Rosina Bulwer-Lytton’s Blighted Life (Part 2)

Summary

Stuff You Missed in History Class
Episode: Rosina Bulwer-Lytton’s Blighted Life (Part 2)
Release Date: June 25, 2025
Hosts: Holly Fry & Tracy V. Wilson
Produced by: iHeartPodcasts

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Introduction

In the second part of their deep dive into the tumultuous life of Rosina Bulwer-Lytton, Holly Fry and Tracy V. Wilson continue to unravel the complexities of Rosina’s marriage to Edward Bulwer Lytton, her struggles for independence, and the societal constraints she faced in 19th-century England.

Separation and Custody Battles

[02:29] Tracy V. Wilson:
Rosina and Edward's marriage officially separated in 1836 due to Edward's infidelity and abuse. Despite the separation, societal norms of coverture left Rosina legally bound to Edward, limiting her ability to make independent decisions.

[04:29] Rosina's Custody Struggle:
The deed of separation granted Rosina £400 annually plus £50 for each child living with her. However, by 1838, Edward had removed their children from her care, initially placing them with Ms. Green. Visits were restricted to supervised monthly meetings, eventually severing all contact.

Notable Quote:
"Great as were the troubles of Mrs. Bulwer's married life and bitter the sufferings she underwent while living under her husband's roof... they became almost insignificant as compared with the squalid misery, the unremitting persecution and the mental and bodily torture she endured after the date of her separation."
— Louisa De Vey, Rosina’s Biographer [02:29]

Financial Struggles and Pursuit of Independence

[05:44] Financial Hardships:
Rosina received £400 annually, a sum insufficient for maintaining a lifestyle befitting someone of her social standing. This financial strain prompted her to pursue writing as a means to supplement her income, mirroring Edward’s success as a novelist.

[07:26] Inadequate Support:
Despite the allowance, Rosina struggled with timely payments and insufficient funds to establish her own household comfortably. This financial precariousness was exacerbated by Edward’s manipulation of her earnings and continuous late payments.

Notable Quote:
"The £400 a year was less than the £600 her husband had said he would give her during their initial informal separation and less than the £500 she would have been entitled to if she still had the children."
— Tracy V. Wilson [05:44]

Literary Endeavors and Public Disputes

[09:32] Rosina’s First Novel - Chevalier, or the Man of Honor (1839):
Rosina published her debut novel, which thinly disguised Edward’s infidelities through the character Lord de Clifford. The novel was met with resistance from Edward, who attempted to prevent its publication, but it ultimately succeeded, going through three editions in its first year.

[10:35] Retaliation and Satire:
In response to Rosina’s work, Edward allegedly had a satirical pamphlet titled Lady Chevalier or the Woman of Honor published, mocking Rosina’s character and intentions.

Notable Quote:
"Exposure is the only thing that complex monsters dreads and consequently the only check I have upon him."
— Rosina Bulwer-Lytton, Letter to Artist AE Chalon [08:20]

Public Scrutiny and Legal Battles

[11:32] Public Exposure and Accusations:
Rosina’s actions, including visits to Paris and confrontations at social events, drew significant public attention. Accusations from both sides regarding the welfare of their children fueled ongoing tensions.

[12:20] Attempts at Legal Action:
Rosina faced legal hurdles due to her lack of legal standing as a separated woman under coverture laws. Her unsuccessful lawsuit in France highlighted the systemic barriers preventing her from securing financial independence.

[16:43] Societal Constraints:
Women like Rosina were legally and socially restricted, unable to own property or file lawsuits independently. This legal framework heavily favored men, leaving women vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.

Escalation of Tensions and Institutionalization

[37:35] Public Confrontation at the Election:
In a dramatic event during the 1848 Hertfordshire by-election, Rosina publicly denounced Edward, disrupting his campaign and leading to her temporary institutionalization.

[39:21] Institutionalization:
Edward orchestrated Rosina’s commitment to a private asylum, portraying her as mentally unstable to silence her public accusations. However, Rosina maintained her composure and continued her advocacy from within the institution.

Notable Quote:
"Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton has circled my life with a snare and crowned it with a curse. My miserable, lonely, laborious and disinherited existence."
— Rosina Bulwer-Lytton [35:42]

Later Years and Legacy

[43:47] Post-Edward’s Death:
After Edward’s death in 1873, Rosina's memoir A Blighted Life was published without her consent, leading to familial conflicts. Her son Robert’s biography of Edward further tarnished her reputation, prompting Rosina to defend her legacy through her writings.

[45:07] Impact on Women’s Rights:
Rosina authored over 15 novels, many highlighting the struggles of women in oppressive marriages and advocating for legal reforms. Her work predated significant legislative changes, such as the Married Women's Property Act of 1882, which granted women greater legal autonomy.

[46:39] Declining Posthumous Recognition:
Despite Edward's acclaim during his lifetime, neither he nor Rosina remains widely read today. While Edward was once celebrated as a literary titan, his works and legacy have largely faded, overshadowed by contemporaries like Charles Dickens.

