THE VANE BARONETCY CASE.

Waikato Times, Volume X, Issue 739, 13 March 1877, Page 6 (Supplement)

THE VANE BARONETCY CASE.

This case is full of romantic incidents, and would furnish splendid materials for a novel m two volumes. The narrative takes us back to the last century, when Sir Frederick Fletcher Vane became the heir of the entailed estates m Cumberland, left by his father, Sir Lionel Fletcher. Sir Frederick had formed an intimacy with a woman below him m life, Hannah Bowerbank, by whom he had two children. In 1797 she gave birth to a third child, and on the 9fch of March m the same year Sir Frederick married her. The main question before the Cpnrt was whether that child was born before or after the marriage. According to the plaintiff, the birth happened before that event; according to the defendant, the date of it was the 29th of March, or about three weeks after the marriage. The child wan baptized on the 18th of April, under the name of Francis Fletcher, and the register contains the statement that he was born on the 29th March ; but these words are written m different, ink from the rest of the record, and the theory of the plaintiff was that; after the register of the baptism, they had been added with a fraudulent intent. Some time after the marriage the parents went to live at the family seat m Cumberland, and, since the illegitimacy of their two eldest children was a matter of notoriety. Sir Frederick sought means so far back as 1802, to put the legitimacy of his son Francis beyond dispute, by iiling a bill m Chancery. The evidence of the nurse aiid the doctor who had been present at the birth, aa well as of other witnesses, was placed m one of those " scaled packets " without which no case of a disputed succession would bo complete. lii ISO 7 Lady Vane had another ; son, Frederick Honry, who was the plaintiff m the suit before the Court. But lils' elder brother, Francis, was always trc'ated as r the heir. When Francis came of age, v -inr 1818, he joined with his father m the resettlement of the estates, andhe was described m the deed as the "son and heir apparent" of of Sir Frederick. ' A private Act of Parliament having been required m the same year to authorise the sale of a part of the estates, a certificate that Francis was legitimate came before the House of Lords, and it was deemed satisfactory. In 1823 he ''married Mies Diana Bciiuclerk, and again his legitimacy was. assumed m the marriage settlement. Knowing, 1 -however, that two of Sir Frederick's children had been born out of wedlock, Miss Bcauclerk's father naturally wished to have tlic legitimacy of his daughter's husband made as clear as possible, and hence, -it is supposed, the fact that eight days after the marriage, Sir Frederick Vane formally entered the date of his son's birth at the Herald's College. On two occasions his mother also attested that he had been. born after her marriage. One was m 1833, when a part of the family estates was sold, and the purchaser required some 'further evidence of birth than the entry ia the register of baptism. L ady Vane then gave the requisite evidence on oath. On the. eve of her son's forty-third birthday she confirmed that testimony m a letter to himself. Atthe death of his father, m 1832, he succeeded to the title and property without having to .encounter a single challenge. In 1842 he himself died, and ho was peacefully succeeded by his son, Sir Henry Ralph Vane, the present owner. As the Statute of Limitations makes twenty years of possession a sufficient title to ownership, unless rival claimant's have been minors or married women, 'or the tenure has ; been vitiated by fraud.the family might seem to have long outlived any of the fears which lie'in a writ of eipp.bno.nt. ■ ' . The plaintiff, Frederick Vane.the youngest son of the ];ite baWmot, endeavoured to; prove that the birth , took place before the n?arring3, and endeavoured to shew that his mother hau stated as much to several persons. He m ide a claim -to : the estates' in 1872. The /A T ice<Ohanccllor regarded the case .as one, of the most hopeiess cases that had ever come before the Court. !