Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 54.djvu/315

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their friends refusing to bury them until 'the slaughter was punished' (ib. p. 420). Captain Gordon, one of Huntly's followers, who being wounded was unable to escape to the north, was brought to Edinburgh and executed; but this did not assuage the indignation of the people, and the king deemed it prudent to retire from Edinburgh to Glasgow, until Huntly entered himself in ward in Blackness. This Huntly did on 12 March, but on the 20th he was released on giving surety that on six days' notice he would appear and stand his trial whenever called on to do so. The murder of Moray is the theme of a short traditional ballad or song, the simple pathos of which is evidence that the tragedy powerfully affected popular feeling.

By his wife, Elizabeth Stewart, who died three months before him, he had two sons and three daughters : James, second earl of Moray; Sir Francis Stewart, knight of the Bath, who was well known in London literary society, and is said to have frequented the literary meetings at the Mermaid tavern; Margaret, married first to Charles Howard, earl of Nottingham, lord high admiral of England, and secondly to William, viscount Monson; May, married to John, eighth lord Abernethy of Saltoun; and Grizel, to Robert Innes of Innes.

[Reg. P. C. Scotl. iv.; Moysie's Memoirs and History of James the Sext in the Bannatyne Club; Histories by Spotiswood and Calderwood; Douglas's Scottish Peerage (Wood), ii. 258-9.]

T. F. H.


STEWART, JAMES, of Bothwellmuir, Earl of Arran (d. 1595), was second son of Andrew Stewart, second lord Ochiltree [q. v.], father-in-law of Knox, by Agnes, daughter of John Cunningham of Caprington. Sir William Stewart (d. 1588) [q. v.] was his younger brother. He was well educated, probably with the intention of entering the church, but, preferring an adventurous life, he became a soldier of fortune, and for some time served in the army of the states of Holland against the Spaniards. Plausible, able, and accomplished, he was at the same time quite unscrupulous in the choice of methods to attain his ambitious hopes, while in impudent audacity he probably had no equal even among the Scottish courtiers. Returning to Scotland in 1579, he was on 15 Oct. 1580 appointed a gentleman of the chamber (Reg. P. C. Scotl. iii. 323). He was also made captain of the guard and tutor to his cousin, the insane Earl of Arran [see Hamilton, James, third Earl of Arran]. In December 1580 he was made use of by Esmé Stuart, duke of Lennox [q. v.], to accuse Morton before the council of the murder of Darnley (Calderwood iii. 481; Spotiswood, ii. 271; Moysie, Memoirs, p. 28). On 7 Feb. 1580–1 he was admitted a member of the privy council (Reg. P. C. Scotl. iii. 356). The reward for his bold and dangerous coup against Morton was his recognition as the legitimate head of the Hamiltons. On 22 April 1581 he obtained a grant of the earldom of Arran in Bute, of the lands and barony of Hamilton in Lanark, and of other lands in Lanark, Berwickshire, and Linlithgow (Reg. Mag. Sig. Scot. 1580–93, No. 167); and under the pretence that he was the lawful heir of the family (his father's mother being only child of the first Earl of Arran by his first wife), he had, on 28 Oct., a letter of confirmation under the great seal, ratifying anew the old erection of the earldom of Arran, and creating him and his heirs male earls of Arran and lords of Avane and Hamilton (ib. No. 262). After the execution of Morton a special act was passed by the privy council approving his services in accusing Morton of Darnley's murder (Reg. P. C. Scotl. iii. 389); and the reason for passing the act, according to Spotiswood, was to acquit him for putting some of Morton's servants to the torture, although, according to the same authority, the object of applying torture was ‘to find out where his gold and money was hidden, and for no purpose else’ (History, ii. 280). After his accession to the earldom of Arran he did not scruple to manifest his jealousy of the Duke of Lennox, and ‘spared not to affront him on all occasions’ (ib.) On the ground that his ‘house was nearest the king,’ he protested against the duke bearing the sword at the parliament held in October (Calderwood, iii. 592). Thereupon, in consequence of Arran's insolence, the duke declined to attend the parliament; and the king, taking the duke with him to Dalkeith, forbad Arran to come to court (Spotiswood, ii. 281). Arran gave out that the quarrel was ‘on account of religion;’ but finding that he was gaining nothing by this open hostility, he resolved to bide his time. Some time in December they therefore were reconciled; but on 1 Feb. 1581–2 Arran demitted the office of captain of the guard (Reg. P. C. Scotl. iii. 438).

Shortly after being created earl, Arran married, on 6 July 1581, Elizabeth, eldest daughter of John Stewart, fourth earl of Atholl [q. v.] Arran was her third husband. Her first husband was Hugh, sixth lord Lovat, on whose death she became the wife of Robert Stewart, earl of Lennox and March. Subsequently Arran seduced her, and after she was with child by him she