Elizabeth Stewart

Notes:

"[A] lady variously named Jean, Kathrina and Elizabeth, daughter of King Robert II." [The Scots Peerage, citation details below]

Elizabeth married David Lindsay before 1384. David (son of Alexander Lindsay and Catherine Stirling) was born between 1359 and 1360; died in Feb 1407 in Finhaven Castle, Angus, Scotland; was buried in Greyfriars, Dundee, Angus, Scotland. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Elizabeth married Robert Erskine after 20 Dec 1400. Robert (son of Thomas Erskine and Janet Keith) died between 7 Sep 1451 and 6 Nov 1452. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

2nd Earl of Crawford.

"[A]s a minor a hostage for the Earl of Douglas 1406-7, called 'dilectus consanguineus' 1407 in a safe-conduct from King Henry IV, knighted at the coronation of James I, 21 May 1424, a hostage in England for the king's ransom 1424-27, ambassador to England January 1430/1, a commissioner of truce 31 Mar 1438." [The Ancestry of Charles II, citation details below]

"[He] was much less prominent in public life than his father. In part this was the result of two spells in captivity, in 1406–7 as a hostage for the fourth earl of Douglas and in 1424–7 as a hostage for James I. In 1407 Henry IV of England granted him a safe conduct for travel to Amiens, an early indication of a long-standing family devotion to St John the Baptist, whose head was venerated there. He received a safe conduct for travel to England in 1416 and again in 1421, when he was one of the commissioners appointed to negotiate the release of James I from English captivity. In December of the same year he arranged a male entail for the Crawford lands. In 1424 he met James at Durham with hostages for the king's release. Although Crawford is said to have been knighted at James's coronation on 21 May 1424, on 25 March he had taken oath as a hostage for the king, his own ransom set at 1000 merks. During this second period of captivity he was imprisoned in the Tower of London, York, and finally Pontefract. Two years after his release in 1427 he endowed a chaplaincy in the parish church of Dundee with an annual grant of 12 merks. He received another safe conduct in January 1430, to meet English envoys at Hawdenstank, and in January 1431 he was again nominated as an ambassador to England. In 1438 he was appointed a commissioner of the Anglo-Scottish truce. Little else is known of Crawford, but he was said to have been active in the capture of James I's assassins. He and his wife Marjory, whose identity is unrecorded, had five sons and two daughters." [Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, citation details below]

Alexander married Marjory before 1410. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

2nd Lord Erskine. Knighted before 24 Jan 1441. Sat in the Scottish parliament 14 Oct 1467. Sheriff of Stirling 1483. Sided with James III in the insurrection of 1488.

Thomas married Janet Douglas before 1445. Janet died after Aug 1489. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 27 Jan 1446

Notes:

3rd Earl of Crawford.

"David Lindsay third earl of Crawford (d. 1446), had been knighted by 17 September 1425 and witnessed a royal charter as earl on 1 February 1440. During the minority of James II he was associated politically with the Douglas family and he was among those who ravaged the lands of James Kennedy, bishop of St Andrews, in 1445. As a result he was excommunicated; according to a later source, this did not bother him greatly. He died at Finavon Castle on 17 January 1446, having been mortally wounded while attempting to prevent a battle at Arbroath between Lindsay kinsmen and the Ogilvy family, to which his wife, Marjory, belonged. Friction between the two families had arisen after the earl's son Alexander was replaced as justiciar of Arbroath Abbey by Alexander Ogilvy of Inverquharity. […] He had died excommunicate and was not buried until his erstwhile foe Bishop Kennedy lifted the sentence." [Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, citation details below]

David married Marjory Ogilvy after 26 Feb 1423. Marjory (daughter of Alexander Ogilvy) died after 17 Nov 1478. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Humphrey Colquhoun. Humphrey (son of John Colquhoun and (Unknown) Boyd) was born in of Luss, Argyll, Scotland; died about 19 Aug 1493. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

3rd Lord Erskine.

Alexander married Christian Crichton before 9 Oct 1466. Christian (daughter of Robert Crichton and Elizabeth) died between Nov 1477 and Mar 1478. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

4th Earl of Crawford. Called "the Tiger" for his character, and "Beardie" for his facial appearance.

