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Clan Stewart

VIRESCIT VULNERE VIRTUS


The clan Stewart can be traced back to Walter Fitz Alan, whose family moved to Scotland when David I was crowned the King of Scotland. The family name, Stewart, is said to have been taken from Walter’s title as High Steward of Scotland and the title, along with extensive lands, became hereditary in the family.

The Royal House of Stewart came about through marriage to Robert the Bruce’s daughter. As a family, the Stewarts continuously held the Scottish throne, and then the English throne, until Queen Anne’s death in 1714. It has been claimed that the current royal family have some Stewart blood, solidifying this clan’s "royal" status.

The Stewart clan motto is "Virescit vulnere virtus" (Courage grows strong at a wound) and the clan crest is a pelican in a nest feeding her young.

Scottish History

of Clan Stewart


A bloody birth

Almost every branch of the Stewart family has in their coat of arms a sign that looks like a section of a chessboard, black and white square or ‘dices’ similar to those currently seen of the caps of policemen.

This heraldic device originated in the cloth board on which accountants worked out the revenues due the treasury which was similar to that used in chess or chequers (hence the term Chancellor of the Exchequer).

The chief accountant to the Scottish King was called the High Steward and it is from this title that the clan name derives.

The High Stewardship of Scotland was made a hereditary appointment in the 12th century and the family of one Walter Fitz Alan took the device into their coat-of-arms.

This Walter was descended from an Earl of Brittany who came over with William the Conqueror in the Norman invasion of 1066 but who, later in his career and for some reason now lost in the mists of time, “incurred the displeasure of the Conqueror” and so retired to Scotland where David 1st used his expertise by appointing him Royal Steward.

The High Steward was more than just a counter of coins, however, since he was also quite capable of raising and even leading into battle an army on behalf of his King.

Walter the High Steward claimed descent from Banquo, Thane of Lochaber, and through him to the ancient kings of Scotland.

Banquo was murdered by Macbeth but his son Fleance escaped and fled to Wales where he fell in love with a princess and made his rivals so jealous that they killed him.

His son Walter in turn fled overseas (murder and flight seemed to be a constant theme in the early Stewart history) and took refuge at the court of Alan the Red of Brittany and it was there that, in gratitude for the protection he had received, he took the name Fitz Alan (‘fitz’ being in Welsh the same as Mac, or son of, in Scotland).

It was this Walter who came over with the Normans and founded the Stewart dynasty in this country when he came north.

Gradually over the years the Stewart family had many branches and cadet houses and produced five earls – Angus, Lennox, Menteith, Buchan, Traquair – and many other powerful leaders.

The sixth High Steward, also called Walter, gave support to Robert the Bruce during the Wars of Independence and duly married King Robert’s daughter Marjorie.

Their son became Robert II and thus the Royal line was established.

A dynasty is born

The dynasty continued throughout Scottish and British history, either on the throne or fighting to reclaim it, up to 1746, its two most famous members being Mary, Queen of Scots and Bonnie Prince Charlie.

Another Stewart of distinction was King Robert III’s son the Duke of Albany although his character was marred by strong streaks of deviousness and ruthlessness.

When his father died, he acted as Regent and had his eye on the throne when his nephew James succeeded but was not crowned, being made a prisoner in England after being captured on his way to France to advance his youthful education.

When David, Duke of Rothesay, was made Regent, Albany was later suspected of arranging his murder and he also contrived to delay the negotiations with England regarding the return of the young James 1st.

When Albany died, still lording it over Scotland, he was succeeded by his son Murdach who arranged for the rightful return to the throne of James and the King duly arrived in his kingdom with his bride, the lovely Joanna Beaufort.

But James was less than gracious to his benefactor and took a wholesale revenge on the whole Albany family, including Murdach. There were mass executions of all their branches and followers on Heading Hill near Stirling.

By the 14th century the Stewart clan had spread northwards into the Highlands and not all of them were welcomed.

For instance, King Robert III’s youngest brother Alexander was colloquially known as the Wolf of Badenoch which captures succinctly his psychopathic talents for pillaging, plundering and recklessly murdering throughout his own northern territories. He deserted his wife in 1389 and was excommunicated by the Bishops of Moray and Ross. This meant little to the Wolf yet he was annoyed enough to burn to the ground the grand Cathedral of Elgin which had been one of the gothic glories of medieval Scotland. Its gaunt, broken remains still bear witness to its ancient grandeur and foul desecration.

