Earl of Mar
In 1435 the earldom was seized by King James II (16 October 1430 – 3 August 1460), and was then granted to several royal children, who produced no heirs.
In 1875, the House ruled that the earldom given to John Erskine in 1565 was the seventh creation, not a continuation of the first, and that it should pass to heirs male.
Lionel Erskine-Young, 29th Earl of Mar (1891–1965) was a co-founder of the Royal Stuart Society to continue support for the Jacobite succession.
Mar expanded north past the River Don to become the region of Marr, which merged with Buchan to form the county of Aberdeenshire.
Some modern sources give earlier mormaers, i.e. Muirchertach (Latinized as Martachus) and Gartnait (sometimes Gratnach), mentioned respectively in charters of the reigns of king Máel Coluim III (relating to the Céli Dé establishment of Loch Leven) and king Alexander I (relating to the monastic establishment of Scone), though in these cases certain identification with a particular province is difficult.
The accounts of the Battle of Clontarf in some of the Irish annals name Domnall mac Eimín meic Cainnig, Mormaer of Mar, as among those killed in 1014 alongside Brian Boru.
The Mormaerdom comprised the larger portion of modern Aberdeenshire, extending from north of the River Don southward to the Mounth hills.
The issue remained unresolved until 1457, when James II obtained a court order declaring the lands as crown possessions.
Moray rebelled in 1565 (see Chaseabout Raid) in protest at the marriage of Mary, Queen of Scots, and Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley.
His son, also named John, recovered the Mar estates, alienated by the Crown during the long period that his family had been out of possession.
Meanwhile, it was assumed that the Earldom of Mar passed to John Francis Goodeve, the late Earl's nephew, and his heir general.
However, the Earl of Kellie submitted a petition to the House of Lords asking that the Earldom of Mar be declared his, dying before it could be considered.
His son, the thirteenth Earl of Kellie, renewed the petition, and the Lords referred it to their Committee on Privileges.
He argued: The House of Lords Committee on Privileges ruled in 1875, to the dissatisfaction of many, that the Earldom of Mar was newly created in 1565, passed only to heirs-male, and therefore belonged to the Earl of Kellie, and not to Goodeve Erskine.
The Lord Chancellor, Roundell Palmer, 1st Baron Selborne, declared it to be "final, right or wrong, and not to be questioned".
