Proceedings in the case of Earldom of Mar

the principle which found expression in the recent Act o f
Parliament of 1885, restoring the title of the old Earldom
of Mar.
It may well be called old. According to the learned
Judge and antiquarian Lord Hailes, it was " one of those
Earldoms whose origin is lost in its antiquity." It existed
before our records, and before the era of genuine history.
Apart from earlier Irish records, the first Scotch
charter in which the name appears is of the date 1065.
Martacus witnessed one granted by Malcolm Canmore.
Indeed, if it had not been for this ancient custom of
getting as many as possible attesting seals of great men
to documents executed by their equals or by the Kmg,
there would be a gap in many genealogies.
So the line went on like a vein through Scotch history,
through Gratnach and Morgundus to William, in 1258 one
of the Regents of Scotland, and Lady Isabel married to
King Robert the 1st, and Lady Elyne, through whom the
Erskines inherited by intermarriage.
Donald, the 12th Earl, Douglas informs us, was weighed
together with a daughter of Bruce and the Bishop of
Glasgow against the Earl of Hereford in an exchange of
prisoners. He, in 1332, was Regent of Scotland. The
last Earl of the direct male line was Thomas, the thirteenth;
Margaret his sister came after him ; she w r as married to
William Earl Douglas, and her son was the Lord James
who was killed at Otterbourne.
After Margaret came her daughter Isabella, a monu-
ment of the turbulent domestic history of those times.
She was torn away by Alexander Stewart, the illegitimate
son of the Earl of Buchan, taken with her castle of
Kildrummie, and compelled to execute in August, 1404, a
deed of renunciation of all her estates in favour of her
enforced husband and Ms heirs. This Alexander Stewart,
Earl of Mar through his wife, distinguished himself better
afterwards in public life, and fell at the battle of Harlaw.
He had a natural son, Thomas, who died before him.