John Erskine Mar

Mar, John Erskine, 11th earl of [S] (1675-1732). Mar entered politics in 1696 as placeman in the court party in Scotland, led by the duke of Queensberry until his fall in 1704. Mar rejoined him in office in 1705, helping him push the Act of Union through the Scots Parliament in 1707. Elected to Westminster as a representative Scots peer, by 1713 he was supporting a motion for repeal of the Union. Having failed to attract the favour of George I, he sailed for Scotland to raise the standard of Jacobite rebellion. The national response was spectacular, but Mar ruined the enterprise by sheer incompetence.