Now Lady Jane recovers apace. Colonel John thinks the Versailles jaunt helps, having been told that the jolting of a coach is good for one in her situation. He shares that faith in the therapeutic value of locomotion which remains with Lady Jane even when, a dying woman, she cannot crawl up her own stair. Later he gets rattled, and lies confusedly about the matter.
Archie is a great success. The fiction about Sholto is less successful. Lady Jane frets about him. Accustomed never to lift a finger herself, and never to stir without a retinue, she is easily enough kept from making an expedition to see the child; but Colonel John has to go. He spends three pleasant days lounging about Paris, and brings back an optimistic, if fictitious, report.
They they go back to Rheims, and trips are not so easy. The same motive that made Colonel John a kidnapper now turns him to forgery. He begins cooking up letters from Pier La Marr. Isabel Walker, Mrs. Rutledge, Miss Primrose, all see them. Lady Jane is very glad to get them. They contain just what she wants to hear, good news about teething and weaning. No wonder Sholto shares Archie’s teething brash; Archie’s experiences are serving as a model. Lady Jane’s eyes are weak, and her French is weak. Colonel John keeps the letters out of her hands, and reads them aloud to her. Lady Jane, convinced of Sholto’s existence, never has the slightest suspicion.
The full history of the letters remains very dark. I incline to think that Colonel John was the composer, and Mrs. Hewit the copier of the originals. “La ooke” would be like her. Misspelling both “Hewit” and “Steuart” would be like her too; even in her own letters she misspells them. The letters as produced were certainly a scrivener’s copies, and probably Clinton’s. They were on Lady Jane’s French paper because Colonel John had some handy, having just received from her “a recruit of paper.” When investigation started, Colonel John may have perceived that the originals would not stand scrutiny, and destroyed them; but the copies he had sent Lady Jane were by that time out of his reach.
If Colonel John had common sense, he would forge one letter only, an announcement of the mythical child’s death. But day after day and month after month he cannot bring himself to deal his beloved wife that blow.
At last the decision is forced. They are off to England. The Colonel makes a highly characteristic resolve. He will try to repeat his success with Archie. He has nothing to lose. If he fails, then he can tell her that Sholto is dead, and break her heart; which is no more than he must do now if he flinches from a second “adoption.” His elastic conscience sees nothing criminal or even dangerous in the transaction. It is inconvenient that she insists on coming along; it means they must go all the way to Paris to maintain the deception; but there is no help for it.
Again the handsome soldierly foreigner bargains for a child. Again he says plainly what he wants—a boy-child, this time to bring up. He chooses the blond child with the strange affliction, the breast-bone—or the rupture—that requires to be replaced. With his mum accomplice he brings the child to the signless inn. On the inn stair he makes a remark that no other hypothesis explains. He bids the mother to pass herself off as the nurse. Who is to be fooled? Not the inn people; he makes the remark in their hearing. It must be the pale lady abovestairs who is to be the dupe.
Of all the Sanry witnesses, only Madame Legris, after a while, got to saying that a woman like Lady Jane appeared at Sanry’s during the negotiations; which the Sanrys, who knew best, always denied. In the Hamilton pleadings, Lady Jane was involved in the preliminaries as if by overwhelming evidence; but that was merely obfuscation.
The pale lady abovestairs sets the little blond face next her own before the mirror, and sees a resemblance. Not a shadow of doubt crosses her mind.
Soon they all go back to Britain, the deceived lady and her deceivers, the glass-polisher’s son and the rope-dancer’s boy. Now Colonel John hopes he is through with forgery; but he has one more letter to forge. To satisfy Lady Jane, he must write to the Continent. He writes two letters, one to the Aix landlady, and one to Pier La Marr. It is easy enough to hold back the letter from the post; but Lady Jane is so eager for a reply that the Colonel finally produces one. He makes it as good as a birth certificate, adds the journey to Italy to explain the delay in replying, and throws in the projected return thither to obviate further correspondence. Once more Lady Jane is satisfied. She treasures the letter with others she has saved. Colonel John “accidentally” mislays them as soon as he can, and then replaces them with the copies she sends for.
When Lady Jane dies, Archie’s usefulness is over. It is a relief when charitable acquaintances take him up, and a nuisance when they institute those early fruitless inquiries.
Then the Duchess of Douglas becomes the boy’s champion, and the picture changes. Some of the Douglas gold may stick to the Colonel’s fingers. He is glad to co-operate. What harm can come of it? He co-operates wildly, and makes a pest of himself.
