The Architectural, Landscape and Constitutional Plans of the Earl of Mar, 1700–32

Widely known as a Jacobite and leader of the 1715 Rising, John Erskine, the 6th earl of Mar is becoming better known as an innovative architect and industrialist. For Mar designing was a political act and his drawings for landscapes, houses and cities are indicative of his integrative thinking. He was a skilful parliamentarian who had driven the Treaty of Union through the Scottish parliament in 1707, only to later regret this. The Rising was primarily intended to dissolve the incorporating Union and replace it with a federation of Scotland, England, Ireland and France: his aims were to rebalance power between the nations of the UK, and to reduce inter-Continental competition and so negate its inevitable consequence - perpetual warfare. This is the first monograph on the earl of Mar to be published.