MAR, EARLDOM OF. Mar, one of the ancient divisions of Scotland, comprised the larger portion of Aberdeenshire, ex tending from north of the Don southward to the Mounth. Like other such districts, it was in Celtic times under the rule of a mormaer. In the 12th century his place was taken by an earl, but no definite succession of earls appears till the 13th century. Earl Gratney (fl. c. 1300) married a sister of (King) Robert Bruce, who brought him the lordship of Garioch and castle of Kildrummy, which she held against the earl of Athole, an ally of the English (1335). Their son Donald was made regent in July 1332, but was defeated and slain at Dupplin next month. His daughter and eventual heir, Margaret, brought the earldom to her husband, William, earl of Douglas, and on the accession of her daughter Isabel a troublous time followed. While she was living as a widow at her castle of Kildrummy, it was stormed by Alexander Stewart, a bastard, who forced her to execute a charter (Aug. 1404) settling the reversion to the earldom on himself and his heirs. This act she revoked by a charter of September 1404, but on marrying him in December, she granted him the earldom for life, the king confirming this in June 1405. After her death in 1408 the earl commanded the royal forces at the battle of Harlaw, when the Lord of the Isles was defeated in 1411, and afterwards acted as warden of the Marches.
In 1426 he resigned the earldom to the Crown, the king grant ing it by a fresh creation to him and certain heirs, with reversion to the Crown. In the following centuries the earldom had a complicated and chequered history, the title eventually remaining in the Erskine family. As a result of the attainder of the 11th earl, John (1675-1732), a prominent Jacobite (see below), the earldom remained under forfeiture for 108 years.
Alloa and other Erskine estates of the attainted earl were re purchased for the family, and descended to John Francis Erskine (1741-1825), his heir-male, who was also his heir of line through his daughter. To him, in his 83rd year, as grandson and lineal representative of the attainted earl, the earldom was restored by act of parliament. His grandson, who succeeded him in 1828, inherited the earldom of Kellie (1619) and other Erskine dig nities by decision of 1835. At his death in 1866, his earldom of Mar was the subject of rival claims, and the right to the succession was not determined till 1875. For the prolonged proceedings for the settlement of this case, in which the decision of the House of Lords (Feb. 25, 1875), in favour of the late earl's cousin and heir-male, was reversed by a special act, the Earldom of Mar Restitution act in 1885, in favour of the son of the late earl's cousin, J. F. E. Goodeve (Erskine), see the authorities quoted below.