Many of the Aberdeenshire, Moray and Banff Stewarts are descended from the illegitimate sons of the Wolf (although they would be loathe to admit it) since, among his many other sins, he was good at spreading his seed throughout his lands.

King James I turned his attentions to the ever turbulent Highlands, which many of his kinsmen including the Wolf, were keeping in a state of constant unrest. He invited the rebellious, independent-minded chiefs to a Parliament in Inverness but as each chief arrived they were arrested and thrown into a dungeon. The King, who was also a poet, took pen in hand to record the occasion with the couthy lines –

‘To the dungeons strong
Haul the wretches along,
As in Christ’s my hope,
They deserve the rope.’

They did not all get the rope, however, Some were beheaded and others exiled abroad. These were typical draconian methods the Stewarts used to retain their tight, steely grip on their violent kingdom.

James made many enemies among his barons and in 1437, when staying at the Blackfriars Monastery at Perth, he was chatting to his wife and her ladies-in-waiting prior to going to bed when he heard the clashing sound of approaching men-at-arms in the torchlit dark and the gruff shouts of men searching the premises. This sent him down a trap door in an attempt to escape while Lady Catherine Douglas thrust her arm into the metal brackets at the main door designed to take a locking bar but the delay proved futile and James was duly stabbed to death in an underground passage.

But such was the uproar over this assassination that the murderers had to flee into the wilds. When they were eventually caught, they were tortured and finally executed over three excruciating days.

When James II ascended the throne, he made the city of Edinburgh the capital of his realm because he had spent many happy childhood hours getting an education there. He caused the first town wall to be built in its defence and made many other improvements including design innovations at the Royal Palace of Holyrood.

Another building closely associated with the Stewarts is Castle Stalker set on an islet in the Firth of Lorne in Appin. This was the stronghold of the Stewart Lords of Lorne and was later used as a hunting lodge by the Scottish Royalty.

In 1457 King James II granted the Earldom of Atholl to the Black Knight of Lorne, Sir James Stewart, an energetic and brilliant soldier who commanded the Royal army in its defeat of the Lord of the Isles, a pompus baron who considered himself and his subjects in the Hebrides to be outwith the rule of the Scottish Kings.

King James was, however, a violent tempered man who had stabbed to death an Earl of Douglas (the Douglases being a constant menace to the Crown). He was killed when he stood too near a cannon which exploded during a siege in the Borders.

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Family History Mini Book


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English History

of Clan Stewart


Anglo-Saxons and Normans

An occupational surname that from the fourteenth century became associated with an illustrious line of monarchs, ‘Stewart’ and its French spelling variant ‘Stuart’ is particularly identified with Scotland – although it is also prevalent throughout England, being ranked at 61st in some lists of the 100 most common surnames found there today.

Also a popular forename, it derives from the Old English ‘’stigweard’ – from ‘stig’ meaning ‘household’ and ‘weard’ indicating ‘guardian’ – and hence the occupational designation of ‘guardian of the house.’

The ‘guardian’ in question would have been someone entrusted with administering the domestic affairs of an ecclesiastical, noble or royal household, while ‘stigweard’ developed through time into the form ‘steward’ – with ‘Stewart’ becoming the surname of those employed as ‘stewards.’

The Old English roots of the name indicates that flowing through the veins of many bearers of the name today may well be the blood of those Germanic tribes who invaded and settled in the south and east of the island of Britain from about the early fifth century.

Known as the Anglo-Saxons, they were composed of the Jutes, from the area of the Jutland Peninsula in modern Denmark, the Saxons from Lower Saxony, in modern Germany and the Angles from the Angeln area of Germany.

They held sway in what became England from approximately 550 to 1066 – the year of the Norman Conquest of England – with the main kingdoms those of Sussex, Wessex, Northumbria, Mercia, Kent, East Anglia and Essex.

Duke William of Normandy was declared king of England after his victory over the last of the Anglo-Saxon kings, Harold II, at the battle of Hastings in 1066, and the complete subjugation of his Anglo-Saxon subjects followed.

