| Notes |
- 1st Earl of Crawford.
"Noted for his knightly prowess, defeated John, Lord Welles, in a joust on London Bridge before King Richard II and his queen, severely wounded 1392 by highlanders at the battle of Glasclune, created an Earl 1398, Admiral of Scotland by 1403, an ambassador to England in 1404 and 1406." [The Ancestry of Charles II, citation details below]
From the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:
As the leading magnate in north-east Scotland and also, it would seem, a responsible and diligent nobleman, David Lindsay played a prominent part in regional and local politics. He worked in collaboration with the dukes of both Rothesay (of whose council he was a member) and Albany, guardians of the realm for most of the period between 1388 and 1420, to curtail the recalcitrant earl of Buchan's influence. In 1391 he participated in the highland campaign led by Albany which was directed against Buchan. On or about 18 January 1392 he took part in a skirmish at either Glen Brerachan or Glasclune; his adversaries are variously reported as Buchan's illegitimate sons and members of clan Donnchaidh. During this encounter Walter Ogilvy, sheriff of Angus, was killed and Lindsay was wounded. Further encounters with highland caterans and Buchan's family were to follow. Lindsay was involved in arranging the famous judicial combat between members of clan Quhele and clan Kay which was staged before King Robert III at Perth on 28 September 1396. His promotion to the rank of earl in 1398 should probably be regarded as part of the crown's programme of strengthening its position in the north at this time. By November 1400 he had aligned himself with the Erskine family in its claim to the earldom of Mar, advanced in anticipation of the death of Countess Isabella. In 1402, following the death of Isabella's second husband, Sir Malcolm Drummond, Crawford became a member of the countess's council, but his plans for an Erskine succession were thwarted two years later by Isabella's unexpected third marriage to Buchan's son Alexander. Crawford was, however, instrumental in brokering a deal between the new earl and Erskine's principal supporter, Albany, at Kildrummy on 1 December 1404, which left Alexander in possession of Mar for life.
Well before he became an earl Lindsay had acquired an international reputation, one secured during a visit in 1390 to London, where on 4 or 6 May he defeated Lord Welles in a tournament, to be rewarded with gifts from Richard II. Chivalric interests and a family tradition of crusading probably explain why he and his brother, Alexander, enrolled in the order of the Passion, a crusading order established by Philippe de Mézières in 1395, though neither is known to have engaged the infidel. Instead Lindsay became increasingly involved in governmental matters. Although he was appointed deputy chamberlain north of the Forth in 1405, his chief responsibility concerned foreign affairs. In March 1394 he was named a conservator of the Anglo-Scottish truce and he participated in further Anglo-Scottish truce negotiations between 1397 and 1400. Probably in 1401 and certainly by 1403 he had been made admiral. In December 1401, in the hope of winning French military assistance for Scottish campaigns against England, Crawford arrived in Paris, apparently spreading the falsehood that the by now deposed Richard II was alive and well in Scotland, and on 3 January 1402 he entered the service of Louis, duc d'Orléans, the leader of the French war party. By 22 March Crawford was at Harfleur, in command of a predominantly French fleet, which in the subsequent four months captured at least twenty-five English merchant vessels in the channel. Some of the spoils were taken to Corunna in Spain, where Crawford donated an anchor and a boat to Jean de Béthencourt, seigneur de Grainville, in furtherance of the latter's attempt to conquer the Canary Islands. As the fleet reached Scotland only late in July, Crawford was absent during the time of the removal from power and subsequent death of Rothesay, his former patron, though his half-brother Sir William Lindsay of Rossie had been one of the duke's captors. Nor is he recorded as having fought at Homildon Hill on 14 September following.
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Nielsen Hayden genealogy
1360 - 1407 (~ 48 years)
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