Douglas book > Angus memoirs

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LADY MAEGAEET STEWART, COUNTESS OF ANGUS.
A T the time of her father's death in 1361 Lady Margaret Stewart was
-*--*- very young, perhaps a girl of seven years old. Between 1361 and
1374 she became the wife of Thomas, thirteenth Earl of Mar, who had
divorced his former wife, Margaret, Countess of Menteith, 1 on account, it is
alleged, of her bearing no issue to Mm. He was not more fortunate in
Lady Margaret Stewart, and she was left a widow by his death about 1374.
As the charter or instrument of creation of the title of Earl of Angus in
favour of her grandfather, John Stewart, the first Earl of Angus, is lost,
and its terms unknown, it is uncertain whether the dignity was limited
to heirs-male or extended to heirs-female. Until 1379, Margaret, Countess
of Mar, and her sister, Lady Elizabeth Stewart, enjoyed the Angus estates in
common, and exercised a joint superiority over them ; but in that year King
Robert the Second confirmed an arrangement made between the sisters,
whereby the younger, Elizabeth, surrendered to Margaret, the elder, all her
rights as co-heir with her of their father. 2 Lady Margaret thereupon assumed
the style of Countess of Angus and Mar, and she so designates herself in a
private charter which she afterwards granted to her sister and her husband,
Alexander Hamilton, of the lands of Innerwick in Haddingtonshire. 3 Prior
to the king's confirmation of this arrangement with her sister, Lady Margaret
merely styles herself Countess of Mar, and daughter of the late Thomas
1 The Red Book of Menteith, by William 3 Charter undated, but confirmed by King
Fraser, vol. i. pp. 121-124. Robert the Second on 10th April 13S9.
2 18th February 1378-9. Antiquities of [Vol. iii. of this work.]
Aberdeenshire, vol. iv. p. 100.