The aristocrat in frocks and his man-mad wife who gave birth while still a virgin: Couple's grandson sheds new light on Britain's most sensational 離婚 事例／患者

• John 'Stilts' Russell, 相続人 of Lord Ampthill, married Christabel in 1918
• She then 主張するd he 棄権する from anything that might make her 妊娠している
• Gave birth to 奇蹟 baby, Geoffrey. She hinted he was conceived 予定 to one of 'John's sleepwalking events'
• Christabel 設立する John dull and often went out for evenings with other men
  

By Annabel Venning for MailOnline

Published: 01:45 BST, 2 November 2013 | Updated: 01:47 BST, 2 November 2013

The House of Lords had heard nothing like it. A 集団の／共同の shudder of disgust rippled along the red leather （法廷の）裁判s as the 法律 Lords considered the sordid goings-on in the 結婚の／夫婦の bed of John Russell and his wife, Christabel.

At 火刑／賭ける was the 肩書を与える of Barony of Ampthill ― John Russell was the 相続人 of Lord Ampthill. The 事例／患者 hinged on whether a baby born to? Christabel had been fathered by her husband, or by one of her many 申し立てられた／疑わしい lovers.

In 新規加入, there was another, even more perplexing 問題／発行する. How had Christabel given birth, when she was, によれば doctors, still a virgin?

Dressed up: John 'Stilts' Russell (left) at a party. How had his wife, Christabel, given birth when she was, によれば doctors, still a virgin?

Not surprisingly, the ‘事例／患者 of the Virgin Birth’ had become the most 悪名高い 離婚? in Britain. By May 1924, it had been running for two years. Society women and City gentlemen （人が）群がるd into 法廷，裁判所s to hear 厳しい-looking lawyers speak distastefully of ‘侵入／浸透’ and ‘incomplete relations’.

The nation was agog at the 発覚s that seemed to encapsulate the decadence of the Twenties. Its notoriety has dimmed over the １０年間s, but now Anthony Russell, son of the ‘Russell baby’ and grandson of Christabel,? has re-診察するd the スキャンダル in? his autobiography.

A one-time pop singer (he knew Mick Jagger in the Seventies), Anthony is now a writer.

The story began in 1915 when Christabel Hart met John Russell, a gangling, good-natured 海軍の officer known as ‘Stilts’ because of his? 6ft 6in でっちあげる，人を罪に陥れる.

Stilts and two shipmates ―? his best friend Gilbert ‘Flick’ Bradley and another man ― put an advert in The Times asking for ‘young ladies’ to 令状 to them. の中で those who replied was Christabel, who sent the most alluring photograph. All three men began corresponding with her, then met up with her in London when on leave.?

When the couple married in 1918, Christabel said Stilts must 棄権する from anything that may 原因（となる） a pregnancy. Above, with her 奇蹟 baby, Geoffrey Denis Erskine Russell, 4th Baron Ampthill

Stilts was only 18 and Christabel a year older. She was 素晴らしい, 解放する／自由な-spirited and bohemian, working? in a 軍需品s factory by day and dancing the nights away at high-society parties.

Stilts was captivated and in 1917 he 提案するd to her. She 受託するd, 説: ‘I thought it would be nice and 平和的な not to be pestered by men asking me to marry them.’

However, she soon called it off, 宣言するing she was ‘not the marrying 肉親，親類d’, but 敏速に eloped to Scotland with Stilts’s friend Bradley. Yet they were unable to marry 予定 to 合法的な 形式順守s and （機の）カム 支援する the next day.

Christabel then wrote to Stilts to tell him that she would marry him after all. He telegraphed 支援する an ecstatic ‘Yes’, and they were married a week later on October 18, 1918, in Kensington, West London.

The groom’s 海峡-laced parents, Lord and Lady Ampthill, who were の近くに to George V and Queen Mary, did not 認可する of their son’s ‘急速な／放蕩な’ bride who danced the tango, worked and even shaved her armpits. They did not …に出席する the wedding.

After Stilts (above) left the 海軍, the couple 始める，決める up house in London, but Christabel 主張するd on separate bedrooms

It was an inauspicious start, made more so by the bride’s 最終提案 on the eve of the wedding: she did not want children, so Stilts must 棄権する from anything that could 原因（となる） pregnancy. He agreed, only for his bride to tell him on his first leave: ‘I wish to God I hadn’t married you.’

When his 潜水艦 ドッキングする／減らす／ドックに入れるd at Greenock, he sent her Mary Stopes’ 調書をとる／予約する Married Love, 含む／封じ込めるing contraceptive advice. But she replied,? furiously, she did not like the use of ‘予防のs of conception’. So Stilts agreed to carry on 棄権するing.

