There was a notable trial the year of the Prince of Wales's marriage (1863)—Wolley against the Sun Insurance company—to recover some £30,000 for which Campden House, Kensington (burnt down the year before) had been insured, and payment of which was resisted by the Sun office, on the ground that the fire had been intentionally caused by Wolley himself. Although Wolley was the owner of this historic Jacobean mansion—which, by the way, was somewhat of a white elephant—the evidence pointed to his being in serious pecuniary difficulties. In many respects the case was one of grave suspicion, and yet, to the surprize of everyone who had carefully followed the evidence, the jury gave a verdict in Wolley's favour without even leaving the box.

I was living at the time on Campden-hill, and the window of my bedroom commanded a view of Campden House and its grounds, as well as of the adjacent Little Campden House, where Egg the painter resided. It chanced that when the fire first broke out about 3 o'clock on a Sunday morning, I was kept awake by rheumatism, and saw the first tongue of flame shoot out through the large window on the ground floor of the doomed building. For nearly an hour previously I had noticed that the apartment seemed to be brilliantly lighted up, and thought this strange at such an hour, and on a Sunday morning too, but I imagined the window to be one in Egg's house, and knowing that the artist was travelling abroad, I concluded his servants were simply holding high jinks in their master's absence.