"Sheriff of Aberdeen, Guardian of the Marches, in league with the Douglas against James II, but submitted with great ceremony and was restored." [The Ancestry of Charles II, citation details below]

"He had been appointed sheriff of Aberdeenshire by 1450 and as an envoy to England and commissioner of the truce the following year. From 1453 he was also a guardian of the march. Despite his border interests he was also active in the north-east, and probably in the early 1450s entered into a bond with the eighth earl of Douglas and John Macdonald, lord of the Isles. Its terms do not survive, but it was most likely intended to resolve tensions in the region while securing the interests of the subscribers. This alliance of three of the most powerful magnates in the kingdom aroused the suspicion of James II, however, and was the immediate cause of his slaying of Douglas on 22 February 1452. Shortly afterwards, on 18 May, Crawford was defeated by the earl of Huntly at Brechin and fled to Finavon. Although Huntly is said to have 'displayit the kingis banere', the battle may have been as much an extension of a private feud (Huntly had been involved in the hostilities at Arbroath in which Crawford's father was fatally wounded) as a consequence of James's hostility to Crawford. Crawford was forfeited in the parliament which assembled at Edinburgh on 12 June, but he subsequently reconciled his differences with Huntly and his father's foe Bishop Kennedy and, helped by their intercession on his behalf, had been restored to the king's favour by 23 May 1453, when he was made a conservator of a truce with England." [Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, citation details below]

Family/Spouse: Margaret Dunbar. Margaret (daughter of David Dunbar) was born about 1420; died between Jul 1498 and Jan 1500. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Member of the Scottish parliament in 1503 and 1525.

From The Chiefs of Colquhoun and Their Country (citation details below):

On the death of King James the Fourth at Flodden, his son and successor, King James the Fifth, being a child of little more than one year old, the Queen Mother, Margaret daughter of King Henry the Seventh of England, was declared Regent of the realm. At the same time John Duke of of Albany was summoned from France to Scotland, and chosen governor and protector of the infant Prince and kingdom, by a Convention of the Estates. During the delay of the arrival of the Duke of Albany, the Earl of Arran assumed the office of Regent. In this assumption he was supported, among others, by John third Earl of Lennox, the Master of Glencairn, and Sir John Colquhoun of Luss, whose wife was the paternal aunt of the Earl of Lennox.

Sir John Colquhoun joined these noblemen in a successful attempt to seize the castle of Dumbarton. During a stormy night in January 1514, they found their way into the castle, and expelled from it Lord Erskine, by whom it was held for the Queen Mother's party; and though the Earl of Arran was frustrated in his usurpation of the regency by the arrival of the Duke of Albany in Scotland, they continued to hold the castle of Dumbarton until it was surrendered by the Earl of Lennox, who, having fallen into the hands of his opponents, and having been imprisoned in the castle of Edinburgh, could obtain his liberation only on condition of his surrendering it.

After the departure of the Duke of Albany for France in 1524, King James the Fifth, who was then only thirteen years of age, was invested with the supreme authority, but the government was in reality in the hands of the Earls of Arran, Lennox, and Morton. A pardon was therefore now easily obtained for Sir John Colquhoun of Luss and others, who had taken part in the capture of the castle of Dumbarton. On the 11th of July 1526, a "respite was granted to Sir John Colquhon of Luce, Knight, Patrick Colquhon, John Logan of Balvey, Walter and Robert his sons, George Buchquhanan of that Ilk," and twenty-nine others, for "their tressonabill asseging, taking, and withhalding of our souerane lordis castle and fortalice of Dumbertene fra his servandis, keparis thairof" On the 16th of July following, a respite "was granted to Glencairn and others."

John married Elizabeth Stewart about 1480. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

4th Lord Erskine. De jure Earl of Mar. Killed at the battle of Flodden Field.

Robert married Isabella Campbell in 1485. Isabella (daughter of George Campbell and (Unknown) Kennedy) was born about 1469; died after 14 Dec 1518. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Living 22 Sep 1509.

Elizabeth married John Drummond before 1470. John (son of Malcolm Drummond and Mariota Murray) was born about 1446; died before 18 Dec 1519 in Drummond Castle, Perthshire, Scotland; was buried in Innerpeffray, Perthshire, Scotland. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Humphrey married Helen Graham about 13 Jul 1509. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Elizabeth married James Forrester about 1510. James (son of Walter Forrester and Agnes Graham) was born before 17 Sep 1489 in of Torwood, Falkirk, Scotland; was christened on 17 Sep 1489; died between 7 Oct 1532 and 21 May 1536. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Abt 1500

Annabel married William Graham on 25 Nov 1479 in Muthill, Perthshire, Scotland. William (son of William Graham and Helen Douglas) was born between 1463 and 1464; died on 9 Sep 1513 in Flodden Field, Northumberland, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 1501

