Are there two Earls of Mar

Are there Two Earls of Mar ? 2 1
full precedence in 1606, being ranked (as the Decreet enjoins)
only " according to the antiquity of the documents then pro-
duced," no more.
However, shortly after this they each began to make formal
protests for their higher precedency, and from 1639 there are
seventeen recorded protests to be premier Earl of Scotland
(through female succession) made by the Earls of Mar, includ-
ing the last Peer, who died in 1866. Little could they have
dreamt that, in 1875, one of their own kin, Lord Kellie, hold-
ing all the Mar deeds, and many proofs of the antiquity and
continued existence of the old Mar title, would attempt to sup-
plant it, and obtain for himself a new and unknown title of the
same name !
To continue the history of the ancient Mar Earldom, to
which Lord Kellie, being the heir-male, does and can lay no
claim, we see it formally given by the Decreet in 1606, its old
rank from 1404 (or more than a century before Lord Kellie's
new Mar title, "created in 1565 "), and this ancient Earldom
was officially recognised as still existing, by the Parliament of
the United Kingdom at the " Union " in 1707, and then placed
on the " Union Roll " of Scotch Peers with its old precedence,
as in the Decreet of Ranking.
I need scarcely add that Lord Kellie's new title of Mar is
NOT ON THE " UNION ROLL."
The ancient title of Mar, accepted by Parliament in 1707 as
the only one in existence, was attainted in 17 15 by Act of
Parliament, and the old Mar estates confiscated through Lord
Mar's espousing the cause of the Stuarts.
In 1824 this old title was restored by Act of Parliament.
As a preliminary to this restoration, the Law Officers of the
Crown made formal inquiry into the pedigree, and their
inquiry shews that the sole ground of Lord Mar's restoration
was, that he was the legitimate son of his mother, Lady
Frances, who was the only surviving child of the attainted Earl.
Now, this restored Earl's mother had married her cousin,
who afterwards became the heir-male of the Erskine family ;
so now was the time if the title about to be restored were
limited to heirs-male, as Lord Kellie pretends, to see the right
admitted through male heirship, and of course the female heir-
ship disregarded.