Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Erskine, John (d.1572)
ERSKINE, JOHN, sixth Lord Erskine, and first or sixth Earl of Mar of the Erskine line (d. 1572), regent of Scotland, was the third and eldest surviving son of John, fifth lord Erskine, and Lady Margaret Campbell, daughter of Archibald, second earl of Argyll. The family traced their descent in the female line from Gratney, earl of Mar (successor of the ancient Mormaers of Mar), who married Christiana Bruce, sister of Robert I. In the male line they had as a progenitor Henry de Erskine or Areskine, who was proprietor of the barony of that name in Renfrewshire as early as the reign of Alexander II. His descendant, Sir Thomas Erskine, married Janet Keith, great-granddaughter of Gratney, earl of Mar; and Robert, son of Sir Thomas Erskine, on the death of Alexander Stewart, husband of Isabel, countess of Mar, liferent earl, claimed the title, but the claim was not recognised. The fifth Lord Erskine had a charter in 1525 constituting him captain and constable of the castle of Stirling. He was guardian of James V during his minority, and subsequently of his daughter Mary, afterwards queen of Scotland. Some time before his death in 1552 he had also been keeper of Edinburgh Castle. The sixth Lord Erskine had been educated for the church, and became prospective heir unexpectedly through the death of two brothers. After the death of his father the castle of Edinburgh came into the hands of the Duke of Chatelherault, but when in 1554 he agreed to recognise the regency of the queen dowager, the charge of it was given to the sixth Lord Erskine until the duke should demit his authority to the parliament (Calderwood, History, i. 282). This having been done, the custody of the castle was committed by the parliament to Erskine, with provision that he should deliver it up to none except with the consent of the estates, the proviso being added to guard against the possibility of its falling into the hands of the French. At this time Erskine had not become a supporter of the reformed doctrines, and although he afterwards joined the reformed party, his natural temperament, as well as the position of neutrality which accidental circumstances had assigned him, prevented him from ever assuming the character of a partisan. Along with Lord Lorne, afterwards fifth earl of Argyll, and Lord James Stuart, afterwards earl of Moray, he attended the preaching of Knox at Calder in 1556 (Knox, Works, i. 249), and he also signed the joint letter of these two lords and the Earl of Glencairn inviting Knox in 1557 to return from Geneva (Calderwood, i. 319). At the beginning of the dispute with the queen regent in 1559 he, however, intervened on her behalf to prevent the surrender of Perth (Knox, Works, i. 358), which nevertheless took place on 26 June, and subsequently he appeared on her behalf at the conference at Preston (ib. 369). In all this it is evident that his chief motive was to prevent the miseries of civil war. For himself he recognised that he was bound to maintain a strict neutrality. He therefore permitted the French troops of the queen to enter the city, a proceeding which so much discouraged the lords of the congregation that on 24 July they signed a truce. Knox wrote on 23 Aug. to Crofts that the queen dowager ‘has corrupted (as is suspected) Lord Erskine, captain of the castle, and hopes to receive it’ (State Papers, For. Ser. 1558–9, entry 1234), but the suspicion proved entirely groundless. On 19 Sept. the lords sent him a letter warning him against permitting the queen regent to fortify Leith (Knox, i. 425–7), but he paid no heed to the communication. At last he told them plainly that he could promise them no friendship, but must needs declare himself friend to those that were able to support and defend him (Calderwood, i. 553), whereupon on 5 Nov. they resolved to evacuate the city and retire to Stirling. At the same time he seems to have given them to understand that his sympathies were entirely with them in the struggle with the queen regent (Sadler to Cecil, 8 Nov. 1559, Cal. State Papers, For. Ser. 1559–60, entry 211). Subsequently he declared that he would keep the castle till discharged by parliament (Sadler to Cecil, 5 Dec. 1559, ib. 383), and requested the lords to aid him if need be. At the special request of the queen regent he consented, on the approach of the English army, to receive her into the castle (Calderwood, i. 582), but this was avowedly a mere act of courtesy, and also enabled him to intervene more effectually in the cause of peace, for, as Calderwood remarks, ‘he had both her and the castle at command’ (ib.)