Notes:

From the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (citation details below):

Drummond, Margaret (d. 1502), royal mistress, was the eldest of the six daughters of John Drummond of Cargill, first Lord Drummond (d. 1518), and his wife, Elizabeth Lindsay. James IV may have met Margaret when he visited Drummond Castle on 25 April 1496, and she appears to have succeeded Marion Boyd as James's mistress about this time. Coupled with the growing influence of Archibald Campbell, second earl of Argyll, whose sister Isabel was Drummond's daughter-in-law, Margaret's affair with the king helped in the advancement both of her father, who held the office of justiciar from February 1495 until 1501, and of his kinsman Walter Drummond, dean of Dunblane, who became clerk register in 1497. Official acknowledgement of the relationship came on 3 June 1496, when James installed Margaret in apartments in Stirling Castle; a reference by the Spanish ambassador, Don Pedro de Ayala, to a lady being kept by the king in great state in a castle describes this arrangement.

Margaret Drummond lived at Stirling Castle under the care of its keeper, Sir John Lundy, and of his wife until 30 October 1496, when she was moved to Linlithgow, possibly to give birth to the daughter, also called Margaret, whom she bore the king. The liaison effectively ended in March 1497, when Margaret and her daughter were sent home to Drummond, but although James IV had embarked on his long-running affair with Janet Kennedy in 1498, Margaret received a crown lease for nine years of lands in the earldom of Strathearn, dated 23 January 1498, possibly at the time of her marriage—according to de Ayala she was married off after her return to Drummond, although there is no supporting evidence for this. The king certainly seems to have accepted a measure of responsibility for his erstwhile mistress, as payments to her of £21 and 41s. for her daughter's nurse were made as late as June 1502. When Margaret died, towards the end of 1502, James had their daughter Margaret brought from Drummond Castle to Stirling, where royal children were traditionally brought up, and he paid a quarterly fee until at least 1508 for two priests in Dunblane Cathedral to sing masses for Margaret Drummond.

A number of stories concerning Margaret Drummond's time as royal mistress appear in the eulogistic history of the Drummond family which William Drummond, later first viscount of Strathallan, completed in 1681. He states that the king had known Margaret since 1488 and had desired to marry her, but in 1502 some courtiers, determined to help the king to a far more advantageous marriage, and fearing that his infatuation with Margaret would prevent this, caused her and two of her sisters, with whom she happened to be dining, to be poisoned. There is no contemporary evidence for these stories, and official records attest a much briefer and less dramatic liaison than the exaggerated account presented by William Drummond.

Family/Spouse: James IV, King of Scots. James (son of James III, King of Scots and Margaret of Denmark) was born on 17 Mar 1473 in Holyrood, Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scotland; died on 9 Sep 1513 in Flodden Field, Northumberland, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Living 21 Aug 1514.

Elizabeth married George Douglas between 20 Jul 1485 and 31 Jan 1489. George (son of Archibald Douglas and Elizabeth Boyd) was born about 1469; died on 9 Sep 1513 in Flodden Field, Northumberland, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Lady Aikitt, elder, sheriffdom of Ayr.

"In 1578-79, another of [the Colquhoun] clan, Helen Colquhoun, was accused of the 'treasonable administering of poysoun' to her spouse, William Cunninghame of Aiket; but the fragmentary records give us little information about these trials…" ["Poisoning in Scotland", citation details below]

The will of Helene Colquhoun, Lady Aikitt, elder, sheriffdom of Ayr, was proved in the Edinburgh commissary court on 13 Mar 1596.

The 1877 Colquhoun pedigree ("Colquhoun of Luss", citation details below) shows Helen Colquhoun, daughter of Humphrey, marrying a "James" Cunningham of Aiket; it also gives her mother's name as "Katherine", rather than Helen, a mistake that also appears in many Burke's Pedigrees products. In a pair of posts to soc.genealogy.medieval on 10 Oct 2019, John Brandon points out that the papal dispensation of 1509 clearly identifies Humphrey Colquhoun's wife as Helen. As to whether Humphrey Colquhoun's and Helen Graham's daughter Helen was indeed, the Helen who married Cunningham of Aiket, Brandon points to the marriage of Robert Graham of Knockdolian, who was known to have been involved in dealings with William and Helen (Colquhoun) Cunningham, to Christian Graham, daughter of the second William Graham, 2nd earl of Montrose — further evidence of Graham-Colquhoun prosopographical adjancency.

