William Cowper

William Cowper is the Lord Chancellor of England under Queen Anne and a central legal authority in the recognition of Gwynplaine as the heir to the Clancharlie peerage. He assesses the evidence of Gwynplaine’s identity, advises the Crown to restore his inheritance subject to a formal confrontation, and helps direct the ceremony that admits him to the House of Lords. Cowper’s conduct combines a strong commitment to hereditary status with careful management of the disruption Gwynplaine’s appearance might cause among his peers.

Office and standing

Cowper’s office makes him both a senior officer of the Crown and, in the narrator’s description, the guardian of the king’s conscience. When a wicker-covered flask found at Castle Calshor reaches the court, Queen Anne orders a confidential investigation. Two counsellors are consulted: Cowper, whose legal office makes him responsible for advising on the matter, and the Lord Marshal, whose role concerns heraldry and noble pedigrees. Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk and hereditary Earl Marshal, communicates through his deputy, Henry Howard, Earl Bindon, that he will agree with Cowper. The investigation therefore brings questions of law and descent together rather than treating Gwynplaine’s claim as a matter of appearance or personal assertion alone.

The narrator distinguishes this Lord William Cowper from his contemporary namesake William Cowper, an anatomist and commentator on Bidloo. The distinction underscores that the character’s authority derives from his position as a lord and chancellor, not from the medical profession. The narrative also presents his short sight as a detail of courtly politics: Queen Anne is short-sighted too, and the account connects their shared infirmity with her confidence in him and his appointment to the chancellorship.

Assessment of Gwynplaine’s claim

Cowper’s written memorandum considers the discovery of a peer’s heir who had been taken away in childhood, disfigured, and later recovered. It does not condemn King James II for ordering the child’s removal. Instead, Cowper invokes arguments about monarchical prerogative, including the claim that kings possess a right to alter the bodies of their subjects for reasons of state. His reasoning does not, however, treat that prerogative as cancelling the separate claim of an heir who has been found. If the missing heir is recovered, Cowper argues, his title should be restored; the low social rank in which he was forced to live does not erase his hereditary status.

Cowper accordingly recommends restoring Lord Fermain Clancharlie to his estates and dignities, subject to his being confronted with Hardquanonne and identified by him. He regards the recognition as effectively certain, but makes the prescribed confrontation a condition of the restoration. His memorandum also calls for the legal procedure to continue if Hardquanonne refuses to answer: the prisoner is to undergo peine forte et dure until the fourth day, when the statute requires the confrontation. The narrator stresses the harsh procedural logic behind this advice, including the possibility that a prisoner might die before the required day arrives. Cowper’s conclusion nevertheless rests on the conviction that Gwynplaine’s identity can be established within the law’s formal requirements.

The evidence is then assembled across institutions and places. The bottle’s parchment identifies the abandoned child as the legitimate son of Linnæus, Lord Clancharlie, and Ann Bradshaw, and as heir to his father’s titles and estates. Records gathered in Switzerland confirm the marriage of Gwynplaine’s parents in exile, the child’s birth, and the deaths of both parents. Hardquanonne, still imprisoned at Chatham, is transferred to London. The resulting case is not simply a family revelation: it proceeds through recovered documents, authenticated records, imprisonment, and an official confrontation before Cowper’s recommendation can be acted upon.

Admission to the House of Lords

Queen Anne’s letter to the Duchess Josiana describes Cowper as having sealed and signed the report establishing that the legitimate son of Linnæus, Lord Clancharlie, has been discovered under the name Gwynplaine. The letter announces that Gwynplaine is to be admitted and installed in the House of Lords, and that he is to replace Lord David Dirry-Moir in the royal arrangement concerning Josiana. Those decisions belong to the Queen; Cowper’s role is to provide the report and to take part in the legal and parliamentary formalities that make Gwynplaine’s restored position effective.

At the admission ceremony, two elderly peers, Charles Mildmay, Lord Fitzwalter, and Augustus Arundel, Lord Arundel of Trerice, serve as Gwynplaine’s sponsors. Cowper sits in a circular space at the end of the gallery, with the clerks and registers before him and the ceremonial officers behind him. After the required messages have been read, the clerks prepare the Crown and House registers for his signature. Cowper signs both and welcomes Gwynplaine among the spiritual and temporal lords of Great Britain. The ceremony turns the conclusion of the inquiry into a public recognition of rank, supported by the signatures and offices of the state.

Managing the threshold

Cowper’s management of the ceremony is shaped by his knowledge that Gwynplaine’s face may provoke a reaction. Initially, Cowper has declined to learn many details about the new lord’s disfigurement, treating such information as beneath his dignity. The Queen’s brief remarks do not change that posture. After reading the affidavits, however, he understands that Gwynplaine’s appearance could disturb the House and takes steps to prevent the admission from becoming a spectacle.

He schedules the reception for the evening sitting and brings the formalities forward so that Gwynplaine enters before the House has assembled. Cowper also conducts the investiture at the threshold, beneath the nave, rather than inside the chamber. The narrator notes that this arrangement has precedent, including the installation of John de Beauchamp as Baron Kidderminster, but also observes that Cowper’s decision would later cause him embarrassment in another peerage case. His precautions thus serve an immediate purpose while creating a precedent with consequences beyond Gwynplaine’s admission.

The old sponsors’ near blindness and Cowper’s own short sight mean that they scarcely perceive Gwynplaine’s disfigurement. Cowper’s measures are therefore less a response to any interruption that occurs in the ceremony than an attempt to control the possibility of one. His conduct exposes the tension between the formal language of equality among peers and a social order that expects a newly admitted lord to conform to its standards of appearance. The phrase he uses to summarize that order treats a peer’s face as contained in his peerage: legally, title can define the person even when the body unsettles the people around him.

Narrative significance

Cowper’s part in Gwynplaine’s restoration is marked by a distinction between the Crown’s capacity to dispossess and the legal system’s capacity to recognize an heir. He excuses King James II’s action through arguments of royal prerogative, yet advises the restoration of the title once the lost heir is identified. His reasoning preserves the monarchy’s authority while insisting that a hereditary claim, once established, must also be honored. In this way, he helps repair one consequence of royal power without rejecting the assumptions that made the original injury possible.

The account gives Cowper no personal relationship with Gwynplaine beyond their official encounter. His significance lies instead in the institutional passage he oversees: evidence becomes a report, a report supports a royal decision, and signatures and ceremony make the recovered identity public. Yet his careful effort to keep Gwynplaine’s entrance from disturbing the assembled peers anticipates the limits of that restoration. The law can return the title and place Gwynplaine at the threshold of the House; it cannot by itself ensure that the House will receive him without ridicule or hostility.