Talk:Earl of Leven

Numbering of earls

There seems to be some difference of opinion as to whether the third and fourth holders of the Earldom should be numbered among the Earls. At present the article cites four sources:

• Leigh Rayment's Peerage Page gives the David who succeeded in 1681 as 5th Earl and the present holder as 16th Earl
• Cracroft's Peerage follows the same numbering, with the present holder as 16th Earl (here)
• The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica says that "in 1906 John David Leslie-Melville (b. 1886) became 12th earl of Leven and 11th earl of Melville" (online here)
• The Glasgow Herald refers to the current holder as 14th earl of Leven and 13th earl of Melville in a newspaper article from 2007.

I've had a further hunt across the internet and

• thepeerage.com cites the 107th edition of Burke's Peerage in numbering the 2nd Earl of Melville as 5th Earl of Leven and the current Earl as 16th
• The Burke's Peerage website gives the current holder as 16th Earl of Leven and 13th Earl of Melville
• Ruvigny in his Plantagenet Roll of the Blood Royal (Isabel of Essex volume p. 521, online at google books) refers to Alexander, 9th Earl of Leven and 6th Earl of Melville; David, 10th Earl of Leven and 7th Earl of Melville; John Thornton, 11th Earl of Leven and 8th Earl of Melville; Ronald Ruthven, 12th Earl of Leven and 9th Earl of Melville; John David, 13th Earl of Leven and 10th Earl of Melville

Burke's and Ruvigny seem to me to be pretty reputable sources. However, I've just checked my copy of The Sixteen Peers of Scotland, a 1960 work on the Scottish representative peers by Sir James Fergusson of Kilkerran, Bt (who was Keeper of the Records of Scotland and may be presumed to know his stuff) and the index refers to the 1708 Earl as 3rd and the 1806 Earl as 7th.

I think the list should be renumbered to include the two suo jure Countesses (as with Earl of Mar, Earl of Sutherland, Earl of Orkney, Earl of Loudoun, etc, etc), but with a note on the 5th-16th Earls' articles to say that they are sometimes numbered as 3rd-14th. Opera hat (talk) 11:23, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Melville name

The Scots Peerage, volume 6, says that the third Earl of Leven "succeeded to the title and estates of Melville, Raith and others, as second Earl of Melville, but did not assume the title" (p. 112). The seventh Earl of Leven and sixth Earl of Melville "was the first of his family to assume the designation of Earl of Leven and Melville, this step being probably due to the creation of another Peerage of Melville six months after his succession; and in 1803 the Earl's younger children assumed the surname of Melville in addition to that of Leslie" (p. 117-8). This shows that the third to sixth Earls and their families used the name of Leslie, not Melville. I'll move their articles accordingly. Opera hat (talk) 14:26, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

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