Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Stewart, James (d.1595)
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 obtained a divorce from the Earl of Lennox on account of his impotency. Her child by Arran, according to Calderwood, was ‘born a quarter of a year before’ he married her; and before baptism could be granted ‘he and his lady had to underlie the discipline of the kirk’ (Calderwood, iii. 596). For some time he and Lennox had been in collision with the kirk for the ‘intrusion’ of Robert Montgomerie [q. v.] into the bishopric in Glasgow, and on 9 May 1582 he and Lennox ‘fell out in outrageous words’ against the commissioners of the kirk sent to the king on the subject (ib. p. 619). Also when certain articles on the subject were presented to the king and nobility at Perth in July, Arran asked, ‘with a thrawn face and in boasting manner, who dare subscribe these treasonable articles’ (ib. p. 631). It was especially the attitude of Arran and Lennox towards the kirk in the Montgomerie case that led to the raid of Ruthven on 22 Aug., when the king was seized by the protestant lords [see Ruthven, William, first Earl of Gowrie]. As soon as he knew what had happened, Arran, who was at Kinneil, hastened to Ruthven, trusting by the Earl of Gowrie's friendship to obtain access to the king. Learning that Mar was guarding the approaches, he sent his brother, Sir William Stewart, to attack Mar and divert his attention, and while Mar was engaged with Stewart he succeeded in gaining access to the castle unperceived; but instead of obtaining an interview with the king, he ‘was put in a close chamber and afterwards transported to Dupplin’ (ib. iii. 637). Finally he was placed under the charge of Gowrie, first in Stirling and afterwards at Ruthven. While at Ruthven he offered, on condition of being placed at liberty, to reveal as much as would cost Lennox his head. No doubt the offer was made con amore, nor was it a vain boast; but Lennox's head was not desired, his banishment being deemed sufficient. The offer, therefore, was not accepted; on the contrary, an order was made on 19 Oct. for his continued detention in custody of the Earl of Gowrie at Ruthven Castle until it was definitely known that Lennox had left the kingdom, after which Arran was to be at liberty to reside anywhere ‘benorth the Earn’ (Reg. P. C. Scotl. iii. 519). ‘Gowrie, however,’ says Calderwood, ‘was drawn by the king to be a friend of Arran;’ and the council, at the king's request, agreed on 15 Nov. to set Arran at liberty, which would have been done but for the remonstrance of Bowes, the English ambassador (Calderwood, iii. 690). In May 1583 Colonel Sir William Stewart (fl. 1575–1603) [q. v.] informed Queen Elizabeth of the king of Scots' desire that Arran should return to court, he having given a promise not to return without her consent (ib. iii. 714); but the request was refused. Nevertheless, after the king's escape from the Ruthven raiders, Arran on 5 Aug. came to the king at Falkland and was well received (ib. iii. 722). In September he was made provost of Stirling, and was entrusted with the keeping of the important fortress and royal residence of Stirling Castle. Although described by Calderwood with some justice as ‘a profound mocker of all religion, more fit to be the executioner of some Nero nor counsellor to a Christian prince, let be sole guide and commander of the commonwealth’ (ib. iv. 47), he now began to wield an influence over the king quite as paramount as that formerly exercised by Lennox. On 15 May 1584—the Earl of Argyll having fallen into ill-health—he had a gift of the survivancy of the chancellorship, with the power to act in the absence of Argyll, and on the death of Argyll he was placed in full possession of the chancellorship. The failure of a plot of the protestant nobles for the overthrow of his ascendency, due to the capture of the Earl of Gowrie by Colonel Stewart, established his supremacy on a more secure basis than ever. Gowrie, at whose trial Arran was one of the jury, was executed at Stirling on 2 Aug.; and the other protestant lords who had engaged in the conspiracy fled into England. On the ground of having, whether truly or falsely, discovered a plot for the capture of the castle of Edinburgh through the treachery of the constable, Arran on 8 Aug. obtained the charge of this fortress as well as of Stirling (ib. iv. 170). Still further to consolidate his authority, he entered into private communication with Elizabeth, who, resolving to make use of him so far as suited her own purposes, appointed Lord Hunsdon to hold a conference with him at Berwick (see specially Calderwood, iv. 171–97); and at the conference, if Arran did not succeed in impressing the ambassador with his entire devotedness to Elizabeth, he induced her to believe that there was no immediate necessity for his overthrow. Having thus succeeded in staving off any design for the immediate return of the banished lords, he resolved to make the best use of the breathing space afforded him, and set himself to crush his more prominent enemies in Scotland by wholesale forfeitures, among those on whom such sentences were passed being the Earl of Angus, the Earl and Countess of Mar, the Master of Glammis, and others (ib. iv. 190). During the procession of the king to the parliament, the Countess of Gowrie went down on her knees to petition the king for grace to her and her house, but was rudely thrust away by Arran, and, falling into a swoon, lay in the streets until the procession passed into the Tolbooth. At the same parliament ‘all ministers, readers, and members of colleges’ were ordered within forty days to subscribe the act of parliament acknowledging the supreme authority of the king in matters temporal as well as spiritual. On 6 Oct. Arran was chosen provost of Edinburgh, and he had now reached the acme of his influence. But the more secure he felt, the more he endangered his position by his reckless use of power. ‘Supposing all things to be right,’ says Spotiswood, ‘he went on in his accustomed manner, not caring what enmity he drew upon himself’ (History, ii. 325). The Earl of Atholl, the Lord Home, and the master of Cassilis he committed to prison simply because he had a private grudge against them. Thus when the crisis came he was left practically without a supporter. It was not long in coming. Just when he supposed that negotiations with Elizabeth were reaching a stage which would render his lease of power almost for ever secure, his influence with Elizabeth was being undermined by the very agent employed to conduct the negotiations. This was Patrick, master of Gray [see Patrick, sixth Lord Gray, (d. 1612)], who, either in secret dread of Arran's supremacy or from the more ambitious resolve to supplant him, professed, and with some justification, to reveal to Elizabeth that no trust could be placed either in Arran's intentions or in the stability of his authority, and offered, if she would support him, to do his utmost to effect his ruin and secure an indissoluble league between the two countries.
