The Sun.
London, England, 1827-05-09 00:00:00

LOVAT CLAIM OF PEERACtE.

This claim is now in progress of prosecution before
the House of Lords. Owing to the state of health
of some of the witnesses they have been examined
in Scotland; and their evidence is just returned to
the House. The following are extracts :
Alexander Fraser asked (7th question)—Have
you, or not, ever heard from any member of the
family, and if so, from which in particular, who was
reputed to be the father of Simon Lord Lovat, who
was beheaded in the year 1747; if yea, set forth
what you have so heard from them, or any of them,
relative to the matters inquired after by this question,
according to the best of your remembrance and belief?
After replying to the 6th question, that he was
well acquainted with different members of the family
of Fraser of Lovat, who are now deceased: that he
was gamekeeper to General Simon Fraser of Lovat,
from the time that the estate of Lovat was restored
to him till his death; that he was born in this place,
which is situated within half a mile of Beaufort
Castle, and has resided here all his lifetime. De-
pones, that the deponent's father was a servant to
Simon -Lord Lovat, and also lived at this place all
his lifetime. Depones, that the deponent recollects
Simon Lord Lovat, and remembers his Lordship
being at a christening near this place, when, after
the ceremony was over, he took the deponent into
his coach, and that this was about three years before
the battle of Culloden. Depones, that he was also
well acquainted with Alexander Fraser, second son
of Simon Lord Lovat, commonly called the Briga-
dier, who resided many years in the deponent's near
neighbourhood, and that the deponent knew the
said Brigadier from the period of the battle of Cullo-
den till the time of his death. Depones, that he was
also very well acquainted with the late Col. Archi-
bald Campbell Fraser of Lovat, youngest son of
Simon Lord Lovat, for a great many years, and for
at least upwards of 30 years; and that he also knew
the children of the said Colonel Archibald Campbell
Fraser, viz., Simon, Archibald, and William, and
there was one who died in London, whose name he
does not...know. He answered to the 7th question
—That he has heard that the father of Simon Lord
Lovat, who was beheaded in the year 1747, was
called Thomas Fraser of Beaufort, and that the
deponent received this information from his own
father • and that the said Thomas Fraser of Beau-
fort lived at Tomicli in the parish of Urray. To the
Bth question, he answered that Alexander Simon Lord
Lovat and John Fraser were all the sons c.r children
of Thomas Fraser of Beaufort; that Alexander
killed a fiddler for playing the Highland air of " Ha
Pitag er iliac Thomash," which the said Alexander
conceived to be in derision of him, and he never
heard that the said Alexander was married; that
Simon succeeded to the property and title of Lovat,
and that John, the youngest son of Thomas of Beau-
fort, was killed at the battle of Glenshiel, a young
man unmarried ; that he learned these particulars
about the family or Lovat from his own father and
the neighbours. He adds, that he never heard from
any member of the Lovat family, nor from any other
person, that Simon Lord Lovat was reputed in the
family to have had any uncle or uncles by the father's
side. That lie cannot sign his name, owing to a
great tremor in his hand. All which is truth, as he
shall answer to God.

Hugh Maclean depones, that he was eigh`y-one
years of age on the 30th of October last. That he
took a farm on the forfeited estate of• Lovat, and
possessed the same for fifty-one years, during which
long period he was intimate with the successive pro-
prietors of the estate of Lovat, &c. That in 1757,
he got acquainted with the said General Simon
Fraser, the eldest son and heir of Simon Lord
Lovat, who was beheaded in the year 1747; and
the deponent's relations wished the deponent to
accept of a commission in a Highland regiment,
which the said General Simon Fraser was then
raising, &c. That he was well acquainted with
Alexander Fraser, called the Brigadier (the only
brother-german of General Simon Fraser aforesaid),
who often visited the deponent's father, and upon
some of those occasions the said Brigadier Alexander
Fraser passed the night in the deponent's father's
house, and upon such occasions the deponent, then a
boy, used to leave a bottle of whiskey at the Briga-
dier's bedside, to be drunk by him during the night,
and which he generally finished before morning. De-
pones,that the said Alex. Fraser died unmarried in the
year 1762, and the deponent accompanied his funeral
to Kirkhill, in the county of Inverness, and saw his
coffin ef:?osited in the family tomb in the church of
Kirkhill. Depones that the deponent also knew,
intimately, the late Colonel Archibald Campbell
Fraser, of Lovat, who was the only brother of the
said General Fraser, having been the only son of
the said Simon Lord Lovat's second marriage ; and
the deponent knows very well that the said Colonel
Archibald Campbell Fraser survived all his five
sons, who all died unmarried, and without lawful
issue, and he was particularly well acquainted with
Simon the eldest of the said five sons. That in his
early years he was told by the late General Simon
Fraser, of Lovat, or the said Brigadier Alexander
Fraser, his brother, that Thomas Fraser, of Beau-
fort, commonly called the Lord Lovat's son, was
the father of Simon Lord Lovat, who was beheaded
in the year 1747, and that he was their grandfather.
that he was also told, either by the said General
Simon Fraser, or by the said Brigadier Alexander
Fraser, and the tradition is still current in the High-
lands, that the Gaelic song " Ha Pitag, er Mac
Thonta,sh" was composed in derision of the said
Alexander Thomas of Beaufort's eldest son.

Miss M. Mackenzie deponed, that from what she
has heard her grandmother and other relations men-
tion, she firmly believes that there are now no male
descendants of the said Sir Simon Fraser of Inve-
rallochy, second son of Lord Lovat, in existence ;
and deponcs, that she has often heard her grand-
mother lament the total extinction of all the males
of thebranch of Inverallochy, as thereby opening up
the succession to the estate of Lovat, under Gene-
ral Fraser's entail in 1771, to another and more dis-
tant branch of the house of Lovat, which she knows
and heard her grandmother mention to be that of
Fraser of Stricken.

Miss M. Fraser depones that she was very well
acquainted with several members of the family of
the Frasers of Lovat, who are now deceased; that
the deponent has a perfect recollection of having,
when a child, seen Simon Lord LoVat, who was
beheaded in 1747; that she was particularly well
acquainted, and of habits of intimacy, with Alex.
Fraser, commonly called the Brigadier, second son
of the said Simon Lord Lovat ; that the deponent
was also acquainted with General Simon Fraser, late
of Lovat, the eldest son of the said Simon Lord
Lovat, &c. That the deponent always understood
from the family of Lovat, and the different members
thereof, as well as from the members of her own
family (and particularly from her father, John Fraser
of Farraline) which she always considered a branch
of the Lovat family, that Thomas Fraser of Beau-
fort, a younger son of Hugh the ninth Lord Lovat,
was the father of Simon Lord Lovat, who was
beheaded in the year 1747, &c.