Alexander Stewart, 12th Earl of Mar

Alexander Stewart, Earl of Mar ( 1375 - 6 July 1435 ), was a Scottish nobleman .

Life

His father was Alexander Stewart, 1st Earl of Buchan , called "Wolf of Badenoch". This recognized him as a son, although he was illegitimately born; he came from his father's affair with a woman named Mariota.

Little is known of Alexander's early years. He was considered wild and violent; he and his brothers were imprisoned at Stirling Castle between 1398 and 1399 for illegal acts .

When his father died in 1394, he inherited the royal fiefdom of Badenoch with the feudal title of Lord of Badenoch .

In 1403 he met the widowed Isabel Douglas, 11th Countess of Mar , know. He took both them and their ancestral home Kildrummy Castle "in charge". Several mutual marriage vows followed, some of which were made under scandalous circumstances and all of which were not accepted by the crown. Only a marriage contract dated December 9, 1404, in which the succession was not explicitly specified, was approved by Robert III. The marriage concluded after this date, but before January 2, 1405, was subsequently approved with a royal seal on January 21, 1405, after which Alexander carried the titles (11th) Earl of Mar and (4th) Lord of from the rights of his wife Garioch .

However, marriage could not contain his ferocity and restlessness. In 1406 he went to England to fight with Edmund, 4th Earl of Kent . His contemporary Andrew Wyntoun documented his military successes ; when his wife died in 1408 he was on a campaign in Flanders.

Although he no longer had any claim to their nobility title due to the lack of joint inheritance children, he continued to use the earl title and kept the lands belonging to it in his possession. In 1409 he returned to Scotland, but on March 17, 1411 he was acquired the title of Lord of Duffel , in the Duchy of Brabant . He had married the local heiress Marie van Hoerne (also van Hoorn), but was "separated from her". In the same year he commanded the troops that prevented the advance of the army of Donald MacDonald , 2nd Lord of the Isles , at the Battle of Harlaw .

In 1415, at the instigation of his uncle Robert Stewart, 1st Duke of Albany, a papal commission was set up to annul Alexander's marriage to Marie van Hoerne; however, this request was not granted.

Around 1424 he also acquired the feudal Lordship of Lochaber.

After 18 years of unlawful use Alexander received on 28 May 1426 by James I. official permission, the title of the Earl of Mar lead. This right applied to him and his recognized, illegitimate son Thomas Stewart (* before 1410; † 1435) on the condition that the title was no longer inheritable and would revert to the crown after both deaths. According to today's legal opinion, the title of Earl of Mar was newly created through the process , Alexander is thus to be counted as 1st Earl of Mar (second bestowal). As the de facto successor to his first wife, the 11th Countess of Mar, he is also counted as the 12th Earl of Mar.

In 1427 he was also awarded the feudal title of Lord of Badenoch , which his father had already held.

Alexander had no legitimate offspring from either marriage. His recognized illegitimate son and title heir Thomas died shortly before Alexander in 1435. As a result, when Alexander died, his earl title, created in 1426, expired and all of his lands were confiscated by the crown. Another child, his illegitimate daughter Janet (* around 1430; † around 1485) as a woman was not entitled to her father's title, but received an annual pension from James II .

literature

• James Balfour Paul (Ed.): The Lord Lyon King of Arms: The Scots Peerage . tape 5 . Douglas, Edinburgh 1909, The Ancient Earls of Mar , p. 587 f . ( Online at www.archive.org [accessed September 1, 2014]).
• David Laing (Ed.): Andrew of Wyntoun : The Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland . tape 2 . Edmonston and Douglas, Edinburgh 1872 ( online at www.archive.org [accessed September 1, 2014] OCR reprint: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 2010, ISBN 978-1-152-68184-2 ).
• John Horace Round : Mar, Earldom of . In: Hugh Chisholm (Ed.): Encyclopædia Britannica . Volume 17, Cambridge University Press , 1911, p. 665.

References and comments

1. ↑ Alexander Stewart, 12th Earl of Mar on thepeerage.com , accessed September 10, 2016.
2. ↑ The crown refused to change the existing inheritance regulations for title and property.
3. ↑ At this time his appointment was made to the Lord of Mar .
4. ↑ The next legitimate heir of his wife, Robert Erskine of that Ilk , could not enforce his title claim against Krone, only posthumously was he and his descendants awarded the title in 1565.

predecessor	Office	successor
Isabel Douglas	Earl of Mar (first bestowal; de iure uxoris) 1404–1408	Title rests (de iure: Robert Erskine )
New title created	Earl of Mar (second bestowal; suo iure) 1426–1435	Title expired