John Stewart, 4th Earl of Atholl
John Stewart | |
|---|---|
| Died | 25 April 1579 |
| Known for | Being the 4th Earl of Atholl |
John Stewart, 4th Earl of Atholl (died 25 April 1579), called the Fair, was a Scottish nobleman and courtier. He was favoured by Mary, Queen of Scots, but later turned against her.
Biography
Stewart was the son of John Stewart, 3rd Earl of Atholl and Grizel Rattray.
He supported the government of the queen dowager Mary of Guise. He wrote to her on 10 June 1554 describing a skirmish in which his cousin George Drummond of Ledcrieff was killed by the lairds of Ardblair, Drumlochie, and Gormok, his followers. Lord Ruthven, sheriff of Perth, and Lord Drummond had searched for these lairds in vain but arrested six innocent poor men, who also depended on him. He hoped she could arrange a fair trial for them in Edinburgh or Perth, especially because Lord Ruthven favoured the Drummonds. He was coming to see her, but had fallen ill and wrote from Tullibardine. Subsequently, Patrick Blair of Ardblair was found, tried, and beheaded for the murder.[1]
In 1560 he was one of the three nobles who voted in
On the arrival of Mary, Queen of Scots, from
After the murder of
In 1574 he was proceeded against as a Roman Catholic and threatened with excommunication, subsequently holding a conference with the ministers and being allowed till midsummer to overcome his scruples. In October 1578 he stayed with Morton at Dalkeith Palace and was said to have converted to the Protestant faith.[5]
He had failed in 1572 to prevent Morton's appointment to the regency, but in 1578 he succeeded with the Earl of Argyll in driving him from office. On 24 March, James VI took the government into his own hands and dissolved the regency, and Atholl and Argyll, to the exclusion of Morton, were made members of the council, while on the 29th Atholl was appointed lord chancellor. Subsequently, on 24 May, Morton succeeded in getting into Stirling Castle and in attaining his guardianship of James. Atholl and Argyll, who were now corresponding with Spain in hopes of assistance from that quarter, then advanced to Stirling with a large force, when a compromise was arranged, the three earls being all included in the government.[4]
Death
While on his way from a banquet held on 20 April 1579 at Stirling Castle on the occasion of the reconciliation, Atholl was seized with sudden illness, and despite the attentions of the court physicians Gilbert Moncreiff and Alexander Preston, and a Highland practitioner recorded as the "Irland Leeche", he died on 25 April at Kincardine.
He was buried at the
There was a strong suspicion of poisoning and his relatives, including
Regent Morton's friend George Auchinleck of Balmanno was tortured with the boot on 15 March 1580 and was said to have confessed that Morton had Atholl poisoned. Affleck blamed another captive associate of Morton, Sanders Jordan, (Alexander Jardine).[10] It was thought that John Provand had provided the poison.[11]
Family
John married
- (1) Elizabeth Gordon, daughter of George Gordon, 4th Earl of Huntly and Elizabeth Keith, by whom he had
- Elizabeth Stewart, Countess of Arran, who married Hugh Fraser, 5th Lord Lovat, and secondly Robert Stewart, 1st Earl of March, and thirdly James Stewart, Earl of Arran.
- (2) Margaret Fleming (1529-1586), daughter of Malcolm Fleming, 3rd Lord Fleming and Janet Stewart, widow of Robert Graham, Baron Graham, and of Thomas Erskine, Master of Erskine (brother of John Erskine, 5th Lord Erskine. With Margaret, James had three daughters and one son:
- Jean Stewart, who married Ewen Cameron of Lochiel.
- Grizel Stewart, wife of David Lindsay, 11th Earl of Crawford
- Mary Stewart, wife of Francis Hay, 9th Earl of Erroll
- John Stewart, 5th Earl of Atholl, who married Marie Ruthven, at his death in 1595 the earldom in default of male heirs reverted to the crown.
- Jean Stewart, who married
References
- ^ Annie Cameron, Scottish Correspondence of Mary of Lorraine (Edinburgh: SHS, 1927), pp. 384-5.
- ^ Chisholm 1911, p. 849.
- ^ Chisholm 1911, pp. 849–850.
- ^ a b c Chisholm 1911, p. 850.
- ^ Edmund Lodge, Illustrations of British History, vol. 2 (London, 1791), p. 201.
- ^ HMC 12th report part 8, MSS of the Duke of Athole (London, 1891), p. 9, letter, James VI to John, 5th Earl of Atholl, 24 May 1579.
- ^ James David Marwick, Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Edinburgh, 1573-1579 (Edinburgh, 1882), p. 110.
- ^ James Dennistoun, Moysie's Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1830), pp. 21-3
- ^ Edmund Lodge, Illustrations of British History, vol. 2 (London, 1791), p. 213.
- ^ William Boyd, Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 5 (Edinburgh, 1907), pp. 663 no. 751, 671 no. 761.
- ^ William Boyd, Calendar of State Papers Scotland, 1581-1583, vol. 6 (Edinburgh, 1910), p. 16 no. 26: Transactions in Scotland by Richard Bannatyne (Edinburgh, 1836), p. 320: Lord Lindsay, Lives of the Lindsays, 1 (London, 1858), p. 336.
- ^ William Boyd, Calendar of State Papers Scotland: 1574-1581, vol. 5 (Edinburgh, 1907), p. 26.
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Atholl, Earls and Dukes of". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 2 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 849–851.
