CHAPTER II 



Early days of the Earl of March — Traits of the first and second Earls — 

 The third Earl's guardians— The Earl's propensities— Favours a town 

 life— Goes to Edinburgh —Initiated into the mysteries of the Turf — 

 Gambling propensities— Arrives in London — Awarded compensation 

 for loss of hereditary rights — Marriage of his lordship's mother — 

 Her death — The Earl succeeds to the Ruglen title. 



Of the boyhood of the young Earl of March but 

 little is known. The death of his father at Barnton, 

 Edinburgh, on the 7 th ]\tarch 1731, deprived him 

 of that care which might have had much to do in 

 shaping his offspring's proclivities. 



In justice to the Earl's father, I must here record 

 that none of the foibles with which the career of his 

 son was beset were characteristics of his sire. Nor 

 does going back a generation aid my research for 

 family idiosyncrasies. Mackay, in his Memoirs, gives 

 the first Earl of March a commonplace character, 

 describing him as a person ' of no great genius, but 

 a good-natured gentleman, handsome in his person.' 

 These attributes were inherited by his grandson in 

 some degree. 