According to Knox, Mar was the ‘chief great man that had professed Christ Jesus’ who refused to subscribe the ‘Book of Discipline’ in 1560 (Works, ii. 128). At his lack of ardour Knox professes to feel no surprise, ‘for besydis that he has a verray Jesabell to his wyffe, yf the poore, the schooles, the ministerie of the kirk had thair awin, his keching wold lack two parttis and more of that whiche he injustlie now possesses’ (ib.) The lady to whom this unflattering epithet was applied by Knox was Annabella Murray, daughter of Sir William Murray of Tullibardine, and of Catherine, daughter of Sir Duncan Campbell of Glenurchy. She had the reputation of being avaricious (Lord Thirlstane's ‘Admonition to my Lord Mar, Regent,’ published in Ancient Scottish Poems, 1786), and subsequently was for a time one of the special friends of Queen Mary, a fact which sufficiently explains Knox's harsh comparison. On the return of Queen Mary in 1561 Erskine was appointed a member of the privy council. He received also a grant of several church lands, but his claims to the earldom of Mar were at first disregarded, and the title was bestowed on Lord James Stuart. Although Erskine favoured Elizabeth's proposal for a marriage between Queen Mary and Leicester (Randolph to Cecil, 24 Dec. 1564, in Keith, History, ii. 260), he, on becoming aware of the sentiments of Mary, cordially supported the marriage with Darnley. In this he was probably influenced by his wife, who was now frequently in Mary's company (Miscellaneous Papers relating to Mary Queen of Scots, Maitland Club, i. 125), and was no doubt anxious to obtain for her husband the earldom of Mar. Both Lord and Lady Erskine were present with the queen in the journey from Perth to Callendar, near Falkirk, when it was rumoured that Argyll and Moray lay in wait for her in Fife in order to prevent the marriage, and Erskine wrote a letter to his nephew Moray asking an explanation of his being at Lochleven, who ascribed it to illness (Randolph to Cecil, 4 July, in Keith, ii. 313–14). Although, in deference to the claims of Erskine, Mary in 1562 changed the earldom conferred on Lord James Stuart from that of Mar to that of Moray, it was not till 23 June 1565 that Erskine received a patent granting to him, his heirs and assignees the entire earldom of Mar, as possessed from ancient times by the Countess Isabel. The patent was ratified by act of parliament on 19 April 1567, which recited that it was ‘disponit’ to him on the ground that he was ‘lauchfullie discendit of the ancient heretouris of the said erledom, and had the undoubtit right thereof’ (Acts Parl. Scot. ii. 549). On account of the right of descent recognised in the patent Erskine and his successors claimed to have precedency of all other earls in Scotland as possessing the most ancient earldom in the kingdom, but in 1875 the House of Lords decided in favour of the Earl of Kellie that the old earldom of Mar had become extinct before its revival in 1565, and that the earldom then conferred on Erskine was a creation and not a restitution or recognition of well-founded claims. The justice of the decision has been much questioned by Scotch lawyers and genealogists (the case as against the Earl of Kellie is exhaustively set forth in the Earl of Crawford's ‘Earldom of Mar in Sunshine and Shade’), and has been practically reversed by the act of parliament (6 Aug. 1885). The newly recognised Earl of Mar was present at the marriage of Mary and Darnley, and he assisted in the suppression of Moray's rebellion, accompanying the king, who led the battle (Reg. Privy Council of Scot. i. 379). On 18 July 1566 he received a charter from Queen Mary and King Henry confirming his captaincy or custody of the castle of Stirling, with the parks, gardens, &c. The accouchement of the queen had taken place in the castle of Edinburgh, of which he was still keeper, and after her recovery she went for change of air, accompanied by him and the Earl of Moray, to his castle near Alloa (Holinshed, Chronicle).
