It was not until December 1836 that the action to reverse Alexander’s proofs was heard. In the interim Alexander continued to write to government ministers, including Colonial Secretary Lord Aberdeen, and successive Prime Ministers Lord Melbourne and Robert Peel, and on 6 January 1834 registered a strong protest at a grant of 500,000 acres of Canadian land to the Irish Colonial Association.
Shortly before the new hearing Alexander published a book, which was little more than a paranoical complaint that the government was attempting to subvert his lawful rights. ‘I must see whether, by boldly exposing the villainy and dark intrigue of my enemies, it is possible to open the eyes of the British public, who are not wilfully blind, to the existence of the foulest conspiracy against an individual that ever disgraced this country.’26
He remained unswervingly confident of ultimate triumph, stating that he had recently discovered another important document. Although he had still not traced the elusive charter, he claimed that ‘the evidence respecting it is complete’27 and that it had been ascertained that authenticated copies existed but ‘have been purposely withheld by persons who have them in their keeping’.28 Everywhere he saw enemies, plotters and schemers whom he supposed were dedicated to denying him his rights from motives of personal hatred. They were ‘malignant beings and the arch-traitor with whom they are leagued’29 – undoubtedly a reference to Banks – ‘ever on the watch for new opportunities for doing mischief’.30 The court action was a ‘shameful attempt to rob me of the whole advantages of my situation … for corrupt and abominable motives’,31 and he railed at ‘the combined attacks of swindlers, bill-brokers, pettifogging lawyers, and other unprincipled persons’.32
As ever, the complete proofs that Alexander claimed to possess looked much less convincing when examined with a critical eye. The documents he presented in court were a deposition from his sister, Mrs Eliza Pountney, who called herself Lady Eliza and who described her mother’s belief in her descent from the Earls of Stirling; a deposition from a William Trumbull, which showed only that the 5th Earl’s sons had died without issue; the affidavits of Sara Lyner and Henry Hovenden; and a paper alleged to be a page from a family Bible, giving the inscription on the tomb of the elusive John of Antrim, who was said to have been buried at Newtownards, near Belfast, in 1712, showing his descent from John of Gartmore. Unfortunately, the Bible itself was not available.
Piece by piece, Alexander’s proofs were demolished. The Pountney and Trumbull affidavits made no mention of the supposed Gartmore connection, and proved nothing, the page said to be from a Bible was worthless without the original book and, still worse, expert testimony suggested that the Lyner and Hovenden documents were recent forgeries. Two stone-cutters from Newtownards who had worked in the old church there and knew it well testified that they had never seen a tombstone with the alleged inscription.
On 10 December 1836 Lord Cockburn delivered a devastating judgement. While there was no doubt that the claimant was the son of Hannah Humphrys (née Alexander), he had failed to prove the alleged connection between her father and John of Antrim and John of Gartmore. The Lyner and Hovenden statements were probably forgeries, but even if they had been genuine, they were just hearsay and insufficient for proving the existence of an individual, while convincing proof did exist that John of Gartmore had had no sons.
A few days later, Alexander, terrified of being arrested for forgery and debt, fled to France under an assumed name, leaving his family to do the best they could without him. He arrived in Paris on 21 December. One of the first people he contacted was Mlle Lenormand, who was living in an apartment at 5 Rue de Tournon. On a sign above her door she was described as a bookseller and author, but although she had published books on cartomancy and a memoir of the Empress Josephine, the only business she was known to conduct there was fortune-telling, assisted by a private secretary, Monsieur Triboul.
Alexander remained in France for several months and called upon Mlle Lenormand almost daily, arriving at about 8 p.m. and usually staying at least two hours on each occasion. If he did not go in, he left her a note: neither what they discussed nor the contents of the notes were ever revealed. In April 1837 one of Alexander’s sons, Eugene, received a sealed packet through the post containing a number of documents. A note on the parchment cover stated simply ‘some of my wife’s family papers’ in writing that was identified by several people, including Mr Corrie, as that of William Humphrys. The packet was impressed with three seals. Realising the importance of this item, Eugene had the packet opened in the presence of witnesses, including a public notary. In an unsigned note dated 17 April 1837 the sender said the papers had been stolen from the house of William Humphrys and had been sent anonymously to avoid disgrace. Among the documents was a family tree showing that John of Gartmore had had a son, John, by his second wife Elizabeth Maxwell of Londonderry. A letter from a lawyer signing himself WG, dated 14 January 1723, referred to the charter of novodamus and suggested that though it was not in the official registers of Scotland it may have occupied a portion of volume 57 from which several leaves were missing. Further letters dated 1765 and 1766 stated that the family tombstone at Newtownards had been destroyed by the American claimant. Alexander later identified the seals as those of his family, which, he said, he had not seen since 1825.
