Alexander Fitton

Sir Alexander Fitton (c.1630–1698), sometimes known by his Jacobite title Baron Fitton of Gawsworth, was an Irish barrister and judge, who became Lord Chancellor of Ireland under James II of England, despite having spent many years in prison for a criminal offence.

Family and early career Fitton was the second son of William Fitton of Awrice (or Awne), County Limerick and his wife Eva Trevor, daughter of Sir Edward Trevor of Brynkynallt, Chirk, Denbighshire and Rostrevor, County Down, and his second wife Rose Ussher, daughter of Henry Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh. who testified that he had forged the deed on Fitton's behalf. Fitton proceeded to make a serious mistake in publishing a pamphlet directly accusing Gerard of winning the case by bribing and threatening witnesses, and including what purported to be Granger's confession that he had committed perjury. Fitton was perhaps unaware that to libel a peer was scandalum magnatum, a criminal offence. The House of Lords took a serious view of the matter: Fitton was fined £500 and committed to the King's Bench Prison until if ever he produced Granger to contradict Gerard's allegations against Fitton. came to nothing, as did an attempt to prosecute Gerard's witnesses for perjury. The disgrace of Gerard, now Earl of Macclesfield, who supported the Exclusion Bill and was later suspected of complicity in the Monmouth Rebellion, encouraged Fitton to make one last effort to recover Gawsworth; his case was dismissed for undue delay. The affair however caused the new King James II to look favourably on Fitton.

Lord Chancellor of Ireland In 1687 the Irish Lord Chancellor Sir Charles Porter expressed reservations about the King's policy of religious toleration and was dismissed; while Richard Nagle, the Attorney General for Ireland, a Roman Catholic, put forward his own claim to the office, James was persuaded that Fitton, a Protestant, would be a better choice. Fitton thought it advisable nonetheless to convert to Catholicism. His salary was increased by £500 to £1500 per annum, and a once-off payment of £1250 from the secret service fund. He also received a knighthood. As Lord Chancellor, he was accused of ignorance, prejudice and bias against Protestants, although some historians have questioned the accuracy of these charges.

When James II arrived in Ireland following the Glorious Revolution of 1688, Fitton presided over the Patriot Parliament of 1689; he was given a barony in the Jacobite peerage and chose the title Baron Fitton of Gawsworth. When James fled Ireland after the Battle of the Boyne, Fitton was appointed a Lord Justice of Ireland, alongside Francis Plowden and Richard Nagle, and acted on behalf of the King in his absence. The following year he joined James in France, although it is unclear if any proceedings were pending against him. He died at St. Germain without a male heir in 1698, at which point his Jacobite title became extinct.

Character Fitton has been judged harshly both by contemporaries and by later historians, especially Thomas Macaulay, who dismissed Fitton as a "pettifogger" without legal ability or commonsense, and unfit by reason of his imprisonment for libel and the strong suspicion that he was guilty of forgery as well to hold any office. William King, Archbishop of Dublin, who knew him personally, said that Fitton could not understand the merits of any difficult case, and so decided them all on the basis of his own prejudices.

On the accusation of forgery, the safest view is that Gerard and Fitton were both guilty of it; Elrington Ball remarks that "bad as Fitton's character may have been, it can scarcely have been worse than that of Lord Gerard".