this occasion he produced, among his documentary evidence, a copy of the affidavit of Henry Hovenden, already referred to, and also of another by a Sarah Lyners, dated the 17th January 1722, of which more anon. Within a few months' time, again, he was on the 2d July 1831 declared heir in the Nova Scotian and Canadian possessions of the first earl!-a fact which a few days afterwards-namely on the 12th July ensuing-he formally communicated to the public authorities there, and inhabitants, by way of proclamation, in terms almost befitting a sovereign newly restored to his dominions! While thus intrepidly urging on his way in the law courts of Scotland, he seized every opportunity of personally exercising the rights of the peerage. On the 2d September 1830, he voted (under protest made by the Earl of Rosebery, but not seconded) at the election of representative peers at Holyrood; again on the 3d June 1831, but under a protest formally entered by the Duke of Buccleuch and Lord Lauderdale. On the 29th August 1831, he petitioned for leave to do homage at the coronation, as hereditary-lieutenant of Nova Scotia!- created several baronets in right of such lieutenancy, one of whom was his agent Mr Banks, to whom he also assigned 16,000 acres of land in Nova Scotia, but who resigned the rank after his quarrel with the prisoner in 1834-5; and finally, on the 25th January 1838, positively forwarded to Lord Melbourne a solemn protest, as hereditary-lieutenant of her Majesty in the provinces of Nova Scotia, (including New Brunswick,) and Upper and Lower Canada, against the appointment of the late Earl of Durham as Governor-General of the colony! That this was at all events a bold and decisive line of operations, apparently indicating supreme confidence in the validity of his pretensions, no one will doubt; and it renders deeply interesting the inquiry on which we are about to enter. In the mean time, however, a question

may occur-Whence could be derived the funds requisite for carrying on these expensive-these extensive and complicated-operations, in different and distant parts of the world? In the year 1829 the prisoner quitted Worcester, reduced to great distress, and came to London, where he established himself in lodgings at the corner of Jermyn Street and Regent Street. While there, again, as was reluctantly testified by a witness at the trial,+ he was "in great distress for money,-unable to pay for his lodgings-and he acknowledged that he had left his butcher's bill at Worcester unpaid, and that his family were in great distress there." Such, however, were the results of his confident and enterprising energy-such the reliance placed on his representations of success, in enforcing his claims in America-and the eclat which he derived from frequently and publicly asserting and exercising the rights of the peerage-that in about eighteen months' time he actually succeeded in raising from one agent alone, on the faith of his prospects, no less a sum, though at enormous rates of interest, than £13,000. He now brought up his family to town, established them in fashionable quarters, and lived expensively; and also opened an office in Parliament Street, whence he issued advertisements for the sale of territories in Canada, and debentures on his American possessions !

Let us now, however, inspect the machinery by which he originally proposed and attempted to raise himself from comparative social obscurity to distinction, from extreme poverty to vast wealth, to ally himself to aristocracy, and indeed become one of its prominent members.

The proposition which he undertook to prove, as has been seen, was, that he was the great-great-great-grandson of the first Earl of Stirling. We shall now place before our readers so much only of the various pedigrees as is necessary to trace, and render interesting to follow, the operations attributed to the prisoner:

* Swinton, 2d. Append. p. lxxxiii.

+ Id. p. 165.

Here, it will be observed, we have three Henrys, in immediate succession, Earls of Stirling, and three Johns; which Henrys and Johns were respectively and successively brothers, first cousins, and second cousins; and one naturally asks, Why did not John (No. 3,) the claimant's grandfather, at once take up the earldom, on the death, without issue, of his second cousin, Henry the fifth earl, whom he survived four years? A second observation arising on the above pedigree is, that the claimant derives title through a female descent-Hannah, his mother, claiming to do so by means of the irrecoverable but sweeping charter of Novodamus. The reader will bear in mind that there are, as we have already seen, two patents of nobility to the Stirling family, respectively dated the 4th September 1630, and the 14th June 1633, giving the titles, first of Viscount, then of Earl, "to him and HIS HEIRS-MALE for ever, bearing the name and arms of Alexander." To establish his right under these patents, the prisoner must of course have proved that he was heir-male of the first Earl of Stirling. That would have been a matter of mere pedigree-showing himself the last of an unbroken succession of males. But the prisoner set up a case of a totally different nature-in a word, that the first earl "being," to quote from a "statement of William Gordon," hereafter referred to, "under great dejection of spirit, after losing three of his sons, who had given him the brightest hopes; and fearing, from the declining state of health of two of ye survivors, that his honours might

* Ante, p. 468.