This was exciting enough, but in July an extraordinary new document came to light in Paris. Mlle Lenormand claimed it had been left in her rooms by two anonymous but fashionably dressed ladies who were merely delivering it for an individual who declined to give his name, ‘being of such exalted rank as to make such a declaration on his part unsafe and improper without positive proof’.33 The document was a map of Canada dated 1703, printed from a copper engraving of Guillaume Delisle (a prominent cartographer of the period) and on the back were written or pasted several messages, all of which supported Alexander’s claims. There was a letter dated 4 August 1706 from a Philippe Mallet claiming he had seen the original novodamus, and a marginal note (apparently written by King Louis XV) declaring Mallet’s letter to be worthy of notice. Caron St Etienne, in another note dated 6 April 1707, also claimed to have read the charter, which was said to be nearly fifty pages long. Esprit Flechier, Bishop of Nimes, stated in a letter dated 3 June 1707 that he too had seen the charter. Another letter, dated 25 August 1707, appeared to be from John of Antrim. It referred to the charter and stated the writer’s belief that the register in which it had been included had been lost at sea and claiming that he (the writer) was the son of John of Gartmore by a second marriage. This letter was vouched for by a statement of Archbishop Fenelon of Cambray dated 16 October 1707. Pasted on the back of the map was the inscription from the tombstone of John of Antrim in Newtownards, confirming his descent. The whole was finished with a family seal.
Armed with this new evidence, Alexander returned to England. On 25 November, assisted by Lockhart, he appealed against the decision of Lord Cockburn and produced his new papers in evidence. Suspicion was immediately aroused concerning the validity of the documents, and a commission of enquiry was appointed, which took almost fifteen months to complete its investigation. While these matters were pending Alexander continued to make protests about government measures affecting what he claimed were his lands, and raised an objection to the appointment of Lord Durham to the governorship of Canada. On 27 January 1838 he asked for an immediate confidential interview with Lord Melbourne. Neither this interview, nor his petition to attend the coronation of Queen Victoria, was granted.
In April 1838 Mlle Lenormand was summoned to the Prefecture of Police in Paris and asked to state how the map came into her possession. She reiterated her story that the map had been sent to her by a person of whom she either could not or would not give any account. According to a report in The Times,34 she admitted having been paid for the map, a fact which was later hotly denied by Alexander’s son Charles.
British Government agents were sent to France, where Mlle Lenormand was able to follow the steps of th
e investigation and write regularly to both Alexander and Fortunata, advising them of what witnesses had been asked to go to Scotland to give evidence. The enquiries ultimately discovered a Monsieur Leguix, who in 1836 had sold maps and prints on the Quai Voltaire. He remembered selling a 1703 map of Canada, which then had no writing on the back, to an Englishman, and he was willing to give evidence. On 8 January 1839, in some alarm, Mlle Lenormand wrote to Alexander: ‘They have found out the man on the Quay. They wish him to go to Scotland.’35 Both she and Alexander were clearly well aware of the significance of this discovery.
On 14 February 1839 officers were sent to Alexander’s house in Edinburgh to arrest him. As they burst through the door he seized a sword and locked himself in his room, while his distraught wife sent for Lockhart, who examined the warrants, found them to be legal and advised his client to give himself up. Alexander was taken into custody and charged with forgery. When his house was searched for documents, the letters from Mlle Lenormand were found, together with a deed acknowledging that he was indebted to her to the sum of 400,000 francs, received in cash. The loan bore interest at 5 per cent, and he had agreed to pay her in full after the recovery of his property.
Under questioning, Alexander denied knowing Monsieur Leguix and said he had visited Mlle Lenormand only very occasionally. He stated that she was a writer by profession, and it took some very determined questioning to get him to admit that she was a fortune-teller and that he had consulted her in that capacity. He claimed that he had been in Paris on literary pursuits, though he declined to say for whom, and eventually he refused to answer any more questions.
The trial opened in Edinburgh on 29 April 1839 and lasted for five days, ‘during which time every cranny of the court was occupied by the rank and fashion of Edinburgh. The number of ladies present gave an air of brilliancy to the assemblage, which resembled the audience of a theatre rather than of a hall of judgement.’36 Alexander pleaded not guilty. The defence, led by Mr Robertson, had a difficult task, but was assisted by the fact that proof of guilt rested on three heads. The prosecution first had to show that the documents were forgeries, secondly that Alexander had ‘uttered’ them, that is, used them in evidence, and thirdly that he knew them to be forgeries. Robertson was not confident he could do more than cast doubts on the prosecution’s proofs of forgery. That Alexander had uttered the documents was incontestable, but the third head of proof was something he could exploit to the full.
The prosecution first turned its attention to the charter excerpt. Although it was supposed to date from 1639, expert witnesses unanimously stated that it appeared to be less than a hundred years old. The paper was brown and looked aged, but under the stitching it was the same shade of brown, whereas in a genuine old document this area would have been lighter. The edges of the pages seemed to have been recently cut and the writing did not look especially old. Dr Andrew Fyfe, a chemistry lecturer, said that in his opinion the paper had been artificially coloured with some organic matter.
This evidence might have been dismissed by a clever counsel, but the forger, in claiming that the charter was witnessed by Chancellor of Scotland Archbishop Spottiswoode, had made a crucial error. The official list of Scottish Chancellors, which the forger had presumably consulted, showed that Spottiswoode had been succeeded as Chancellor in 1641, but omitted the important facts that he had been deposed from the Chancellorship in 1638 and had died on 26 November 1639, eleven days before the date of the charter. Experts also testified that reference marks made on the excerpt were of a kind not seen on documents earlier than 1806.
