Earl of Gowrie
title that has been created twice, once in the Peerage of Scotland and once in the Peerage of the United Kingdom
Earl of Gowrie is a title that has been created twice, once in the Peerage of Scotland and once in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, both times for members of the Ruthven family. It takes its name from Gowrie, a historical region and ancient province of Scotland. On 23 August 1581, William Ruthven, 4th Lord Ruthven, was created Earl of Gowrie by James VI, King of the Scots. He was executed for high treason, attainted and his peerages forfeited on 28 May 1584. Two years later in 1586, the attainder was reversed and his son, the second Earl, was restored as Earl of Gowrie and Lord Ruthven, but both peerages were forfeited after the alleged plot and subsequent death of the second Earl's younger brother, the third Earl, in 1600.
The Ruthven family descended from Sir William Ruthven, who was created Lord Ruthven in the Peerage of Scotland in 1488. Lord Ruthven's son and heir, William Ruthven, Master of Ruthven, was one of the many Scottish nobles killed at the Battle of Flodden in 1513. Lord Ruthven died in 1528 and was succeeded by his grandson, William, the second Lord, the son of the Master of Ruthven. The second Lord was an Extraordinary Lord of Session and Keeper of the Privy Seal of Scotland. He was succeeded by his son, Patrick, the third Lord.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Earl of Gowrie” is title that has been created twice, once in the Peerage of Scotland and once in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Earl, Gowrie and title, not as a finished interpretation.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q770171. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1581, 1584, 1586 and 1600.
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This entry incorporates text from “Earl of Gowrie” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.