Fourth son.

(No. 1) JOHN (called “of Gartmore," died 1666.)

(No. 2) JOHN (called "of Antrim," died 1712.)

(No. 3) JOHN (Reverend, died 1743.)

Hannah (married Humphreys, born in 1741, died 1814.)

Alexander (the CLAIMANT.)

at no dist. period pass to a collateral branch of his family, RESIGNED his titles and estates into the king's hands; who, by a charter under the great seal, bearing date the 7th Dec. 1639, (ie. two months only before the earl's death,) conferred them DE NOVO ['de novo dedit'] upon him and the heirs-male of his bodye: which failing [the whole case hinges on this clause] to ye ELDEST HEIRS-FEMALE WITHOUT DIVISION OF THE LAST OF SUCH

HEIRS-MALE hereafter succeeding to the titles, honours, and dignities aforesaid, and to the HEIRS-MALE to be procreated of the bodys of such heirsfemale." † "Note"-continued Mr Gordon-"I have not met with this charter in our publick records; but from a marginal reference to ye 57 volume of y Reg. of the G'. Seal, wh. I noticed while I was taking ye foregoing clause of limitation from Mr James Hay's transcript, I am led to conclude that ye chartre was entered in a part of that vol. where several leaves are now awanting. Be my conjecture true or false, little importeth, however, since the original charter is at this time [14th January 1723] in ye possession of Thos. Conyers, Esq. of Catherclaigh, in ye kingdom of Ireland, who will no doubt let you have inspection thereof, and, for aught we know, may further be willing to give it up to you, as it can be of no use to him." On the back of this document, in the handwriting of "the Reverend John Alexander," was found "No. 3, from Mr W. Gordon, Edinb. 14 Jan. 1723. Rec. 27th." And at the foot of the "Statement" is the following "Attestation":-"I have

compared the limitations copyed on the other side in English by Mr William Gordon, with those cont. in the original charter of the 7th Dec. 1639, at present in my keeping; and for Mr Alexander's satisfaction, I do hereby certifye that the said Wm. Gordon has given a true and faithful translation of the clause by which the estates and titles of Lord Stirling are limited in the aforesaid charter, and descend to the heirs therein mentioned. Witness my hand, this 10th day of July 1723. Thomas Conyers.' Thus the prisoner's case was, to prove the existence of this all-important charter of "Novodamus," as it was called, operating so great a change in the destination of the honours of the Stirling family; and then that he, by his descent, satisfied its conditions. But this original charter itself, he declared from the first, was not forthcoming; and not only was it lost or destroyed, but also the official record of it in the Register of the Great Seal; and his reliance was placed on the next best procurable evidence of its existence, afforded (after proof of the loss or the destruction of the original) by authentic quotations from its essential provisions, by the persons who had made such quotations from the original, but above all by the famous EXCERPT of the charter, so fortunately discovered in Ireland by Mr Banks. What clear, cogent, conclusive evidence, however, was requisite to establish such facts! and what courageous confidence must he have had in the merits of his case, who undertook to dare the lynx-eyed scrutiny to which his "proofs" would be inevitably exposed!

