alternately praised in the Process as the most faithful of friends, or blamed as an unscrupulous intrigante. The Duke, on his mother's death, granted his sister an income (small enough) of £300 a year, but the pair were not on good terms. Lady Jane's hint that his having beaten a footman might rouse again the fading story of his manslaughter displeased the Duke. He believed that she wished to have him confined as a lunatic, and an insult from the mob, which he suffered when he was in Edinburgh, was understood by him to be a plot which his sister had contrived with Colonel John Steuart, with whom at this time she was intimate and whom she afterwards married, to have him murdered or kidnapped and carried off to St. Kilda, so that they might get his estate into their own hands. 15 These estranged relations were more seriously embittered when in 1745 the Jacobite troops occupied Douglas Castle. The Duke was again persuaded that Colonel Steuart (a known Jacobite of 1715) and Lady Jane (who was, by repute, 16 liée with the Jacobite party) had instigated this attack also; and his sister continued to fall in his estimation. In spite of this Lady Jane assisted the escape of the Jacobite refugee, the Chevalier Johnston (a cousin of her friend, Mrs. Hewit), and hid him for some time in her house at Drumsheugh.

Lady Jane, though young looking and still graceful, was now in her forty-ninth year, and at this juncture took a very serious if secret step. On 4th August, 1746, she was married at her house of Drumsheugh by the Rev. Robert Keith, a bishop of the Scottish Episcopal Church and a friend of her own, to Colonel John Steuart, a younger brother of Sir George Steuart of Grandtully. That the marriage was imprudent is obvious. Lady Jane was no longer at all young and had only a small income, and Colonel Steuart, though "well looked" as a handsome man of fifty-eight and heir to the estate of Grandtully and a baronetcy, was already a widower with one son, Jack Steuart. He was known to be thoughtless and inconsiderate to a high degree, in his circumstances poor, being "extremely profuse," and as a ruined Jacobite, as well as a supposed "Papist," besides the above suspicions, "though esteemed by

15 "Case of Archibald Douglas, House of Lords," p. 8.

16 If the Chevalier Johnston is correct Lady Jane visited Prince Charlie at Holyrood.

his acquaintances to be a man of honour," was an object of peculiar aversion to the Duke of Douglas, who was the only support his wife could rely on in case of distress. Yet when the Earl of Crawford later, as Lady Jane's intercessor, apprised the Duke of Douglas of the fact of the marriage17 he thought himself able to write, "She certainly merits all the affectionate marks of an only brother to an only sister. Much, much, does she wish, as well as others of your Grace's devoted friends, there had been no so great necessity "-the Duke of Douglas at this time refused to marry-" for her changing her way of life; but since it has become so absolutely necessary, with the greatest submission, considering the variety of different circumstances, I would gladly hope your Grace will not disapprove of the person Lady Jane has chosen, as to be sure there is none so deserving.”

So much did Lady Jane dread her brother's displeasure that her marriage was kept an absolute secret except from her maids, and the better to conceal it she determined to go abroad. For this purpose Colonel Steuart passed as one of her footmen under the name of "John Douglas," and she obtained passes to Holland from the Secretary of State's office on 29th August, 1746, for her suite. She met Colonel Steuart at Huntingdon, and her other attendants on the journey consisted of Mrs. Hewit, two maid servants, Isabel Walker and Effie Caw, and the Chevalier Johnston, Mrs. Hewit's cousin, for whom she also obtained a pass as a footman under the name of "James Kerr." The party proceeded to The Hague, and at the end of December removed to Utrecht, where they met Lord Blantyre, a young Scottish lord, who became a friend. On the 10th February, 1747, in a letter to Mrs. Carse, Lady Jane very strongly denied the report of her marriage, imprudently imputing the rumour of it to her cousin Mally Kerr, Mrs. Stewart of Stewartfield, and blaming her in no measured terms; and the inopportune strength of the denial in this letter of a real fact we shall find referred to frequently during the trial in connection with the credibility of Lady Jane's assertions.

About the middle of April, 1747, Lady Jane, Colonel Steuart, Mrs. Hewit, and the two maids removed to Aix-la-Chapelle, and

17 April, 1748, Defender's Proof, 964.

resided with Madame Tewis, a lady of good birth, until 10th August, when they made a short excursion of a fortnight to Spa, and on returning went first to lodge with Madame Champignois, until 14th September, when they returned to Madame Tewis. At Spa they saw Sir William and Lady Steuart, who noticed that Lady Jane looked ill, and she, in writing to borrow money from Mr. Patrick Haldane, mentioned her design of spending the winter at Bayreuth, where she might have the free exercise of the Protestant religion, and of trying the waters of Carlsbad, in Bohemia. They resided with Madame Tewis until 5th January, 1748, then with Madame Scholl until March, and then with Madame Gillesen until they left Aix on the 21st May, 1748. During this residence at Aix-la-Chapelle we have to observe one notable circumstance, namely, the intention still to conceal the marriage. When Sir John and Lady Jane came to Aix-la-Chapelle their marriage was still undisclosed and secret from all, except the maids and a few confidants, but Lady Jane's visible pregnancy forced it to be disclosed, and it was accordingly confided to Madame Tewis, with whom they had become intimate, as well as to the Earl of Crawford, an old comrade and friend of Sir John Steuart, but at first to no more acquaintances than necessary. The cause was

