Grand Masters of Scotland - Onondaga and Oswego Masonic ...

office, and in August 1715 he went in disguise to Scotland and placed himself at the head of the adherents of James Edward, the
Old Pretender.
Meeting many Highland chieftains at Aboyne, he avowed an earnest desire for the independence of Scotland and, at Braemar on
September 6, 1715, he proclaimed "James VIII" king of Scotland, England, France and Ireland. Gradually the forces under his
command were augmented, but as a general he was a complete failure. Precious time was wasted at Perth, a feigned attack on
Stirling was resultless, and he could give little assistance to the English Jacobites. At Sheriffmuir, where a battle was fought in
November 1715, Mar's forces largely outnumbered those of his opponent, John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll; but no bravery could
atone for the signal incompetence displayed by the Earl, and the fight was virtually a decisive defeat for the Jacobites.
Mar then met James Edward at Fetteresso; the cause however was lost, and the prince and the earl fled to France. Mar sought to
interest foreign powers in the cause of the Stuarts; but in the course of time he became thoroughly distrusted by the Jacobites. In
1721 he accepted a pension of £3500 a year from George I, and in the following year his name was freely mentioned in connection
with the trial of Bishop Atterbury, whom it was asserted that Mar had betrayed. This charge may perhaps be summarized as not
proven. At the best his conduct was highly imprudent, and in 1724 he left the Pretender's service. His later years were spent in Paris
and at Aix-la-Chapelle, where he died.
Mar, who was known as "Bobbing John", married for his second wife, Frances (d. 1761), daughter of the 1st Duke of Kingston, and
was thus a brother-in-law of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. He had been attainted in 1716, and his only son, Thomas, Lord Erskine,
died childless in March 1766.
Mar's brother James Erskine was a noted judge.
The progressive rock band Genesis wrote a song, "Eleventh Earl of Mar" (found on their Wind & Wuthering album), about Mar.
15. Alexander, 10th Earl of Eglinton 1750-51
Alexander Montgomerie, 10th Earl of Eglinton, (1723-1769). Son of the 9th Earl of Eglinton. Grand Master Mason of the Grand
Lodge of Scotland 1750-51. Planned and built the conservation village of Eaglesham, Scotland in 1769. The Earl introduced the
young James Boswell to the joys of London society in the early 1760s, and figures prominently in Boswells London Journal 1762-63.
The Earl was shot on his own estate near Ardrossan by excise officer Mungo Campbell on October 24, 1769 following a dispute
about the latters right to bear arms on the Earls grounds. He died from his wounds on the next day.
http://www.nls.uk/broadsides/broadside.cfm/id/15367
< Commentary
This report of a duel begins: 'Just published, an Account of that Melancholy and Fatal
DUEL, that took place between the Right Honourable the Earl of Eglinton and Captain
Gorbon, concerning a Lady of high respectibility, when dreadful to relate his Lordship was
shot though the heart.' The story was sourced from the 'Greenock Intelligencer'. The
broadside also contains an account of a 'Libel for Sedition'. It was published by
Ale(xa)nder Dunbar of Edinburgh, and is not dated.
There are very few details included in this report, which was derived from a short notice in
a Greenock newspaper, and it may be that the details are inaccurate. Alexander
Montgomerie, the 10th Earl of Eglinton, was shot and killed in October 1769 during a
confrontation with an excisemen and persistent poacher, Mungo Campbell. Although this
was not strictly a duel, nor did it involve a young lady or a Captain Gordon, it seems to be
the only record of one of the earls of Eglinton dying a violent death, suggesting that
rumours surrounding the earl's death reached the early newspapers before the facts did.
The incident features in John Galt's classic novel of Ayrshire life, 'Annals of the Parish',
first published in 1821.
Broadsides are single sheets of paper, printed on one side, to be read unfolded. They
carried public information such as proclamations as well as ballads and news of the day.
Cheaply available, they were sold on the streets by pedlars and chapmen. Broadsides
offer a valuable insight into many aspects of the society they were published in, and the
National Library of Scotland holds over 250,000 of them.
Transcription:
FATAL DUEL
EARL OF EGLINGTON SHOT
Just Published, an Account of that Melancholy and Fatal DUEL, that took place between
the Right Honourable the Earl of Eglinton and Captain Gordon, concerning a Lady of high
respectibility, when dreadful to relate his Lordship was shot through the heart.
FATAL DUEL- It is deeply to be regreted that in this civilized country-in this enlightened
age-and amongst the higher classes of society, that this MURDERING and blood
thirsty propensity prevails and we may with justice remark, that except in very few
instances, with impunity. The surviving party either evades the scrutiny of the law, by
taking refuge in some forign country; or the law, even when the parties surrender
themselves, is so lenient, that no salutary effect is experienced. The report of the case,
which it is our painful duty to lay before the public, is announced in the Greenock
Intelligencer of Saturday, which briefly states that the Right Honourable the Earl of Eglinton was shot in a duel, by Captain Gordon.
It is surmised but we cannnot pledge on what degree of authencity it is founded, that a lady was the cause of the dreadful
catastrophe.
17