Those Normans and others who had fought on his behalf were rewarded with the lands of Anglo-Saxons, while within an astonishingly short space of time, Norman manners, customs and law were imposed on England – laying the basis for what subsequently became established ‘English’ custom and practice.

But it is not only the blood of the Anglo-Saxons that flows through the veins of some bearers of the name today, but also that of the Normans and others such as Flemish and Breton knights who supported William in his conquest.

Among them was a knight who hailed from Dol, in Brittany, in northern France.

It is not known with any degree of certainty exactly where in England he was granted lands but, in the form of ‘de Stiward’ however, the name is recorded in the early years of the 12th century in Devon – and it is therefore with this modern-day English county that the name has a particular connection.

Meanwhile the family name of the Breton knight who was granted lands after the Conquest is believed to have been ‘Dapifer’, while his descendants later assumed the surname ‘Fitz Alan’, or ‘Fitz Alain’, and it is was one of these ‘Fitz Alans’ – Walter Fitz Alan – who became the progenitor of those who would assume the Stewart name in Scotland and, later, in England.

Along with other ambitious nobles, Walter Fitz Alan came north to Scotland during the reign from 1124 to 1153 of David I, the Scottish king having become enamoured by Norman customs and manners.

Fitz Alan and other nobles – such as the ‘de Bruces’, or ‘Bruces’ – were granted lands in some of the more unruly parts of David’s kingdom in return for helping to quell unrest and assert his royal authority .

Walter Fitz Alan achieved high office under David, being appointed High Steward, or Great Steward of Scotland – the most powerful post in the land and placing him second in importance to the king himself.

With responsibility for not only administrative but also military affairs, he was granted lands in Renfrewshire and East Lothian, while his descendants – having adopted the surname ‘Stewart’ because the post of High Steward was hereditary – came to acquire other territory in Cowal, Bute, Arran and Kintyre.

It was through one of Walter’s descendants, Walter Stewart, 6th High Steward of Scotland, that the royal dynasty of Stewart, or Stuart, was established – one that would rule from the early seventeenth century until the early eighteenth century over the kingdoms of not only Scotland but also England and Ireland.

This was through his marriage in 1315 – a year after the warrior king Robert the Bruce’s victory over the English army of Edward II at the battle of Bannockburn – to the king’s only daughter, Marjorie.

When Bruce, recognised as Robert I, died in 1329, he was succeeded by his son Robert as Robert II. When his successor, David II, died in 1371, he was succeeded by Walter Stewart and Marjorie’s son Robert, as Robert III.

A succession of Stewart Scottish monarchs followed, and it was in 1603, a key date in the history of both Scotland and England, that the fate of both nations became inextricably entwined.

This was when, following the death in January of that year of England’s last Tudor monarch, Elizabeth I, James VI of Scotland succeeded to the English throne as James I.

Union of crowns

From 1603 onwards, the history of the Stewarts in England is largely that of the royal dynasty of the name.

Born in Edinburgh Castle in 1566, the son of the ill-fated Mary, Queen of Scots and her dissolute husband Lord Darnley, James Stewart, whose accession to the English throne brought about the Union of the Crowns of Scotland and England, had been only one-year-old when his mother was forced to abdicate in his favour.

She had inherited the throne and the troubled realm of Scotland when she was only an infant, following the death of her father James V in December of 1542.

With her mother, Mary of Guise, ruling as regent, she was sent for her own safety at the age of six to the French royal court.

It is from about this period that the ‘Stuart’ spelling of the name became almost interchangeable with that of ‘Stewart’, the letter ‘w’ not being indigenous to the French language.

Mary married Francis, the French Dauphin, in April of 1558, just over a year before he succeeded to the French throne following the death of his father Henry II.

The young Mary was widowed in December of 1560 and she returned to Scotland to take up her throne. But by the time she returned, her realm was in the uncompromising grip of a religious reformation whose stern adherents distrusted her Catholicism.

This resulted in a series of tragic events that included the murder of her Italian secretary David Rizzio, the murder of her second husband Lord Darnley and her enforced abdication and flight in 1568 into English exile – where she naively thought she would be protected by Queen Elizabeth, her cousin.

