Paulette Goddard miscast in this movie.

Her lack of an accent stuck out like a sore thumb in the court room. After that it was all down hill. Her performance was weak with or without an accent.

I just rewatched this film last night, having bought the DVD yesterday afternoon. I have always enjoyed Paulette Goddard. I liked her performances in MODERN TIMES and THE GREAT DICTATOR and SO PROUDLY WE HAIL. I had no problem with her performance. As far as age is concerned, actors and actresses often play roles that are younger or older than their real ages -- that is part of portraying a character. For example, at the opening of GONE WITH THE WIND, Scarlett O'Hara is supposed to be sixteen years old. Vivian Leigh was in her twenties, but no one complained that she was at least ten years too old to play Scarlett.
The argument that Paulette's accent wasn't right for the film is extremely weak. Let's take as an example 1938's THE ADVENTURE'S OF ROBIN HOOD. Robin was played by Errol Flynn, an Australian, Marion was Olivia de Haviland of British parents, Claude Rains, Prince John, was of London was British, and Sir Guy of Gisborne was played by Basil Rathbone, who came from South Africa. No one objected then or now to their accents, however, if one were to authentic, each of these characters should have been speaking in Norman French -- NOT ENGLISH -- as Norman French was the language of the upper class at the time.
What accent should Abby Hale have had? Scots? Scots-Irish? Irish? Cornish? Welsh? Lincolnshire? Yorkshire? There were many (are still) many different dialects of English. As someone who grew up and still lives in the Pittsburgh area, where Abby Hale and Captain Christopher Holden most likely settled and lived, and none of us here have any problem with the way we speak. If you actually studied our grammar here, you would probably find that much of our speech comes directly from these early settlers. That is probably why western Pennsylvania has its own dialect of English.

Much as I admire (and adore) both O'Hara and Young, I cannot envision any actress better suited to the role of Abigail Martha Hale Holden.
"Accents" have changed considerably in the past 200 years. We linguistics practitioners don't like to say "accent." We prefer "intonation" or "mode of speech." But to use the more familiar term, there are well over 100 different "accents" and styles of speech found today in England alone, not to mention Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and the Channel Islands. There are more than six distinct accents in London alone.
In any case, in the i8th century, the English had not developed the intonation that we Americans of the 20th-21st centuries recognise as "British English." In fact, the standard "British" accent was very like that of the Carolinas in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Abby was born and reared in Dorsetshire, at Cerne Abbas. Even today the Dorset accent has none of the high lilt nor the "hard jaw" of, say, the London West End, or Oxfordshire. For me, Abby's accent, although it was certainly not Dorset, did not detract one whit from a thoroughly delightful performance.
Tac, I too missed the early life portrayal; but deMille wasn't making a three-and-a-half-hour spectacle.
BTW, the film was a combination of The Judas Tree and Unconquered, rolled together in one; and even at that de Mille took cinematic liberties But I'm not going to dispute with the master of the cinematic spectacle.

Keep On Truckin'

Sandman

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So do I. And I agree they were great together. So far as I know, they made only those two films together. And in Northwest Mounted Police, she wasn’t really with Cooper. She was the love-interest of Preston Foster, and a minor character. But she stood out like a shining star.

Keep On Truckin'

Sandman