TALES OF MYSTERY

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8178, 3 May 1919, Page 2 (Supplement)

TALES OF MYSTERY

ONE OF THE STRANGEST PROBLEMS OF HUMAN HISTORY.

Five generations )t men have come and gone since the famous Douglas ease first puzzled the wisest heads in Great BritaiU, and. to quote Boswell, “shook the sat Ted security of birthright in Scotland to its foundation."

For seven years it dragged its way through the Courts of Law; for as many years it was an unfailing theme of discussion and wrangling on thousands of tongues, dividing families and estranging friends; and when at last the Court oi Session gave its verdict against Archibald Douglas it was the signal for serious rioting in Edinburgh. “The final reverse of that judgement, two years lfltor, was hailed by the multitude with transports of joy; the advocate who rode poet from London with the news had the horses taken from his carriage and was borne in triumph to his lodging." Even to-day there are many who stoutly maintain that the decision of the Court of Session was just, and who endorse Dr. Johnson's assertion to Boswell “Lady Jane was not tbe boy's mother.

Lady Jane Douglas, the central figure in this drama of mystery, was the only daughter of James, second Marquis of Douglas, and sister of the first Duke. In her childhood she seems to have had considerable attractions, , for her hand was sought in marriage hy many of the most eligible men in Scotland. She is said to have received otters from three Dukes and ns many Farls, as well ns others of lesser rank ; but to one and all she turned a cold shoulder, until Lon! Dalkeith, heir to the Dukedom of Bh: clench, came a-wooing.

She became engaged to the youthful earl; the day fixed for her nuptials was drawing near when she received a letter informing her that he ny longer 1 overt her. and cancelling the engagement. Some months later she learned that the letter was a forgery, the work of a jealous rival. But it had served its dastardly purpose in breaking off the match; it hal also destroyed Lady Jane's trust jn man, A SHADY CHARACTER. For nearly thirty years Lady Jane made her home in Edinburgh, a popular figure in society, but true to her vow to remain unwed. She saw but little of her brother the Duke, whose eccentricities and suspicions alarmed her. and was content to receive from him the liberal allowance which enabled her to live more than comfortably and to entertain her friends becomingly. It was at this stage when her ladyship had seen nearly fifty years of hie, and had land, as she thought, said goodby to romance, that a belated wooer appe&red on the scene in the guise of Colonel Stewart ,a distant cousin, whose love-making she had laughed at ten years earlier. Jn the meantime, the Colonel had been living by his wits on the Continent, like the adventurer he undoubtedly was-, picking up a living as best he could at the gaming tables or l y Arrowing from onvone who could be induced to lend on one specious pretext 01 another, and generally lending support to the Duke of Douglas’s description of him as “one of the worst of men. a gamester, a sponge, and a villain." Such was the shady cnaraeter who now boldly sought the hand which had been refused to so many better men;

and .this time, however surprising it may be. he did not seek it in vain. What attraction Lady Jane found in this broken roue of sixty or more, it is

as impossible to say as by what arts he won her consent n.t last to marry him. We know, however, that one day in 174 b

she allowed him to put a wedding-ring f on her finger, and turned her back on i Scotland to spend a long honeymoon on ! the Continent, from which >lie* wrote to her lawyer. Mr. Haldane:— It is mighty certain that my anticipations were never in the marrying way, and had I not at last been absolutely certain that my brother was resolved never f to marry I would not have once thought of doing it. .1 therefore gave my hand to Mr. Stewart, the consequence ' oi which has proved more happy than i 1/could well have expected." For the next three years we find the

;j Duke’s sister and her disreputable husband roaming over Europe with their small retinue of attendants—Mrs Hew it her ladyship’s companion, a couple of i maids, and a chef—living a’ the l>est hotels, and travelling in a style which | the ducal allowance by no means justi- * fied. But Lady Jane’s purse was never J empty so long as she coud find a victim jj for her wheedling tongue. By judicious i| flatteries or pathetic appeals .-die cozuri--2 ved to liorrow money w licrever she went | —from Lord Bin ntyre to a poor clergyh man from whom, it is said, she cajoled kj bis last louifl. ! ASHAMED OF HER HUSBAND.

•That she was by no means proud ji her adventurer husband is proved by the fact that she compelled him to travel with her as her n. ait re d’hotel, amt never missed an opportunity of denying point blank that she v as his wife. When ’ Lady Wigton put the question to her

! she answered indignantly that it was , “an infamous story circulated by her cousin, Miss Molly Kerr, in order to i prejudice her brother against her; and <hat it had been so effectual that he had stopped her allowance." And#this, although .but a few days earlier, she had persuaded Lord Crawford to write to the Duke to inform him of her marriage. and to beg ins forgiveness- and j favour! The Duke, however, was in no mood

either to forgive his wayward sister >r I U continue the stopped annuity; and f not improbably it was this circumstance j that was responsible lor the mysteriouhappenings that followed. I ady Jane’s wits and wiles were sufficient to supplement a good allowance; they proved ' unequal to the task or filling an empty * purse: and thus, so it is said, lie*

ingenuity must take ether form than j borrowing. Tf she had a < hild to succeed to her brother’s wealth he would j surely relent and treat his heir’s mother j with more generosity. However this I may I*\ we knohv that ‘the strange drama which was later ito be revealed to the world had its lieginning soon after this critical stage in Lady Jane’s fortunes was reached. One July day in 1 i 18 her ladyship, with her husband and Mrs. Hew it, ar- | rived in Paris, after travelling posthaste from Rlieims; and a week later | she is said to have given birth to twin boys, the first news ot which seems lo ! have been communicated by Mrs. Hewit. | who wrote, eleven days after, to the two maids left behind at Rhcims, “you will 1*? pleased to know that, on the lOth I her ladyship gave birth to two lovely r boys. . . One of them is so puny and i weak that the doctor begged it to lie sent to the country as .soon as possible.’ So far the story seem*,- clear enough, but the mists of obscurity soon begin to gather. It is significant that, although Colonel Stewart wrote several letters on the 10th of July, not one contained any reference to ,:ho important event which, it was alleged.marked that clay. On the same day he and his fcvife were staying at the hotel o f a M. Godefroi. which they left (three days later, without anyone in the hotel having any

knowledge of what had happened in the meantime, and taking no fluid with them.

