Stewart, James, Earl of Moray (1531 -1570)

James Stewart was the illegitimate son of James V and Margaret Erskine, younger daughter of John Erskine, 5th Earl of Mar. Mary Queen of Scots was his half sister. He was made Prior of St Andrews in 1538, and Prior of Macon in France. He attended the University of St Andrews 1541-1544, but seems not to have taken a degree. He accompanied Mary to France in 1548, but had returned by September 1549, when with the levies of Fife he drove an invading party of the English to their ships. In 1550 he returned to France, and in February 1551 received letters of legitimization from Mary. He made many visits to France, and about this time he renounced his ecclesiastical status and became a principal supporter of the Protestant pro English party. At first he mediated between the Queen Regent and the Protestants, but left her when he found that she did not mean to keep the agreement. If he had nothing to do with the destruction of St Andrews Cathedral, he and the Earl of Argyll were responsible for opposing the Queen Regent's forces until with the arrival of the English Fleet in the Forth, her French allies took to their ships and returned to France. The Queen Regent's death then left Scotland's Catholics without a leader. When Francis II died, Stewart took a leading part in welcoming his widow, Queen Mary, back to Scotland. On 7 February 1562 he was made Earl of Mar, and the next day married Agnes Keith, the eldest daughter of William. Earl Marischal. In January that year he had received a grant under the privy seal of the Earldom of Moray, a title which was held by the Earl of Huntly. He persuaded the Queen to make an expedition north to settle him in the Earldom, and when Huntly resisted, Lord James was formally created Earl of Moray 8 September 1562. When after the Battle of Carberry Hill, Mary was imprisoned in Lochleven, Moray, who was abroad, returned as Regent of Scotland for her son James VI, and discharged the office with great integrity. He was shot dead in the main street of Linlithgow by James Hamilton of Bothwelhaugh on 23 January 1570. His half brother John, Prior of Coldingham used the same armorial stamps, and after the Regent's death stamp 2 was used by a binder without any meaning of ownership. John Stewart used the motto Dominus Protector.