Helen married William Cunningham before 24 Oct 1564. William was born in of Aiket, Ayrshire, Scotland. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Margaret married Henry Livingston between 4 Dec 1540 and 22 May 1550. Henry was born about 1495 in of Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland; died between 22 Jan 1579 and 5 Nov 1581. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

She was definitely a daughter of the first earl of Montrose. The will of William Graham, who was killed at the battle of Flodden Field in 1513, acknowledges a debt to the Laird of Luss (i.e. John Colquhoun, father of Humphrey), on account of his daughter's dowry, and also the Laird of Luss younger (i.e. Humphrey).

Burke's Peerage and Burke's Landed Gentry, and thus many online sources, show William Graham's daughters Margaret, Elizabeth, and Helen, in that order, as daughters of William Graham by his second wife Janet Edmondstone.

This cannot be true of Elizabeth. The Complete Peerage 4:470 says that Walter Drummond, grandson of John Drummond and Elizabeth Lindsay, "m., in Feb. 1513/4, his cousin Elizabeth, 2nd da. of William (Graham), 1st Earl of Montrose [S.], by his first wife Annabel, 4th da. of John (Drummond), Lord Drummond abovenamed." It can be seen that if Walter Drummond and his wife Elizabeth were cousins, it would have to be the case that Elizabeth was a daughter of William Graham's first wife, Annabel Drummond.

CP says of Annabel Drummond that "[s]he was living 1492" and that her son William Graham, second earl of Montrose, was "a minor at his father's death", 9 Sep 1513, but "was served heir to him" 24 Oct 1513. The Scots Peerage narrates this latter event in a way that suggests that the younger William was still a minor on 24 Oct 1513: "William […] was under age at the death of his father, but in virtue of the Act of 24 August, was served his heir 24 October, 1513." SP goes on to emphasize and extoll his precocity: "He early displayed qualities of prudence and statesmanship which enabled him, over a long life," [etc.]. CP notes that the younger William "was present in Parl. [S.] 2 Jun 1514" and that he married his only wife, Janet Keith, in Dec 1515. All of which suggests that the second earl attained his majority no earlier than the end of 1513, which means that he has to have been born to Annabel Drummond no earlier than the end of 1492, and given that he could perfectly well have married while still a minor, plausibly as late as 1497 or 1498.

Also, according to SP, William Graham and Annabel Drummond had a second son following William: "Walter, a younger son of the first marriage, who had a tack of Little Cairnie for nineteen years from the Abbot of Inchaffray, 8 January 1541-42, and appears to have been ancestor of the second family of the Grahams of Thornick, afterwards Cairnie." If so, this moves the end of Annabel Drummond's life to no earlier than the end of 1493. And again, given that the first son could easily have been born as late as 1497-98, she was quite possibly still living in 1498-99.

The date of William Graham's marriage to Janet Edmondstone is unknown to us, but the earliest record of them as married is a charter dated 17 Mar 1505. According to CP she died between that date and 15 Apr 1506.

The papal dispensation for Helen Graham's marriage to Humphrey Colquhoun was dated 13 Jul 1509.

If Annabel Drummond died as soon as the records allow, say December 1493, and William Graham married Janet Edmondstone as soon as possible, say the first part of 1494, and Helen Graham was their first child, born say early 1495, then the papal dispensation for her marriage to Humphrey Colquhoun, dated 13 Jul 1509, was issued when she was fourteen. Which is hardly unheard-of among the aristocracy of 15th/16th century Scotland, but also adds up to a pretty tight fit.

Additional to this is the fact that William Graham and Annabel Drummond married in 1479, and yet their eldest son and heir cannot have been born earlier than late 1513. It is implausible that they spent the first dozen years of their marriage having no children. We have seen that daughter Elizabeth has to have been the issue of William and Annabel. Margaret is specified by SP as a daughter of the second marriage. Aside from the fact that this implies, in SP's usual manner of listing offspring, that the other daughters, whose mothers are not noted, were from the first marriage, it also means that Helen, Jean, and Elizabeth are the only known offspring of William Graham whose birth can be used to fill the childbearing years from 1480 to 1492. (The other legitimate child of William Graham, Patrick, is given by SP as his son by his third wife, Christian Wawane.)

Taken together, we think the evidence preponderantly suggests that Helen Graham was a daughter of William Graham's first wife, and probably, as the order of William's children in SP suggests, his eldest daughter.

