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 a deed in behalf of Fitton, in the
great case between him [Fitton] and my Lord Gerard; which business is
under examination, and is the foulest against my Lord Gerard that ever any
thing in the world was, and will, all do believe, ruine him; and I shall
be glad of it. Thence with Lord Brouncker and T. Harvey as far as the New
Exchange, and there at a draper's shop drawing up a short note of what
they are to desire of the House for our having a hearing before they
determine any thing against us, which paper is for them to show to what
friends they meet against to-morrow, I away home to the office, and there
busy pretty late, and here comes my wife to me, who hath been at Pegg
Pen's christening, which, she says, hath made a flutter and noise; but was
as mean as could be, and but little company, just like all the rest that
that family do. So home to supper and to bed, with my head full of a
defence before the Parliament tomorrow, and therein content myself very