Erskine, David, second Baron Cardross 1616-1671, royalist, was the only son of Henry Erskine, second son of the second marriage of John Erskine, earl of Mar, and heir to the barony of Cardross, by his wife Margaret, only daughter of Sir James Bellenden of Broughton, near Edinburgh. On the death of his grandfather in December 1634 he became vested in the title of Cardross, and was served heir to his father in the barony, 17 March 1636-7. He was one of the few peers who protested against the delivering up of Charles I to the English army at Newcastle in 1646, and was a promoter of the engagement in 1648, for which he was fined 1,000l., and debarred from sitting in parliament in 1649. He died in 1671. He was twice married: first, in 1645, to Anne, fifth daughter of Sir Thomas Hope, bart., of Craighall, Edinburghshire, by whom he had Henry, third lord Cardross [qv.]; and secondly, in 1655, to Mary, youngest daughter of Sir George Bruce of Carnock, Fifeshire.

Sources:
     Douglas's Peerage of Scotland (Wood), i. 273
     Addit. MS. 23114, ff. 42, 59, 62, 81.

Contributor: G. G. [Gordon Goodwin]

Published: 1888