In spite of him Archie is made the Duke’s heir, and the plate fleet comes in. Then Andrew Stuart takes a hand, and the Colonel and his accomplice are chivied. They dodge wildly, and swear equivocal oaths. Mrs. Hewit swears that she received Lady Jane’s babes in her lap at birth, as indeed she did. Colonel John makes a dying declaration to the effect that the children were as much Lady Jane’s as they were his, which nobody can deny. The Douglas lawyers fight hard to keep his evidence out of sight. At the same time they put forward the memory of Lady Jane. With it they win in the end, and Archie takes the Duke’s estate.
Lady Jane Douglas was neither the kidnapper nor the mother of Archie Douglas. She knew nothing about the matter. It was Colonel John Steuart who, with quite another end in view, half by accident, unknown to Lady Jane, made Jacques Louis Mignon the heir of Douglas.
In the year 1773, Dr. Sam: Johnson and James Boswell took a ramble through Scotland. Along the way Dr. Johnson beheld with horror the ruined religious buildings with which that country of the Covenanters was and still is scattered. Boswell thoroughly agreed. At Edinburgh they looked with peculiar feeling on the roofless ruins of the chapel at Holyrood, where lay buried the ancient kings and nobles of Scotland while the hoary old stones mouldered about them.
“’Tis a disgrace to the country,” cried Boswell, “that it is not repaired, and ’tis a double disgrace to my friend Archie Douglas, the representative of a great house and proprietor of a vast estate, that he should suffer the sacred spot where his mother lies interred to be unroofed, and exposed to all the inclemencies of the weather.”
“Sir, Sir,” replied Dr. Johnson, who in spite of argument had reached his own conclusion, “don’t be too severe upon the gentleman; don’t accuse him of want of filial piety. Lady Jane Douglas was not his mother!”
Afterword
In pursuit of the truth about the Douglas Cause I have read hundreds of books and manuscripts and travelled thousands of miles. The material to be covered is probably the most voluminous that gathered around any ancient law-suit. The case was so notorious that no one writing at the time, no diarist, biographer, memoirist, journalist, or letter-writer, omitted to jot down his pennyworth. As they one and all knew very little of the matter, I will not give paper to the interminable list.
Two book-length treatments of the case were published early in this century. Lady Jean, by Percy Fitzgerald, starts and ends with a violent prejudice against the lady. In The Douglas Cause, A. Francis Steuart edited for the Notable Scottish Trials series the fifteen speeches of the Scotch Lords of Session, prefaced by a highly illuminating brief summary of the affair.
The main source of any book upon the Douglas Cause must be the law-papers presented by the litigants to the Court of Session, numbering, including the ponderous quartos of proofs and memorials and the papers about the early quibbles, more than two hundred items. I am deeply indebted to the Signet Library in Edinburgh for the use of their collections, and to Dr. C. A. Malcolm, librarian, and Mr. John S. Robertson for much cordial advice and assistance.
The record of the Scotch action is on fi
le in the Register House at Edinburgh in more than 9,600 manuscript pages, through whose complexities Miss Marion R. Miller kindly guided me. The incomplete French suit was not recorded, or if it was, the record has vanished; nothing on the subject remains among the Archives Nationales at Paris. The only account of the French suit to survive was M. D’Anjou’s notes. Produced in manuscript before the Lords, they were ordered printed. Yale possesses a printed copy, in seven pages folio, entitled “Extrait de la Procedure Extraordinaire pour Messieurs Stuart & Dalrymple.” The proceedings before the House of Peers are calendared in the printed Journals of the House of Lords.
Among much new manuscript material, most exciting were the papers of Andrew Stuart, which were recently presented to the National Library of Scotland by Mrs. Stuart-Stevenson. Through the kindness of Mr. W. Park and Mr. J. Ritchie I had free range of these records, which include many of the actual exhibits before the court, confidential letters and reports, early drafts of Cases, pamphlets and the Letters to Lord Mansfield, detailed expense accounts, and reporters’ versions of the Camden, Mansfield, and Sandwich speeches before the Lords, as well as many other illuminating items.
The National Library also possesses court notes taken by Islay Campbell and Alexander Murray. Yale has a record in manuscript of the pleadings before the House of Peers, otherwise unrecorded, taken by an unknown, and unskilled, hand. The correspondence of Charles Yorke about the Cause is among the papers of his father Lord Hardwicke in the British Museum.
