the other – and what is forbidden to one sex must be forbidden to the other, or else a woman may marry her own father, for such a marriage is nowhere in terms forbidden – then this marriage is expressly forbidden in the 18th chapter of the Book of Leviticus. And farther, it is forbidden as contrary to natural morals, for the Canaanites are said to have offended Almighty God by making this marriage amongst others. I pass by a long, obscure and difficult scholastic discussion as to the meaning of a particular verse which is supposed by some to come in as a sort of qualification on a general prohibition – such discussion having, in my opinion with all respect to those who differ, nothing to do with the matter at hand. I waive, as quite unfit for the House of Commons, all questions as to the authority of the Book of Leviticus. I waive even all question as to its authenticity. I only say that whatever its authority and whoever wrote it, it is plain this is the meaning of it. Now, how has universal Christendom interpreted it? I do not deny, though I do not assert, that this marriage may have taken place in fact just as marriages of priests took place in fact. But I say that there cannot be found a recorded instance of a permitted marriage of this sort for the first fifteen hundred years of Christianity. Churches and sects, the orthodox and the heretical, East and West, differing on almost every other subject under heaven agreed in this.Footnote 8
This speech also gives an insight into the concerns that Coleridge and others held: that Christian morality should not be adulterated or diluted, but preserved intact, so that degenerative influences could not gain a foothold:
Sir, I am not quite sure how the matter stood in the latter ages of Borne, when the Empire became Christian, but I should not be disposed to go to the earlier times of the Empire, to the times of Claudius and Agrippina, or of Nero and Poppaea, for my laws of marriage. Nor should I go to the Athens of Alcibiades, and to the state of society painted in the comedies of Aristophanes for my canons of purity of life. Nay more, when the Greeks founded their great dynasties in the East, every one knows who has heard of the later Ptolemies and Cleopatras what horribly incestuous marriages became amongst them not the exception but the rule.
… And those who know best what life is in our crowded cities, aye, and in our miserable cottages, will be the last to rely on natural horror to protect us from incestuous connections, or to desire to bring down the standard of our laws to the level of the habitual breach of them. If, then, no case has been made out for the abolition of this restriction, why should we hesitate to stand where we are? Why make any difficulty in rejecting this Bill?Footnote 9
Coleridge was no stranger to controversial court cases involving ethical and moral issues. In 1883, only a year before Dudley and Stephens, he presided over a famous blasphemy trial, R v Ramsay and Foote.Footnote 10 The defendants, the proprietor and editor of a newspaper, published an article denying the truth of the Christian faith. Coleridge's formulation of the offence concentrated on whether wilful vilification had occurred:
A wilful intention to pervert, insult, and mislead others, by means of licentious and contumelious abuse applied to sacred objects, or by wilful misrepresentations or artful sophistry, calculated to mislead the ignorant and unwary, is the criterion and test of guilt. A malicious and mischievous intention, or what is equivalent to such an intention in law, as well as moral, – a state of apathy and indifference to the interests of society, – is the broad boundary between right and wrong.Footnote 11
Politely calling the veracity of the Bible and/or Christianity into question was no longer blasphemy in the eyes of the common law.
Coleridge's several pages of reasoning in Dudley and Stephens, concluding with the order that two men be put to death, stand in stark contrast to the voluminous written judgments of today. His writing is also distinguishable from modern, secular judgments by its religious tone. Metaphorically, he occasionally steps down from the bench and ascends the pulpit. He is familiar with the Bible and theological concepts, as well as Christian-inspired literature. By way of example, the words ‘temptation’ and ‘tempted’ appear several times throughout the judgment. Such language introduces a more profound moral element, implying the existence of a tempter, and that temptation should be resisted. Today, we speak of intentions and autonomous decision-making. We formulate resolutions by our own volition, and are thereby responsible. We may blame our upbringing or psychological disturbances for our poor choices, but a personal devil did not make us do it.
