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 formed a scheme to carry her off somewhat similar to that which led to the disappearance of Lady Grange, but in this case he was frustrated by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. The Mar estates were purchased for Thomas, lord Erskine, by Lord Grange. On account of the favour which Gibbs, the architect, received from the Earl of Mar, he left the bulk of his money to Mar's children. The attainder of the earldom of Mar was reversed in 1824. On the failure of male issue in 1866, the earldom, as created in 1565 limited to heirs male, was, after a prolonged argument before the House of Lords, declared on 25 Feb. 1875, to belong to Walter Henry Erskine, earl of Kellie, a decision which nullified the claims put forth for the earldom to be the oldest in the kingdom; but on 6 Aug. 1885 the title of Earl of Mar with original precedence as descended from Gratney, earl of Mar (1294), was confirmed to John Francis Erskine Goodeve Erskine, who had married Lady Frances Jemima Erskine, the nearest female heir in the failure in 1866 of male issue.

[Journal of the Earl of Mar, printed by order of the Earl of Mar, in France, republished at London, 1716, and frequently reprinted; A Collection of Original Letters and Authentick Papers relating to the Rebellion of 1715, London, 1730; A Full and Authentick Narrative of the Intended Horrid Conspiracy and Invasion, London, 1715; Patten's History of the Rebellion of 1715; Sinclair Memoirs; Lockhart Papers; Stuart Papers; Hardwicke State Papers; Macpherson's Original Papers; Secret Memoirs of Bar-le Duc, 1716; Macky's Secret Memoirs; Swift's Works; Jesse's Pretenders and their Adherents; Mrs. Thomson's Memoirs of the Jacobites, vol. i.; Lacroix de Marlès' Historie du Chevalier de Saint-Georges, 1876; Burton's Hist. of Scotland; Douglas's Scotch Peerage (Wood), ii. 217–9; Chambers's Dict. of Eminent Scotsmen; Chambers's Hist. of the Rebellion.] 

ERSKINE, JOHN (1695–1768), Scotch lawyer, son of the Hon. Colonel John Erskine of Carnock, was born in 1695. He studied law and was admitted a member of the Faculty of Advocates in 1719, and practised without special success for some years. In 1737 he was appointed by the faculty and the town council, on the death of Professor Bain, to succeed him in the chair of Scots law in the university of Edinburgh. The emoluments were a salary of 100l. per annum and the fees. He was successful as a lecturer, and his class was well attended. In 1765 he resigned this appointment and devoted himself exclusively to the preparation of his ‘Institutes,’ which was published as a posthumous work. He died at Cardross, an estate formerly belonging to his grandfather, Lord Cardross (and which he had purchased in 1746), on 1 March 1768. Erskine married, first, Margaret Melville of Balgarvie, Fifeshire; secondly, Ann Stirling of Keir. By his first wife he had issue John Erskine (1721–1813), well known as the leader of the evangelical party in the Scottish church; by his second wife he had a family of four sons and two daughters.

Erskine wrote only two works, but both of these were of very great importance. They were: 1. ‘Principles of the Law of Scotland, in the order of Sir George Mackenzie's Institutions of that Law.’ This was first published in 1754 as a manual for the use of his class, for whom he had hitherto prescribed Sir George Mackenzie's work. It became at once popular. New editions were published under the author's supervision in 1757 and 1764, and after his death it was edited in succession by Gillon, Professor Schank More, Mr. Guthrie Smith, and Mr. William Guthrie. The seventeenth edition was published in 1886 by Professor Macpherson, by whom ‘the book has been restored to its original position as the Scots law manual in the metropolitan university.’ 2. ‘Institutes of the Law of Scotland, in four books, in the order of Sir George Mackenzie's Institutions of that Law.’ The first edition was published after the author's death in 1773, from his notes, which were carefully revised; the second was edited in 1784 by Lord Woodhouselee, who added the rubrics retained in subsequent issues; the fourth was issued in 1805 by Joseph Gillon; the fifth and sixth by Maxwell Morrison in 1812; the seventh by Lord Ivory in 1828, ‘a model of full and accurate annotation;’ the eighth by Alexander Macallan in 1838, and the ninth by J. B. Nicholson in 1871.

The ‘Institutes’ are divided into four books. The first treats of law in general, of the courts of Scotland, and of the relations between husband and wife, parent and child, minors and their tutors and curators, and master and servant; the second treats chiefly of heritable rights; the third of contracts and successions; the fourth of actions and crimes. The small space given to mercantile law in the work has been frequently remarked on. It has been pointed out by Professor Bell that at the time when Erskine wrote commercial enterprise in Scotland was at a low ebb. The failure of the Darien expedition, succeeded by the rebellions of 1715 and 1745, had turned the attention of the people to other subjects, while the great change in the possessors of landed property, due to the risings, made that branch of the law for a considerable period of preponderating importance.

In other respects Erskine's works were