The New Boswell Papers at Yale resound with the name of DOUGLAS (writ large, as Boswell always wrote GOD). With the friendship and guidance of their editor, Professor Frederick Pottle, seconded by Mrs. Pottle, I have been enabled to see the Douglas story through the eyes of Boswell and his friends. I quote some of their more pungent remarks, hitherto unpublished, with the generous permission of the McGraw-Hill Book Company, publisher of the Yale Editions of the Private Papers of James Boswell. I am especially indebted to the kindness of Mr. Edward C. Aswell, vice-president of that firm.
References to hitherto-unknown manuscript material are identified by page in the index under the appropriate name. Quoted passages have generally been normalized as to spelling and capitalization, and sometimes repunctuated for clarity, excepting only an occasional flavoursome bit, and the highly important, and highly erratic, writings of Colonel John Steuart and Mrs. Hewit.
The Douglas Cause brought forth comparatively few controversial pamphlets. It was dangerous to publish while litigation was pending, and litigation was pending almost continuously. At safe moments, from the thrice-busy pen of Boswell, from the quills of Andrew Stuart, Alexander McKonochie, Francis Douglas, Robert Richardson, and hacks unknown, came a mere thirteen pamphlets. If a few fugitive poems are added, the total known to me rises to a scant twenty publications.
The Bibliographical Center in Denver, through the kindness of Mrs. Eulalia Chapman, located and secured for my use many of the printed books which I needed.
Visiting Scotland, I sought the aid of living representatives of the families involved, and almost without exception they responded with the most generous co-operation. Family papers were made available to me through the kindness of the Earl of Home, Lady Margaret, Lord Dunglass, and Mr. A. W. Blair, W.S. For sight of the Steuart heirlooms at Murthly I am grateful to the present laird, Mr. Donald Steuart-Fotheringham, and Mr. J. P. Watson, W.S. In the matter of portraits, Mr. R. E. Hutchison of the Scottish National Galleries and Miss Marie Balfour of the Edinburgh Public Library were most helpful. I owe the use of the new Willison portrait of Archie Douglas to the kindness of the Duke of Hamilton and the co-operation of his factor Mr. A. D. L. Macdonald. To Mrs. Stuart-Stevenson my thanks are due for permission to reproduce the Reynolds portrait of Andrew Stuart. I think with special gratitude of Mrs. Douglas of Mains, whose love for Duchess Peggy drew me warmly into her orbit and opened to me the treasures of Mains, including the portraits of Lady Jane, Colonel John, and the Duchess, which by her permission adorn this book.
Most of all, I had in the making of this book a rich treasure of friendship and advice. At Edinburgh, William Roughead, dean of Scottish crime-writers, took me to his heart and his fireside, plied me with old port and rascally reminiscence, gave me the run of his fine Douglas Cause collection, and inspired me in my long task. Other writers were generous with their ideas and their knowledge: John Dickson Carr, Agatha Christie, Fred Dannay, Winifred Duke, Agnes Dunlop, Anthony Gilbert, Marion Loch-head, N. Melville Shepherd.
Sir Thomas Innes of Learney, Lord Lyon King of Arms, very cordially gave me his attention and his time to explain the Herald’s view of the Douglas Cause. My book bears the impress, too, of editors, scholars, and friends on both sides of the water, to whom also I am grateful: Dr. Margery Bailey, Dr. Stephanie Bent on, Dr. Robert Chambers, Mr. Edmund Cork, Mr. Michael Joseph, Mr. James Hodge, Miss Louise Kampf, Dr. Lewis M. Knapp, Mr. Peter Page, Dr. L. F. Powell, Mr. James Sandoe, Dr. Robert Stabler, Miss Maria Steuart, Mr. Herbert Weinstock, Dr. Curt Zimansky, and, not least, my brothers, José Rollin and Theodore de la Torre Bueno, and my mother, Lillian R. de la Torre Bueno.
Before all, my thanks are due to my husband, George Sutherland McCue, for sharpening my wits with his; for his generous support, in every sense of the word; for his patience with ramblings mental and geographical; and for the flawless literary taste and judgement on which I depend.
No book is an island; every book is a piece of the main. This was never more true of any book than it is of the book called The Heir of Douglas, which happens to be signed
LILLIAN DE LA TORRE
INDEX
This index aims at listing as compactly as possible all the persons and places that this book contains information about. Mere mentions are passed over in silence. In the text I have often used names as I found them in the old records. Well-known names are normalized in the index. Unknowns are grouped around key names: Michelle, Mignon, Sanry, Aix, Liége, Rheims. In the absence of footnotes, I use the index to locate information and quotations drawn from hitherto unknown sources among the papers of James Boswell, Alexander Murray, Andrew Stuart, and Charles Yorke, q.v. A few abbreviations are: AD (Archie Douglas), JD (Lady Jane Douglas), JS (Colonel John Steuart), AS (Andrew Stuart), D. (Duke), E. (Earl), Bt. (Baronet), Kt. (Knight).
