John Colquhoun

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Between 21 Oct 1478 and 14 Jun 1479

Notes:

Comptroller of the Exchequer, 1460-69. Sheriff of Dumbartonshire, 1471. Great Chamberlain, 1474. Governor of the castle of Dunbarton from 1477 to his death.

A member of the Scottish parliament in Oct 1466, Oct 1467, 1469, 1471, 1476, and 1478.

“Colquhoun of Luss” says that he was “killed at the siege of Dunbar”, but provides no date. The famous Siege of Dunbar was of course in 1338. The siege referred to here was the first armed conflict in the struggle between James III of Scotland and his brother Alexander Stewart, Duke of Albany, when the king laid siege to Dunbar Castle in, according to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, April 1479. Volume 4 of Patrick Fraser Tytler’s History of Scotland (1831) agrees on the year, and notes that during the siege, “the cannon mounted on the ramparts of the castle appear to have been well served and pointed—a single ball at one moment striking dead three of the bravest knights in the army, Sir John Colquhoun of Luss, Sir Adam Wallace of Craigie, and Sir James Schaw of Sauchie.”

Family/Spouse: (Unknown) Boyd. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

John married Elizabeth Dunbar before Jul 1463. Elizabeth died before Mar 1494. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

He was a member of the Scottish parliament in October 1488, convened by the new king, James IV, largely to obtain aquittals for those involved in the overthrow and killing of his father, James III.

Family/Spouse: Helen Erskine. [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]

Humphrey married Helen Graham about 13 Jul 1509. [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]

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]

Janet married John Cunningham before 8 Jan 1634. John (son of William Cunningham and Agnes Cunningham) died before 17 Apr 1672. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Margaret married Alexander Lockhart before 17 Apr 1672. Alexander died before 11 Apr 1684; was buried on 11 Apr 1684 in Greyfriars Burying Ground, Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scotland. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Michael Wallace. Michael died in Ramelton, Donegal, Ireland. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]