Mar was absolutely free from any connection with the murder either of Rizzio or of Darnley. While lying ill at Stirling shortly before the trial of Bothwell for the latter murder, he consented that his friends should deliver up the castle of Edinburgh to Bothwell (Calderwood, ii. 348). Calderwood asserts that the castle should not have been given up without the consent of the estates, but it is clear that the presence of Mary in Scotland entirely altered the conditions on which it was held by Mar. For delivering it up he received an exoneration from the queen and privy council 19 March 1566–7, and this was confirmed by parliament on 16 April. On the 19th he was confirmed in his captainship of the castle of Stirling, the arrangement having been previously agreed to that he should be there entrusted with the guardianship of the young prince. After Bothwell had got the lords—not, however, including Mar, who was not asked—to sign the bond in favour of his marriage with the queen, Mary, on 26 April, paid a visit to the young prince at Stirling; but Mar, suspecting that she intended if possible to carry him with her to Edinburgh, would permit no one to enter the royal apartments along with her except two of her ladies (ib. ii. 356; Drury to Cecil, 27 April 1567). After the marriage Bothwell made strenuous efforts to get the prince delivered into his hands, ‘bot my lord of Mar,’ says Sir James Melville, ‘wha was a trew nobleman, wuld not delyuer him out of his custody, alleging that he culd not without consent of the thre estaitis’ (Memoirs, 179). Mar applied to Sir James Melville to assist him by his counsel or in any other way he could, who thereupon prevailed upon Sir James Balfour to retain the castle of Edinburgh in his hands and not deliver it up to Bothwell (ib. 180). To gain time Mar at last agreed to deliver up the prince, on condition that an ‘honest, responsible nobleman’ were made captain of the castle of Edinburgh to whom he might be entrusted (ib. 181). Previous to this, however, the nobles, convened secretly at Stirling, had signed the bond for the prince's protection, and soon afterwards they announced their purpose to be revenged on Bothwell as the chief author of the king's murder. Thus the incorruptible integrity of Mar proved the turning-point in the fate of Bothwell and the queen. He was one of the leaders of the forces of the insurgents, was present at the surrender of Mary at Carberrie Hill on 14 June 1567, and on the 16th signed the order for her commitment to Lochleven Castle. He was also one of the council to whom on 24 July she demitted the government. On the 29th the young prince was crowned at Stirling, Mar carrying him in his arms in the procession from the church to his chamber in the castle. Throgmorton, at the instance of Elizabeth, endeavoured to get Mar to interfere on behalf of Mary; but although Mar expressed his desire to do what he could for her by way of persuasion, he told him: ‘To save her life by endangering her son or his estate, or by betraying my marrows, I will never do it, my lord ambassador, for all the gowd in the world’ (Throgmorton to Leicester, 9 Aug. 1567). On the escape of Queen Mary he sent a supply of men from Stirling to the regent, and he was present at the battle of Langside, 13 May 1568 (Calderwood, ii. 415). When the regent Moray was murdered he wrote to Elizabeth informing her of the danger that had thus arisen to the young king of Scotland, and craving her assistance (Cal. State Papers, For. Ser. 1569–71, entry 647). He was one of the noblemen who bore the regent's body at his funeral, and shortly afterwards it was reported that ‘he had fallen sick with sorrow taken for the regent's death’ (ib. entry 677). On 28 April an attempt was made by the Hamiltons to surprise him at Avonbridge, on his way to Edinburgh with a thousand men, but having learned their intention he crossed the river two miles above, and joined the Earl of Morton, who was also on the march to Edinburgh with a thousand foot and five hundred horse (Bannatyne, Memorials, 38; Herries, Memoirs, 126). When the king's party were surprised at Stirling on 3 Sept. 1571, and a number of them taken prisoners, Mar, by planting a party in an unfinished mansion of his own—still standing at the head of the Broad Street, Stirling, and known as Mar's work—and opening fire on the intruders, drove them from the market-place (BUCHANAN, Hist. of Scot.). The regent Lennox having been killed in the fray, Mar was by general consent chosen regent. On the 10th he came to Leith, where he proclaimed Morton lieutenant-general of the forces (Bannatyne, Memorials, 187). Morton, in fact, by his overmastering will, and his close connection with Elizabeth, was already the real governor of Scotland, Mar being the mere instrument, and occasionally an unwilling one, in carrying out Morton's policy. After consulting with Morton, Mar returned to Stirling to collect forces for the siege of Edinburgh Castle, which had been in the hands of the party of Mary since the death of the regent Moray. On the 14th of the following month he arrived at Edinburgh with four thousand men, artillery being sent from Stirling by sea. With this reinforcement he attempted to storm the castle, and made a