SUSPICIOUS EVIDENCE.

Alter a few days spent, as they asserted, at the house of MadameLaßrune a professional nurse, they migrated on the 18th to Michele’s Hotel —still without tiie infant w ho had been born eight days earlier; and it was a day later when the Colonel appeared, bringing one of the twins —the other and more delicate one, as he explained, being in the country. It was to be discovered that during the Colonel’s absence from the hotel a recently-born male child had been purchased from its parents in Paris by a stranger whose description was that of Colonel Stewart.

The second child did not make its appearance until November of the following year, when it was brought from the country by its parents, a tew hours after another male child was proved to have been purchased from its mother, a Madame Sarny by a lady and gentleman strongly resembling the Colonel and his wife.

It was found, moreover, that there was no such woman in Paris as Nurse La Brunei with whom Lady Jane professed to have spent a few days horn tlio loth of July; and that there was no si eh man as Pierre La Mar re, the accoucheur whose certificate was produced in proof of the birth.

Much of this and other evidence, equally damning,’ was not discovered until the whole matter was investigated many years later. Meanwhile, the Colonel and his lady had returned with their twin boys to England, where, although they found sympathetic friends; they fell on evil days, and sank from one depth of poverty to a lower, until the Colonel found him,self lodged in the debtors’ prison, and his wife was obliged to sell her clothes to provide him with food. From this state of destitution they were re.sered at last by the friendly cilices of Mr. Secretary Pelham, who induced the King to grant an annuity of £3OO to Lady Jane; and thus relieved from anxiety, die journeyed to Scotland in the hope of softening her brother’s heart. The Duke, however, refused to see his > ister, when, with her two children, she prevented herself; and returned no answer to her patnetic letters. This blow to her hopes was followed by the death o< her son. Sholto; and within a few months the broken-hen!ted mother, her health shattered by her long succession of troubles, gave up her brave struggle with her life. As she lay dying j-ihe called her remaining ,son, Archibald, to her bedside; and, after giving him her blessing, made this solemn declaration : “As one who is soon to appear in the piesence of Almighty God, to Whom l must answer, I declare that the two children were horn of my body. Meanwhile the Duke of Douglas renamed obstinate in his refusal to acknowledge the boy as his nephew ; and it was only when, at the eleventh hour, ho made a wife of Ins cousin, Peggy Douglas, of Mains, lie showed signs of relenting for his duclmss was a stalwart champion of Archibald's legitimacy. J here was many a royal quarrel between the Duke and Duchess before he at last yielded; and a few days before his death executed an entail! of liis whole estate in favour r of “Archibald Douglas, son of the late deceased Lady Jane Douglas, his sister." and appointed tutors and guardians tor him. A little later. Colonel Stewart, who had succeeded to the estates and baronetcy of his brother, followed his wife to the grave, declaring on his deathbed that “Lady Jane Douglas, my lawful .'•pous.'. did iu the year 1748 bring into the world two sons, Archibald and Sholto: and 1 firmly believe the childjon wore mine, as lam sure they were

THE CLAIMANT’S TASK. But in spite of the Duke’s will, and the so].mu ter‘:;o- \ofl ', parents, Archibald Dougin - v .*• scon to find the way to his inherit m ‘o barred by formidable obstacles. The guardians of the Duke of Hamilton, heir-male to the Douglas estates, were by no means satisfied that his claim was a valid one : and the machinery of the law was set ii motion to test it. Clever detectives wore sent to France to learn the truth ol the mysterious alleged births on that July day, thirteen years earlier; and they returned armed with evidence which seemed incontrovertible, the most important features of which I have already indicated. It was beyond doubt, they were prepared to prove, that the whole story was a fabrication from beginning to end—that Lady Jane had never given birth to a child, and that the children’ she called hers had been procured from the Paris slums. In face of such evidence, supported by srores of witnesses of repute, all the defendants proofs, from Mrs. Hewit’s testimony to the dying declaration of bis parents, seemed futile. For seven years, scores of the cleverest legal brains in Scotland were engaged in trying to unravel this tangled skein of testimony. Its mysteries and contradictions were hotly discussed from John o’ Groat’s to Land’s End; and so baffling did it prove that finally the verdict, in favour of the plaintiffs, was only secured by the casting vote of tlm Lord President, seven judges voting tor the defendant, and the same number against him. Tints’ Archibald was declared to have no title to the ducal estates.

But he had now powerful friends, who were by no means .-at is tied with this verdict. An appeal was made to the House* of Lords; the judgment of the Court of Session was reversed; and he was declared rightful heir to the Duke of Douglas . In later years Archibald l Douglas was made a Peer, but although he was father to- eigut sons, not one provided an heir t.o his honour-: and to the estates, to secure which Lady Jane had struggled so bravely, and sacrificed l:i ;• life.