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CAMERON OF LOCHIEL 313

MEMOIRS OF THE JACOBITES.

JOHN ERSKINE, EARL OF MAR.

"The title of Mar," observes Lord Hailes, "is one of the Earldoms whose
origin is lost in its antiquity." It existed before our records, and
before the era of general history: hence, the Earls of Mar claimed
always to be called first in the Scottish Parliament in the roll of
Earls, as having no rival in the antiquity of their honours.

From the time of Malcolm Canmore, in the year 1065, until the fourteenth
century, the family of De Mar enjoyed this Earldom; but on the death of
Thomas, the thirteenth Earl of Mar, in 1377, the direct male line of
this race ended. The Earldom then devolved upon the female
representatives of the house of De Mar; and thence, as in most similar
instances in Scotland, it became the subject of contention, fraud, and
violence.

Isabel, Countess of Mar and Garioch, the last of the De Mar family, was
won in marriage by a singular and determined species of courtship,
formerly common in Scotland; the influence of terror. The heiress of the
castle of Kildrummie, and a widow, her first husband, Sir Malcolm
Drummond, having died in 1403, her wealth and rank attracted the regards
of Alexander Stewart, the natural son of Robert Earl of Buchan, of royal
blood. Without waiting for the ordinary mode of persuasion to establish
an interest in his favour, this wild, rapacious man appeared in the
Highlands at the head of a band of plunderers, and planting himself
before the castle of Kildrummie, stormed it, and effected a marriage
between himself and the Countess of Mar. Alexander Stewart, in cooler
moments, however, perceived the danger of this bold measure, and
resolved to establish his right to the Countess and to her estates by
another process. One morning, during the month of September 1404, he
presented himself at the Castle gate of Kildrummie, and formally
surrendered to the Countess the castle, its furniture, and the
title-deeds kept within its chests; thus returning them to her to do
with them as she pleased. The Countess, on 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, signe