Notable Quote:
"The Lord will give thee rest from thy sorrow and from thy fear, and from the hard bondage wherein thou wast made to serve."
— Rosina’s Grave Inscription [44:34]

Conclusion

Rosina Bulwer-Lytton's life was marked by relentless struggle against societal norms, financial hardship, and personal abuse. Her literary contributions and persistent fight for justice and recognition offer a poignant glimpse into the challenges faced by women in 19th-century England. Despite the adversities, Rosina's resilience and determination to voice her truth left an indelible mark on literature and women's rights advocacy.

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Key Takeaways:

• Legal Constraints: Rosina's battle was significantly hindered by the coverture laws of her time, which stripped married women of legal and financial independence.
• Literary Expression: Writing served as Rosina’s primary means of expression and resistance against her oppressive circumstances.
• Public Scrutiny: Her public confrontations with Edward brought attention to her plight but also subjected her to further victimization.
• Legacy: Rosina's efforts contributed to the gradual shift in women's rights, paving the way for future legal reforms despite her lack of widespread recognition.

Recommended Further Listening:

• Stuff You Missed in History Class Episodes on Caroline Sheridan Norton and other influential women.
• Cold Case Files Miami for gripping stories of justice and persistence.

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This summary provides an overview of the key discussions and insights from the podcast episode, capturing Rosina Bulwer-Lytton's struggles, her literary endeavors, and the societal challenges she faced.

Transcript

[Tracy V. Wilson]

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[Holly Fry]

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[Narrator]

Audio In 2012, 16 year old Brian Herrera was gunned down in broad daylight on his way to do homework. No suspects, no witnesses, no justice.

I would ask my husband, do you want me to stop? He was like, no, keep fighting.

After nearly a decade, a breakthrough changed everything. This is Cold Case Files Miami. Stories of families who never stopped fighting. Listen to Cold Case Files Miami on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Robert Evans]

I'm Robert Evans and on my show, behind the Bastards this week we have one of our worst subjects ever. David Berg, founder of the Children of God cult, who we'll be talking about with special guest Ed Helms. He's not just like a weird religious cult leader. He was like fusing a bunch of hippie ideology in with this kind of like Evangelical Christianity, Pentecostal preaching in the mid century. He's a very weird guy, but yeah, I'll just get into it here. Like nothing you just said makes sense. That doesn't sound right, but that's the beauty of cults. Listen to behind the Basterds on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Holly Fry]

Welcome to Stuff youf Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson.

[Holly Fry]

And I'm Holly Fry.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

This is part two of our episode on Rosina Bulwer Lytton, wife of Edward Bulwer Lytton. Although where we're picking up on this story, he was still known as Edward Lytton Bulwer. This is also an episode about their marriage and separation. Last time we talked about Rosina's early life and the early years of her relationship with Edward and the infidelity and abuse that led to their separation in 1836. By that point Edward had become a best selling novelist. That is something that he had turned to in order to make up for losing a generous allowance from his mother because he married Rosina. And then after their separation, Rosina would try to do basically the same thing. She tried to write books to make up for a gap in her income. We talked about Edward's physical abuse of Rosina during part one. While the separation got her away from that, it did not in any way free her from him. In the words of her biographer and literary executor Louisa De Vey quote great as were the troubles of Mrs. Bullwood's married life and bitter the sufferings she underwent while living under her husband's roof. They became almost insignificant as compared with the squalid misery, the unremitting persecution and the mental and bodily torture she end after the date of her separation. That all reached its apex in 1858 when Edward had Rosina committed. Which we of course will be getting to.

[Holly Fry]

As we said in part one, Rosina and Edward's deed of separation specified that she would receive £400 per year plus an additional £50 for each of her children as long as they lived with her. And initially they did live with her. But that changed in 1838 when her daughter Emily Elizabeth was 10 and her son Edward Robert was 7. The details on this are a little bit fuzzy, but Edward had the children removed from Rosina's care and placed with a woman known as Ms. Green. At first Rosina was allowed to see them briefly about once a month, always with Ms. Green's supervision. But eventually even that stopped and she was separated from her children entirely. Rosina framed this as a continual source of heartbreak. Edward claimed that she did not care. And in a lot of ways both children were used as pawns in their parents attacks on one another.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Rosina had no legal standing to change this custody arrangement. Women's status after marriage in the UK was known as coverture. Married couples were essentially merged as one legal entity under the man's identity. The man held all economic property and legal rights for his wife and for any children that they might have married. Women could not own their own property or sign their own contracts or file suit on their own behalf in court.

[Holly Fry]

After being separated from her children, Rosina went to Bath. That year. Edward was knighted and named Baronet of Nebworth, a newly created baronetcy, allegedly after this, someone congratulated Rosina on becoming a lady and she said she wished it had made Edward a gentleman.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

So Rosina was now separated from her children and she was seeing her husband ascend in exactly the way that they had been planning earlier on in their marriage. On top of that, she was having financial problems. There is really not a great way to convert the £400 that she was given annually into something comparable in today's currency, like the bank of England's inflation calculator puts that at roughly £40,000. But Ways of living and social expectations were radically different in the 1830s as compared to today. The most approachable comparisons are usually about things like Jane Austen novels, which are set just a little earlier than this was happening. But just generally speaking, an income of £400 a year might be enough for somebody of Rosina's class to afford a home and their basic needs and a couple of servants, maybe a cook and a lady's maid, but their money would still have to be very carefully managed for that to work. And it wouldn't have been a lifestyle that was considered luxurious, especially for somebody whose husband was a best selling writer and a member of Parliament and a baronet.

