# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Stewart, Robert (d.1592)

​STEWART, Lord ROBERT, afterwards Earl of Orkney (d. 1592), was a natural son of James V of Scotland by Euphemia, daughter of Alexander Elphinstone, first lord Elphinstone. He was a half-brother of Mary Queen of Scots, of James Stewart, the regent Moray, and Lord John Stewart (1531–1563) [q. v.] In 1539 he had from the king a grant of the abbacy of Holyrood. His name first appears as a member of the privy council, 20 March 1551–2 (Reg. P. C. Scotl. i. 119). He early joined the lords of the congregation against the queen regent, and Knox states that in 1559 he was present during the surprise attack of the French on the Canongate, and on their withdrawal was one of the first to follow in pursuit of them (Works, i. 458). He subscribed the treaty of Berwick between the lords of the congregation and Queen Elizabeth on 10 May 1560 (ib. ii. 53), and he is included by Knox among those attending the parliament of July–August of this year, who ‘had renounced Papistry and openly professed Jesus Christ’ (ib. p. 88). No doubt, like his half-brother Lord John, he was in his political conduct mainly guided by Lord James (afterwards Earl of Moray), whose force of character secured him the loyal devotion of both. Thus on the arrival of Queen Mary in Scotland both Lord Robert and Lord John placed themselves at the disposal of Lord James in regard to the queen's celebration of her first mass, and after the ceremony protected the priest and conveyed him to his chamber (ib. p. 271). In 1561 he also with Lord John kept watch at Holyrood Palace when, during the absence of Lord James on the borders, a rumour arose of a projected night attack (ib. p. 293).
On 3 Nov. 1566 Lord Robert received from the queen a pension of 990l. and several chalders of different kinds of grain out of the temporalities of Holyrood for the maintenance of his legitimate and natural children; and the grant was confirmed on 19 April 1567 by act of parliament. The grant, as well as the confirmation, may have been intended as a bribe in connection with the murder of Darnley. Though he took no active part in the murder, he would appear to have had a more or less intimate knowledge of the plot. After Darnley's arrival at Kirk o' Field he was reported to have warned him that mischief against him was intended. Darnley, it is further stated, informed the queen of what Lord Robert had told him; but Lord Robert denying that ‘he had spoken any such thing,’ they put their hands to their weapons, and the Earl of Moray had to be called in to separate them (Calderwood, History, ii. 343). In 1569 Lord Robert exchanged the temporalities of Holyrood House for the temporal estates of the see of Orkney with Adam Bothwell, bishop of Orkney; but in 1570 the bishop of Orkney explained that Lord Robert had ‘violently intruded himself on his whole living with bloodshed and hurt of his servants;’ that ‘after he had craved justice, his and his servants’ lives were ​‘sought in the very eye of justice in Edinburgh;’ and that he was ‘then constrained, of mere necessity, to take the abbacy of Holyrood by advice of sundry godly men’ (ib. p. 531). On 18 July 1574 a letter passed the great seal in favour of Lord Robert, confirming the letter of pensions to his three legitimate and two natural sons out of the abbacy of Holyrood, reserving 860l. to the ministers and readers (Reg. Mag. Sig. Scot. 1546–80, No. 2283). Having, however, been accused in the following year of treason in offering the Isles of Orkney to the king of Denmark, he was in August imprisoned by the orders of the regent Morton in the castle of Orkney (Hist. of James the Sext, p. 157); and although he made large offers to obtain his freedom, he was retained in prison until Morton's resignation of the regency (ib. p. 182). On being set free he became one of the chief conspirers of Morton's ruin (Melville, Memoirs, p. 266); and he was one of those who, on 18 Jan. 1580–1, conveyed Morton to imprisonment in Dumbarton Castle (Moysie, Memoirs, p. 29; Calderwood, iii. 484). On 21 Oct. 1581 he was created by the king Earl of Orkney, when his lands of Orkney and Zetland were erected into an earldom (Reg. Mag. Sig. Scot. 1580–1593, No. 263); and on 18 Dec. he had a grant of the island of Caned in Orkney (ib. No. 307). He died in 1592. By his wife, Lady Janet Kennedy, eldest daughter of Gilbert, third earl of Cassilis, he had five sons and four daughters: Henry, who died before his father; Patrick, second earl of Orkney [q. v.]; John, earl of Carrick; Sir James, gentleman of the bedchamber to James VI; Sir Robert; Mary, married to Patrick, seventh lord Gray; Jean, married first to Patrick Leslie, commendator of Lindores, by whom she was mother of David Leslie, first lord Newark [q. v.], the general; and secondly to Robert, lord Melville of Raith; Elizabeth, married to Sir John Sinclair of Murchil, brother of George, fifth earl of Caithness; and Barbara.
T. F. H.