A PEERAGE ROMANCE

Otago Witness, Issue 2934, 8 June 1910, Page 29

A PEERAGE ROMANCE

LONDON, June 4.

Lord Skerrington, in giving judgment in the Macdonald legitimacy case, said the conduct of the petitioner's grandfather in submitting to a stigma of illegitimacy had been satisfactorily explained. The Scottish domicile had been proved, and therefore 'his grandfather's legitimacy had been established by his parents' marriage in 1803.

I AN INTERESTING HISTORY. As engrossing a romance of the peerage ! as ever novelist devised was revived bv°a decision given in the Court of Session, Edinburgh in an action seeking to establl A • 9 j of the etdeat son of the third Lord Maedonald of the Isles. The ptatift was Alexander Wentworth Maedonaldßosville, of Thorpe Hall, Bridlington, Yorkshire, a descendant of th© third lord, and his claim was based on a family history involving the love story of a royal duke, and including two secret marria-ges. brother of George 111, 'the farmer King ' became enamoured *of Ma,ria, Countess of WaJdagrave, a lady of great beauty and infinite wit, and thought none the less of in these days because she was the ille°-iti mate daughter of Sir Edward Walpole In view of Royal opposition the marriage was | secretly solemnised by the duchess's private | chaplain, without witnesses, at her house in ■fall Mall, and was not disclosed until the passing of the Royal Marriages Act, which rendered marriages of royalties with commoners invalid without the consent of the King. There were two children of this marriage, the Duke of Gloucester and Princess fcophia of Gloucester, but the Duke found subsequent consolation with his wife's Lady of the Bedchamiber,' Lady Almeria Carpenter, daughter of the last Earl of Tyrcomie! I he result was the birth of a daughter, who. had rooms assigned to her in Holyrood Palace, the Royal residence in Edinvl? She wm si y le,d Miss Louisa Maria Ecteir, and pa,?sad as the daughter of one ■Barley Edisir. Romance was in her blocd. and in 1803 she eloped from the gloom of Holyrood with Major-general Macdoniald Bosville. They went in most approved story-bock style to Gretna Green, and were there married. There were two children of this marriage—a son, Alexander, and a daughter Louisa. After the birth of these, two children the lady bad scruples as to the validity of the Gretna Green union, and insisted on being remarried in a church in England. It is now held that this .action caused the former marriage to be null and void, and admitted the two elder children to be illegitimate. Major-General Maedonald Bosville in 1824 succeeded his brother in the peerage as- the third Lord Maedonald. He died in 1832, and his elder son' pursuer's, grand- ' father, Alexander William Robert Maedonald, entered upon possession of the Bosville, Yorks, estate under the will of his uncle, William Bosville, and assumed the name of Bosville in lieu of that of Maedonald. At the same time, his j'oungcr brother, Godfrey William Wentworth Mac- . donald, being the first son born after the j marriage of 1803, succeeded to the Irish peerage as fourth Lord Maedonald, and I assumed possession of the family estate, upon the erroneous footing that his father's domicile was English at the time of the marriage of 1803, and that his elder brother, William Robert Maedonald, afterwards Bosville, was, in consequence, illegitimate. A private act of Parlament was passed giving effect to an arrangement between the two brothers, Alexander William Robert Bosville and Godfrey, fourth Lord '■ Maedonald, by which the Yorkshire estates were settled upon Alexander William Robert Bosiville, the Scotch estates upon his brother, Lord Maedonald. The present Lord Maedonald of Sleat, residing at Armadale Castle,- Skye, was the defendant in the suit referred to in which Mr Maedonald Bosville, as representative of the other branch of the family, asked the court to declare that the Gretna Green marriage of his ancestor, who afterwards became third Lord Maedonald, was valid, and that their eldest son, Alexander William Robert Maedonald, though born before the ceremony, was, nevertheless, legitimate under Scotch law. - This eldest. son being the plaintiff's grandfather, a further declaration was sought that the plaintiff is the greatgrandson and nearest and lawful heir male of the third Lord Maedonald. It was j made clear at a previous hearing that the result of the present action would in no way effect the title or estates. Lord Skerrington, in his judgment, said the private Act of Parliament obtained in 184-7 merely settled the succession to the estates in England and Scotland. It said nothing about- the illegitimacy of Alexander William Rohert Maedonald or Bosville, and decided nothing about the domicile of the third Lord Maedonald, and plaintiff's coun- ! sel moved for a proof as to the domicile of ! the third Lord Maedonald at the time of his marriage in 1803. He was of opinion I that plaintiff was not entitled to ask the I court of session to declare that he was the ! nearest and lawful heir male of his great ' grandfather, but that the proper judge to pronounce suoh a decree is the Sheriff of Chancery. His Lordship accordingly dismissed the Oiction in so far as it sought a declaration

that the plaintiff was the lawful heir male of his great grandfather, the third Lord Macdonald.

A cable message on Maroh 3 stated that Lord Maodonald had withdrawn opposition to the proof of Mr Bosville's legitimacy, but the case required formal proof for the satisfaction of thra- court.