[Holly Fry]

That £400 a year was less than the £600 her husband had said he would give her during their initial informal separation and less than the £500 she would have been entitled to if she still had the children. It did not really allow for the various initial expenses that were involved in getting established in a household of her own or for anything unexpected to happen. It also doesn't seem like she made this transition to a life on her own very easily. Like early on in her time of living without her husband and children, there's an account of her staying with a family that's full of what sounds like modern day roommates squabbling over who spent how much and who owed how much, with everyone accusing everyone else of spending too much money. On top of that, according to Rosina, Edward's payments to her were often late and sometimes very late.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah, this is like, this is way more money than a laborer had every year or like a farm worker or, you know, someone that was in a more working class. But for someone who was of Rosina's class married to a baronet, like, it does not seem like it was allowing her to meet the expectations of her socially or just to live a life that didn't feel like it was full of scrimping and saving. So she started trying to supplement her income by writing. And Edward, of course, heard about this. He had a diary entry in 1838 in which he wrote, quote, I tremble every day lest my domestic sores should be dragged still more into light than all that is most sacred in men's hearths and homes, exposed to all that is more galling in public gossip. Later on, Rosina wrote a letter to artist AE Chalon that said, in part, exposure is the only thing that complex monster dreads and consequently the only check I have upon him.

[Holly Fry]

Rosina's first novel was Chevalier, or the man of honor, published in 1839. One of its characters is Lord de Clifford, who seduces and then abandons the daughter of one of his tenants. She is driven insane by his treatment, and Lord de Clifford winds up in court. He also winds up being publicly denounced, and not long after, he dies after a fall from his horse. Lord de Clifford is a thinly disguised version of Edward and his extramarital affairs, and that fatal fall really reads like wish fulfillment.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Edward, unsurprisingly, did not want this book to be published, and apparently he tried to put a stop to it, including going to Rosina's publisher, publisher Edward Bull, and telling him that Rosina's trustee, Francis Doyle, had forbidden this. Bull published the book anyway, and it sold well. It went through three editions in its first year, and Bull also agreed to publish another book for her based on that success.

[Holly Fry]

Someone also published a response to this book in the form of a satirical pamphlet written in 47 pages of verse, titled Lady Chevalier or the Woman of Honor. It was printed anonymously, but literary historian Marie Mulvey Roberts, who has written on Rosina Bulwer Lytton and edited modern reprintings of her letters and other writings, suggests that it may have been written by Edward Bulwer Lytton.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Four years after this, Rosina and Edward each wrote novels that had some running themes. Rosina's were also full of dastardly, philandering men who were clearly based on her opinions of Edward and her relationship with him. And a number of Edwards novels featured mad women. There was one in which the couple's relationship deteriorated to the point that the wife went mad and poisoned him.

[Holly Fry]

People didn't necessarily know about Rosina's allegations of Edward's physical abuse, but they absolutely knew about the Separation and estrangement. In 1839, Rosina visited Paris, and by then her situation had become notorious enough that she wound up in the gossip columns. At least two publications, the Morning Post and the Court Journal, reported that Rosina had been at a soiree hosted by Lady Amler and had run into Edward's brother Henry, who was in Paris working as a diplomat. The Morning Post said that Rosina had made, quote, certain rye faces, the meaning of which could not be mistaken. And the Court Journal contended that she had gone to the party specifically to run into Henry and humiliate him.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Apparently, none of this was true, and Henry was not even there. That night. Rosina wrote a letter to the Morning Post asking for an apology and a retraction, saying that she had never met Henry in Paris at all. The Morning Post complied with this. With Edward's permission, Rosina also filed suit against the Court Journal and was awarded £50.

[Holly Fry]

While Edward did give permission for her to file this suit, it was also around this time that Rosina started to believe that he was spying on her. She got a letter from a friend, dated October 4, 1839, relating a strange incident in which a man had approached Mrs. Stockman in Bath, who ran a lodging house there. And that man had asked all kinds of questions about Rosina, about her rooms when she'd stayed there, who her acquaintances were, and whether a Mr. H had ever taken rooms there as well. These questions all seem to suggest that the man asking them was trying to figure out if Rosina and this Mr. H had been involved with one another. And this man also seemed to know every detail of Rosina's life and habits. And he had also apparently been asking questions around Ireland and France as well. In this friend's words, quote, when Mrs. Stockman said, Sir Elb was living with Ms. Deacon, the man's face flushed and he looked savage.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Not long after this, Rosina tried to file another suit in Paris, this one against an attorney named Thackeray and his clerk named Lawson. She alleged that they had fraudulently tried to seize her personal papers. According to Rosina's letters, which is the one source I had on this, although this had taken place in France and her suit was in a French court, after some deliberation, it was decided to that because she was married under English law, the requirement for her husband's consent still applied. She did not have that consent, so this suit did not go anywhere and she was required to pay for the cost of the proceedings. Which was money she just did not have.