The case of Dudley and Stephens was decided at the height of the Victorian era, with its volatile mix of social movements and scientific theories. These were sometimes complementary, but often in direct competition. In terms of influence, some were waxing, others waning. They included evolution and degeneration, as well as concepts such as the ‘great man’ and ‘muscular Christianity’. There was a plethora of ‘isms’: spiritualism, colonialism, imperialism, evangelicalism, atheism, Marxism and moral perfectionism, to name but a few. Finally, there was an adamantine expectation that both the individual and society would exercise self-sacrifice and Stoic self-control. The common denominator undergirding Victorian social thought was a sense of duty and sacrifice. As stated by Coleridge in his judgment:
To preserve one's life is generally speaking a duty, but it may be the plainest and the highest duty to sacrifice it. War is full of instances in which it is a man's duty not to live, but to die … these duties impose on men the moral necessity, not of the preservation, but of the sacrifice of their lives for others, from which in no country, least of all, it is to be hoped, in England, will men ever shirk, as indeed, they have not shrunk. It is not correct, therefore, to say that there is any absolute or unqualified necessity to preserve one's life.
Evolution presented several challenges for Victorians. At the forefront, it called into question the need for a purposeful, creator God and the uniqueness of humankind. The Bible's reputation for accuracy and trustworthiness, being Scripture inspired by God, suffered another blow, following the one it had received a generation earlier from Sir Charles Lyell's geological investigations, which exponentially expanded the age of the earth and rendered Archbishop Ussher's calculations redundant and ridiculous.Footnote 12 Evolution gave rise to theories that posited different levels of advancement across human races, feeding into eugenics and racist ideologies. As Darwin wrote in the Descent of Man, a man can ‘do something not only for the bodily constitution and frame of his offspring, but for their intellectual and moral qualities. Both sexes ought to refrain from marriage if they are in any marked degree inferior in body or mind’.Footnote 13 As A N Wilson notes, the term ‘eugenics’ was coined in 1883 by Darwin's cousin Francis Galton.Footnote 14
Evolution inadvertently provided an opening for speculations that also argued for human mutability, but of a devolving kind. A degenerating human race – socially, physically and morally – was a prospect that caused real anxiety for Victorians. While our current imaginings are beholden to a likely apocalyptic future, the late nineteenth-century English were morbidly fascinated by the prospect of humankind's descent. Examples abound in Victorian popular culture, the better-known being Robert Louis Stevenson's novella Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) and H G Wells's Time Machine (1895). Social upheaval, poverty and overcrowded cities, brought about chiefly by the Industrial Revolution, had created necessitous circumstances and dubious morality, as chronicled by Charles Dickens. The Roman Empire's decline and fall, analysed by Edward Gibbon a century earlier, provided a telling precedent and death knell.
The notion of degeneration in a biological sense found support in scholarly publications. At the time it was not considered a pseudo-science, and accordingly posed a credible threat. For example, in 1880, Edwin Ray Lankester released Degeneration: a chapter in Darwinism. Footnote 15 Lankester was Professor of Zoology at University College, London, in 1875, and was later appointed Professor of Comparative Anatomy at Oxford. He was director of the British Museum's natural history department from 1898 to 1907. Lankester defines degeneration as ‘a gradual change of the structure in which the organism becomes adapted to less varied and less complex conditions of life’.Footnote 16 He concentrates mainly on simple life forms, such as marine worms, water fleas and barnacles, while considering the concept of degeneration, but then makes connections to human society:
On the other hand, it is well to remember that we are subject to the general laws of evolution, and are as likely to degenerate as to progress. As compared with the immediate forefathers of our civilisation – the ancient Greeks – we do not appear to have improved as far as our bodily structure is concerned, nor assuredly so far as some of our mental capacities are concerned. Our powers of perceiving and expressing beauty of form have certainly not increased since the days of the Parthenon and Aphrodite of Melos. In matter of reason, in the development of intellect, we may seriously inquire how the case stands. Does the reason of the average man of civilised Europe stand out clearly as an evidence of progress when compared with that of the men of bygone ages? Are all the inventions and figments of human superstition and folly, the self-inflicted torturing of the mind, the reiterated substitution of wrong for right, and falsehood for truth, which disfigure our modern civilisation – are these evidence of progress? In such respects we have at least reason to fear that we may be degenerate.Footnote 17
Christianity was viewed by many in Victorian England as the bulwark against such degeneration and moral ambiguity. In the early 1840s, more than 20 years before becoming Prime Minister, William Gladstone wrote a private memorandum concerning what might happen to society if Christianity were to be abolished. His list was as follows:
1. Gladiatorial shows;
2. Human sacrifices;
3. Polygamy;
4. Exposure of children;
5. Slavery;
6. Cannibalism.Footnote 18
Basically, Gladstone envisaged a return to a cruel, pagan world, in which the individual no longer held the intrinsic worth that comes from an acceptance that human beings reflect the image of God and are loved by their creator.
