^ET. 43.] THE TRIAL. 409 



announcement either that the King had ceased to be 

 King, or that the other branches of the Legislature 

 must immediately inquire into the fact of the prohi- 

 bited marriage, or that there must be a disputed suc- 

 cession, or, in other words, that civil war was inevi- 

 table. The bringing forward this case, therefore, must 

 at once have put an end to the bill ; and whether that 

 would suffice, depended upon the Duke of York ; but 

 the very best that could happen was the abandonment 

 of the bill peaceably, and the King being left with a 

 doubtful title, which his adversaries would not fail to 

 represent as no title at all. 



It was, in discussing this question, often contended 

 that the marriage, being illegal, as having been con- 

 tracted without the royal assent which the Koyal 

 Marriage Act requires, there could be no forfeiture, 

 the ceremony being a mere nullity. But all lawyers 

 know that acts of various kinds, both by the laws of 

 England and of Scotland, are followed by forfeiture of 

 the party's rights who commits the acts, as if he were 

 naturally dead, and by the succession of the next heir, 

 the forfeiture being denounced in order to deter from 

 even the attempt to do the thing forbidden, how in- 

 effectual soever that thing may be in itself for any pur- 

 pose save the incurring the penalty. Indeed, the case 

 of bigamy is precisely of this description. The second 

 wife has no rights whatever ; her marriage is a nul- 

 lity ; but she and her pretended husband incur the 

 penalty of felony. When Lord John Russell published 

 Moore's Life a collection of anecdotes picked up by 

 Moore in private companies, hoarded by him, and left 

 to be published as a provision for his family there 

 were found, among other things which he had no right 



