Alexander Fitton

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

[1] His wife was a considerable heiress, and as a result of the fortune she brought him Alexander was soon able to pay off the mortgage on the family's Limerick estates, which he inherited on the death of his brother Edward.

[1] Since he almost immediately became embroiled in the Gawsworth inheritance claim, it is unclear if he ever practised as a barrister, which later led to questions about his suitability for judicial office, quite apart from the obvious objection that he had spent much of his adult life in prison.

In 1641 Edward made a settlement creating an entail in favour of William and his male heirs, subject to the right of his widow Felicia to reside at Gawsworth for her lifetime.

Inevitably, he laid claim to Gawsworth, bringing a lawsuit in the Court of Chancery in which he exhibited a will supposedly made by Sir Edward Fitton just before his death bequeathing the property to Gerard.

[3] 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.

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.

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.

[1] However O'Flanagan, writing in 1870, took a more favourable view, stating that he had examined Fitton's judicial decrees and found in them no evidence of ignorance or incapacity; on the contrary, they appeared to be the work of an experienced equity judge.