Imprisoned after crossing the border, it ended with her falling victim to the executioner’s axe in the Great Hall of Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire after being found guilty on the basis of trumped-up charges of supporting a Catholic plot to overthrow Elizabeth in her favour.

It is therefore rather ironical that it was her son James who succeeded Elizabeth – the monarch who had signed his mother’s death warrant.

His entitlement to the throne, which made him master of the three kingdoms of Scotland, England and Ireland, came about because not only was he the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, but also a great-great-grandson of Henry VII.

Accompanied by his courtiers and other assorted hangers-on, James made his stately progress throughout England to take up his throne.

Although he had promised to visit Scotland at least every three years, he did so only once, in 1617, as he became firmly ensconced in his English court.

The first years of his reign as James I were not without controversy, with many English nobles jealous over what they perceived as the preferential treatment given by the king to the Scots who flocked to his court to seek advancement.

The Scots who had originally accompanied the king south had been perceived as ill-bred, uncouth and unclean and one lampoon of the time snidely noted that:

Thy sword at thy back was a great black blade,
With a great basket-hilt of iron made,
But now a long rapier doth hang by his side,
And huffingly doth this bonny Scot ride.
Bonny Scot, we all witness can
That England hath made thee a gentleman.

It was only two years into his reign that the Protestant James I became the target of the infamous Gunpowder Plot.

This was when a number of disaffected Roman Catholic gentry, whose agent was Guido (Guy) Fawkes, made an abortive attempt to blow up the king, the Lords and the Commons at the formal opening of Parliament on November 5, 1605.

This plot to assassinate the first Stewart monarch of England is now commemorated annually as Guy Fawkes Night, or Bonfire Night.

James’s 22-year reign is known as the Jacobean era, and it saw a great flourishing of the arts.

The king himself, given the rather back-handed compliment of being described as “The Wisest Fool in Christendom”, not only sponsored the translation of the Bible known as the Authorised King James Version, but also penned a number of works that include his 1598 True Law of Free Monarchies and the 1599 manual on kingship Basilikon Doron – Royal Gift.

Through his marriage in 1589 to Anne of Denmark, he had three children who survived into adulthood.

They were Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, who died when aged 18, Elizabeth, later Queen of Bohemia and his successor the ill-fated Charles I, who was born in 1600.

Charles incurred the wrath of Parliament by his insistence on the ‘divine right’ of monarchs – a theme emphasised in his father’s Basilikon Doron – and added to this was Parliament’s fear of Catholic ‘subversion’ against the state and the king’s stubborn refusal to grant demands for religious and constitutional concessions.

Matters came to a head with the outbreak of the English Civil War in 1642, with Parliamentary forces, known as the New Model Army and commanded by Oliver Cromwell and Sir Thomas Fairfax, arrayed against the Royalist army of the king.

In what became an increasingly bloody and complex conflict, spreading to Scotland and Ireland and with rapidly shifting loyalties on both sides, Charles I was led to the executioner’s block in January of 1649 on the orders of Parliament.

He was succeeded by his son Charles, who was proclaimed King Charles II in Edinburgh and Dublin following his father’s execution.

Invading England at the head of a Scots army, he was roundly defeated by Cromwell at the battle of Worcester in September of 1651, famously having to hide from his pursuers for a time in the branches of the ‘royal oak’ at Boscobel, Shropshire.

Escaping to the Continent, he returned to England on the Restoration of 1660.

Married to Catherine of Braganza, he never had any legitimate children, while he had a number of mistresses who included Eleanor (‘Nell’) Gwynn and Lucy Walter, mother of James Scott, Duke of Monmouth. He died in 1685, having declared himself a Catholic as he lay on his deathbed, and was succeeded by his brother James, Duke of York, as James II.

Born in 1633, this Stewart monarch, also known as James VII of Scotland, was the last Catholic monarch to reign over what became, after the Act of Union of 1707, Great Britain.

It was when his Catholic son and heir, also named James, was born in 1688 that Protestant unrest reached crisis point and leading English nobles invited William of Orange and his wife Mary – ironically a daughter of the king – to jointly take up the throne.

In what is known as the Glorious Revolution of 1688, James fled into exile in France and William and Mary took up the throne as William III and Mary II after arriving unopposed from Holland.