THE GREAT EXAMPLE
Near the conclusion of his judgment in Dudley and Stephens, having weighed various legal authorities, Coleridge makes a direct and emotive appeal to the Christians of England:
It would be a very easy and cheap display of commonplace learning to quote from Greek and Latin authors, from Horace, from Juvenal, from Cicero, from Euripides, passage after passage, in which the duty of dying for others has been laid down in glowing and emphatic language as resulting from the principles of heathen ethics; it is enough in a Christian country to remind ourselves of the Great Example whom we profess to follow.Footnote 19
The ‘Great Example’ to whom Coleridge refers is Jesus Christ. Imitating Christ is a common New Testament theme. Jesus is held up as an exemplar for believers to follow. This is by no means a simple task, as He is portrayed in the Gospels as the perfect human being who did not sin. Further, the Bible is not a comprehensive guide as to how Jesus would act in any given situation. It is not an exhaustive resource. The catchphrase ‘What would Jesus do?’ has its limitations. In a pastorally realistic, two-stage process, Paul suggests that followers imitate him, because he is an imitator of Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1). A detailed passage, specifically dealing with the issue of suffering, appears in 1 Peter 2:18–25:
Slaves, accept the authority of your masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle, but also those who are harsh. For it is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God's approval. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps. ‘He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.’ When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.Footnote 20
There are several matters raised in this passage that deserve attention. It should not be construed as suggesting that suffering is in some way a positive experience, to be actively sought out, perhaps even culminating in a desired martyrdom. If suffering is the result of the recipient having done wrong, that is not a cause for complaint, nor should it be unexpected. There are no plaudits for enduring suffering when it is justly deserved. When Jesus suffered, however, it was an unjust punishment, because He had committed no sin. The risen, living Son of God, seated at the right hand of the Father, can thus empathise with the unjust sufferings of others. The pertinent issue is how Christians should react to unavoidable suffering in circumstances where they have acted rightly and the punishment they are experiencing is unjust. This advice was of particular relevance and interest to Christian slaves, to whom it is directed.
Peter writes that those who suffer unjustly receive God's approval, for they have been called to follow Christ and His example. In doing so, they are living consistently and truly to that call. As Christ suffered for others, His followers may find similarly that their suffering is for the benefit of others. Jesus did not actively seek out suffering but, having borne it, His response bequeathed to His followers a rich example. They are to be more than passive observers: they are to follow actively in His footsteps. He suffered in silence, not abusing or threatening His tormentors. His silence was founded upon a trusting relationship with a just God, in the realisation that His suffering was purposeful: by bearing the sins of others, He freed them from sin, so that they might live for righteousness.
Peter sets high standards for those seeking to imitate Christ. They are to copy Him with precision and without deviation. In the original koine Greek, the word for ‘example’ in verse 21 is hypogrammos. This refers to precise pattern letters, impressed on a wax tablet, which children traced with care, in order to learn how to form the letters of the alphabet with accuracy. ‘The essence of ancient education was following good models, imitating or copying them, and repetition to the point of memorization.’Footnote 21
In the same verse, the Greek word for ‘follow’ (epakolouthesete) is in an intensified form, conveying the idea of following closely.Footnote 22 Believers are to carefully place their feet in the spaces already trod by Jesus. In so doing, they share trustingly in Jesus’ destiny. Their path replicates the journey already taken by Jesus: they take their direction from Him. This is in contrast to their former life, which is likened in verse 25 to sheep that went astray. They now have a shepherd to lead them.
Coleridge seems to be suggesting that, if Jesus had been in the Mignonette’s lifeboat, he would have supported Brooks in his dissension over the proposed killing. He would have placed greater value on the lives of others than His own. He would have suffered, even died, rather than kill another. Dudley and Stephens were obliged to follow His lead.
Hypothetically, had He been in that lifeboat, would Jesus have been prepared to sacrifice His life so that others could feed on Him? Shocking as this suggestion might be, it is precisely the symbolism employed by Jesus to describe His impending death on a cross: Jesus gives up His body and blood that others might live. He adopts the persona of the Passover lamb, which was slaughtered and fully consumed during the annual Passover festival, in accordance with the directions given by God to Moses in Exodus 12. He is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. Jesus makes this explicit during the Last Supper, the Passover meal He shares with His disciples on the night before His crucifixion:
While they were eating, Jesus took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to the disciples, and said, ‘Take, eat; this is my body.’ Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you; for this is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.’ (Matthew 26:26–28)
Christians have become desensitised to the shocking potency of this ‘body and blood’ metaphor. In the early years of Christianity, however, it gave rise to a serious misunderstanding among some pagans. They had heard rumours of a new sect from the East which engaged in abhorrent, ritualised cannibalism. In fact, it was only Christians partaking of the Lord's Supper, remembering the sacrifice of their Lord's body and blood as they ate bread and drank wine.
