But the public career of Lord Mar had now drawn to its ignoble close. That he had his partisans, who repelled the charges against him by counter allegations, Lord Inverness soon found; and he began to think that "the less noise that was made about Mar," the better.[171] During the year 1725, James further evinced his distrust of Lord Mar, by dismissing Mr. Sheldon, his supposed spy, and placing Mr. James Murray, a Protestant, as preceptor to the young Prince. The retirement of the Princess Clementina into a convent, followed this last step. The correspondence of the royal couple, their recriminations, furnished, for some months, conversation for the continental courts, and even for St. James's, until the dismissal of Colonel Hay and his wife appeased the resolute daughter of the Sobieski, and produced an apparent reconciliation. From the close of this altercation, and after the disgrace of Colonel Hay, the name of Lord Mar occurs no more in the history of the period. He resided at Paris until 1729, when, falling into ill health, he repaired to Aix la Chapelle, where he died in May 1732. His wife survived him twenty-nine years, only to be the victim of mental disease, and, as it has been said, of cruelty and neglect. She became insane, and was placed under the charge of her sister, Lady Mary W. Montague, who, it has been reported, from avarice, stinted her unfortunate sister of even the common necessaries of life, and appropriated the allowance to herself. But this statement has been disproved.[172] The latter years of Lord Mar were passed neither in idleness, nor wholly in the intrigues of the Court at Albano. His amusement was to draw plans and designs for the improvement of Scotland, which he had loved "not wisely," but to which his warmest affections are said to have ever recurred. In 1728 he composed a paper, in which he suggested building bridges on the north and south sides of the city of Edinburgh: he planned, also, the formation of a navigable canal between the Forth and the Clyde. His beloved Alloa was sold by the Commissioners of the forfeited estates to his brother, Lord Grange, who, in 1739, conveyed it to Lord Erskine, his nephew. Lord Mar's children were enriched by the gratitude of Gibbs, the architect, who bequeathed to the offspring of his early patron the greatest part of his fortune. The Earl of Mar was succeeded by his son, Thomas Lord Erskine, who was deprived of the famed title of Mar by his father's attainder. Lord Erskine was appointed by Government, Commissary of Stores at Gibraltar. His marriage with Lady Charlotte Hope being without issue, the title was restored to the descendant of Lord Grange, and consequently to the children of the unfortunate Lady Grange, whose sufferings, from the effects of party spirit, seem to belong more properly to the page of romance, than to the graver details of history.