Mar

Mar was one of the seven ancient kingdoms or provinces of Scotland whose rulers were known by the title of ‘mormaer’. Its territory lay in that part of Aberdeenshire largely between the Rivers Don and Dee. Donald, Mormaer of Mar, fought at the Battle of Clontarf, where the High King of Ireland, Brian Boru, drove back the invading Norsemen in 1014. In the charter erecting the Abbey of Scone in 1114, the Mormaer of Mar is named as Rothri, and he is given the Latin title ‘Comes’ which generally equates to the modern rank of earl. Rothri was succeeded by Morgund, second Earl of Mar, who witnessed, some time before 1152, charters to the Abbey of Dunfermline. William, the fifth Earl, was one of the Regents of Scotland and Great Chamberlain of the Realm in 1264. His son, Donald, was knighted at Scone by Alexander III in September 1270. He witnessed the marriage contract of Princess Margaret of Scotland with King Eric of Norway, and later acknowledged Eric’s daughter, Margaret, the Maid of Norway, as the lawful heir to the throne. When the child died at Orkney on her way to claim her kingdom, events were set in motion which were ultimately to lead to the field of Bannockburn.

The Earls of Mar supported the Bruce claim to the throne, and Donald’s eldest daughter, Isabel of Mar, became the first wife of Robert the Bruce. Her brother, Gratney, the seventh Earl, married Robert’s sister, Christian, further strengthening the Bruce alliance. Gratney died around 1305, leaving an only son, Donald, to succeed to the earldom. He was captured at Methven in 1306 and taken as a hostage to England, where he remained in captivity throughout the struggle for Scotland’s freedom. He was released after the victory at Bannockburn, when several prisoners, including the wife, sister and daughter of King Robert, were exchanged for the Earl of Hereford. In 1332 Mar was chosen to be regent of the kingdom, a post he held for only ten days. On the eve of his election, Edward Balliol appeared in the Forth with an English fleet. Meeting little opposition, Balliol marched into Perth while Mar hurriedly gathered his troops to confront the invaders on the banks of the River Earn. Balliol’s forces were heavily outnumbered, but the Scots army lacked discipline and effective leadership. In the dead of night, on 12 August 1332, the English crossed the river by a secret ford and fell upon the Scots army in their sleep, routing them totally. The Earl of Mar was among the fallen. Thomas, the ninth Earl, died without issue, and the title passed to his sister, Margaret, and through her, to her daughter, Isabel. She took as her second husband Alexander Stewart, the natural son of the feared Wolf of Badenoch. She granted the life-rent of the earldom to her Stewart husband, but reserved succession to her own lawful heirs. She died without issue around 1407, and her kinsman, Robert, a descendent of Elyne, daughter of the seventh Earl, became de jure’ thirteenth Earl of Mar. His son, Thomas, was denied his lawful title when James II claimed the earldom through the alleged rights of Alexander Stewart, Countess Isabel’s husband.

The title was then bestowed firstly on the king’s son, Prince John, and later, in 1562, on James Stewart, the illegitimate half-brother of Mary, Queen of Scots. In 1565 Queen Mary granted a charter to John, eighteenth Earl, restoring the title. The queen declared that she was ‘moved by conscience to restore the lawful heirs to their just inheritance of which they have been kept out by obstinate and partial Rulers and Officers’.

John, the twentieth Earl, was appointed governor of Edinburgh Castle in 1615. He was also a judge of the Supreme Court until 1630. The earls were not supporters of Charles I’s religious policies, but when it became clear that support of the Covenant meant armed opposition to the king, both the earl and his eldest son, John, Lord Erskine, took up arms in the royalist cause. The earl entertained Montrose in 1645 in his castle at Alloa. Lord Erskine accompanied the king’s captain general and rode at the Battle of Kilsyth in August 1645. The family estates were forfeited until Charles II came to the throne in 1660. Charles, the twenty-second Earl, raised the 21st Regiment of Foot, or Royal Scots Fusiliers, in 1679, and became its first colonel. John, the twenty-third Earl, was created Duke of Mar in 1715 by the exiled James VIII, although for his Jacobite loyalties all his Scottish honours were ultimately forfeited. The earldom was restored to John, twenty-fourth of Mar, by Act of Parliament in 1824. In 1875 the House of Lords ruled that the title of Earl of Mar claimed by Walter Erskine, twelfth Earl of Kellie, was different from the ancient dignity of Mar. There is accordingly an Earl of ‘Mar and Kellie’, the chief of the Erskines, who should not be confused with the Countess of Mar.