Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 54.djvu/371

 1590 was sent as ambassador to the princes of Germany. On his return he was rewarded for his great services to the king in foreign nations with a gift of ten thousand merks and a further grant of lands (Privy Council Reg. 12 Jan. 1591). A cloud passed over him for a moment in 1592, when he was warded in the castle of Edinburgh on suspicion of being concerned in one of the mad freaks of Bothwell; but in the following year he was entrusted with an embassy to the Low Countries, having instructions to form an evangelic alliance against the jesuits. He now received a grant of the lands of Houston, and was knighted on the occasion of the baptism of Prince Henry. In December 1594 Sir William Stewart of Houston went again as ambassador to the Low Countries, where he requested a loan of cavalry and infantry to fight against the catholic rebel earls. Two years later he was granted a commission as the king's lieutenant for the Isles and Highlands to establish the royal authority in Kintyre; in 1598 he was once more in Denmark, soliciting the king's goodwill in the prospect of James's accession to the English throne; and in the same year he was one of the ‘gentlemen adventurers’ who were appointed, at their own cost, to plant policy and civilisation in the hitherto most barbarous Isle of Lewis.

Stewart had meanwhile married, for a second time, a widow, Isabella Hepburn, the lady Pitfirrane, the daughter of Patrick Hepburn of Wauchton, ‘not without suspicion of the murder of her former husband,’ adds Calderwood (iv. 448). The suspicion may fix approximately the date of the marriage. For in 1585 the laird of Pitfirrane, provost of Edinburgh, having given offence to the clergy, the brethren commended the wrong to God, and ‘within a few years after,’ adds Calderwood, he was found fallen out of a window of his own house of Pitfirrane. ‘Whether he threw himself out of a melancholious despair, casting himself, or by the violence of unkind guests ludgit within,’ remarks James Melville, ‘God knows’ (Diary, p. 151). Stewart survived this marriage some eighteen years or more, dying between 1603 and 1606.

By Lady Pitfirrane Stewart had a daughter Anne, born 5 June 1595, and an only son Frederick, in whose favour the lands and baronies of the priory of Pittenweem were erected into a temporal lordship by act of parliament in 1606. Frederick was created a peer, under the title of Lord Pittenweem, on 26 Jan. 1609, but died childless on 16 Dec. 1625 (, Complete Peerage, s.v. ‘Pittenweem’).

[Calderwood's History, iii. 714, iv. 422–50; Tytler, viii. 77, 97, 153, 198, ix. 19, 320; Hatfield MSS. (Hist. Comm.), iii. 52, 57, iv. 600, &c.; Cal. State Papers, Spanish, iii. 26, 183, 458, 471, 488, 681; Border Papers, i. 1583–1588; Hamilton Papers, ii. 649, 697, 703; Privy Council, Scotl. 1583–1606; Reg. Mag. Sig. Scot.; Colville's Letters (Bannatyne Club); Douglas's Peerage; Meteren's Hist. des Pays-Bas, p. 310; Manuscript Reports and Papers relating to the affairs of Colonel Stewart, the embassy of De Voecht, &c., from the public archives at The Hague, now in course of publication by the Scottish History Society.] 

STEWART, WILLIAM, first  (1653–1692), only son of Sir Alexander Stewart, was born six weeks after the death of his father, who fell fighting against Cromwell at Dunbar on 3 Sept. 1653. His grandfather, Sir William Stewart (d. 1662), was an undertaker for the plantation of Ulster, sat in the Irish parliament for co. Donegal, 1613–15, was created a baronet on 2 May 1623, and served with distinction against the Irish rebels, 1641–2 [cf. art. ]. The grandson was heir to much property in Donegal and Tyrone, and his wardship was given in 1660 to Sir Arthur Forbes, created earl of Granard, who had married his mother. In 1662 he succeeded his grandfather as second baronet. In 1675 he was appointed a commissioner for managing claims under the acts of settlement and explanation by protestant officers who served before 5 June 1649. In 1678 he was made custos rotulorum of co. Donegal. Although his father had been a presbyterian, the son was somewhat active against the ministers of that persuasion (, Hist. of Irish Presbyterians, ed. Killen, ii. 339). By patent dated 19 March 1682–3 he was created Baron of Ramelton and Viscount Mountjoy, and on 9 May 1684 was made master-general of the ordnance for life. He was also colonel of a regiment of foot and a privy councillor (Hist. MSS. Comm. 14th Rep. App. vii. 358).

The accession of James II made no immediate difference in Mountjoy's position. Clarendon describes him as ‘very industrious in the king's service’ (Clarendon and Rochester Correspondence, i. 249), and recommends him to Evelyn and others as ‘an encourager of ingenuity’ (ib. p. 251). Mountjoy went to England in 1686, and Clarendon charged him to represent the pitiful state of arms and stores in Ireland. Among other things, the muskets were of many different bores (ib. p. 547). Mountjoy intended to return in two months, but was induced to volunteer for foreign service, much to the