Earl of Wemyss

[2] In 1672 David resigned his peerages to the Crown in return for a new patent with original precedency and extending the limitation to his daughters.

She married as her first husband her third cousin twice removed Sir James Wemyss, Lord Burntisland.

On his death the titles passed to his second but eldest surviving son James, the fifth Earl.

Their eldest son David, Lord Elcho, was implicated in the Jacobite rising of 1745, and was consequently attainted.

[2] On his father's death in 1756 he was not allowed to succeed to the peerages, but nonetheless assumed the title of Earl of Wemyss.

Lord Elcho died childless and the peerages would have but for the attainder devolved upon his younger brother Francis, the soi disant seventh Earl, who nevertheless assumed the title.

[4] In 1810, upon the death of William Douglas, 4th Duke of Queensberry and 3rd Earl of March, Francis Wemyss-Charteris succeeded as fourth Earl of March, fourth Viscount of Peebles and fourth Lord Douglas of Neidpath, Lyne and Munard as the lineal heir male of the aforementioned Lady Anne Douglas, sister of the first Earl of March (see below).

Frederick William Charteris (1833–1887), third son of the ninth Earl, was a captain in the Royal Navy.

Sir Evan Edward Charteris (1864–1940), sixth son of the tenth Earl, was a historian, biographer and barrister and notably published biographies of John Singer Sargent and of Edmund Gosse.

Hugo Charteris (1922–1970), grandson of the eleventh Earl, was a renowned post-war novelist and screenwriter.

The heir apparent is his only son (Francis) Richard Charteris, Lord Elcho (born 1984), a lawyer.

Neidpath Castle
Elcho Castle
Townhouse at 64 Queen Street, Edinburgh