James St Clair-Erskine, 2nd Earl of Rosslyn

James St Clair-Erskine, 2nd Earl of Rosslyn GCB PC (1762 – 1837), known as Sir James Erskine, 6th Baronet, from 1765 until 1789 and as Sir James St Clair-Erskine, 6th Baronet, from 1789 until 1805, was a Scottish soldier, politician, and Acting Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Scotland, on behalf of King George IV.

Erskine succeeded to the family baronetcy in 1765 at the age of three. He was educated at Edinburgh High School and Eton College, and was commissioned in the 21st Light Dragoons in 1778. In 1782 he was assistant adjutant-general in Ireland, in 1793 became adjutant-general, in which capacity he served at Toulon and Corsica, and in 1795 was promoted to colonel and appointed aide-de-camp to the King. He became a major-general in 1798, lieutenant general in 1805 and general in 1814. In 1806 he was a member of the special mission to Lisbon which resulted in Sir Arthur Wellesley (later Duke of Wellington) being sent to the peninsula. He also saw action in Denmark and the Netherlands.

From 1782 until 1805, when he became a peer, Sir James was a member of parliament, sitting at first for English pocket boroughs. Initially a Whig, an adherent of Edmund Burke and an active supporter of Fox against Pitt in the debates over the East India Company, he was one of the managers of the impeachment of Warren Hastings. In 1789, on inheriting the Rosslyn and Dysart estates from his cousin James Paterson St Clair, he adopted the name St Clair before his own surname; and in 1796 was elected for the Dysart Burghs in Fife, a constituency traditionally under the St Clair influence. In January 1805, he succeeded his uncle as Earl of Rosslyn, being by this time considered a Tory, and after the end of the Napoleonic Wars continued his political career in the House of Lords. In the Duke of Wellington's government, he was Lord Privy Seal from 1829 to 1830, and later was Lord President of the Council (1834–1835).

succession box
title=Lord Privy Seal
before=The Lord Ellenborough
after=The Lord Durham
years=1829–1830succession box
title=Lord President of the Council
before=The Marquess of Lansdowne
after=The Marquess of Lansdowne
years=1834–1835succession box
title=Acting Grand Master of the
Grand Lodge of Scotland
before=William Maule
after=The Viscount Duncan of Camperdown
years=1810–1812
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References

*1911
*Robert Beatson, "A Chronological Register of Both Houses of Parliament" (London: Longman, Hurst, Res & Orme, 1807) [http://books.google.com/books?vid=024wW9LmFc5kXY0FI2&id=Gh2wKY2rkDUC&printsec=toc&dq=Return+of+Members+of+Parliament&as_brr=1&sig=SK5GVtGLfWQ9ovZDbyZObAyIO5I#PPP9,M1]
* Concise Dictionary of National Biography (1930)
* Lewis Namier & John Brooke, "The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1754-1790" (London: HMSO, 1964)