to within a few years of his death. In 1578 he assisted in the compilation of the ‘Second Book of Discipline,’ and was appointed moderator at the conference of commissioners convened for this purpose on 22 Dec. in a chamber of Stirling Castle (ib. iii. 433). On 14 May of this year he was commanded by the king to recover Redcastle, near Arbroath, from James Gray, son of Lord Gray, and his accomplices (Spalding Club Miscellany, iv. 60), and having done so to the satisfaction of the king, he was relieved of his trust on 1 Sept. 1579 (Reg. Privy Council of Scotland, iii. 211). At the parliament of the following November he was named one of the twenty-seven persons constituting the king's council (ib. 234). A license from the king, with consent of the privy council, dated 25 Feb. 1584, to John Erskine to eat flesh during Lent, and as often as he pleases during the forbidden days, supplies an interesting proof of the survival of catholic customs in Scotland after the Reformation. Erskine gave his support to the claims made by the king in 1584 to exercise supremacy in ecclesiastical matters, and was induced to use his influence to get the ministers within his district to subscribe an obligation recognising the king's jurisdiction, an intervention whose effectiveness led Calderwood to assert that the laird of Dun ‘was a pest then to the ministers in the north’ (History, iv. 351).
Subsequently Erskine served on various commissions of the assembly, and he held the office of superintendent at least as late as 1589. He died either 12 March 1591 (Johnstone, Poems on Scottish Martyrs) or 17 June of that year (Obitis of the Lairdis and Ladeis of Dune in Spalding Club Miscellany, iv. lxxviii). M'Crie, in his ‘Life of Melville,’ gives the date 21 Oct. 1592, but this is founded on mistaking for his own will that of his son John, who died at that date (ib.) There is no record of any other of his children. He is described by Buchanan as ‘homo doctus, et perinde pius et humanus,’ and by Spotiswood as ‘a baron of good rank, wise, learned, liberal, and of singular courage, who for diverse resemblances may well be said to have been another Ambrose.’
[Bowick's Life of Erskine; Dun Papers in the Spalding Club Miscellany, vol. iv.; Hist. MSS. Commission, 5th Rep. pt. i. App. 633–44; Wodrow's Biog. Collections on the Lives of Reformers, Maitland Club Miscellany, vol. i.; Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, vol. iii.; James Melville's Diary; Richard Bannatyne's Memoriales; Diurnal of Occurrents; Knox's Works; Histories of Calderwood, Spotiswood, and Keith; M'Crie's Lives of Knox and of Melville.]
ERSKINE, JOHN, second or seventh Earl of Mar in the Erskine line (1558–1634), lord high treasurer of Scotland, only son of John, first or sixth earl of Mar [q.v.], regent of Scotland, and Annabella, daughter of Sir William Murray of Tullibardine, was born in 1558. He was educated at Stirling Castle in company with King James, who was seven years his junior, under George Buchanan. King James called him familiarly ‘Jocky O'Sclaittis’ (slates). On 3 March 1572–3 he was served heir of his father ‘in toto et integro comitatu de Mar,’ his uncle, Sir Alexander Erskine of Gogar, being appointed guardian of his estate and keeper of Stirling Castle during his minority. Soon after he came of age he was persuaded by the Earl of Morton, then in forced retirement at Lochleven, to assert his claim to the government of Stirling Castle and the guardianship of the king. Morton agreed to support his claim on condition that he should permit Morton to resume his ascendency over the king. He returned to Stirling Castle, and early on the morning of 26 April 1578 called for the keys of the castle, on the pretence that he intended to hunt. His uncle, bringing the keys, was immediately seized by the young earl's confederates and pushed unceremoniously outside the gates. Those of the lords opposed to Morton who were at Edinburgh rode in great haste to Stirling to prevent if possible any further development of the supposed plot, but Mar politely declined to permit more than one of them to enter the castle at one time. They were therefore constrained to agree that Mar should be left in charge of the king till the meeting of parliament, he undertaking to find four earls as cautioners for his fidelity (Calderwood, Hist. iii. 408). Soon afterwards Morton obtained admission to the castle, and made arrangements for the perpetuation of his own influence. At a convention of the nobility favourable to Morton, held at Stirling, it was agreed to change the place of meeting of the ensuing parliament from Edinburgh to Stirling. The lords of the ‘secret council’ also issued from Stirling on 6 July a proclamation concerning certain sinister rumours in regard to their purposes in the approaching parliament, and especially a denial of the rumour that the king was detained at Stirling against his will (Reg. Privy Council of Scotland, iii. 3–4). At the opening of the parliament on 15 July Mar bore the sword, and was nominally confirmed in his guardianship of the castle and the king, but it was agreed that four of the new council should always be in attendance on the king (Calderwood, iii. 417). The lords of the opposite faction then assembled a force to
