To Betty Gunning, the squireen’s daughter, fell the unique distinction of marrying two dukes, refusing a third, and becoming the mother of four others, two of whom were successive Dukes of Hamilton, and two of Argyll.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE MYSTERIOUS TWINS

A century and a half ago the “Douglas cause” was a subject of hot debate from John o’ Groats to Land’s End.  It was discussed in Court and castle and cottage, and was wrangled over at the street corner.  It divided families and estranged friends, so fierce was the partisanship it generated; and so full was it of complexity and mystery that it puzzled the heads of the wisest lawyers.  England and Scotland alike were divided into two hostile camps, one declaring that Archibald Douglas was son of Lady Jean Douglas, and thus the rightful heir to the estates of his ducal uncle; the other, protesting with equal warmth and conviction that he was nothing of the sort.

Dr Johnson was a stalwart in one camp; Boswell in the other.  “Sir, sir,” Johnson said to his friend and biographer, “don’t be too severe upon the gentleman; don’t accuse him of a want of filial piety!  Lady Jane Douglas was not his mother.”  “Whereupon,” Boswell says, “he roused my zeal so much that I took the liberty to tell him that he knew nothing of the cause, which I most seriously do believe was the case.”  For seven years the suit dragged its weary length through the Courts; the evidence for and against the young man’s claim covers ten thousand closely-printed pages; but although Archibald won the Douglas lands, his paternity remains to-day as profound a mystery as when George III. was new to his throne.

Forty years before the curtain rose on this dramatic trial which, Boswell declares, “shook the security of birthright in Scotland to its foundation,” the Lady Jean, only daughter of James, second Marquess of Douglas, was one of the fairest maids north of the Tweed—­a girl who combined beauty and a singular charm of manner with such abounding vitality and strength of character that she did not require her high rank and royal descent to make her desirable in the eyes of suitors.  She was, moreover, the only sister of the head of her family, the Duke of Douglas, who seemed little disposed to provide an heir to his vast estates; and these there seemed more than a fair prospect that she would one day inherit.

It was thus but natural that many a wooer sought Lady Jean’s hand; and had she cared for coronets she might have had her pick of them.  On the evidence of the man who ultimately became her husband she refused those of the Dukes of Hamilton, Buccleuch and Atholl, the Earls of Hopetoun, Aberdeen and Panrnure, cum multis aliis. However this may be, we know that she had several love romances; and that one at least nearly led to the altar while Jean was still a “wee bit lassie.”  The favoured suitor was the