In the following spring Wotton, the English ambassador, endeavoured to contrive a plot for Arran's assassination (see specially Tytler, History of Scotland, ed. 1868, iv. 99–100), but did not quite succeed in completing arrangements before an event happened which rendered the execution of the plot unnecessary. This was the slaughter, on 27 July 1585, of Francis, lord Russell (son of Francis Russell, second earl of Bedford [q. v.]), in a border affray between Sir John Forster and Kerr of Ferniehirst. Elizabeth complained to the king through her ambassador, asserting that Russell had been slain at the instance of Arran; and as the ambassador offered further to prove that Arran and Kerr had been art and part in the murder, the king had no choice but meanwhile to send Arran into ward in the castle of St. Andrews (Calderwood, iv. 379). But strangely enough a saviour now appeared to Arran in the person of the master of Gray, who, either because he had become doubtful of Elizabeth's regard for himself or wished to conceal his intrigues with her, arranged with the king, on the receipt of certain bribes from Arran, that Arran should be sent to nominal confinement in Kinneil. Nevertheless, the master knew that he could not trust Arran, and immediately set on foot a new plot for his overthrow by the recall of the banished lords. About the middle of October 1585 rumours reached Scotland of the advance of the banished lords, and Arran, escaping from Kinneil, hurried to the king at Stirling to announce that he was being betrayed by the master of Gray. But learning this, the master returned also to court, and Arran, frustrated in a design for the master's assassination by the rapid approach of the lords, secretly left the castle (Relation of the Master of Gray in the Bannatyne Club, pp. 59, 60; Calderwood, iv. 389–90). Soon after their entrance into the castle Arran was proclaimed a traitor at the market-place, and fled to the west coast. About the end of March 1586 he was commanded to depart out of the country before 6 April, and obeyed, going either to Cantyre or Ireland (Calderwood, iv. 547). Afterwards he returned to Scotland, where he resided as merely Captain James Stewart. On 27 Nov. 1592 he came to court at the request of the king, ‘to give articles’ against the chancellor and Lord Hamilton (Calderwood, v. 186). While in Edinburgh he made an attempt to get reinstated in the favour of the kirk; but it was concluded that he had shown no such offers of repentance as the kirk looked for, and he was dismissed with the general answer: ‘Ye must give us as good proofs of your well-doing as ye have given of your evil-doing before we can credit you much’ (ib. p. 190; Moysie, Memoirs, p. 99). ‘And so Captain James,’ says Calderwood, ‘finding so great opposition, went home, and came not to court again’ (ib.) Various intrigues were set on foot for his return to power, but they were unsuccessful. Towards the close of 1595, while riding homewards through Symington in Clydesdale, he was attacked and slain by Sir James Douglas of Parkhead, nephew of Morton, in revenge of Morton's death. His body was left where he fell, a prey to dogs and swine, and his head, having been fixed on the point of a spear, was carried by Douglas through the country in triumph.
By his wife, Lady Elizabeth, he had two sons—Sir James Stewart of Killeith, fourth lord Ochiltree, and Henry. For bringing a charge of treason against the Marquis of Hamilton that, in pretending in 1631 to raise troops for the aid of Gustavus Adolphus, he was aiming to secure his right to the Scottish crown, Lord Ochiltree was convicted of lease-making, and sentenced to imprisonment for life in Blackness Castle; he was released in 1652 by the English after the battle of Worcester.
[Histories by Calderwood and Spotiswood; Reg. P. C. Scotl.; Reg. Mag. Sig. Scot.; Melville's Memoirs; Papers of the Master of Gray; Moysie's Memoirs; History of James the Sext in the Bannatyne Club; Calendar of Scottish State Papers; Bowes Correspondence in the Surtees Society; Douglas's Scottish Peerage (Paul), i. 396; Cal. Privy Council Reg. Scotland, v. lxii.; G. E. C[okayne]'s Complete Peerage.]