observed by Madame Scholl, Mr. and Mrs. Hepburn of Keith, Baron Macelligot, certain Benedictine nuns of St. Anne's, and Baroness d'Obin, afterwards Madame Negrette, Madame Gillesen, and perhaps by Mademoiselle Bleyenheufft, a seamstress. As time went on, however, the marriage being now well known, it became important for Lady Jane to reveal the fact of her marriage and her condition to her brother, the Duke of Douglas, and she did this by a letter which was enclosed in one from Lord Crawford, in whose mediation she trusted. Lady Jane's letter-like so many important papers in this causehas perished, but Lord Crawford's letter was printed in the proof, and contained the following passage:-"I am hopeful my representations will not only meet with forgiveness, but also with their wishes for success in reconciling your Grace to an event all the well-wishers of your Grace's family may have the greatest reason to rejoice at, as there is such visible hopes of its being attended with the natural consequences so much longed for by all that are fond of seeing the family of Douglas

multiply." Lord Crawford, by the same letter, informed the Duke of Douglas of Lady Jane's marriage, of their straitened circumstances, and of his pleasure in her and her husband's society. This letter seems to have been written in April, 1748, the marriage having just been publicly declared in March. Lady Katherine Wemyss, Lord Crawford's sister, deponed, however, that she had heard it said at Aix that the parties were married, "or, at least, had an intrigue together, as they lived in one house," though she paid little attention to the fact, owing to Lady Jane's denial; yet after the disclosure of the marriage she remained one of her best friends. In May some Scottish visitors arrived at Aix, who all believed in Lady Jane's hopes of being a mother. These were the Countess of Wigton, who became a great support of Lady Jane in her trials later; Mr. Fullerton of Dudwick; Miss Fleming Primrose, then a young girl; and Mrs. Greig, Lady Wigton's woman, whose testimony was strong upon the point.

The congress which was held at Aix-la-Chapelle after the war, and the consequent increase in the expense of living there, induced, or gave an excuse for, Lady Jane, her husband, and suite to move once more. They appear to have thought of going to the south of France or to Geneva, and Lady Jane alleged (though she afterwards had her acknowledged eldest son baptised a Roman Catholic) in a letter that she wished to go to a Protestant country. Lady Jane then applied, through M. Joseph Tewis, to the Count de Salm, to whom he was Grand Bailli, to be permitted to reside at the chateau de Bedbur for her delivery, but before permission arrived from Vienna she and her party had left for Rheims, in Champagne, setting out on the 21st of May. On their way they rested at Liège for a few days, and there dismissed their man servant, Quibel, who, as a deserter from the French service, could not enter France. At Liège they were visited by certain Jacobite refugees and Scottish exiles, such as Joseph Byres of Tonley, Mr. Graeme of Garvock, and most intimately by Mr. and Mrs. Hepburn of Keith, all of whom stated later that they observed Lady Jane's condition, and the Chevalier Douglas, who gave evidence that he advised Colonel Steuart to proceed to Paris " ou elle pouvoit avoir tous les secours nécessaires pour son accouchement." They proceeded by stage-coach, the maids, much to their dislike, "in the

basket of the coach," on 25th May, to Sedan, reaching it on the 27th, and remained there nine days, and then resting one night at Charleville (where M. Guenet did not know Lady Jane was Colonel Steuart's wife, "ni si elle étoit fille ou femme, qu'elle portoit une longue mante qui lui tomboit des épaules jusqu'aux pieds "), another at Rhetelle, where Lady Jane fell sick, though she was able to proceed next day to Rheims, arriving there on 7th June, and, after a night at an inn, lodged with M. Hibert. Here Lady Jane was seen only by Mr. William Mackenzie and Mr. MacLean (afterwards Governor of Almeyda), Scottish prisoners of war; Mr. MacNamara, and the family of M. Andrieux, and all the persons she met noticed her situation, if we except the dubious evidence by a mantua maker, who did not observe it. This place in the narrative is perhaps the best for it to be directly stated that the other next heirs of the Duke of Douglas, who afterwards brought the Douglas Cause into Court, fiercely maintained that Lady Jane, at this date in her fifty-first year, had all this time only assumed an appearance of pregnancy, with the intention of ultimately procuring a supposititious child, that for this simulation she wore a particular dress, and that all the persons who observed her obvious condition were her dupes, except her husband and Mrs. Hewit, who were either instigators or accomplices of the scheme, and the maids, the extent of whose complicity was uncertain.

Lady Jane and Colonel Steuart now made a move, the reasons for which are still uncertain. Leaving, on the excuse of poverty, in which Colonel Steuart, both as a Jacobite and a penniless cadet, was always involved, the two maids, Isabel Walker and Effie Caw, behind at Rheims, they alone, on 2nd July, with Mrs. Hewit in attendance, set out in the stage-coach for Paris, arriving there on the 4th. It is said that Lady Jane had been told that the physicians in Rheims were unskilled, and so undertook the journey, though it was at so critical a period for one of her advanced age. On the other hand, it was afterwards alleged that the party had gone to Paris to feign a delivery and procure a child to introduce as their own to soften the heart of the Duke of Douglas and to induce him to open his purse strings, and for this reason had left the maids, part accomplices only, behind at Rheims. Upon the objects of this journey the whole case turns, and, in spite of the Court of Session's adverse judg