THE DOUGLAS CAUSE.
When the dukedom became extinct, the title of Marquis of Douglas and Earl of Angus went to the nearest heir-male, the Duke of Hamilton, a descendant of the first Marquis of Douglas. The estates, however, did not go with the title, and their disposal formed the subject of one of the most celebrated of Scottish lawsuits, known as the Douglas cause. The Duke of Douglas had a sister, Lady Jane, who at the age of 48 married Sir John Stewart of Grand Tul ley. After the marriage they lived abroad. When in her 51st year Lady Jane, it was announced, had given birth to twin sons in Paris. At the duke's death in 1761 both father and mother were dead, and the surviving child became the heir to the duke. The succession was at once disputed by the Hamiltons, whose contention was that the story of the birth of the twins was false, and that in reality they were the children of French peasants, obtained for fraudulent purposes. For six years the contest went on in the Scottish courts; by the casting vote of the Lord President, Dundas of Arniston, in the final trial before 15 judges, decision was given against the claimant; but two years after the House of Lords reversed this judg ment, and young Stewart became proprietor of Douglas ouglas estates. The new heir was made
a peer as Baron Douglas; his eight sons all died childless; but his eldest daughter married the 11th Earl of Home, whose son, the 12th Earl, now owns the property. Thus the Duke of Hamilton is head of the Douglases, but the Earl of Home is Lord of Douglasdale.
Two other peerages are held in the family: the Marquis of Queensbury, who descends from a natural son of the second Earl of Douglas slain at Otterburn; and the Earl of Morton, who descends from Douglas of Lochleven, the jailer of Mary Queen of Scots. Consult Sir William Fraser 'The Douglas Book' (20 vols., Edinburgh 189) • and Sir J. Heron Maxwell 'History of the House of Douglas,' with the principal authorities prefixed thereto.