The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-12-31
New York Herald.)

/ 0OOsO VI JO5 AA0 ~
ture is a plagiarist from herself. she
may now and then produce a startling
ly original effect, but straightway pro
/ ceeds to make it a chestnut by lnartlSllc
repetition.
Early this year the world was start
led by a, story that shrouded one OF the
greatest houses in England in awesome
mystery. A duke-the fifth duke OF
Pcrtland-was said to have lived a
double life, and when the time came Tor
the duplicity TO end his alter ego,
THOMAS Druce," had been reported
| dead and a lump of lead MAD peen
| buried in the tomb falsely marked VIII
Druce's name. But bruce n the
| duke. so the story ran, were one and
the same person. The duke, a Suppo-
sitious bachelor, had contracted a nal
son under the Dlebeian name and the
plebeian character of Thomas bruce. q
merchant, whose shop was in the CEN
ter OF London. The liaison had result
ed in eventual marriage, from Wnlcn a
legitimate heir had sprung. 3 u the
duke went insane, and was conlneo
for many years until his real death IN
a private asylum. Meanwhile. his os-
tensible heirs had circulated the report
of Druce's death and had performed
the sham burial to lend artistic ver1sl-
Multitude to the fraud. On the death of
the duke, the present, or sixth. duke
usurped the title and the property.
This is the weird story that is soon
to be passed upon by the English
courts.
And now, from the wilds of Africa.
comes an identical story, involving m
other ducal house of even greater her
editary prestige and present power, the
HamiltonS of Scotland. In this case. 1t
is asserted. it was the present rightful
heir to the dukedom who years ago CAS-
appeared from civilization, gave him
self out for dead and allowed a mass Of
lead to be coffined and buried as his
own body.
The story was so strange and fasci-
mating that it is we'll to go into details.
The title of the Duke of Hamilton car
ries with it an estate of ISL, 1884 acres,
a gross rental of 9140, 526, and an opu-
lence of titular glories exceeding the
baptismal names of a royal baby. sur
fee it to say that he is not only the
premier peer of Scotland and heir male
of the house of Douglas, but duke Of
Chatelherault in France, and duke Of
Brandon and Baron Dutton in the peer
age of England, and as such doubly en-
titled to a seat in the house of lords.
The chief seats of the Duke of Ham
ilton in Scotland are Hamilton Place,
in Lanarkshire, Kinnell house in Lin
lithgow and Broderick castle in the
Isle of Arran, Buteshire. In England
the family seat is Easton Park. Bran
don, Suffolk,
The Lanark and the Linlithgow es-
tateS have been, with Short interrupt
tons, in the possession of the Hamil-
ms ever since the days of King Rob-
ert the Bruce. The Suffolk estates are
a modern acquisition, originally pur-
-l-,-AI - n,,+aI ~aI4Ac - -oo 20
vorite of William III, by whom he vas
created earl of Rockford. The last ear
of Rockford bequeathed these estates
to a duke of Hamilton, who was his
half-brother.
This dukedom had been created by
Charles L shoTtly after the outbreak of
the rebellion. The first duke was be-
headed by the roundheads in 1649.
His son., the second duke, was mortaIly
wounded at the battle of Worcester.
and, leaving only daughters, the es-
tates fell to his sister, Lady Anne Ham
ilton, who married Lord William Doug
las. From that time the dukes of Ham
ilton have been Douglas-Hamiltons.
Since the deathof the fourth duke. who
was a leading statesman at the time CT
the Hanoverian settlement, the Ham
iltons nave not been distinguished. ex-
cept as house-builders, art collectors
and patrons of the turf.
Skipping a half dozen of these unin-
teresting p-ersonages, we come down to
the eleventh duke, who married the
Princess Marie Of Baden, third cousin
of Napoleon III, and, in 1852, succeeded
to the Hamilton titles. Out of cousinly
affection the emperor confirmed him in
the title of duke of Chatelherault, a Dig
nifty with which the family had been
nominally invested as far back as the
time of Mary OueeD Of Scots
The eleventh duke died iE 1853, leav-
ing two sins, William Alexander Louis
Stephens, who became the twelfth duke,
and Charles George Archibald, of whom
more n
The twelfth duke was only Is years of
age when his fathers death called him
to the succession. He had been edu-
Gated at Oxford, where his only repu-
tation was won as a pugilist. His ma
turer tastes ran entirely in the line of
horses and yachts. He proved in every
way unfit for the, position of one of the
greatest territorial magnateS of the
united kingdom. His coming of age
was celebrated in Paris by festivities
which gave bitter offense in Scotland.
A greater clamor was raised when, in
1879, he sold, for half a million pounds.
the bulk of the magnificent art treas
ures which had been carefully collected
by his ancestors. His relations with
his tenantry were conducted on the ba-
sis that whatever noblemen wished to
was right. The evictions at Arran
scarcely sustained the traditions of a
historic name. but he bred horses with
great assiduity, and was for a time
owner of the yacht Thistle.
On his death in May, 1895, the estates
were left in a chaotic condition. He had
married in December, 1873, Lady Mary
Touise EliZebath MOnt9Cu eldest |
daughter of the seventh duke of Man
chester, by whom he had on only child, |
a daughter.
The title consequently reverted to the
eldest Hamilton in the male line. This
would have been his brother, Charles
George Archibald, had the young mar
been living. But Charles had-osten-
at least-died in May, 1886, at the
age of 80.
The event was announced in the Lon
don Times in a cablegram from Biar-
ritz, dated Wednesday, May 5, 1886, |
which read, Lord Charles Hamilton,
brother and heir presumptive of the
of Hamilton, died at Nice on Sun
day, after a long and painful illness, the
proXinate cause Of death being lung
disease" The first symptoms of this
ailment, it went on to explain, had dis
themselves about twelve months
.previoussat Biarritz, where.his lordship
had been residing for the last few
years. He had married the divorced
wife of Baron P~askiewitcn, but, having
been converted later to the Roman
Catholic religion, which does not coun-
tenance marriage with a divorce. he
had been engaged at the time of his
death in seeking to have the union an
nulled.
1910