Divested of all technicalities and superfluous statements, the following is the first public formal account of the matter given by the prisoner, in the former of the two actions already alluded to, brought by him in 1829 to establish or "prove the tenor" of the original charter. His prayer was, "That it might be declared and decerned that the charter was in form following, [setting it out in the original Latin-and pretty Latinity it is -according to the excerpts,] and that such decree' should be in all respects as valid and effectual a document to

the pursuer (the prisoner) in all cases, causes, and questions whatsoever, as the original charter of Novodamus, if extant and found, would be, notwithstanding the same has been lost and is amissing, and cannot now be discovered." *

After setting out at length the various original and undoubted patents of nobility and charters to the first Earl of Stirling, the “summons” proceeded to recite his resignation, for a re-grant, of his titles and honours, and the new charter of Novodamus, accordingly, of the 7th December 1639, with the new limitations. These stated the successive descents of the title to the fifth Earl, who died without issue; after which, substantially the following curious narrative was given, and which is well worthy of attentive consideration, as affording a key to much of what follows. The Reverend John Alexander, the grandfather of the prisoner, (John No. 3,) being at this time heir-presumptive to the earldom, proceeded, in the year 1722, to collect the evidence of his right of succession. This, it will be observed, was after his second cousin, the last earl, had enjoyed the peerage and estates for thirty-two years-doubtless without having alive, at that time, any issue to succeed him; which is obviously intended to account for the heir-presumptive being then on the look-out after his own rights. One should have thought, however, reverting to the state of the pedigree already given, that all was simple and straightforward enough, as in an ordinary case of succession to a peerage. But the reverend grandfather of the prisoner is represented to have taken some peculiar steps in 1722. He employed an Edinburgh expert in genealogy-the Mr William Gordon, of whom we have already heard-to "collect the evidence of the rights of succession, and draw out a statement of the descent." Mr Gordon set about his task; and early in 1723 transmitted to his employer a translation of the limitations in the charter of Novodamus, of the 9th December 1639, made, however, from only a copy of it; stating that the original was in

the hands of a Mr THOMAS CONYERS, Master extraordinary in Chancery in Ireland. On this, the heirpresumptive employed an Irish professional man, skilled in such matters -a Mr Hovenden-to make further inquiry in Ireland. He went, accordingly, to this Mr Thomas Conyers on the 10th July 1723, who allowed him to see the precious original charter, which he "most minutely examined," and found to agree with the account of it which had been supplied to him by Mr Gordon. The heir-presumptive (John No. 3) afterwards succeeded in getting possession of this same original charter, which, on his death in 1743, came into the hands of his widow, who shortly afterwards went to England, and settled at Birmingham. About the year 1758, however, (that is, nineteen years after the death of the fifth earl, and fifteen years after the death of her husband) the Reverend John Alexander according to the prisoner's case-must have been for four years de jure the sixth earl, and died such! This invaluable charter, the foundation of the family honours, having been very carefully and secretly kept by the de jure countess, was feloniously stolen from her by one of her servants, who had been bribed to do so by the William Alexander of America, who was then laying claim to the title.* This gentleman having thus obtained possession of it, entered into an agreement of partition of the family estates with two nephews of the fifth earl living in England, obtained the charter from their hands, and thereupon assumed the title, and, after a time, either suppressed or destroyed the charter! The claimant (the prisoner) had pub. licly advertised and offered a reward for the discovery of the missing charter, but in vain; and, as a forlorn hope, caused inquiries to be made in America, among the persons into whose hands the papers, &c., of the aforesaid Mr William Alexander had come in the year 1806. These persons swore (in America) that all his papers had been "sent to auction en masse," prior to the year 1812, and

that "among them were a number of large parchments," and that, though diligent search had been made for them, none could then be found or heard of. The claimant next averred that the original charter had been duly registered in the Register of the Great Seal, at Edinburgh, but that the record of it "had perished or disappeared" in consequence of the loss-a matter of public notoriety-of a part of the Register, as had been officially testified by the Lords of Council and Session to the House of Lords, on the 27th February 1760. For these reasons, "it was necessary, in order to supply the place of the said charter of Novodamus, that THE TENOR of it should be proved," as prayed for ;† that the claimant was possessed of AN ABRIDGED COPY OR ABSTRACT of the said charter," which could be produced in Court with the summons; that such copy or abstract was authenticated by the said Thomas Conyers, who had the original charter in his keeping; and the same, and other documents offered, are sufficient evidence for proving the existence and tenor of the said charter." It may be here as well to give some notion of what is called in Scotland a charter of "Novodamus," and which we find, in our limited knowledge of the subject, some difficulty in squaring precisely, in point of character, with the tenor of the instrument put forward as such by the prisoner, as indicated in a former page.‡ A charter of Novodamus does not, in spite of its name, necessarily imply the existence of a former charter, but may be equally an original or a renewed grant-everything comprised by it is held to be effectually conveyed to the donee, though he may have had no antecedent title to it. The true nature of the charter of Novodamus, however, is, when the superior-whether the Crown or a subject-really re-grants the matters therein contained, to remedy any defect or flaw in the former grant; or where the grantee seeks to avoid burthens chargeable in respect of casualties-i.e., emoluments fallen due to the superior.§ It may be well to