James, however, still had significant support in Ireland, and with the support of troops and money supplied by Louis XIV of France, he landed at Kinsale in March of 1689 and joined forces with his Irish supporters.

A series of military encounters followed, culminating in his defeat by an army commanded by William at the battle of the Boyne on July 12, 1689; James fled again into French exile, never to return.

Mary II, meanwhile, died in 1694 and William III in 1702.

He was succeeded by his sister-in-law Ann, who was married to Prince George of Denmark. The last of the Stewart/Stuart monarchs, she died childless in 1714 and under the Act of Settlement was succeeded by George I of Hanover, her second cousin and a descendant of the Stewarts through his maternal grandmother Elizabeth, a daughter of James I.

Supporters of the Stewart cause were known as Jacobites – after ‘James’ – and after the Hanoverian Succession their attention focussed on James Francis Edward Stuart, the son of the deposed James II and who had been living in exile.

Known as “The Old Pretender” or “The King Over the Water”, it was in his name that in September of 1715 the Scottish Earl of Mar raised the Stuart Standard at Braemar.

He managed to muster a force of no less than 10,000 fighting men, but the Jacobite cause was effectively lost after the battle of Sheriffmuir, in November of 1715, when Mar withdrew his forces north to Perth.

James, the de facto James III of England and James VIII of Scotland, landed at Peterhead in Scotland in December, and then moved on to Perth, only to depart forever from Scottish shores in February of 1716.

The Rising had fizzled out, but the Stuart Standard was raised again more than thirty years later when James’s son, Prince Charles Edward Stuart, known to his detractors as “The Young Pretender”, arrived at the small Outer Hebridean island of Eriskay on July 22, 1745, landing on the mainland at Loch nan Uamh three days later.

The Stuart Standard was raised on August 19, at Glenfinnan, on Loch Shiel.

A victory over a Hanoverian army was achieved at the battle of Prestonpans in September, and in the following month the confident prince and his army set off on the long march south to London to claim what was believed to be the rightful Stuart inheritance of the throne.

But they reached only as far as Derby before the controversial decision was taken in early December to withdraw back over the border.

Jacobite hopes were then dashed forever on April 16, 1746 at the battle of Culloden, fought on Drummossie Moor, near Inverness – the last major battle fought on British soil and where the Jacobites were soundly defeated by a Hanoverian army.

Managing to evade his pursuers after the battle, the Prince – who had been the last hope of ardent supporters of the Stewart/Stuart cause – was eventually able to reach French shores, dying in lonely and embittered exile in Rome in 1788.

Read more

Family History Mini Book


We hope you enjoyed reading this excerpt from this mini book on the English history of the Stewart family.

You can buy the full book for only
$5.08

151 Clan Stewart

Tartan Products

The Crests

of Clan Stewart

Clan Stewart (High Stewards)
Clan Stewart
Clan Stewart (of Appin)
Clan Stewart
Clan Stewart (2)
Clan Stewart (3)
Clan Stewart
Clan Stewart
Clan Stewart
Clan Stewart
Clan Stewart
Stuart family

57 Clan Stewart

Crest Products

Mottos

of Stewart

Virescit vulnere virtus
Courage grows strong at a wound

Divisions

of Stewart

Appin
Atholl
Boyd
Carmichael
Colquhoun
Cook
Cruickshank
Denniston
Duilach
France
Garrow
Gray
Hunter
Lennox
Levack
Livingstone
Lombard
Lorne
Lyle
MacColl
MacCombich
MacCombie
MacComie
MacDonleavy
MacGlashan
MacKinlay
MacLeay
MacLew
MacMunn
MacNairn
MacNucator
MacRob
Mitchell
Mitchelson
Moodie
Robb
Sharp
Stewart of Appin
Stewart of Ardshiel
Stewart of Atholl
Stewart of Fingask
Stewart of Galloway
Stewart of Killiecrankie
Stewart of Rothesay
Stuart of Bute
Walker
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Spellings

of Stewart

Steuarde
Steuarte
Steward
Stiuard
Stiubhard
Stiward
Stuard
Stuarde
Stuerd
Stuward
Steuard
Steuart
Stuart