Helen married Humphrey Colquhoun about 13 Jul 1509. Humphrey (son of John Colquhoun and Elizabeth Stewart) was born in of Luss, Argyll, Scotland; died in Jan 1538. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1490

Archibald married Margaret Tudor on 6 Aug 1514 in Kinnoull, near Perth, Perthshire, Scotland. Margaret (daughter of Henry VII, King of England and lord of Ireland and Elizabeth of York, Queen Consort of England) was born on 28 Nov 1489 in Westminster Palace, Middlesex, England; died on 18 Oct 1541 in Methven Castle, Perthshire, Scotland; was buried in Perth, Perthshire, Scotland. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

"Marion Cunningham, Lady Bar, died at her home in Ayr in January 1623. She was the daughter of William Cunningham of Aiket and Helen Colquhoun, daughter of a Highland chief. […] She grew up in an age of aggression in northern Ayrshire, the time of the great feud betewen the Montgomery Earl of Eglinton and the Cunningham Earl of Glencairn which lasted over seventy years in the sixteenth century." [Ayr and Its People, citation details below]

Marion married John Lockhart in 1595 in Stewarton, Ayrshire, Scotland. John (son of Alexander Lockhart and Margaret Kennedy) died in 1614. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Abt 24 Jun 1624
• Alternate death: Bef 26 Aug 1624
• Alternate death: Abt 26 Aug 1624

Notes:

M.A. St. Andrews, 1583. Inaugurated 15 Oct 1587 minister of St. Ninian's, Stirlingshire. Elected 7 Apr 1607 Moderator of the Synod of Perth.

On 9 Apr 1588 he was ordered by the Synod of Stirling and Dunblane to defend his baptism of John Murray of Touchadam's illegitimate child before Murray had performed the required public penitence. The Rev. Livingston appeared along Duncan Narne of Lokishill and together they explained that Livingston had baptized the baby out of fear of Murray's retaliation. Being a minister in sixteenth-century Scotland had its dangers, as indicated here and in the following:

"On 26 March 1595, Mr Henry reported the promising results of his intermediation in a blood feud between the Sinclairs and the Stirlings of Keir. When M^r Henry was elected Moderator of the Synod of Perth against the wishes of James VI/I, the king's agent Sir David Murray, Lord Scone, later Viscount Henry Stormont, violently disrupted M^r Henry's service. For his disobedience, the Privy Council placed M^r Henry under house arrest in Stirling. [...] M^r Henry continued to disobey the king, signing the Protestation for the Liberties of the Kirk on 27 June 1617." [Adrian Benjamin Burke, citation details below]

Henry married Agnes Gray about 1584. Agnes (daughter of Alexander Gray and Helen Little) was born about 1563; died after 4 Feb 1591 in Stirling, Stirlingshire, Scotland. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Lady Aikitt, elder, sheriffdom of Ayr.

"In 1578-79, another of [the Colquhoun] clan, Helen Colquhoun, was accused of the 'treasonable administering of poysoun' to her spouse, William Cunninghame of Aiket; but the fragmentary records give us little information about these trials…" ["Poisoning in Scotland", citation details below]

The will of Helene Colquhoun, Lady Aikitt, elder, sheriffdom of Ayr, was proved in the Edinburgh commissary court on 13 Mar 1596.

The 1877 Colquhoun pedigree ("Colquhoun of Luss", citation details below) shows Helen Colquhoun, daughter of Humphrey, marrying a "James" Cunningham of Aiket; it also gives her mother's name as "Katherine", rather than Helen, a mistake that also appears in many Burke's Pedigrees products. In a pair of posts to soc.genealogy.medieval on 10 Oct 2019, John Brandon points out that the papal dispensation of 1509 clearly identifies Humphrey Colquhoun's wife as Helen. As to whether Humphrey Colquhoun's and Helen Graham's daughter Helen was indeed, the Helen who married Cunningham of Aiket, Brandon points to the marriage of Robert Graham of Knockdolian, who was known to have been involved in dealings with William and Helen (Colquhoun) Cunningham, to Christian Graham, daughter of the second William Graham, 2nd earl of Montrose — further evidence of Graham-Colquhoun prosopographical adjancency.

Helen married William Cunningham before 24 Oct 1564. William was born in of Aiket, Ayrshire, Scotland. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Margaret married Matthew Stewart on 29 Jun 1544 in St. James Palace, London, England. Matthew (son of John Stewart and Elizabeth Stewart) was born on 21 Sep 1516 in Dunbarton Castle, Dunbartonshire, Scotland; died on 4 Sep 1571 in Stirling Castle, Stirlingshire, Scotland; was buried in Chapel Royal, Stirlingshire, Scotland. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]