[Holly Fry]

Tensions between Rosina and Edward escalated beyond their already high point in the 1840s. And we're going to get to that after a sponsor break.

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[Narrator]

In 2012, 16 year old Brian Herrera was gunned down in broad daylight on his way to do homework. No suspects, no witnesses, no justice.

The call was horrible. I replay it over my head all the time.

For years, Brian's family kept asking questions, while a culture of silence kept the case cold.

Snitches get stitches. Everybody knows it.

Still, they refused to give up.

I would ask my husband, do you want me just let this go? He said, no, keep fighting.

I told her I would never give.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Up on this case.

[Narrator]

And then, after a decade of waiting, a breakthrough.

We received a phone call that was bittersweet because it's a call that we've been waiting for for a very long time.

I'm Enrique Santos. This is Cold Case Files Miami, a podcast about justice, persistence, and the families who never stopped fighting. Listen to Cold Case Files Miami as part of the My Kultura Podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Robert Evans]

I'm Robert Evans, and on my podcast behind the Bastards, we talk about the worst people in all of history. We've discussed a lot of horrible monsters in our time, but this week we have one of the very worst we'll ever talk about. David Berg, founder of a cult called the Children of God. We'll talk about all of his horrible crimes with special guest Ed Helms. He's not just like a weird religious cult leader. He was like fusing a bunch of hippie ideology in with this kind of like evangelical Christianity, Pentecostal preaching in the mid century. He's a very weird guy, but yeah, I'll just get into it here. Like, nothing you just said makes sense. That doesn't say right, but that's the beauty of culture. Listen to behind the bastards on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In 1841, Edward lost his seat in parliament. And in 1843 his mother died. He inherited money and property from her side of the family. And this is also when he started going by Bulwer Lytton rather than Lytton Bulwer. This made his full name Edward George Earl Lytton Bulwer Lytton.

[Holly Fry]

Part of Edward's inheritance was Nebworth House, where he had already been living. This had been the Lytton family residence since the late 15th century. And this is a mansion. It served as a stand in for an assortment of Rich people's homes and palaces in movies and television, including Wayne manor in the 1989 version of Batman and Thornfield hall in the 1997 adaptation of Jane Eyre. It was also the virtually impregnable Mallory Gallery in the great Muppet caper. The best of the three, in my opinion. Edward continued refurbishment work that his mother had started on the house, including adding lots of Tudored Gothic elements to its exterior and putting in a formal Italian garden.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

By this point, Rosina had spent a few years in France and Italy believing that she was being spied on by Edward and that someone was opening her mail looking for some kind of evidence of adultery so that Edward could divorce her. He also seemed to be using his literary connections to keep her books from getting published or to minimize their impact. When she did manage to find a publisher. Her books during this period included Bianca Cappello, An Historical romance, published in 1843. This was about a real historical figure, but it still contained a lot of material about men's bad treatment of their wives.

[Holly Fry]

When Rosina learned about Edward's mother's death, she thought there was really no excuse for him to continue to allow her only £400 a year, especially since he seemed to be intentionally undermining her efforts to earn more money for herself. She could really only argue for an increase in her annuity if she went back to England. But she found herself stuck on the Continent. She had outstanding debts in Italy and France, including the legal expenses from her failed lawsuit that were still paid. She also did not have the money to arrange her passage back to England, and she had gotten to the point that she was deeply hesitant to borrow from anyone. She had genuine fears that she would never actually be able to pay it back.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Sometimes she did find ways to get smaller amounts of money, though, After a friend told her that her daughter Emily was living on minimal support from her father and only had two pairs of stockings. Rosina sold a bracelet and sent her friend the proceeds. But her friend returned that money several months later, saying that she had not been able to figure out an appropriate way to pass the money on to Emily. Rosina also bought a watch and a chain and sent it to her son Robert. And that was returned as well, with a message not to send any more packages.

[Holly Fry]

Finally, a sympathetic friend gave Rosina £400 and then tore up her letter offering to pay it back at 5% interest. And this was enough to settle most of her debts on the Continent. And she arrived back in England in May of 1847. She did eventually repay this money, but it took her several years.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Back in England, Rosina started writing to Edward to ask for more money, but she did not know exactly where he was at any point. She would send letters in care of the places that she knew he frequented, like the Athenaeum Club and the Albion Hotel. When she didn't get a response, she started addressing them along the lines of Sir, Liar, Coward, Bulwer, Lytton. And she would also put notes on the outside about women that she thought he was involved with. This had the effect of infuriating and embarrassing Edward and of seeding rumors about him around London via what was written on the outside of his mail.

[Holly Fry]

In April of 1848, Rosina got word that her daughter was very ill and she tried to see her. She bribed the landlady at the boarding house where Emily was staying, as well as the nurse who was caring for her. They would not let Rosina actually see her daughter, though, saying that any kind of sudden emotion might make her worse. Rosina sat at the top of the stairs outside Emily's room, where she could hear Emily calling for her. As she got worse, word got back.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

To Edward that Rosina was there, and he ordered that she be removed from the boarding house. Emily died on April 28, 1848, just a couple of months before her 20th birthday. Some accounts say that Rosina was able to see her daughter, but only briefly before her death. And then other accounts say that she did not get to see Emily at all. Even the accounts of people who were actually there in the house that night are contradictory. It's also not really clear what Emily died of. Various sources attribute it to typhus, typhoid, tuberculosis and fever.

