Are there two Earls of Mar

20 Are there Two Earls of Mar?
Peerage had been created in 1567, or thereabouts, the ranking
in 1606 would have been according to that date, instead of
which it was according to the prior date of the earlier title."
The parallelism here is striking between a presumptive new
creation of Herries in 1567 and the "must-have-been" new
"creation" of Mar in 1565. Yet how differently has the
corresponding evidence in the Mar case produced against Lord
Kellie's presumptive new " creation " been treated !
Q. I quite see that this Earldom of Mar ranked in 1606, the
right to which was admitted through female succession derived
from Janet, the heiress of Mar, who married a Sir Thomas
Erskine, and is hence totally independent of one drop of
Erskine blood, can have no identity with a new Mar title
created for an Erskine, and restricted to the heirs-male of the
Erskines. Why, the two titles have nothing in common but
the name ?
A. That is all; and, of course, it follows that the old Mar
title, the only one known and ranked by the Decreet of 1606,
is the only one that has been recognised by the sovereigns of
Scotland and England ever since.
On perusal of the " Judgment " it will be noticed that the
Committee, in their anxiety to extinguish the old Mar dignity *
try and treat the various Royal Charters, Acts of Parliament,
etc., which for centuries have been regarded as showing the
continued existence of the ancient title of Mar, as relating
merely to the lands. But here is proof positive that the King
and the Commissioners in 1606, who were ranking not lands
but titles, and also Lord Mar's brother Peers (who would not
have quietly suffered a new Earl of a creation of 1565, or only
forty years previously, to have been put over their heads), all
admitted the heir of the Countess Isabel of 1404 to be then
(1606) in right of and in possession of the ancient dignity held
by her, and he was ranked accordingly.
Yet, in face of this fact, Lord Chelmsford is pleased to assert
that this old Mar dignity " had in some way or other come to
an end more than a century before Queen Mary's time."
I must observe that neither Sutherland nor Mar get their
* It is generally considered that Peerages can become extinct solely through
failure of heirs, or by the lawful resignation of the rightful heir, or by an attain
unremoved, in neither of which positions the ancient Peerage of Mar stands.