Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 54.djvu/321

 account declaring them innocent of the king's detention in Edinburgh Castle, and absolving them of all blame (ib. p. 391); but the document must be taken to represent rather the opinions of Darnley than the king. On 17 July 1484 Darnley was appointed keeper of Bute for seven years (ib.), and on 20 Oct. 1488—both James III and Lord Avandale having meanwhile passed away—he was appointed, as Earl of Lennox, keeper of the castle of Dumbarton (Reg. Mag. Sig. Scot. 1424–1513, No. 1794), and he also sat as Earl of Lennox in parliament. But his succession was not the consequence either of a new creation or of a legal decision in his favour as against Sir John Haldane; it was merely a case of appropriation sanctioned by those who had usurped the government. Nevertheless this did not content him, and, disappointed by being overlooked in the distribution of the more important offices, he suddenly determined to rouse the country against those in authority, and in behalf of the young king, James IV, who, he asserted, was detained in captivity against his will by the murderers of his father. Several of the discontented nobles joined him, and Lord Forbes paraded the country with the king's bloody shirt displayed as a beacon; but the nation as a whole was apathetic, and the rising was soon at an end. After the strongholds of Duchal and Crookston, which were held for Lennox, had been carried by assault, the forces of the king marched to the aid of Argyll, who was besieging Dumbarton, held by Lord Lyle and Matthew Stewart, eldest son of Lennox. Meanwhile Lennox himself, who had gone to the highlands to raise reinforcements, was marching to its relief, when a highland deserter brought word to the king's camp, and advised that he should be surprised by a night attack. The advice was adopted with success, Lennox being taken unawares, and sustaining a complete defeat at Tallymoss, on the south side of the Forth. As his followers either were slain or taken prisoners, or had dispersed to their homes, the defenders of Dumbarton, despairing of succour, soon afterwards surrendered, and Lennox succeeded in making his peace, the act of forfeiture against him being rescinded on 5 Feb. 1489–90 (Acta Parl. Scot. ii. 213). Lennox being now in favour with the king, the two rival claimants made a virtue of necessity and came to terms with him. On 18 May 1490 Elizabeth Menteith, wife of John Napier, with consent of her son, resigned for ever all right she had to the superiority of Lennox, on condition of being left in possession of a fourth part of the estate (Hist. MSS. Comm. 3rd Rep. p. 390), and a similar agreement was come to with Sir John Haldane on 3 July 1493 (ib.) Lennox died some time before 1 Aug. 1495.

By his wife Margaret, eldest daughter of Alexander Montgomerie Knight, lord of Ardrossan, he had five sons and four daughters: Matthew (see below); Robert, seigneur of Aubigny (see below); William, seigneur d'Oizon (d. 1502); Alexander; John of Hermeston, sometimes stated to have been rector of Kirkconner in Galloway, but who succeeded his brother as seigneur d'Oizon, and died without issue in 1512; Elizabeth, married to Archibald, second earl of Argyll; Marion, to Robert Crighton of Kinnoul; Janet to Norman, lord Ross; and Elizabeth, to John Colquhoun of Luss.

The earl's eldest son,, second or tenth Earl of Lennox (d. 1513), joined his father in 1488 in the conspiracy against James IV; after the death of his father received from James IV a grant of the sheriffdom of Dumbarton which was united to the earldom of Lennox and made hereditary in the family; and, with the Earl of Argyll, commanded the right wing of the Scots army at Flodden, where he and the greater part of his followers were slain on 9 Sept. 1513. By his wife Elizabeth, daughter of James, first lord Hamilton [q. v.], and niece of James III, he was father of John Stewart, third (or eleventh) earl of Lennox.

The earl's second son, or  (1470?–1543), was born about 1470, took service under Bernard Stewart, seigneur of Aubigny [q. v.], and was enrolled in 1498 as lieutenant of the Scots men-at-arms to his brother William; served with great distinction in the Italian wars, 1500–13; was chosen a marshal of France in 1515, and the same year defeated General Prospero Colonna at Villa Franca; fought at Marignano; was appointed one of the judges to act for France at the tournament of the Cloth of Gold in July 1522; was taken prisoner at Pavia, and died without issue in 1543.

[Lennox Muniments in Hist. MSS. Comm. 3rd Rep.; Sir William Fraser's Lennox (privately printed); Napier's Partition of the Lennox, and the same author's Lennox of Auld; Reg. Mag. Sig. Scot. 1424–1513; Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, vols. vii–x.; Histories by Buchanan, Leslie, and Lindsay; Lady Elizabeth Cust's Stuarts of Aubigny (privately printed, 1891); Douglas's Scottish Peerage (Wood), ii. 94–6.]

 STEWART, JOHN, of Balveny, first  of a new Stewart line (1440?–1512), eldest son of Sir James