The judges in Robinson v Robinson & Lane duly dismissed and then summoned Edward Lane, for whose benefit the law had been altered. On Friday 26 November the doctor came to Westminster to defend his name. Though the court had already technically cleared him of adultery, his reputation would be in tatters unless Isabella was cleared too. The morning was clear, dry and unusually warm, the temperature in London having risen over the previous three days from thirteen to fifty-seven degrees Fahrenheit. In Westminster Hall, Cockburn, Cresswell and Wightman had reassembled on the bench. The doctor took his place at the witness box. William Bovill QC, Isabella’s counsel, stood to examine him. Bovill resembled a benign, bespectacled professor, earnest in manner, with a reedy body and a big shiny head that bulged at the temples. Though he had not spoken in the court in June, he was the barrister who, with Phillimore, had formulated Edward and Isabella’s defence. ‘I am a physician,’ said Edward Lane in reply to Bovill’s queries, ‘and a graduate of the Edinburgh University.
