THE SACKVILLE CLAIMS A MIXED BUSINESS.

Evening Star, Issue 14004, 10 March 1909, Page 6

THE SACKVILLE CLAIMS

A MIXED BUSINESS.

Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright.

MADRID, March 9. After the Public Prosecutor had withdrawn Iris indictment, Major Lionel Sack-ville-WesJ, as • intervener, continued the prosecution against Rophon and Sanchez for alleged tampering with the marriage register. He also commented upon the fact that Ernest Sackville-West had not been prosecuted. The jury found the defendants not guilty, and both were discharged.

As Anton, the defaulting defendant, is still liable to prosecution, the Court impounded the register alleged to contain the record of the marriage of Pepita Duran and Gabriel Oliva. Whether it is genuine or apocryphal (the 'Daily Mail' states), the Court gave no decision regarding the document itself.

Criminal proceedings were taken in Spam in regard to the claim of Mr Ernest Henry Sackville-West to the barony and estates of the late Lord Sackville, who died m September last. Mr Sackville-West claims to be his legitimate son, but the marriage of his parents is disputed 'by Major Lionel Sackville, the late lord's nephew, who has succeeded to the title, lho supposed marriage was contracted in Spain. The claimant was born at Arcachon (France) in 1869. His parents wero Lord Sackville (then Mr Lionel Sackville-West. secretary to the British Embassv at Madrid) and Josephine Duran De OrtegaThere appears to be no record of their marriage, and it is admitted that prior to 1863, when Mr Lionel Sackville-West occupied a similar position in Paris, they were living together, though unmarried, and had several children. In the case of the claimant his legitimacy was acknowledged by his father in the record of his baptism, and the Duke of Sase-Coburg acted as one of his god-parents. The claimant's mother died m 1871, and the certificate of death described her as the wife of Lionel Sack-ville-West.

An allegation was made, however, that Josephine Duran had been previously- married at Madrid in 1851, and that her first husband was alive at the date of her marriage, if any, with the claimant's father. This marriage of 1851 was denied bv the cfcumanL and though a certificate of it was forthcoming, it was alleged that the names were written over erasures. Criminal proceedings were taken in regard to this certificate, but the accused was aquitted. In the trial referred to in the above cable three men—Sanchez (clerk of the church of St. Millan), Rophon, and Anton —were charged with falsifying the marriage record of Pepita (Josephine) Duran, a ballet dancer, and Gabriel Oliva, in 1851. If the original record is established as authentic, it means that Mr Ernest Sackvillc-West is illegitimate, as Major Lionel Sackvillc-West declares him to be. The prosecution suggests tliat Rophon, who is a nephew of the alleged Madame Sack-ville-West, tampered with the church register about the year 1900, after Mr Ernest Sackville-West's claim to legitimacyhad been lodged, altering the names so as to make the entry appear to have no reference to the woman whom the late Lord Sackville is alleged to have subsequently married.