breach in the walls, but afraid to carry it by assault retired upon Leith, and advised Morton to write to Elizabeth for assistance. It was probably to gratify Elizabeth and induce her to comply with these requests that, under the auspices of Mar, a convention was held at Leith in the following January at which episcopacy was established. For a similar reason, also, Mar unwillingly consented that Northumberland should be delivered up to Elizabeth on payment of 2,000l. to Sir William Douglas [q. v.] nominally for his maintenance in Lochleven. Still Elizabeth hesitated to commit herself, and as she blamed him for standing to too hard terms with them (Elizabeth to the Earl of Mar, 4 July), he at last, ‘for reverence of her majesty’ (Mar to Burghley, 1 Aug.), agreed on 30 July to an ‘abstinence’ for two months (‘Abstinence,’ imprinted at Edinburgh by Thomas Bassandyne, reprinted in Calderwood, Hist. iii. 215–16). On 22 Sept. Mar came to Leith to conduct negotiations, but no agreement was arrived at, and after the duration of the abstinence had been extended for eight days, a continuance was proclaimed on 8 Oct. till 6 Dec. (ib. iii. 225). Mar had employed Sir James Melville to sound the holders of the castle as to their desire for peace, the words of Mar, as quoted by Melville, being to show them ‘not as fra me, that ye vnderstand that I persaue, albeit ouer lait, how that we ar all led opon the yce, and that all gud Scottismen wald fayn agre and satle the estait’ (Memoirs, 247). So highly satisfied, apparently, was Mar with Melville's report, that he agreed to call a meeting of the lords to persuade them to come to an agreement. ‘Meantime,’ adds Melville, ‘vntill the apponted consaill day he past to Dalkeith, where he was will traited and banketed with my lord Mortoun’ (ib. 248). It was at Dalkeith that, on 9 Oct., took place in Morton's bedchamber the remarkable conference between Morton, Mar, and Killigrew, when the latter made the proposal on behalf of Elizabeth for the delivering up of Mary to her enemies in Scotland with a view to her execution (Cecil to Leicester, 9 Oct.) Killigrew reported that he found the regent ‘more cold’ than Morton, but that he yet seemed ‘glad and desirous to have it come to pass’ (Killigrew to Burghley, 9 Oct.). Immediately after the conference Mar retired to Stirling, and Killigrew followed him there on the 16th. Writing from Stirling on the 19th, Killigrew reports: ‘I perceive the regent's first coldness grew rather for want of skill how to compass so great a matter than for lack of good will to execute the same.’ Shortly after the ambassador's interview the regent was seized with a violent sickness, of which he died on 29 Oct. 1572. His illness was attributed by many to a disagreement with Morton in regard to the surrender of the castle (Melville, Memoirs, 249; Historie of James Sext, 120). Being a ‘man of meik and humayne nature, inclynit to all kynd of quyetness and modestie,’ says the author of the ‘Historie of James Sext,’ he, on account of Morton's refusal to come to terms with those in the castle, ‘decreittit na langer to remayne in Edinburgh, and tharefore depairtit to Sterling, whare for greif of mynd he deit.’ Mar had undoubtedly deeper causes for agitation, if not grief, than was suspected by those outside the secret conference.
Mar, in his difficult position as keeper of the young king, succeeded in winning the respect of both parties. The fact that his abilities were not of the highest order rather fitted him than otherwise for this position. As regent he was, however, merely the tool of Morton; for though actuated always in the discharge of his public duties by a high sense of honour, he had neither the force of character nor the power of initiative to enable him to carry out an independent policy in difficult circumstances. His wife, Annabella Murray, described by Knox as a ‘very Jesabell,’ on her husband's death remained along with Alexander Erskine in charge of the young king. She was, says Sir James Melville, ‘wyse and schairp, and held the king in gret aw’ (Memoirs, 262). King James was so sensible of the services she had rendered him that he placed the young Prince Henry under her charge (Birch, Life of Prince Henry, 11). In 1599 she is described as ‘haveng hir body waist and extenuatit by hir former service’ (Reg. Privy Council Scot. vi. 18), but she survived at least to 1602 (ib. 727). They had one son, John [q. v.], who succeeded to the earldom, and a daughter, Mary, who became Countess of Angus. Mar's will is printed in ‘Notes and Queries,’ 4th ser. viii. 321–4.
[Reg. Privy Council of Scotland; State Papers during the reign of Elizabeth; Reports of Hist. MSS. Commission, ii. iii. and v., passim; Knox's Works; Calderwood's Hist. of the Kirk of Scotland; Keith's Hist. of Scotland; Spotiswood's Hist. of the Church of Scotland; Sir James Melville's Memoirs; Richard Bannatyne's Memorials; Hist. of James Sext; Herries's Hist. of the Reign of Marie; Sadler State Papers; Stevenson's Illustrations of the Reign of Queen Mary; Buchanan's Hist. of Scotland; Douglas's Scottish Peerage (Wood), ii. 211–12; the Earl of Crawford's Earldom of Mar in Sunshine and Shade, 2 vols. 1882; the histories of Tytler, Hill Burton, and Froude.]