THE CASTING OF LOTS
It seems that Dudley attempted to act fairly in extraordinary circumstances. As recorded in the special verdict, he proposed that lots be cast, as was the customary practice of seafarers in dire straits, to choose the sacrificial victim:
That on the 24th of July, the day before the act now in question, the prisoner Dudley proposed to Stephens and Brooks that lots should be cast who should be put to death to save the rest, but Brooks refused to consent, and it was not put to the boy, and in point of fact there was no drawing of lots.Footnote 23
Even if lots had been drawn, it appears from Coleridge's comments that this would not have rendered the killing lawful. He refers to an American case, but does not find its reasoning persuasive:
The American case cited by Brother Stephen in his Digest [United States v Holmes, 26 F Cas 360, 1 Wall. Jr. 1 CCED Pa 1842], from Wharton on Homicide, in which it was decided, correctly indeed, that sailors had no right to throw passengers overboard to save themselves, but on the somewhat strange ground that the proper mode of determining who was to be sacrificed was to vote upon the subject by ballot, can hardly, as my Brother Stephen says, be an authority satisfactory to a court in this country.Footnote 24
Earlier, when Baron Huddleston and the County Assizes jury were considering the evidence against the accused on 3 November 1884, the judge remarked that using lots as an appeal to divine providence ‘would seem to almost verge upon the blasphemous’.Footnote 25 In other words, God should not be invoked via lots to provide direction, effectively being entreated to collude in gruesome and immoral circumstances.
The Bible records with approval the use of lots to seek the will of God – it is a course of action based not on superstition, but on divination. In the first chapter of Acts, the remaining 11 disciples cast lots, to determine which one of two candidates will replace Judas Iscariot, who had committed suicide after betraying Jesus. The context and formularies are important in providing legitimacy to the procedure: through prayer, God is called upon before the casting of lots to give direction through them:
Then they prayed and said, ‘Lord, you know everyone's heart. Show us which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.’ And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias; and he was added to the eleven apostles. (Acts 1:24–26)
A stronger biblical parallel involving lots, sacrifice and maritime drama is found in the Old Testament story of Jonah. The prophet Jonah is directed by God to travel to the great city of Nineveh and publicly cry out against the wickedness of its people. Jonah is naturally reluctant to do so and heads as far as he can in the opposite direction, boarding a ship for Tarshish, in a vain attempt to flee from the presence of the Lord. God intervenes, raising up a great storm that threatens to break up the ship. The sailors are terrified, calling out to their respective gods for aid. The sleeping Jonah is roused by the captain of the vessel and ordered to pray to his deity.
The sailors confer and decide to cast lots, to reveal who on board is responsible for the calamity that has befallen them. Accurately, the lot falls on Jonah: clearly, his God has caused the storm, thanks to Jonah's insubordination. The irony in the story to this point is that Jonah, a prophet of God, has refused to follow God's direction, whereas the sailors (who do not worship the Hebrew God) have nonetheless sought His guidance and fear His power. After Jonah tells them that he worships the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and dry land, the crew are even more afraid: ‘What is this you have done!’ (Jonah 1:10), the very question that God asks of Adam and Eve after they have committed the first sin. Then the sailors allude to the means by which the storm may be quelled, as they address the wayward prophet: ‘What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us?’ (1:11). Jonah, acknowledging that he is responsible for the deadly storm, becomes a willing sacrifice: ‘Pick me up and throw me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you; for I know that it is because of me that this great storm has come upon you’ (1:12).
The story continues to portray the sailors as principled and God-fearing men. They are reluctant to throw Jonah into the sea, rowing even harder to bring the ship back to land. However, the storm grows worse. The sailors cry out to the Lord:
‘Please, O Lord, we pray, do not let us perish on account of this man's life. Do not make us guilty of innocent blood; for you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you.’ So they picked Jonah up and threw him into the sea; and the sea ceased from its raging. Then the men feared the Lord even more, and they offered sacrifice to the Lord and made vows. (1:14–16)
The accused Dudley exhibited similar religious sensibilities. When reciting the jury's finding of fact in their special verdict, Coleridge notes that ‘Dudley offered a prayer of forgiveness for them all if either of them should be tempted to commit a rash act, and that their souls might be saved.’