Ante, p. 473.

bear in mind this attempted explana tion, when hereafter adverting to one or two clauses in the famous "Excerpt-charter of Novodamus." When the fact is adverted to of the prisoner having, as long before as the years 1815 or 1816, consulted Mr Corrie, his family solicitor-a respectable professional man, who, as we have seen, had been the confidential adviser and trustee of the prisoner's father on the subject of his claim to the earldom, and then acknowledged to him that "he had no documents, or no effectual documents, to support his claims;" and that it was not till ten or eleven years afterwards that we have any trace of his movements or proceedings; when, in 1826, be produced the affidavit of Hovenden, the statement of Gordon, and the certificate of Conyers, and, three years afterwards, the memorable "excerpt" charter, of which he had heard for the first time from Mr Banks in March 1829-when all this is borne in mind together, the above narrative affords matter for curious speculation, especially as to the state of facts existing in 1815, and the developments of the ensuing ten years. We must, however, hasten on.

The Crown lawyers were at length startled by the persevering energy, system, and success, which characterised and attended the movements of the prisoner, and the results to which they were leading. In the year 1833, therefore, they resolved to undertake the task of demolishing the entire fabric of his proofs; and, on the 15th of January, in that year, commenced formidable proceedings, denominated as those of "Reductive Improbation," having for their object to obtain a solemn judicial declaration that everything done by the prisoner, in the prosecution of his claim, was null and void, and, as such, should be rescinded and annulled; that his vouchers were fabricated, and that he was not the great-great-greatgrandson of the first Earl of Stirling, and had no pretensions to assume the name or title, or exercise the rights appertaining to it. Thus, at length challenged to mortal encounter, the

* Ante, p. 473.

prisoner brought forward, in sup. port of his claim, several witnesses, as well as documentary evidence, among which were the affidavits of Henry Hovenden aforementioned, and one Sara Lyner; but the celebrated "excerpt" having, as we have seen, been twice rejected by the Courts in former proceedings, did not make its appearance in this new and serious stage of the proceedings. It appears to have been a very protracted inquiry--three years having elapsed between the commencement of it in January 1833, and the delivery of the Lord Ordinary's (Cockburn) interlocutory judgment, at the close of December 1836.

The object of the prisoner in that inquiry was to prove the pedigree, as it appears in a previous page-that is, to connect the three John Alexanders there set forth, in the relationship of father, son, and grandson; and the object of his opponents, of course, was to disprove such relationship. Judging solely from the materials placed before us by Mr Swinton, and not familiar with the details of Scotch legal proceedings, we are astonished at the time taken to demolish the most flimsy structure of pedigree proof we ever remember to have seen always excepting in the droll page of the novelist. In the English courts, half a day would have sufficed for the purpose. Nay, we question whether any member of the Bar, with any legal reputation to lose or endanger, would have seriously offered, or at least pressed on a judge and jury, such evidence as was tendered, and long and solemnly canvassed, by the Scottish Courts in this instance: we are speaking, of course, without the advantage of having the full proceedings before us. Yet we are bound to say that the judgment pronounced by the Lord Ordinary† is exceedingly able and convincing, and characterised by a courteous and dignified gravity, pregnant with indications of suppressed severity of comment on the audacity which could have offered such materials for judicial exposition. The case stood briefly thus, according to the import