 Debate continues over this report.Harcourt did not receive the confession directly (he was nine when Macleod died) but rather, it passed (if it did) from Macleod's sister to the wife of Henry Ponsonby, the Queen's private secretary, and thence to Harcourt's father Sir William Harcourt, then Home Secretary.Harcourt served as Home Secretary in the final three years of Brown's life.