[Holly Fry]

Rosina and Edward both proclaim themselves to be bereft after Emily's death, and they each used it as ammunition against the other. Edward and their son Robert, both claimed that the shock of either seeing or hearing Rosina had killed Emily, while Rosina said that Edward had worked his daughter to death and withheld appropriate medical care in her final days. Rosina was also furious that Edward placed a death notice for Emily that made it sound as though she had died at the Lytton home of Nebworth House rather than at a boarding house. Rosina's mother, Anna Doyle Wheeler, also died that same year.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In 1851, Edward staged a play called not so Bad as We Seem. With the assistance of Charles Dickens. The two writers had just founded the Guild of Literature and Art as an organization to provide things like pensions and health insurance to British writers. This play was to be a fundraiser for the guild.

[Holly Fry]

When Rosina heard about this, she sent a ton of letters about it to an assortment of people. She said that this guild should be renamed the Guilt of Literature and Art. She threatened to show up dressed as a beggar in protest of Edward's perpetually late annuity payments. Edward and later his son, alleged that she threatened to show up and throw rotten eggs at the Queen. That would have been treason.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Rosina also wrote and distributed a piece called Even Worse Than We Seem, which was framed as a parody of Edward's play, although nobody outside the production actually had a copy of the script when she wrote this, so she didn't actually have any way of knowing what the contents of the play were. To parody them, she printed pamphlets that included a dramatist Persona that described Sir E Bulwer Lytton quote, a gentleman question mark with a gutta percha rental of £10,000 for his acquaintance, which conveniently shrinks into as many hundreds whenever he is applied to give his wife enough to live on. According to this, he was cast in the role of Sir Plagiary Puff, a philanthropic exclamation point literary gentleman question mark, who has literally translated his poor young daughter into heaven and nobly leaves his wife on public charity. This pamphlet also described Charles Dickens as having a dead child in one pocket and a dead father in the other.

[Holly Fry]

Charles Dickens hired security for the performance, also getting Edward to send someone who actually knew what Rosina looked like. It's not entirely clear whether she disrupted the performance itself. Newspapers were really fond of gleefully covering whatever Rosina was doing and writing about her her husband, but there's not an account of her being there when the play was staged. Later on, though, Rosina would try to stage a play of her own, and when she had trouble getting it off the ground, she claimed that Charles Dickens had assassinated her character in the British theatrical world.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In 1852, Edward Bulwer Lytton was elected as a Member of Parliament for Hertfordshire. A year later, Rosanna was living in Wales and alleged that someone had tried to poison her. She moved periodically and she continued to publicly lambast her estranged husband and to try to earn money through writing.

[Holly Fry]

In 1856, she published a novel called Very Successful. One of the characters in this novel incredulously quotes real advertising material for Edwards novels, which said that they, quote, abound in illustrations that teach benevolence to the rich and courage to the poor. They glow with the love of freedom, they speak a sympathy with all high aspirations and all manly struggles. This character then gives a recounting of seemingly everything Rosina had experienced and alleged about Edward at this point. Physically destroying one child, morally destroying another, kicking his wretched victim of a wife a month before her first child was born till she was nearly dead, turning that poor little martyr out of the house the moment she was born, as he ultimately did to die, springing in one of his rabid furies upon his wife and making his hideous horse teeth meet in her cheek till the blood streamed down her. And ultimately turning her and her children out of their home to make way for one of his infamous mistresses, are no doubt among these high aspirations and manly struggles. And it goes on from there.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah, the reason that I did not say which character specifically says this is that when I was trying to like, trace back through it to figure out who's talking here, I couldn't figure it out. A lot of this book looks kind of like a wall of text, and I found it difficult to piece through. The biggest and most public blow up of their marriage was still to come. And we will get to that after a sponsor break.

[Enrique Santos]

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[Zoe Saldana]

Thanks. And here's my old phone to trade in.

[Enrique Santos]

You don't need a trade in. When you switch to T Mobile, we'll give you a new iPhone 16 Pro. Plus we'll help you pay off your old Phone up to 800 bucks and you still get to keep it.

[Zoe Saldana]

There's always a trade.

[Enrique Santos]

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[Zoe Saldana]

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[Robert Evans]

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

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[Danielle Robaix]

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[Narrator]

In 2012, 16 year old Brian Herrera was gunned down in broad daylight on his way to do homework. No suspects, no witnesses, no justice.

The call was horrible. I replayed over my head all the time.

For years, Brian's family kept asking questions while a culture of silence kept the case cold.

Snitches get stitches. Everybody knows it.

Still, they refused to give up.

I would ask my husband, do you want me just let this go? He was like, no, keep fighting.

I told her I would never give.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Up on this case.

[Narrator]

And then, after a decade of waiting, a breakthrough.

We received a phone call that was bittersweet because it's a call that we've been waiting for for a very long time.

