Foreign News: Duke Regularized

During the year 1932 that omniscient but intentionally delayed Vatican publication, the Acta Apostolicae Sedis (Acts of the Apostolic See) may be expected to publish a full report of a decree of annulment* between the Duke of Marlborough and his first wife, the onetime Consuelo Vanderbilt, news of which leaked out through profane channels last week.

Consuelo Vanderbilt, daughter of the late William K. Vanderbilt and the present Mrs. O. H. P. Belmont, is alleged to have appeared before the Catholic Diocesan Court at Southwark, Eng., with her mother last July, and deposed that she was forced by parental duress to consent to marry in 1895 Charles Richard John Spencer-Churchill, Ninth Duke of Marlborough, Baron Spencer, Baron Churchill, Earl of Sunderland, Earl of Marlborough, Marquis of Blandford, Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, Prince of Mindelheim in Suabia, Knight of the Garter, descendant of “England’s greatest general” John Churchill, First Duke of Marlborough (1650-1722), the victor of Blenheim.

Since William K. Vanderbilt reputedly spent in excess of $1,000,000 in connection with the marriage of his daughter to “Briton’s proudest Duke,” and since Consuelo Vanderbilt bore the Duke two sons and remained his wife for 25 years, divorcing him in 1920, wild rumors fled about last week as to why at this late date she has obtained a Roman Catholic decree of annulment effecting her ducal marriage which was performed in St. Thomas’s Episcopal Church, Manhattan.

Several facts seemed to point to an explanation: 1) The former Duchess has married a French Roman Catholic, Lieut.-Col. Jacques Balsan. 2) The Duke has espoused by a Presbyterian marriage the former Gladys Marie Deacon of Boston. 3) The Duke has recently evinced an intention of joining the Roman Catholic Church.

Since the Roman Catholic Church does not sanction divorce the alternative of annulling the Duke’s first marriage has two effects: 1) It removes any possible taint of ecclesiastical bigamy from his second marriage in Roman Catholic eyes and makes it possible for him to enter that Church. 2) It regularizes the second marriage of Consuelo Vanderbilt and sets at ease any qualms of her Roman Catholic husband.

Reflecting upon these dual blessings, many a Roman Catholic in Europe beamed last week.

* “Confirmed by the Tribunal of the Rota at the Vatican.