Jonah is swallowed whole by a large fish and survives, along with the crew of the ship, for the sea immediately calms. Parker was devoured by his crewmates in order that they might live. In both cases, one is sacrificed for the many. The stories are differentiated by the fact that Jonah bore responsibility for the ship's plight – it was therefore appropriate that he be willingly sacrificed – whereas Parker was an innocent boy who was given no say or choice. It is important to note the sequence in the story of Jonah: the sailors cast lots and then question what they must do to Jonah to calm the sea, before Jonah volunteers his life. Presumably, they are already contemplating sacrificing Jonah to appease an angry God and save their lives. The fact that the sea calms down and Jonah is saved confirms God's approval of their actions and Jonah's selflessness.
MILTON'S PARADISE LOST
In his concluding arguments, Coleridge quotes two lines from John Milton's biblical epic poem Paradise Lost:
Who is to be the judge of this sort of necessity? By what measure is the comparative value of lives to be measured? Is it to be strength, or intellect, or what? It is plain that the principle leaves to him who is to profit by it to determine the necessity which will justify him in deliberately taking another's life to save his own. In this case the weakest, the youngest, the most unresisting, was chosen. Was it more necessary to kill him than one of the grown men? The answer must be ‘No’ –
‘So spake the Fiend, and with necessity,
The tyrant's plea, excused his devilish deeds.’
It is not suggested that in this particular case the deeds were ‘devilish’, but it is quite plain that such a principle once admitted might be made the legal cloak for unbridled passion and atrocious crime. There is no safe path for judges to tread but to ascertain the law to the best of their ability and to declare it according to their judgment; and if in any case the law appears to be too severe on individuals, to leave it to the Sovereign to exercise that prerogative of mercy which the Constitution has intrusted to the hands fittest to dispense it.Footnote 26
In this passage, Coleridge critiques the defence of necessity by noting its arbitrary nature. It can be used to rationalise otherwise unlawful behaviour, even murder. What subjective value judgements might form the yardstick by which the proposed killing is ethically and legally assessed? Do we favour young over old, intelligence over dullness, female over male, healthiness over illness? Whatever the biases adopted and the choices made, a human being, created in the image of God, will be killed.
The floodgates argument is raised. If necessity did become a lawful defence, it would be manipulated and abused to justify ‘unbridled passion and atrocious crime’. Finally, rather than the courtroom process allowing itself to waver from principle in these fraught cases, it should act with cold severity, in the knowledge that justice can be tempered by the sovereign's prerogative of mercy. An example needs to be maintained.
Planted by Coleridge in the middle of this series of short arguments is Milton's quote, in which Satan seeks to rationalise and excuse his evil actions through ‘necessity’. The quotation is found at lines 393 and 394 of book IV of Paradise Lost, being the response of the narrator to Satan's extended soliloquy in lines 358–392.Footnote 27 The soliloquy enables the reader to enter into the conflicted mind of Satan, as he wrestles with the options available to him following his expulsion from heaven, caused by overweening pride and ambition.
As Satan heads for Eden he settles on malevolence; there will be no reconciliation with God, because wounds of deadly hate have pierced him so deeply, that any repentance would lead to a worse relapse and heavier fall. Rather, his energies will be devoted to dividing and ideally demolishing God's kingdom (IV, 111). He has no other choice; the die has been cast.
As Satan surveys the beauties of Eden for the first time, his soliloquy commences with sad speech and grieving eyes, as he looks upon creatures who are only a little inferior to the heavenly spirits, shining with divine resemblance (Adam and Eve; IV, 358). He tells himself that through his soon to be enacted revenge their present joy will turn to woe, and the widest gates of Hell will open to welcome them and their numerous offspring. The concluding lines of this soliloquy are as follows:
The narrator then replies with the words quoted by Coleridge:
Satan tries to rationalise his evil intent with an appeal to necessity, because he has no option but to war with God and His creation. He will tempt Eve to eat fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, ignoring God's stern injunction. Adam and Eve will be cast out of Eden, just as Satan was from heaven.