I'm Enrique Santos. This is Cold Case Files Miami, a podcast about justice, persistence, and the families who never stopped fighting. Listen to Cold Case Files Miami as part of the My Cultura Podcast Network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Robert Evans]

I'm Robert Evans and on my podcast behind the Bastards, we talk about the worst people in all of history. We've discussed a lot of horrible monsters in our time, but this week we have one of the very worst we'll ever talk about. David Berg, founder of a cult called the Children of God. We'll talk about all of his horrible crimes with special guest Ed Helms. He's not just like a weird religious cult leader, he was like fusing a bunch of hippie ideology in with this kind of like evangelical Christianity Pentecostal preaching in the mid century. He's a very weird guy, but yeah, I'll just get into it. Like nothing you just said makes sense. That doesn't sound right, but that's the beauty of cults. Listen to behind the bastards on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In 1857, Parliament passed the Matrimonial Causes act, which changed divorce law in the uk. Divorces became easier to obtain, but men still had to prove that their wives had been unfaithful and women still had to prove that their husbands had been unfaithful and had also done some other kind of wrong like cruelty or abandonment or sexual assault. We talked more about this law in our two part episode on Caroline Sheridan Norton, which came out on April 3rd and 5th of 2023. Her story has some common elements with this one. Although Caroline Norton's writing was really focused on advocating for legal reforms that would help protect the rights of married and divorced women, while this law made it possible for more people to obtain a divorce, Rosina and Edward were still basically stuck because neither of them had the necessary proof to get one.

[Holly Fry]

That same year, Rosina Bulwer Lytton wrote Lady Bulwer Lytton's Appeal to the justice and Charity of the English Public. She said she intended it to be included in the second edition of Very Successful, but implied that her husband had prevented a second edition from being published. She claimed that this suppression had even extended to the libraries, and that if someone asks for a copy of Very Successful, the librarian will say, quote, that they have not got it, as it is not a book fit for ladies to read, followed by six exclamation points. She instead solicited subscriptions for the book for the price of one pound eleven shillings, six pence. Much of the pamphlet is made up of long unbroken paragraphs that run for pages recounting her allegations against Edward. She said she was appealing for public charity because, quote, there are yet no workhouses for the destitute wives of rich men.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

A lot of Rosina's writing reads as very vengeful, but in this piece she described herself as not motivated by revenge. Quote, it is self defense and she gives Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton fair notice that if he continues to hunt and outrage her as he has done, she will continue steadily to expose his conduct, for she pretends no pretenses and unless her hypocrisy were commensurate with his own. She could not even from policy affect any other feeling but that of the sovereign contempt she entertains for him.

[Holly Fry]

She also wrote, quote, sir Edward Bulwer Lytton has circled my life with a snare and crowned it with a curse. My miserable, lonely, laborious and disinherited existence. He has made one great agony, composed of innumerable, exquisite, infinitesimal tortures, for each and all of which, as there is but one source, I have but one name. Surely, to the most forbearing and least logical mind, the inference is obvious.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

The following year, Edward was appointed as Secretary of State for the Colonies. As a result, a by election was held to confirm him as MP for Hertfordshire. He had to be an MP to fill this role. He was running unopposed. So, ordinarily this would have been a pretty straightforward and one would expect quiet election. But in the weeks leading up to the election, Rosina repeatedly publicly denounced him, including rhetorically asking why the people of England would have him as the head of the colonies when he should have been transported there for his crimes years before. She also spread rumors that he had only gotten this Cabinet position because he was having an affair with Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli.

[Holly Fry]

Rosina worked with her landlady, Mrs. Clark, to go to Hertford the day before the June 8 election and put up posters denouncing Edward and to distribute copies of her Appeal to Justice and Charity pamphlet. They also distributed handbills that read, quote, lady Bulwer Lytton urgently solicits the attendance of the yeomen and electors of Hertfordshire in the Town hall of Hertford on Tuesday 8th June at 12 o' clock at noon. Not indeed to solicit their votes on, but for their true interest, Edward had.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

The help of their son Robert, who is now 26. In trying to clean up all of this, Robert went around town tearing down posters and discarding pamphlets and handbills. Meanwhile, Rosina went to the Mayor and tried to secure the Town hall so that she could give her own address. She also claimed that she would run against Edward in the election, something that was not possible since women did not have the right to vote or to serve in Parliament.

[Holly Fry]

On election day, both Edward and Robert appeared on the Hustings, basically a campaign event. Rosina apparently thought this was starting at noon, but it really started at 11am so she got there just as Edward was finishing his speech. She was dressed all in white and carrying a white parasol and started loudly insulting Edward to everyone.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Around her, Robert saw his mother in the crowd and he got his father's attention to warn him, in the words of a letter from Jane Welsh Carlisle to her husband, Thomas Carlisle. When Edward realized that when Robert kept saying Lady Lytton, he meant Rosina, he did not mean his aunt, who would also be called Lady Lytton. Edward, quote, turned as white as a sheet, cast one wild look at his wife, and rushed down the companion ladder of the platform steps, near the bottom of which the kind foresight of somebody, his carriage and servants stood ready.

