d over what I have drawn up for our defence, wherein they own
themselves mightily satisfied; and Birch, like a particular friend, do
take it upon him to defend us, and do mightily do me right in all
his discourse. Here walked in the Hall with him a great while, and
discoursed with several members, to prepare them in our business against
to-morrow, and meeting my cozen Roger Pepys, he showed me Granger's
written confession,

[Pepys here refers to the extraordinary proceedings which occurred
between Charles, Lord Gerard, and Alexander Fitton, of which a
narrative was published at the Hague in 1665. Granger was a witness
in the cause, and was afterwards said to be conscience-stricken from
his perjury. Some notice of this case will be found in North's
"Examen," p. 558; but the copious and interesting note in Ormerod's
"History of Cheshire," Vol. iii., p. 291, will best satisfy the
reader, who will not fail to be struck by the paragraph with which
it is closed-viz., "It is not improbable that Alexander Fitton, who,
in the first instance, gained rightful possession of Gawsworth under
an acknowledged settlement, was driven headlong into unpremeditated
guilt by the production of a revocation by will which Lord Gerard
had so long concealed. Having lost his own fortune in the
prosecution of his claims, he remained in gaol till taken out by
James II. to be made Chancellor of Ireland (under which character
Hume first notices him), was knighted, and subsequently created Lord
Gawsworth after the abdication of James, sat in his parliament in
Dublin in 1689, and then is supposed to have accompanied his fallen
master to France. Whether the conduct of Fitton was met, as he
alleges, by similar guilt on the part of Lord Gerard, God only can
judge; but his hand fell heavily on the representatives of that
noble house. In less than half a century the husbands of its two
co-heiresses, James, Duke of Hamilton, and Charles, Lord Mohun, were
slain by each other's hands in a murderous duel arising out of a
dispute relative to the partition of the Fitton estates, and
Gawsworth itself passed to an unlineal hand, by a series of
alienations complicated beyond example in the annals of this
country."--B.]

of his being forced by imprisonment, &c., by my Lord Gerard, most
barbarously to confess his forging of