Scott, John (1585 -1670)

John Scott of Knightspotte, afterwards Sir John Scott of Scotstarvit, was the son of Robert Scott and Margaret daughter of Alexander Aitchison of Gosford. He succeeded his grandfather in 1592 at the age of seven, obtained a charter of the lands of Tarvit in Fife, which he renamed Scotstarvit. He is said to have been knighted by James I in 1617, and made a Privy Councillor, though his name does not appear in William A. Shaw's The Knights of England. He married three times, firstly Ann, daughter of Sir John Drummond of Hawthornden; secondly, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir James Melville of Halshill; and thirdly Euphemia, daughter of Moneypenny of Pitmilly. Scott’s second marriage is celebrated in a manuscript epithalamion, In Nuptias D.Iohannis Scoti et Elisabethae Melville Carmen (the Scotstarvet Letters NLS Adv MS 17.1.9, f.92-94). John Scott's second son and heir was Sir James Scott, and his great great grandson was General John Scott of Balconie, second son of David Scott of Scotstarvit. The Earl of Moray, who inherited Kinfauns Castle at the end of the nineteenth century was a descendant of General John Scott of Balconie, whose second daughter, Lucy, had married Francis, 10th Earl of Moray on 26 February 1795. Clements gives James Scott, with a note `probably a Scott of Murdiston ca 1618'.