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
Oliver St John, 5th Baron St John of Bletso enormous sum, if truthfully reported, for an heir apparent with a negligible estate of his own to offer as security. Two earlier petitions recited liabilities on his part of £6,900, still very significant, and he was also prosecuted as a surety for the debts of Sir Thomas Cheney, his uncle by marriage. As Clarendon avers, his debts did cause havoc for his sureties: some of the possessions of his uncle Sir Alexander St John were distrained by Lord St John's creditors, and Sir Capell Bedell, another surety, made a composition with Lord Bolingbroke to pay some of the debts to