Earls in the Baronage of Scotland

An Earl in the Baronage of Scotland is an ancient title of nobility that is held en baroneum, which means that its holder, who is a feudal earl, is also always a feudal baron. The holder may or may not be a Lord of Regality, which meant that the holder was appointed by the Crown and had the power of "pit and gallows", meaning the power to authorise the death sentence.

A feudal earl ranks above both a baron and a lord (being a baron of a higher degree) in the Baronage of Scotland, but below all ranks in the Peerage of Scotland. Earldoms are very rare.

Since all feudal titles are based in Scots property law and not personal peerages, there are some instances when, for historic reasons, the feudal title happens to share the same name as an extant peerage title, but the current holder of the feudal title is different from the current holder of the peerage title of the same name. The two are not to be confused. Historically, they were held by one and the same person, but the feudal title may subsequently have been disponed according to Scots property law, whereas the peerage title always descends according to the destination in the letters patent of creation of the peerage and the rules of peerage law.

Scottish titles, in order of precedence, are as follows: Duke, Marquis, Earl, Viscount, Lord, Baronet, Knight, Baron, Clan Chief, Esquire/Gentleman. Wallace states that "Lordships, Earldoms, Marquisates and Dukedoms differ only in name from Baronies" but continues "one whose property was erected into a Lordship ranked before a simple Baron" and "A person to whom an Earldom belonged, would be superior to a person who had no more than a lordship ... One, whose lands were incorporated into a Marquisate, was superior to both ... A man, who owned a fief elevated into a Dukedom, was exulted above all three." However, Lord Stair states that Lordships or Earldoms are "but more noble titles of a Barony".

Modern status

In 2014 the Lord Lyon King of Arms issued the "Note on the Petition of George Menking", under which he determined to accept petitions for the grant arms for feudal dignities including Earldoms since such dignities have historically always been of the genus of a barony and as such represent a higher form of barony and fall within the jurisdiction of the King of Arms.

The Menking Note is considered an important change (and return to similar status of an earlier Lord Lyon) from an interim ruling on the petition in 2010 by a Swiss national Willi Ernst Sturzenegger, who had purchased the feudal Earldom of Arran, and wished to be titled as 'Willi Ernst Sturzenegger of Arran, Earl of Arran in the territorial baronage of Scotland' or 'Sturzenegger of Arran, holder of the territorial Earldom of Arran", or 'Sturzenegger of Arran, holder of the feudal Earldom of Arran'. In 2006, an earlier Lord Lyon had recognised three petitioners as "Feudal Countess of Crawfurd-Lindsay", "Feudal Earl of Breadalbane" and "Feudal Earl of Rothes". In the ruling in 2010, the Lord Lyon stated that as a general rule previous decisions should be followed, but he could not agree with them as the arguments in the previous cases did not appear to have been tested and no reasoning had been given by the prior Lord Lyon for his decisions. The title "feudal Earl", "territorial Earl", or simply "Earl", being used or recognised in respect of an assemblage of lands into an earldom had never existed until recently. He stated that while the Abolition of Feudal Tenure Act of 2000 divorced feudal baronies from land title, it preserved the title of baron. This was not the case he found with "territorial" or "feudal earldoms": "On the contrary there is a clear break between the type of territorial earldoms which existed before the evolution of a personal peerage, and the later erection of lands into what has been termed a “territorial earldom”. He therefore did not accept that it follows from the recognition of a feudal baron, or one possessed of the dignity of a former feudal barony, as “Baron of X”, that the person in possession of a “territorial earldom” stemming from the erection by the Crown of lands into a free earldom, should be recognised as an “Earl” or “Countess”, “feudal” or otherwise."

List of Earldoms in the Baronage of Scotland

Below is an incomplete list of Lordships created in the baronage, please help by filling in details below (with reference links).

Titles in italics are subsidiary baronial titles held by the same earl. Titles linked and with The before the name is the holder's primary title.

Title	Created	Infeft	Arms	Incumbent	Heir	Notes
The Earl of Aboyne	1676	2016		Christiano Arnhold Simoes, Earl of Aboyne
The Earl of Angus (baronage title)	1594
The Earl of Arran		2024		Susan Clarke Livingston, Countess of Arran		In 1995 Willi Ernst Sturzenegger, the former earl, received (from the Duke of Hamilton) "disponed to him of All and Whole the Earldom of Arran including the caput thereof which grant can be traced back to an erection by the Crown of lands in unum comitatum"
The Earl of Breadalbane (baronage title)		2004		John Sullivan of Braemar, Earl of Breadalbane, Lord of Braemar and Lord of Kildrummie		Alan MacKay was the former Earl
Lord of Braemar
Lord of Kildrummie
The Earl of Crawfurd-Lindsay		2004		Abigail Busch Reisinger, Countess of Crawfurd-Lindsay and Baroness of Auchterutherstruther
Baron of Auchterutherstruther
The Earl of Dunbar (baronage title)	1606			Robert Douglas, Earl of Dunbar
The Earl of Eglinton	1607			Hugh Montgomerie, 19th Earl of Eglinton
The Earl of Erroll				David Willien, Earl of Erroll, Baron of Tulloch
Baron of Tulloch
The Earl of Lennox	1594	2017		Charles Gordon-Lennox, 11th Duke of Richmond	Charles Henry Gordon-Lennox, Earl of March and Kinrara
The Earl of Nithsdale		dormant
The Earl of Orkney	1603	1998		Peter St John, 9th Earl of Orkney	Oliver Robert St John, Viscount Kirkwall
The Earl of Rothes (baronage title)	1458	2004		Sir Philip Christopher Ondaatje, Earl of Rothes, Lord of Leslie, Sheriff of Fife
Lord of Leslie
Sheiff of Fife
The Earl of Wigtown	1341	2004		Dr. Roland Ladislaus Zettel, Earl of Wigtown

Note that some peerage titles of fuedal origin sometimes have a duplicate baronage title of the same name either held by the current peer or transferred to a new holder.

List of Marquisats and Dukedoms in the Baronage of Scotland

The below are very rare, only two baronage titles are known to exist.

Title	Created	Infeft	Arms	Incumbent	Heir	Notes
The Marquess of Huntly (baronage title)	1684	2015		William Andrews of Huntly, Marquess of Huntly
The Duke of Hamilton	1661	2010		Alexander Douglas-Hamilton, 16th Duke of Hamilton	Douglas Charles Douglas-Hamilton, Marquess of Douglas and Clydesdale	peer's title has feudal origins

See also

• Lords in the Baronage of Scotland
• Baronage of Scotland
• Peerage of Scotland

References

• Register of the Great Seal of Scotland;
• Abolition of Feudal Tenure Act, Scotland;
• Statutes of 1592;
• Baronetcy Warrants of Charles I.