[Holly Fry]

Rosina made her way through the crowd, got onto the platform and spoke against Edward for about 15 minutes. Her exact words are not recorded anywhere, but she was generally described as largely repeating the content of her pamphlet.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

There is some speculation that Edward and his connections tried to keep this whole disruption quiet. It is mentioned in things like personal letters and eyewitness papers, but the immediate coverage of this election in the major newspapers doesn't mention it. That changed, though, after Edward tried to have Rosina committed.

[Holly Fry]

On June 11, a man named Frederick Hale Thompson arrived at Rosina's home in Taunton, accompanied by a nurse to examine her. Rosina agreed to this examination, and after some discussion, Thompson seems to have concluded that she was sane. He asked what it would take for her to stop these kinds of public denouncements of her husband. She said she wanted her allowance to be increased to 500 pounds and for her existing debts to be cleared. That amount totaled about 2, 500 pounds.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Thompson left, and when Rosina didn't hear anything else about this for more than a week, she went to London to his office to follow up. And she took her land lady and a friend of hers with her. She got there in the morning and she was asked to return later in the day, which she did. But she also said before leaving that if this matter was not settled, she would take incriminating letters that she'd brought with her to the magistrate. Rosina came back to Thompson's office at 5pm as had been requested, and there were two police officers there, along with staff from a private asylum called Brentford, which was outside of London, and they had the necessary paperwork to have her committed.

[Holly Fry]

Edwards evidence of Rosina's purported mental state included an assortment of her writing, including her playbill from Even Worse Than We Seem. He also claimed that both of her parents had been insane, and she pointed out that if that was true, he was suggesting that the same could also be true of their son, Robert.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

While it seems like Edward might have kept her disruption at the hustings on the June 8th election day from being widely reported in the newspapers. Her confinement in the asylum became big news, with some papers taking her side and some taking Edwards. Several newspapers, starting with ones in Scotland and Ireland, also started revisiting that election, and they published accounts of Rosina's arrival and Edwards fleeing the scene. One widely reprinted write up described Rosina as an extremely handsome woman of about 45 who called him a coward from the platform and quote, asserting her intention to confront her husband on every possible occasion until she compelled him to address her wrongs.

[Holly Fry]

Rosina continued to write to her friends and to public figures from the asylum, advocating for her release and, of course, criticizing her husband's actions. This was a time in which women were disproportionately institutionalized in Britain, often for behavior that their male relatives found inconvenient or inappropriate. Rosina made it clear that she was not being treated poorly, which was often not the case for women who didn't have the kind of status she did. She was allowed to move around the house and grounds and to visit neighboring villages with an attendant with her own self advocacy from within the asylum and her friends working on her behalf outside of it. It she was released on July 14, after about three weeks.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Rosina had to be declared insane in order to be committed, and that meant Edward was obligated to pay off her debts. He also did agree to increase her allowance to the £500 per year that she had been asking for, and at this point Edward allowed Rosina to see her son again. They spent several months together traveling in Europe along with a female friend of Rosina's, until they apparently had some kind of disagreement and parted ways.

[Holly Fry]

In 1866, Edward was raised to the peerage and named Baron of Nebworth. That same year, Rosina wrote a memoir of her confinement in the asylum. She did not think it was publishable as written, and she looked for a publisher who could help her edit and revise it. But nothing came of this effort. She did keep writing and publishing other books, though.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Edward Bulwer Lytton died on January 18, 1873, and Rosina went from being her husband's responsibility to being her son's. Seven years later, that memoir she had written was published under the title A Blighted Life. This is something that she insisted happened without her knowledge or consent. Her son Robert was livid about this book and he cut her allowance over it. She published Refutation of an Audacious forgery of the Dowager Lady Lytton's name to a book of the publication of which she was totally ignorant in an effort to clear her name. I could not find a copy of this pamphlet anywhere, but I would like to read it.

[Holly Fry]

Rosina Bulwer Lytton died at her home in Kent on March 12, 1882, at the age of 80. She was buried in an unmarked grave in the churchyard of St. John the Evangelist at Shirley in Surrey. It remained unmarked until her great great grandson, David Lytton Cobbold, had a marker placed there in 1995 following her wishes expressed before her death. It bears the inscription, the Lord will give thee rest from thy sorrow and from thy fear, and from the hard bondage wherein thou wast made to serve.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Over the course of her life, Rosina Bulwer Lytton wrote more than 15 novels. Many of them focused on women in unhappy and dysfunctional marriages and the negative impacts of married women's lack of legal and political rights. The year that she died, Parliament passed the Married Women's Property act, which addressed a lot of these issues. Afterward, married women could own and control their own property. They also had the right to to sue and to be sued and to enter into contracts rather than being considered legally inextricable from their husbands, with their husbands being the supreme entity in that relationship.