When these letters were read out in the celebrated 法廷，裁判所 審理，公聴会, a woman 賠審員 became faint with horror and was excused from service.

While Stilts was on his 潜水艦, his wife wrote him cheery letters about the men she had been seeing on holiday in Switzerland. ‘I need hardly say your wife has a 広大な に引き続いて of adoring young men. I’ve four in the Bucks Light Infantry.’

She 誇るd of 存在 ‘So in love with a Dago young man’ who had ‘lovely 手渡すs’ and of dancing with ‘dark sleek Argentinians?.?.?.?Your very naughty wife.’

After Stilts left the 海軍, the couple 始める，決める up house in London, but Christabel 主張するd on separate bedrooms. Stilts 従うd, 原因（となる）ing Christabel’s lawyer to ask in 法廷，裁判所 later: ‘Is this man or jelly?’

To Stilts’ agony, his wife seemed to find his company unbearably dull and would go out for evenings with a string of ‘detestable young men’, as he called them. She would regale him the に引き続いて day with 詳細（に述べる）s of her night out, while he served her breakfast in bed, the only occasion he was 許すd in her bedroom.

One morning she even 召喚するd him 一連の会議、交渉／完成する to his friend Flick Bradley’s flat to 配達する fresh 着せる／賦与するs as she had stayed the night there having ― 恐らく ― lost her 重要なs to the house. On other nights she （人命などを）奪う，主張するd to have stayed at her mother’s flat. Once, Stilts 直面するd Bradley, asking him 完全な: ‘Are you playing hanky-panky with my wife?’

Bradley replied: ‘It would be much better if Chris had children.’

When Christabel heard about this conversation she was furious and ― によれば Stilts ― never let him so much as kiss her again.

His parents loathed Christabel, but still 招待するd the couple to Oakley House, the 250-acre Ampthill 広い地所 in Bedfordshire, in December 1920 and put them in the same bedroom. That night, a 失望させるd Stilts tried to 軍隊 himself on her in what she 述べるd in 法廷，裁判所 as ‘Hunnish scenes’ ― ‘Hunnish’ 存在 a euphemism for ‘depraved.’

She 述べるd how he ‘試みる／企てるd to 影響 侵入／浸透 but I would not 許す it’. (He 否定するd this in 法廷，裁判所.)

It was not, she said, the first time he had made such 試みる／企てるs, which were ‘usually に先行するd by 脅しs to shoot himself, and once to shoot my cat’ that slept on the bed.

When Christabel fell 妊娠している, she hinted the baby may have been conceived during one of John's supposed 'sleepwalking' events without either of them realising. That child, Geoffrey (above), was later 確認するd as the 4th Lord Ampthill

She also （人命などを）奪う，主張するd she once 設立する him ‘lying on his bed with his gun between his feet and his toes on the 誘発する／引き起こす, to blow his brains out if I? did not consummate the marriage’.

Ten days later she visited Captain Lionel Cross, who was training a horse for her, staying with him in a hotel in Salisbury in 隣接するing rooms.

By 早期に 1921, Stilts, on his mother’s advice, decided to 無効にする the marriage on the grounds of Christabel’s 拒絶 to consummate it. Christabel stopped wearing her wedding （犯罪の）一味 and they now lived apart.

Christabel seemed to go along with the 協定 until June, when she 突然の changed her mind. 召喚するing her husband to a 会合 in London, she told him of an occasion when she had 設立する him sleepwalking in his pyjamas outside their Mayfair house. He had no recollection of this ― or of the 試みる／企てる to shoot himself.

She then said she was five months 妊娠している. The baby, she hinted, may have been conceived during one of these ‘sleepwalking’ events without either of them realising. Stilts was stunned but delighted.

‘I am most awfully h appy about the baby,’ he wrote to her, agreeing to 減少（する） the 取り消し 訴訟／進行s and apologising for his sleepwalking. ‘If only you had told me I would have padlocked myself to my bed?.?.?.? I am very sorry.’

But the に引き続いて day, having 協議するd his mother, he wrote to Christabel 否定するing paternity, 説: ‘Nothing short of a 奇蹟 would make it possible for us both to have been unaware that we had conjugal relations.’

Christabel’s baby, Geoffrey, was born on October 15, 1921, nine months after she had stayed in a hotel with Captain Cross and ten months after the ‘Hunnish scenes’ with her husband.?

押し進めるd by his mother, who wished to 妨げる the baby 相続するing the Ampthill 肩書を与える, Stilts took Christabel to 法廷，裁判所 to 追求する a 離婚, 告発する／非難するing her of 姦通 with Cross, Bradley and an unknown man who was, he 申し立てられた／疑わしい, the father of her child.

