i6o COMPLETE PEERAGE angus (date of cont.) and 24 June 1585, Elizabeth, ist da. of Laurence (Oliphant), 7th Lord Oliphant [S.], by Margaret, da. of George (Hay), 7th Earl of Erroll [S.]. He d. 3 Mar. 161 1, at Paris, in his 57th year, and was bur. at St. Germain des Pr^s, in that city. (") M.L Will dat. 1608. His widow w., before 1619, James Hamilton. XXVllI. 161 1. II. William (Douglas), Earl of Angus [S.], s. and h. On 17 June 1633 he was tr. MARQUESS OF DOUGLAS, Earl of Angus fcPc, [S.], having on the 13th resigned his claim (as Earl of Angus) " to the privilege and prerogative of the first silting and voting in His Majestie's Parliaments, " ^c. (*") (") " Qui primus eram Regni Scotorum Comes, et in bellis Dux primae aciei, ^c." See M.I. in Riddell, p. 158. (") The Precedency of the Earls of Angus [S.] The precedence claimed by the Earls ot Angus was that of Premier Peers ; the precedence recognised as their right was that of Premier Earls. It was connected with the privilege of leading the van in battle, and bearing the Crown in Pari., and is therefore, perhaps, first (distinctly) to be traced in 1567 (vide supra) ; but as the then Earl was a boy at the time, it was, probably, at least as old as the 6th Earl. When William Douglas, the h. male, had proved his right to succeed as (9th) Earl of Angus, he obtained a charter in 1591 confirming all the ancient privileges of the family of Douglas to himself and his heirs male, viz : — The first vote in council or parliament ; to be the King's hereditary Lieutenant ; to have the leading oj the van of the army in the day of battle, and to carry the Crown at coronations. " After his death, and to the detriment of his s. and h., William, the loth Earl (then 35 years old and upwards), the Duke of Lennox [S.] twice (1590 and 1592) carried the Crown, but Earl William was con- firmed in the right of his ancestors to the " first place in first sitting and voting in all Parliaments Wc, first place and leiding of wanguard in battailis and bearing the Crown " {Acts of Pari., vol. iii, p. 588). These privileges were again recognised i 5 Dec. i599> and then stated to have been granted to the Earls of Angus and " utheris of the sur- name of Douglas* for their mony notable and guide offices, £3°c. " See Riddell, pp. 156-157-
- [It was under the changed order of things, after the war of Succession [S.], that
Douglas (as the representative of Bruce's chief comrade in arms. Sir James Douglas, " the Good, " who commanded at Baimockburn in 1314) came to the forefront among the Earls. What the exact nature was of the prerogative asserted, in 137 i, by the Earl at the coronation of Robert II (which some historians have imagined to have been a rival claim to the throne) does not clearly appear, but some sort of compromise regarding it seems to have been adjusted, a condition of which was the marriage of the Earl's eldest son, James Douglas (afterwards the 2nd Earl), with Isabel, da. of the said King. The important part sustained by the 3rd and 4th Earls Douglas (i 388-1424) in the days of the Regent Albany, dffc, is a matter of history, the 4th Earl having m. the da. of the King (Robert III), while his sister was wife to Prince David, the h. ap. to the Crown. On the accession (1437) of James II, the 5th Earl (Lieutenant General of Scotland) occupied a position entitling him to look down, from a vantage ground of superiority, on the highest nobles of the land; he had his Barons who held of him, as also his Council of retainers, analogous to the Pari, of the Country. The Earl of Crawford, alone, with his Heralds and Pursuivants, occupied a somewhat similar position, and, it is well known how formidable these two great Earls became
