PREMIER SCOTS PEER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 234, 3 October 1932, Page 7

PREMIER SCOTS PEER.

EARL OF MAR PASSES. • (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, October 2. The death ha« occurred of the Earl of Mar, premier Scottish Earl, aged 64. He was th§ 34th Earl. An adventurous story is contained in the traditions of the Earldom of Mar. Descent is traced in the female line to Gratney, Earl of Mar, who had married a sister of King Robert I. of Scotland. In the male line descent is traced to Henry de Eiskine, or Areskine, proprietor of a barony in Renfrewshire in the time of Alexander 11. Becoming invested in the Crown, the Earldom of Mar was, in 1562, bestowed by Mary, Queen of Scots, upon her half-brother, Lord James Stuart. He exchanged it for the earldom of Moray, and three years later the sixth Lord Erskine, heir of the old male line, received a patent of the "entire title? and estates of the earldom of Mar." Both he and his son were Regent of Scotland in turn. A later earl was deprived of his lands and estates for participating in the rebellion of 1715, his eon purchasing them without being able to use the title. Over 100 years later this action was reversed, but when the male line failed in 1866 the title was declared to belong to the Eari of Kellie. However, in 1885 it was conferred again on John Francis Erskine Goodeve Erskine, who thus became the thirty-third earl. He was the father of John Francis Hamilton Sinclair Cunliffe Brooks Forbes Goodeve Erskine, who succeeded to the title in 1930 at the age of 62, and whose death is now reported. He was 17 when the earldom came back into the family. His mother had been Lady Frances Jemima Erskine, the nearest heir to the old female line of Gratney.