court was by ticket only. The Prince of Wales was present, and sat on a red leather chair on a raised platform between the judge and the witness box; his appearance was the first time since 1411 that an heir to the throne had appeared involuntarily in court. The trial closed the following week, after the judge's summing up "had been unacceptably biased", according to Tomes. The jury deliberated for only 13 minutes before finding in favour of the defendants; their decision was greeted by prolonged hissing from some members of the galleries. The day after judgement was passed, the leader in The Times stated that "He is ... condemned by the verdict of the jury to social extinction. His brilliant record is wiped out and he must, so to speak, begin life again. Such is the inexorable social rule ... He has committed a mortal offence. Society can know him no more." Gordon-Cumming's senior counsel, the Solicitor General Sir Edward Clarke, remained convinced in his client and, in his 1918 memoirs, wrote that "I believe the verdict was wrong, and that Sir William Gordon-Cumming was innocent". Aftermath As a result of the scandal, Gordon-Cumming was dismissed from the army the day after the trial, and he resigned his membership of his four London clubs, the Carlton, Guards', Marlborough and Turf. The same day he married his American fiancée, the heiress Florence Garner, who had stood by him throughout the trial despite Gordon-Cumming twice offering to break off their engagement because of the scandal. The service took place at the Holy Trinity church in Chelsea with only a small congregation. When the couple returned to Scotland a few days later the locals from near his estate had decorated the station and pulled the carriage through the streets by hand. According to the former Lord Chancellor, Michael Havers, the lawyer Edward Grayson and the historian Peter Shankland, "That the prince and society considered him a social outcast mattered not at all to his people". The prince was determined Gordon-Cumming should remain ostracised and he "declined to meet anyone who henceforth acknowledged the Scottish baronet". Later life Gordon-Cumming remained outside high society for the remainder of his life. He later told his daughter that "among a host of acquaintances I thought I had perhaps twenty friends. Not one of them ever spoke to me again". Others of his friends only relented after