Aberbrothick (Arbroath), waters of, for the stomach, 60
Adam, the brothers, architects, 72
Aix-la-Chapelle, 44, 114, 133, 236–237; Peace of, 18; witnesses at, 123–127
Amelia, Princess, 32
Angelo, Domenico, fencing-master, 89
Argyll, Archibald Campbell, 3rd D. of, 72
Auchinleck (Alexander Boswell), Lord, 175, 199, 219, 220, 242
Augusta, Princess of Wales, 32
Barjarg (James Erskine), Lord, 218, 220–221, 244
Bedford, John Russell, 4th D. of, 238
Bellamy, George-Anne, actress, 241
Blair, Rev. Hugh, 244
Bleackley, Horace, 248
Boswell, James, 100, 174–176, 197–204, 209–221, 223, 226–229, 233, 242–243, 261–262, 265; writings about Douglas, 209–217, 226; unpublished papers, 265, quoted, 211–212, 217, 233, 240–241, 242; relied upon, 175–176, 202, 216, 219, 221, 225, 227, 242, 245
Boswell, Lieutenant John, 202
Bothwell Castle, 151, 226, 246
Brown, Charles, W.S., 81, 219
Brown, Mr., Bos well’s clerk, 215
Buccleuch, Francis Scott, 2nd D. of, 12–13, 26, 72
Buhot, Pierre Etienne, Inspector of Police, 95–96, 98, 119, 171, 192, 224
Burnet, James, later Lord Monboddo, 170–171, 178, 180, 181, 183, 186, 199, 201, 219, 221
Burton, J. Hill, 85
Camden, Sir Charles Pratt, Kt., 1st E., 227, 232, 237–238, 239
Campbell, Islay, later Lord Succoth, 202, 205, 208, 241, 264
Campbell, Colonel John, later 5th D. of Argyll, 76
Carnegie, James, of Boysack, 112, 113, 124, 144, 224
&
nbsp; Carr, John Dickson, The Murder of Sir Edmund Godfrey, 251
Caw, Euphemia (“Effie”), 17, 25–26, 37, 90, 104, 123, 125
Charles XII of Sweden, 11
Charles Edward Stuart, Prince, the Young Pretender, 6, 16, 18, 19, 24, 32, 255
Clinton, Andrew, clerk at the War Office, 110, 187
Coalston (George Brown), Lord, 219, 220
Cochrane, Major Thomas, later 8th E. of Dundonald, 69–70, 175
Colbert, Abbé Seigneloy (Scotch Wardlaw?), 124, 136, 182
Court of Session, Scotland, 107–111, 151, 170, 174, 176, 178, 180, 181, 192, 217, 244; Douglas Cause heard by, 200–209, 218, 220–221, 223; law-papers, 202–205; 208–209, 217, 218, 219, 226; exhibits, 205–209
Crawfurd (Crawford), John Lindsay, 20th E. of, 124, 125
Crosbie, Andrew, advocate, 201
Culloden, battle of, 6
Dalrymple, Sir Hew, Bt., M.P., of North Berwick, 115, 116, 122
D’Anjou, Pierre, procureur, 115, 118, 122, 142, 155, 156, 224
Davidson, John, W.S., 81, 199
Delamarre, Louis Pierre, 96, 118–120, 138–140, 183, 185, 252
De la Torre, Lillian, Elizabeth Is Missing, 251
De la Torre’s Law, 250–252
Dempster, George, M.P., 156, 167, 242
Dodsley, Robert, The Oeconomy of Human Life, 35, 44–45
Douglas, Archibald Douglas, 1st D. of, 13–15, 18–23, 35, 44, 45, 49, 50, 51–53, 57, 58, 59, 61, 63, 64–82, 87, 105, 253
Douglas, Archibald James Edward, later 1st Baron Douglas of Douglas, born, 3; appears, 3, 6–9; taken to England, 25; in London, 32, 37, 39, 40–46; in Scotland, 47–52, 58, 60–63, 68–70, 73–74; at Rugby, 78; settlement on, 79; becomes heir of Douglas, 81–82; at Westminster School, 86, 107, 150–151; visits Paris, 171–172; breakfasts with Boswell, 202; in Edinburgh, 212–213, 218; as “Dorando,” 215; Scotch suit, 206, 204–205, 209, 218–221, 223; appeal to Peers, 223, 225, 229, 231, 232–240; conduct as winner, 240–241, 246–247; later days, 247
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