John Leonard notes that ‘necessity’ was a laden word for Milton, who had lived through the tempestuous English Civil War. Oliver Cromwell, whom Milton generally admired, had used the word at pivotal moments. When trying King Charles, his vindication was ‘providence and necessity’. Legend has it that he murmured ‘Cruel necessity!’ as he stood over the monarch's dead body, having been one of the signatories to his death warrant. Against the Levellers he contended ‘accident and necessity’. The Rump Parliament's forceful dissolution by Cromwell in 1653 was ‘la necessité’, leading to Cromwell ascending to the role of Lord Protector and assuming regal pomp ‘of necessity’.Footnote 28
Quoting from Milton's poem may have appealed to Coleridge not only because of Satan's resort to ‘necessity’, but also because of broader themes in the epic – those of devouring and degeneration – that resonate with Dudley and Stephens. In terms of degeneration, the reader of Paradise Lost will notice that Satan adopts ever-devolving guises as the story unfolds. In book I, even after his expulsion from heaven, the fallen archangel remains an impressive sight. Chained on the burning lake, he is ‘huge in length’ (I, 209); Milton further describes him as being of ‘mighty stature’ (I, 223) with expanded wings, (I, 225). Satan adopts the persona of a cherub (a lesser angel) in his exchange with the archangel Uriel on the sun near the conclusion of book III. Uriel refers to him as a ‘fair angel’ (III, 694). By the time that the reader reaches book IV, Satan's borrowed cherub visage is marred by ire, envy and despair, betraying his counterfeit nature (IV, 115–117).
Having leapt over the walls of Eden, thus avoiding detection by not entering through its east gate, Satan adopts the form of a cormorant, flying and perching on the Tree of Life, ‘devising death’ (IV, 196–197). While in some cultures the cormorant is highly regarded, it also serves as a symbol for greed. In the Old Testament, the cormorant falls into the class of birds that God declared unclean:
These you shall regard as detestable among the birds. They shall not be eaten; they are an abomination: the eagle, the vulture, the osprey, the buzzard, the kite of any kind; every raven of any kind; the ostrich, the nighthawk, the sea gull, the hawk of any kind; the little owl, the cormorant, the great owl, the water hen, the desert owl, the carrion vulture, the stork, the heron of any kind, the hoopoe, and the bat. (Leviticus 11:13–19)
Wanting to make a careful observation of Adam and Eve, Satan leaves the Tree of Life and transforms into a lion and then a tiger, to get nearer to his human prey (IV, 399–403).
At this point, the story diverts its attention to an exchange between the archangels Uriel and Gabriel, the latter described by Milton as a ‘winged warrior’ (IV, 576). Uriel, from his vantage point on the sun, is concerned that one of the ‘banished crew’ (a fallen angel) has entered Eden. Gabriel calms his fears by replying:
Uriel had noted that the spirit he conversed with (at the conclusion of book III) appeared differently when he arrived on earth to the north of Eden (‘Alien from heaven, with passions foul obscured’; IV, 570–571). The archangels are thus aware of the possibility that this spirit is ‘shape shifting’. Gabriel orders two cherubim, Ithuriel and Zephon, to search the garden near Adam and Eve for ‘some infernal spirit’ (IV, 788–793). They find Satan ‘Squat like a toad, close at the ear of Eve’ (IV, 800). He flees at the conclusion of book IV, but returns to Eden in book IX, in the guise of a serpent, ‘the subtlest beast of all the field’ (IX, 86) and the ‘fittest imp of fraud’ (IX, 89).
To summarise: Satan as a result of his fall from heaven has devolved from an archangel to a cherub, to a cormorant (like an angel, a winged being), to a lion/tiger (proud beasts that produce awe), to a toad and, finally, to a serpent (in terms of means of transport and stature, far removed from a winged archangel). Satan, looking for the serpent that he might enter him, is well aware of the demotion that is about to be produced:
Humanity's fall also produces a degenerative sequence, as described in Genesis. Adam and Eve are driven out of Eden, never to return (Genesis 3:24). Their eldest child, Cain, murders his younger brother, Abel. God sentences Cain to the life of a fugitive and wanderer, but places a protective mark on him, warning others that they will suffer a sevenfold vengeance should they kill him (4:16). Several generations later a direct descendant of Cain, Lamech, uses a warped rationale that typifies the ethical devolution of humankind. Having killed a young man for injuring him, Lamech declares to his wives:
Ominously, Genesis 4 concludes with the words ‘At that time people began to invoke the name of the Lord’ (verse 26b). God is no longer a proximate and friendly presence, as when he walked and talked with humans in the Garden of Eden. This is now an estranged and distant relationship: humans need to invoke God's name to form any kind of contact.
