Clan Erskine

Erskine is a Lowland territorial name, not a Gaelic one. It comes from the lands of Erskine in Renfrewshire, on the south bank of the Clyde, and the place name is thought to be Old British for green rising ground. Henry de Erskine witnessed a charter of the Earl of Lennox about 1226, and John de Irskyn appears in the Ragman Rolls of 1296. The family rose through royal service: Sir Robert Erskine was Chamberlain of Scotland in 1350, and in 1497 Alexander Erskine, third Lord Erskine, built Alloa Tower in Clackmannanshire, seat of the chiefs for three hundred years. Erskines lost men at Flodden in 1513, were drawn into the Raid of Ruthven against James VI in 1582, and fought for the king at Kilsyth in 1645. They held the guardianship of royal children for five generations — John, fifth Lord Erskine, was tutor to James V — and Mary, Queen of Scots granted the sixth Lord Erskine the earldom of Mar.

The best-known Erskine is also the least successful. John Erskine, Earl of Mar, nicknamed Bobbing John for how often he changed sides, raised the standard for the Old Pretender in 1715 and assembled over ten thousand men. He met Argyll at Sheriffmuir on 13 November 1715; the battle was indecisive, though Argyll claimed it, and the rising collapsed. Mar’s titles and lands were forfeited, and in 1724 the estates were bought by another branch of the family. The Mar succession is tangled and worth stating exactly. In 1875 the House of Lords Committee for Privileges held that the earldom had been newly created in 1565 and descended to heirs male, so it belonged to Walter Erskine, Earl of Kellie, rather than to John Goodeve Erskine, the heir general. The decision caused enough public anger that Parliament passed the Earldom of Mar Restitution Act 1885, which resolved the doubt by assuming two Earldoms of Mar: the ancient earldom, dating from 1404 and descending to the heir general, and the 1565 creation, descending to the heir male and held with the Earldom of Kellie, united with Mar in 1835. Both still exist.

The Erskine tartan

The Scottish Register of Tartans returns fourteen records for Erskine, but they are not fourteen family tartans. Three are institutional: Erskine Veterans and the Mary Erskine School tartan, both by Kinloch Anderson, and Erskine College, recorded on 16 December 2025 to Steve Adamson. Aragon (Erskine) is filed as District and Erskine Hunting as Military. Erskine (Black and White), Blue and Purple (Dance) are twentieth-century commercial designs by Hugh MacPherson, and Erskine (MacGregor-Hastie), (Paton), (Red), Green and Grey carry no designer at all.

A note on honesty: the sett most people mean by the Erskine tartan was invented, and the Register names its designer outright — the Sobieski Stewarts. John Sobieski Stuart and Charles Edward Stuart published the Vestiarium Scoticum in Edinburgh in 1842, presenting some seventy-five clan setts as copies of a manuscript supposedly dated 1571 or earlier and once owned by John Lesley, Bishop of Ross. The brothers also claimed to be grandsons of Charles Edward Stuart and were denounced as impostors. Chemical testing in 1895 showed that a manuscript copy they produced had been treated to make the writing look aged, and no original was ever found. The Erskine sett has no pedigree before 1842 and no connection to anything an Erskine wore at Flodden or Sheriffmuir. It is one of the most influential forgeries in Scottish material culture, and still a forgery. Erskine Ancient, Modern and Weathered are not separate tartans either; they are one threadcount in different dye shades, and the Register holds no record for any of them.

Clan facts

References

1. Erskine tartans — The Scottish Register of Tartans
2. Clan Erskine
3. Earl of Mar — succession and the Restitution Act