Peerage Romance.

Thames Star, Volume XXIX, Issue 8955, 31 December 1897, Page 4

Peerage Romance.

A WELSHMAN MAKES A CLAIM TO THE LOVAT ESTATES.

A curious story was told in the Court of Sessions, Edinburgh, the other day, when counsel was heard in an action by John. Fraser, Lovat Lodge, 10 Harrington square, London, against the Lord Advocate and Lord Lovat, claiming the Lovat peerage and estates. Mr Fraser seeks to have it declared that he is heir male of Hugh, the fifth Lord Lovat, and, therefore, entitled to the bar©ny and lauds "of Lovat and to the title of Lord Lovat. He also desires to ha*e Lord Lovat (who he says is a descendant of the second son of the sixth Lord Lovat) ordained to account for his intromissions with the estate since his succession thereto "-in 1887, or to make payment of £120,000. vThe gist of the claim is that the claiinent assert s himself to be legitimately descended from Alexander Fraser, eldest scm of Thomas Fraser, of' Beaufort, and that his ancestor, Alexander, after Killiecrat kie, fled t' Wales, marriejfc' aid died therd 1776. Lord Lovat,: iii defence, declares that Alexander Fraser died in 1689 unmarried. Mr Macphail; for lordLovaiffsaidhetook his stand upon' Lord Lovat's father's title of possession of the estates in 1875 : and if he were forced to go back to the title of 1875, he claimed that the prescriptive period of either 20 or 40 years had escapee 1, and that, therefore, the pursuer had no status. He quoted authorities ie support of this contention, Mr Cooper, for the pursuer, based his observations ontlie earlier titles to the peerage, and in a long argument maintained that the forfeiture by the Crown of the estates of 1747 was a forfeiture affecting only Simon Fraser, and that Alexander of Beaufort, who was the the eldest, eon, was then living, and could have come forward and claimed the estates .He contended that all his client required to do now was to say that the title, land, and barony sbJottlcL ,lia.liijjiue(rT"Svo*~tw-^ne person who, as the one in right of consanguinity, had the right to succeed under the charter of 1539. On the first part of the case he submitted that nothing previous to the forfeiture of 1747 altered the destination of the 1539 charter, and that acts of Parliament passed last century did not take away the right of the present claimant at all Mr C. J. Johnston, for the Cr;>wn, said that all that was done by statutory authority,- and he submitted that the Crown ought not to have been called upon or made a party on the action, and that whaeever course his Lordship took against Lovat. the action against the Crown should be dismissed. Mr Asher, Dean of Faculty, who appeared for Lord Lovat, declared that Mr Fraaer had neither a relevant case nor a title upon which to sue. Mr J. B. Balfour, Q.C., who represented Mr Fraser replied to the Dean's argument on the questions »f prescription and reversion, and contended that there was a case for proof. At the close of the arguments his Lordship reserved judgement.