Jane Eyre (1996 film) estate (and ultimately Mr. Rochester) with his wife, Bertha (Maria Schneider), who is mentally ill and kept locked away in an upstairs attic with a nurse, Grace Poole (Billie Whitelaw). The marriage is stopped by Bertha's brother Richard Mason (Edward de Souza) and lawyer Briggs (Peter Woodthorpe). Jane flees, her world crashing down is a nightmare. She recovers in the parsonage of her original aunt's home, discovers she is now a wealthy woman inheriting her long-lost uncle's fortune in Madeira. She gets a proposal of marriage from Parson St. John Rivers but her heart and soul is with Rochester. Jane
Henry St John, 5th Viscount Bolingbroke, 6th Viscount St John son could inherit the title, he tried to pass them off as the offspring of his non-existent marriage to Ellen Medex. Although the peerage books had previously accepted that he was married, they began to unravel the lies and removed all reference of his marriage and any heirs apparent, instead installing one of Henry's cousins, Canon Maurice St John, as heir presumptive to the title. Henry St John died in November 1899. After the funeral the existence of a wife and heir was revealed, a scandal which was reported in all the British newspapers. Mary continued to live at Lydiard