[Holly Fry]

Robert Bulwer Lytton published a very complimentary biography of his father in 1883. This book made it sound like Edward had never been particularly attached to Rosina. It claimed that he had been in love with a girl who had died when he was younger and that he had never recovered. In response to this, Rosina's friend and literary executor, Louisa Devi, published a collection of Edwards Love Letters in 1884. Robert put an injunction on this book in the UK, although it was still published elsewhere. In 1887, Deby published Life of Rosina Lady A Vindication, which included a lot of primary source material in an effort to clear Rosina's name and offer her perspective in light of Robert's biography of Edward.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Neither Rosina nor Edward Bulwer Lytton are widely read today. Some sources say that during his lifetime Edward outsold Charles Dickens, and others say that Dickens was the only writer that he did not outsell. During his funeral, which was at Westminster Abbey, writer Benjamin Jowett called him one of England's greatest writers and one of the greatest men of his time. Past podcast subject GK Chesterton later said of him quote, you could not have the Victorian age without him. But today, at least in the United States, he's mainly known for phrases like it was a dark and stormy night and the pen is mightier than the sword. We haven't even talked about how some of his books, like the Last Days of Pompeii, were an inspiration to the Theosophy movement. But interest in his work really plummeted around World War I, and reasons for that are largely speculative.

[Holly Fry]

Rosina's work also largely faded from sight, although that's more understandable. She was usually working with smaller publishers to put out work that often read like it was written as a form of revenge. For much of the late 19th and 20th centuries, Rosina's works weren't available at all, although that has changed thanks to the Internet and the availability of scanned copies of books that have entered the public domain.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

I'm sure we'll have a lot to talk about on Friday, that's for sure.

[Holly Fry]

Do you have a little bit of listener mail in the meantime?

[Tracy V. Wilson]

I do. This is from Tandy. Tandy wrote and said Dear Holly and Tracy, after your behind the scenes about the three autoimmune diseases, I thought I should send you an email My grandfather had type 1 diabetes. He was diagnosed in the 1930s, a little more than a decade after insulin was discovered. When World War II started, he went to sign up and made it through the physical, got accepted into the army and was filling out the forms and asked how they would get his insulin to him when he was overseas. Would it be an airdrop or something like that. The army realized then that they had made a mistake. They still weren't used to type 1 diabetics living to adulthood, so he wasn't questioned about diabetes. The army let him go and he worked as a civilian mechanic. He did go blind in the 1960s due to diabetes complications. I still remember my grandfather giving him his insulin shots. It was about one a day based on his sugar levels that they tested using his urine. He passed away in the late 1970s. So RFK Jr. Is completely wrong, but we knew that type 1 diabetics have been around for a long time and living full lives. My youngest is also a type 1 diabetic and the changes in treatment from the time of my grandfather is amazing. My youngest uses a continuous glucose monitor and omnipod and monitors everything from their phone. So here is hoping they don't get the diabetic complications that my grandfather did for a pet tax. Here is a photo of my youngest horse. His name was Dancer. He passed away in February. Tandy. Here we have a very lovely horse looking out from what looks like a stall in a stable maybe. Thank you so much, Tandy, for that, that email. I think at this point the folks that I know who have type 1 diabetes are mostly using some kind of continuous glucose monitor and then either using an insulin pump to automatically adjust their insulin as necessary or doing that part more manually. But yeah, worlds different from when insulin was first introduced. So thank you again for this email and for this lovely horse picture. If you would like to send us a note about this or any other podcast, we'[e-mail] and you can subscribe to our show on the iHeartRadio app or anywhere you like to get your podcasts. Stuff youf Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Narrator]

In 2012, 16 year old Brian Herrera was gunned down in broad daylight on his way to do homework. No suspects, no witnesses, no justice.

I would ask my husband, do you want me to stop? He was like, no, keep fighting.

After nearly a decade, a breakthrough changed everything. This is Cold Case Files Miami, stories of families who never stopped fighting. Listen to Cold Case Files Miami on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Robert Evans]

I'm Robert Evans and on my show behind the Bastards this week we have one of our worst subjects ever. David Berg, founder of the Children of God cult, who will be talking about with special guest Ed Helm. He's not just like a weird religious cult leader. He was like fusing a bunch of hippie ideology in with this kind of like evangelical Christianity, Pentecostal preaching in the mid century. He's a very weird guy, but yeah, I'll just get into it like nothing you just said makes sense. That doesn't, right?

[Tracy V. Wilson]

But that's the beauty of cults.

[Robert Evans]

Listen to behind the bastards on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Danielle Robaix]

Just like great shoes, great books take you places through unforgettable love stories and into conversations with characters you'll never forget.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like butterflies.

[Danielle Robaix]

I'm Danielle Robaix and this is bookmarked by Reese's Book Club. The new podcast from hello Sunshine and I Heart Podcast, where we dive into the stories that shape us on the page and off each week. I'm joined by authors, celebs, book talk stars, and more for conversations that will make you laugh, cry, and add way too many books to your TBR pile. Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Zoe Saldana]

Explore the winding halls of historical true crime with Holly Fry and Maria Tremarchi, hosts of Criminalia, as they uncover curious cases from the past. The legend of the Highwayman suggests suggests men dominated the field, but tell that to Lady Catherine Ferrers, known as the Wicked lady who terrorized England in the mid-1600s. Her legend persists nearly 400 years after her death. Highwaymen are in the hot seat this season. Find more crime and cocktails on Criminalia. Listen to criminalia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

This is an iHeart podcast.