Paper on the Mar peerage

13
the date 1457 was fixed for the Mar title, have vanished.
The wonder is that so much has been recovered from the
darkness. Lord Redesdale conjectured that the Earl,
having got an earlier date inserted than he was entitled
to, and a higher place, burnt his ladders to prevent being
found out in future.
At the close of this long enquiry in February, 1875,
Lords Chelmsford and Redesdale delivered elaborate
opinions, which had the weighty concurrence of Earl
Cairns, the Lord Chancellor, in the form of advice to the
Committee of Privileges, who reported their resolution to
the House of Lords, who ordered it to be " reported to
Her Majesty by the Lords with white staves."
The opinions of the two first-nanied Lords, very briefly,
were that the Earl of Kellie had made good his claim to
the Earldom of Mar created by Queen Mary in 1565, and
that there was not any other Earldom existing, that the
dignity thus created was descendible to the heirs male,
and that the Earl of Kellie was such heir male. The Lord
Chancellor felt " compelled " to come to the same conclu-
sion. It was doubted whether Margaret and Isabella had
ever been Countesses of Mar at all in then- own right ;
and, even if they had, that that old title had somehow or
another come to an end, and that the effect of Queen
Mary's charter of 1565 was to create a new dignity— the
old body with a new soul. It was considered that this
charter conferring the Earl-lands did not, indeed, in itself
confer any dignity, but that there must have been some
separate patent ensuing immediately on it which was not
forthcoming, or that by a ceremony of " belting " Lord
Erskine was made Earl of Mar.
The Committee held that they were bound to follow
certain former decisious of the House of Lords in Scotch
peerage cases, and that the presumption of descent was in
favour of heirs male, and therefore in favour of the Earl of
Kellie. This was a " killing decree," after a most exhaus-
tive enquiry on the whole merits of the two claims. The