aordinary proceedings of this
person should have been tolerated for so long a time by the
law-officers of the Crown; but his growing audacity at last led to
their interference, and what is termed an action of reduction was
brought against him and his agent. Lord Cockburn, who heard the case,
decided, without hesitation, that his claim was not established,
declared the previous legal proceedings invalid, and demolished the
pretensions of the claimant. Under these circumstances it was
necessary to do something to strengthen those weak points in his
title, which had been pointed out by the presiding judge, and
Humphreys or his friends were equal to the emergency. A variety of
documents were discovered in the most unexpected manner, which exactly
supplied the missing links in the evidence, and the claim was
accordingly renewed. The law-officers of the Crown denied the validity
of these documents, which emanated from the most suspicious
sources--some being forwarded by a noted Parisian fortune-teller,
called Madlle le Normand; and after Mr. Humphreys had been judicially
examined with regard to them, he was served with an indictment to
stand his trial for forgery before the High Court of Justiciary, at
Edinburgh, on the 3d of April 1839. The trial lasted for five days,
and created intense excitement throughout Scotland. During the trial
it was elicited that the father of Mr. Humphreys had been a respectable
merchant in Birmingham, who had amassed considerable wealth, had gone
abroad, accompanied by his son, in 1802, and had taken up his
temporary residence in France. As he did not return at the declaration
of war which followed the brief peace, he was detained by Napoleon,
and died at Verdun in 1807. His son, the pretended earl, remained a
prisoner in France until 1815, and afterwards established himself as a
schoolmaster at Worcester. There he met with little success, but bore
an excellent character, and gained a certain number of influential
friends, whose probity and truthfulness were beyond doubt; some of
whom supported him through all his career, one officer of distinction
even sitting in the dock with him. The public sympathy was also
strongly displayed on his side. But the evidence which was led on
behalf of the Crown was conclusive, and a verdict was returned
declaring the documents to be forgeries; but finding it "Not Proven"
that the prisoner knew that they were fictitious, or uttered them with
any malicious intenti