In 法廷，裁判所, Christabel was 軍隊d to 令状 負かす／撃墜する the 指名するs of all the men she had spent nights with: there were four.

She had stayed in hotels in Paris with Bradley and Cross; she had spent the night in Bradley’s flat; and in a train sleeping compartment with Cross. But she 主張するd that nothing 妥当でない had occurred.

She even （人命などを）奪う，主張するd to have had no idea what a man’s penis was for, or even that it could change size.

She 単に preferred these men’s company to that of her ‘dull’ husband who could not dance and who 反乱d her by dressing in women’s 着せる／賦与するing. The 法廷，裁判所 was shown pictures of Stilts in drag.

His explanation was they were taken at fancy-dress parties. But he 認める he frequently cross-dressed for ‘fun,’ once masquerading as a woman at the flat of a ‘Mrs S’. He had an ‘entire trousseau’ at home 含むing stockings and stays.

Several doctors and gynaecologists 証言するd that Christabel was technically a virgin and had ‘never had 十分な intercourse with a man’. The 医療の men 保証するd the 法廷，裁判所 that conception was possible without 十分な ‘侵入／浸透’, as was a ten-month pregnancy: the baby, Geoffrey, was born 重さを計るing more than 10lb.

So was Geoffrey’s birth the result of the ‘Hunnish scenes’? Could conception have occurred when Stilts was sleepwalking? によれば his nanny and his shipmates, Stilts had never sleepwalked.

There was even 憶測 that Christabel could have conceived by getting into Stilts’ bathwater at Oakley and making ‘injudicious use’ of the sponge he had just used (高度に improbable, but scientifically possible).

The 陪審／陪審員団 decided she had committed 姦通 with neither Cross nor Bradley, but was divided about whether she had another, 無名の lover. There was a second 裁判，公判, at which Stilts 特記する／引用するd a 隣人, Edgar Mayer, as Christabel’s lover. At this 裁判，公判, she was 設立する 有罪の of 姦通, with an ‘unknown man’.

辞退するing to be branded an adulteress and 決定するd her baby would not be 否定するd the Ampthill 肩書を与える, Christabel 控訴，上告d to the High 法廷，裁判所. She lost ― and 控訴，上告d to the House of Lords. This time she won, thanks to an obscure 150-year-old 合法的な 判決，裁定. The 離婚 was overturned, legitimising baby Geoffrey who was forever known as the Russell Baby or ‘Sponge Baby’.

King George V fulminated that the language used in 法廷，裁判所 was worse than ‘the pages of the most extravagant French novel’. The 法律 was subsequently changed to 妨げる such 詳細（に述べる）s becoming public in 離婚 事例／患者s.

Stilts and Christabel were finally 離婚d in 1937. She never remarried but moved to Ireland where she 追跡（する）d and was a loving, if eccentric, mother to Geoffrey and then grandmother to his son Anthony Russell and his two brothers.

Anthony believes she was innocent of 姦通 and had an aversion to sex. ‘She infinitely preferred 小衝突ing 負かす／撃墜する one of her hunters?.?.?. to even 熟視する／熟考するing the 行為／法令／行動する of physical intimacy with a man,’ he says. ‘It will forever remain a mystery as to how far Stilts’ penis had made 進歩 and how conception occurred.’

For his part, Stilts never 受託するd Geoffrey as his child. He never even spoke to him.
Stilts remarried twice, and his third marriage produced a son, John. After Stilts’ death in 1973, John 生き返らせるd the 事例／患者, （人命などを）奪う，主張するing to be the 合法的 相続人 to the Ampthill 肩書を与える on the grounds that he was Stilts true son, not Geoffrey.

Geoffrey had already given up his 権利s to the Ampthill 広い地所s in 交流 for £30,000, but he fought this new 成果／努力 to brand him a ‘bastard’. Once again the 事例／患者 reached the Lords, who, in 1976, 設立する in Geoffrey’s favour ― にもかかわらず a 血 見本, taken from Stilts before his death, not 存在 実験（する）d.

Geoffrey was 確認するd as the 4th Lord Ampthill. His son David now 持つ／拘留するs the 肩書を与える ― Geoffrey having died in 2011 ― and 結局 became 副 Leader of the House of Lords.

As for Christabel, she had died, 老年の 80, months before the 1976 事例／患者, without knowing she had been vindicated again. The 事例／患者 that had riveted ― and 反乱d ― a nation was over at last.

Outrageous Fortune: Growing Up At 物陰／風下d 城 by Anthony Russell is published by The Robson 圧力（をかける） on November 11 at £20. To order a copy for £16.99 (p&p 解放する／自由な), call 0844 472 4157.