The forger had relied upon the fact that there was a gap in the official records where the original charter might have been located, but had reckoned without the existence of indexes that revealed exactly what the missing items were. George Robertson, a Keeper of the Records for Scotland, had consulted the indexes and testified that none of the missing items was a charter, and none referred in any way to the Earl of Stirling. The rumour that some documents had been lost at sea was an exaggeration. The only missing items of the period were twelve leaves from Book 57, and there was hardly room for a document nearly fifty pages long, as referred to on the back of the map.
The map of Canada, although dated 1703, had not been printed on that date. The French archivist Theulet, an expert in the works of Delisle, pointed out that, while the map was a print from the original engraving of 1703, the original imprint had been changed. The map produced in evidence gave Delisle the title of ‘Premier Géographe du Roi’, a title he was awarded on 24 August 1718; the map was dated 1703, not because it was printed then, but to fix the date of commencement of copyright. Since this particular copy of the map could not have been printed before 24 August 1718, it was impossible for the writings on the back of the map, said to have been made before that date, to be genuine. Archbishop Fenelon and Bishop Flechier had both died before 1718. Theulet gave the opinion that all the writings on the back of the map were false.
When Pierre Joseph Leguix took the stand there was some consternation in the defence team. If it could be shown that Alexander had bought the map without the writing on it, it would be impossible to maintain that he knew nothing about the forgery. Alexander’s counsel, Mr Robertson, questioned the map-seller, Leguix, closely and extensively about how much he was receiving in expenses, to suggest that his evidence was tainted, and then objected to the admissibility of the witness. Their Lordships observed that Leguix was receiving no more than was necessary and proper for him to receive, and the award of such expenses was quite common. They allowed the evidence. Leguix testified that in the winter of 1836 to 1837 an Englishman frequently came to his shop in search of maps of Canada. Several maps had been sold to the man, but the one he especially wanted eluded him, a map dated 1703. Leguix made considerable searches for such a document, and eventually located one. The man bought the map, and did not come to his shop again. Shown the map produced in evidence at court, Leguix agreed that the one he had sold was similar but that it had then had no writing on the back. The moment came that Robertson had been dreading. Leguix came down from the witness box to look at the defendant, and was asked if this was the Englishman who had bought the map. To the astonishment of the court, he said: ‘No, sir.’37 The prosecution had more luck with Huges Beaubis, the porter at 5 Rue de Tournon. Not only did he recall the frequent visits to Mlle Lenormand of a man the servants referred to as ‘the Englishman’, but he confidently identified Alexander as the man.
Mr Robertson put up a spirited defence for his client, and his address to the jury was a masterpiece. ‘In your countenances I already see the cheering light of an acquittal,’ he said optimistically.38 He did his best to cast doubt on the evidence of forgery, especially that of the scientists. ‘I hate all the trickery of science. A plain man judges for himself whether a document be a forgery or not. Look at Flechier and Fenelon’s signatures for yourselves. You are as good judges, in my opinion, as any engraver that ever scratched on copper.’39 In any case, he suggested to the jury that the defendant did not have the knowledge or skill to commit forgery.
The crux of the defence was the character of the defendant. No witness could have been more instrumental in determining Alexander’s fate than his lifelong friend, Colonel George Charles D’Aguilar, head of the Adjutant General’s staff in Ireland, who refused to enter the witness box but stood resolutely by Alexander’s side in the dock. ‘Nothing on earth could have induced me to take the part I have taken, to stand before the Court where I do if did not think Lord Stirling to be incapable of a dishonourable action,’ he declared.40 He had, said Robertson, rushed to the aid of his friend ‘with the spirit of a British officer, and the pride and generosity of a British gentleman’.41
Robertson next played on the sympathy of his listeners. He described Alexander’s past life as ‘anxious days of heart-sickening hope, and sleepless nights of feverish rest’, and referred to his ‘rising family … seeing nothing but penury and distress before them’.42 For th
e future he trusted that ‘his mind shall be directed to pursuits more solid, and to the attainment of objects more consolatory and enduring’.43
Finally, he made an emotional appeal: ‘Let the visionary coronet be plucked from his bewildered brow – let the prospects of wealth and of courtly titles and honours vanish into air; but, oh, gentlemen, leave him that best and highest title of nobility – his good name … . Do not, gentlemen, – do not add to the pangs of this man more than he deserves… . For in my conscience I believe him innocent of the crimes here charged, and to have been merely the dupe of the designing, and the prey of the unworthy.’44
Lord Meadowbank’s drier summing-up stuck strictly to the facts, but was undoubtedly in favour of a guilty verdict. He pointed out that Alexander had borrowed large sums of money on the basis of assurances that he owned property to which he had no title, and it could be proven that he had lied about his frequent visits to Mlle Lenormand, ‘a person obviously of the worst character, and who, although she says that a lie never passed her lips, is proved to you to have had no profession but that of fortune telling – no means of subsistence but that of imposture, and telling falsehoods from morning to night’.45
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