John Erskine, 22nd Earl of Mar
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John Erskine, 22nd and de jure 6th Earl of Mar (1675 - May 1732), Scottish Jacobite, was the eldest son of the 21st Earl of Mar (who died in 1689), from whom he inherited estates that were heavily loaded with debt. By modern reckoning he was 22nd Earl of Mar of the original (c. 1114) creation and 6th Earl of Mar of the 1565 creation, and is sometimes also termed 11th Earl of Mar.
He was associated with a party favourable to the Government, was one of the Commissioners for the Union, and was made a Scottish Secretary of State; becoming, after the Union of 1707, a representative peer for Scotland, Keeper of the Signet and a Privy Counsellor. In 1713 Mar was made a British Secretary of State by the Tories, but he seems to have been equally ready to side with the Whigs and, in 1714, he assured the new King, George I, of his loyalty. However, like the other Tories, he was deprived of his office, and in August 1715 he went in disguise to Scotland and placed himself at the head of the Jacobite adherents of James Edward, the Old Pretender.
Meeting many Highland chieftains at Aboyne, he avowed an earnest desire for the independence of Scotland and, at Braemar on 6 September 1715, he proclaimed "James VIII" King of Scotland, England, France and Ireland, thus beginning the '15 Jacobite rising. Gradually the forces under his command were augmented, but as a general he was a complete failure. Precious time was wasted at Perth, a feigned attack on Stirling was resultless, and he could give little assistance to the English Jacobites. At Sheriffmuir, where a battle was fought in November 1715, Mar's forces largely outnumbered those of his opponent, the Duke of Argyll; but no bravery could atone for the signal incompetence displayed by Lord Mar, and the fight was virtually a decisive defeat for the Jacobites.
Mar then met James Edward at Fetteresso; the cause however was lost, and Mar and the Prince fled to France. Mar sought to interest foreign powers in the cause of the Stuarts; but in the course of time he became thoroughly distrusted by the Jacobites. In 1721 he accepted a pension of £3500 a year from George I, and in the following year his name was freely mentioned in connection with the trial of Bishop Atterbury, whom it was asserted that Mar had betrayed. This charge may perhaps be summarised as not proven. At the best his conduct was highly imprudent, and in 1724 he left the Pretender's service. His later years were spent in Paris and at Aix-la-Chapelle, where he died.
Mar, who was known as "Bobbing John", married, for his second wife, Lady Frances Pierrepont (who died in 1761), daughter of the 1st Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull, and was thus a brother-in-law of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. He had been attainted in 1716, and his only son, Thomas, Lord Erskine, died childless in March 1766.
Mar's brother James Erskine was a noted judge.
The progressive rock band Genesis wrote a song, "Eleventh Earl of Mar" (found on their Wind & Wuthering album), about Mar.
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition article "John Erskine, 6th or 11th Earl of Mar", a publication now in the public domain.