Chapter 5 of Genesis makes human degeneration explicit, as it records Adam's descendants to the time of Noah and their fluctuating but overall decreasing lifespans, an indication that sin is having a corrosive effect on life. Having eaten the forbidden fruit, they will surely die (3:3). God then declares that his spirit shall not abide in mortals forever and that their days shall be numbered 120 years (6:3). Evil has increased, both in intensity and scope:
The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. (6:5–6)
In Paradise Lost, Milton through the archangel Michael provides Adam with a foretaste of how this fallen future will play out. Geographically, humans will be banished from the heights of Eden to live in the valleys and the plain (XI, 349). Adam sees a vision of the murder of Abel by Cain, confronting death for the first time (XI, 445–465). Michael then reveals that death will take many forms, with ‘Diseases dire’, collectively described as a ‘monstrous crew’ (XI, 476). Adam is then shown a myriad of maladies which bring him to tears, as he starts to appreciate the ramifications of humankind's degradation (XI, 497–501). He asks whether it is possible to reach death without having to endure such maladies.
For Victorian Christians such as Coleridge, this was the reality of the human condition and predicament. Sinful tendencies and afflictions must be corralled and kept in check to maintain order. If necessity were to be accepted as a justification for all kinds of illicit behaviour, it would have a degenerative effect on English morality. Far better to resist temptation – or at least for society through its legal machinery to reiterate and maintain standards if an individual should succumb – than to legitimise unethical behaviour through the adoption of a legal defence that sets morality on a downward spiral. As Coleridge states:
The real question in this case is whether killing under the circumstances set forth in the verdict be or not be murder. The contention that it could be anything else was, to the minds of us all, both new and strange, and we stopped the Attorney General in his negative argument in order that we might hear what could be said in support of a proposition which appeared to us to be at once dangerous, immoral, and opposed to all legal principle and analogy.Footnote 29
With regard to the theme of ‘devouring’ in Paradise Lost, Satan is often compared to a ravenous beast. When entering Eden surreptitiously, he is referred to as a prowling wolf:
There is a clear allusion here to Jesus’ words: ‘Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit … the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy’ (John 10:1, 10a). As noted earlier, the narrator of the epic also describes Satan as a lion, shifting shape quickly to a tiger (IV, 402–403). Milton's lion is a reference to 1 Peter 5:8:
Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in your faith, for you know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering.
Coleridge, together with Victorian England, would have concurred with Peter's comments concerning discipline, alertness, resistance and steadfastness.
As Milton's tiger, Satan stalks his prey, who are likened to two gentle fawns at play. The narrator then imagines the tiger charging at Adam and Eve, seizing them both, gripped in each paw (V, 407–408). Later, in the form of the serpent, Satan recognises that his ultimate prey is humanity throughout the ages. The succumbing of Adam and Eve to temptation will reverberate throughout the whole experience and condition of humanity:
Of course, the story of Adam and Eve is particularly concerned with eating (or, more accurately, not eating). Initially, that activity is presented in positive and idyllic language:
Even angels eat, the archangel Raphael enjoying with ‘real hunger’ the delights of Eden as he dines with Adam and Eve (V, 437).
However, eating is described in pejorative language when it relates to human disobedience. Milton describes Eve's eating of the forbidden fruit as follows:
CONCLUSION
Coleridge's judgment in Dudley and Stephens was clearly formulated with great care, by a man well versed in theology and the classics. It is pure conjecture, but when Coleridge quoted a few short lines from Paradise Lost, was he, even if at a subconscious level, making broad connections between the events on the Mignonette’s lifeboat and those in the Garden of Eden? Just as Satan preyed on innocent humans and rationalised his behaviour, did Dudley and Stephens prey similarly upon the innocent Parker? Despite Coleridge's protestations near the conclusion of his judgment that the deeds of Dudley and Stephen were not ‘devilish’, was he in fact making that very point by quoting Milton? Alternatively, should Dudley and Stephens be likened to Adam and Eve, both pairs having overstepped clear boundaries when consuming prohibited food? They were all condemned to death, yet somehow survived.
