Alexander Lindsay

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]

1. Elizabeth Lindsay

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]

Notes:

"Countess Marjory, the daughter of Alexander Ogilvy of Auchterhouse, outlived her husband and endowed a mass on his behalf in the Franciscan church at Dundee. Later chroniclers stated that she smothered her wounded cousin Alexander Ogilvy as revenge for the death of her husband." [Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, citation details below]

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:

"She is mentioned in a charter of the Earl founding a chaplainry at Dundee 23 April 1429, endowed from the lands of Westerbrichty." [The Scots Peerage, citation details below]

Notes:

"[S]heriff of Angus, received many charters from Robert III between 1398 and 1404, survived, though badly wounded, the battle of Harlaw 1411, treated in England between 1413 and 1415 for the release of James I, an auditor of the royal revenues." [The Ancestry of Charles II, citation details below]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1359
• Alternate death: Abt Feb 1407
• Alternate death: Bef 12 Aug 1407

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.

David married Elizabeth Stewart before 1384. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

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

Notes:

Their dispensation was dated 22 Feb 1375, they being related in the 4th degree of kindred.

Notes:

"[S]heriff of Angus before 1380, called 'Schir Waler of Ogylwy, shyrreff of Angus' 10 Aug 1338, when presiding an assize, slain repelling a raid by highlanders." [The Ancestry of Charles II, citation details below]

Widely said to have been a descendant of Gillebride, first earl of Angus, but the intervening generations are unclear. The Scots Peerage says he was a son of another Walter Ogilvy, son of a Patrick Ogilvy, and agrees that the progenitor of the Ogilvys was Gilbert, son of Gillebride, but it does not trace a proven line all the way from Gilbert to this Walter.

Walter married Isabel Ramsey. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Heiress of Auchterhouse. Possibly a daughter of Sir Malcolm Ramsey of Auchterhouse.