100 Great Songs to Publish a Book to, #56: Genesis, Eleventh Earl of Mar

This is the opening track on 1976’s Wind & Wuthering, an album from which it would be very easy to include every song on this list.  Eleventh Earl of Mar tells the story of the Scottish Jacobite John Erskine (1675-1732) who, depending on which way you want to count it, was the 23rd, 11th or seventh Earl of Mar.  Interestingly, Mar is an earldom in north-eastern Scotland dating from 1014, and is believed to be the oldest earldom in Europe.  In 1715, Erskine rebelled against the Hanoverians, but despite having numerically superior forces, he lost the battle of Sheriffmuir in November of that year to the more militarily adept 2nd Duke of Argyll, and spent the rest of his life in exile in France.  Oh, and the music is fan-bloody-tastic, too!

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