Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 | Page 8

the other hand, holding the keys in her hand,
and declaring herself to be of "mature advice," chose the said
Alexander for her husband, and gave him the castle, the Earldom of
Mar, with all the other family estates in her possession. She afterwards
conferred these gifts by a charter, signed and sealed in the open fields,
in the presence of the Bishop of Ross, and of her whole tenantry, in
order to show that these acts were produced by no unlawful coercion on
the part of her husband. The said honours and estates were also to
descend to any children born in that marriage. Some of her kindred
listened resentfully to the account of these proceedings of Isabel of
Mar.
The next heir to the Earldom, after the death of Isabel, was Janet,
grand-daughter of Gratney, eleventh Earl of Mar. This lady had married
Sir Thomas Erskine, the proprietor of the Barony of Erskine, on the
Clyde, the property of the family during many ages; and she expected,
on the death of the Countess of Mar, to succeed to the honours which
had descended to her by the female line. By a series of unjust and
rapacious acts on the part of the Crown, not only did Robert, Lord
Erskine, her son, fail in securing his rights, but her descendants had the
vexation of seeing their just honours and rights revert to the King,
James the Third, who bestowed them first upon his brother, the
accomplished and unfortunate John Earl of Mar, who was bled to death
in one of the houses of the Canongate, in Edinburgh; and afterwards,
upon Cochrane, the favourite of James the Third. The Earldom of Mar

was then conferred on Alexander Stewart, the third son of King James;
and after his death, upon James Stewart, Prior of St. Andrews, who had
a charter from his sister, Queen Mary, entitling him to enjoy the long
contested honour. But he soon relinquished the title, to assume that of
Moray, which had also been bestowed upon him by the Queen: and in
1565 Mary repaired the injustice committed by her predecessors, and
restored John Lord Erskine to the Earldom of Mar.
The house of Erskine, on whom these honours now descended, has the
same traditional origin as that of most of the other Scottish families of
note. In the days of Malcolm the Second, a Scottish man having killed
with his own hand Enrique, a Danish general, presented the head of the
enemy to his Sovereign, and, holding in his hand the bloody dagger
with which the deed had been performed, exclaimed, in Gaelic, "Eris
Skyne," alluding to the head and the dagger; upon which the surname
of Erskine was imposed on him. The armorial bearing of a hand
holding a dagger, was added as a further distinction, together with the
motto, Je pense plus, in allusion to the declaration of the chieftain that
he intended to perform even greater actions than that which procured
him the name which has since been so celebrated in Scottish history.
The crest and motto are still borne by the family.
This anecdote has, however, been rejected for the more probable
conjecture that the family of Erskine derived its appellation from the
estate of Erskine on the Clyde:[7] yet it is not impossible but that
tradition may, in most cases, have a deeper source than we are willing
to allow to it. "There are few points in ancient history," observes a
modern writer, "on which more judgment is required than in the
amount of weight due to tradition. In general it will be found that the
tradition subsisting in the families themselves has a true basis to rest
upon, however much it may be overloaded with collateral matter which
obscures it."[8]
But that which ennobled most truly the first Earl of Mar, of the house
of Erskine, was his own probity, loyalty, and patriotism. Destined
originally to the church, John, properly sixth Earl of Mar, carried into
public life those virtues which would have adorned the career of a

private individual. In the melancholy interest of Queen Mary's eventful
life, it is consolatory to reflect on the integrity and moderation of this
exemplary nobleman. Too good and too sensitive for his times, he died
of a broken heart, the result of that inward and incurable sorrow which
the generous and the honest experience, when their hopes and designs
are baffled by the selfish policy of their own party. "He was, perhaps,"
says Robertson, "the only person in the kingdom who could have
enjoyed the office of Regent without envy, and have left it without loss
of reputation."[9]
From the restoration of John Earl of Mar to his family honours, until
the reign of Charles the First, the prosperity of this loyal and favoured