[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 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 well, and with what I have done in preparing some of the members thereof in order thereto.