AVANDALE, Lord,
a title conferred by James the Second on Andrew Stewart, the
eldest of the seven illegitimate sons of Sir James Stewart, called
James the Gross, fourth son of Murdoch, duke of Albany, and the
only one who escaped the vengeance of James the First, when his
father and three brothers were ruthlessly cut off by that monarch.
On their imprisonment he had flown to arms, assaulted and burnt
the town of Dumbarton, and killed Sir John Stewart, the king’s
uncle, who held the castle with thirty-two men. He afterwards took
refuge in Ireland, where he formed a connection with a lady of the
family of Macdonald, by whom he had seven sons, and a daughter,
Matilda, married to Sir William Edmonstone of Duntreath. These
children are supposed on their father’s death to have been adopted
by Murdoch’s widow, the duchess Isabella, countess of Lennox, to
bear her company in her castle on the small island of Inchmurrin
on Lochlomond, where her latter years were spent in retirement; as
his name and that of three of his brothers, Murdoch, Arthur, and
Robert Stewarts of Albany, appear as witnesses to charters granted
by the duchess Isabella as countess of Lennox, betwixt 1440 and
1451. (Napier’s History of the Partition of the Lennox, pp.
18—20.) King James the Second, touched perhaps with regret for the
ruin which his father had caused Duke Murdoch’s family, honoured
the eldest of his illegitimate grandsons with peculiar marks of
regard and affection. Hs placed him at one of the English
universities, and on his return to Scotland, after his education
had been completed, appointed him a gentleman of his bedchamber,
and knighted him. In 1456 he bestowed on him the barony of
Avandale or Evandale in Lanarkshire, which had been forfeited by
the last earl of Douglas in 1455, and in 1457 created him Lord
Avandale (Ibid, p. 45). Before the 1st of March, 1459, the
new peer had superseded George fourth earl of Angus, as warden of
the marches, and in 1460, on the accession of James the Third, he
was chosen lord-chancellor of Scotland, an office which he held
for twenty-two years, with the high distinction of precedence next
to the princes of royal blood. He was one of the lords of the
regency, and in a charter of King James the Third, in 1465, he is
styled guardian of the king. In 1468 he was sent ambassador to
Denmark to treat of a marriage between James the Third and the
princess Margaret of Denmark, which was happily accomplished. On
the 4th May 1471, he had a liferent grant, under the great seal,
of the whole earldom of Lennox, which had been in non-entry from
the year 1425, when Earl Duncan, the father of the duchess
Isabella, was beheaded, though it had never been forfeited, as
erroneously stated by Douglas in his Peerage, and other writers.
To fortify himself in this grant, he obtained letters of
legitimation under the great seal, of date 28th August 1472, to
himself and two of his brothers, Arthur and Walter, by which a
right of general succession was thrown open to them. These letters
were repeated on the 17th April 1479, and on the 18th of the same
month he had a charter of the lordship of Avandale. In 1482, when
the king’s brother, the duke of Albany, with the assistance of
Edward the Fourth of England, invaded Scotland, Lord Avandale and
many other noblemen who had been till then the most loyal
supporters of the crown, abandoned the sovereign who had heaped
upon him wealth and honours, and after the king had been conveyed
prisoner to Edinburgh castle, he as chancellor, with the
archbishop of St. Andrews, the bishop of Dunkeld, and the earl of
Argyle, entered into a bond, dated 2d August of that year, for the
protection and indemnity of Albany. The noblemen who sign this
deed declare that they and the other nobles of the realm "sall
cause our soverane lord frely to gif and grant" to the duke of
Albany "all his landis, heritagis, strenthis, houses, and offices
quhilk he possessit the day of his last parting forth of the realm
of Scotland." (Faedera, b. xii. p. 160.) To punish his
ingratitude, the king, before the 25th of the same month of
August, deprived him of the chancellorship, which he had held so
long, and bestowed it on John Laing, bishop of Glasgow. This took
place before the siege of Edinburgh castle, which occurred 29th
September 1482, and not after that event, as Mr. Tytler, in his
history, records it, and could not therefore have been in
consequence of Albany’s partial success, as Tytler says it was.
(See Napier’s History of the Partition of the Lennox, p. 68,
note.) Albany was soon received into favour, and in the
following December appointed lieutenant-general of the kingdom,
but in 1484 the Albany party was completely crushed. Although not
restored to the chancellorship, Lord Avandale appears to have
regained the confidence of the king, and in 1484 he was one of the
commissioners sent to France to renew the ancient league with that
crown. He was also one of the plenipotentiaries who concluded the
pacification with King Richard the Third at Nottingham, 21st
September of that year. His name appears as one of the witnesses
to a charter of James the Third, dated 11th March 1487. He
continued to possess the lands of the earldom of Lennox till his
death in 1488. He left no issue, whereby the title for the time
became extinct.
The title of
Lord Avandale was next bestowed on his nephew, Andrew Stewart,
second son of his younger brother, Walter Stewart of Morphie, in
the county of Kincardine, sixth son of Sir James the Gross. The
mother of the second Lord Avandale was Elizabeth, daughter of
Arnot of Arnot, in the county of Fife. Crawford (Officers of
State, p. 39) says that Alexander Stewart, the eldest son of
Walter Stewart of Morphie, was, in 1503, created Lord Avandale by
solemn investiture in parliament, but this is a mistake, as it
would appear that the said Alexander Stewart died before 1500, and
that he was succeeded in the estate of Avandale and other lands by
his immediate younger brother Andrew above mentioned, second Lord
Avandale. (Douglas.) By his wife Margaret, daughter of Sir
John Kennedy of Blairquhan in Ayrshire, had three sons and three
daughters. Andrew, the eldest son, succeeded as third Lord
Avandale. Henry, the second son, on marrying the queen dowager,
was created Lord Methven. (See METHVEN, Lord.) The third son, Sir
James Stewart of Beath, was the ancestor of the earl of Moray.
(See MORAY, earl of.)
The
third Lord Avandale was governor of the castle of Dumbarton, and
held the office of groom of the stole to King James the Fourth. In
1534, be transferred the barony of Avandale and the lands of
Coldstream to Sir James Hamilton of Fynnart, in exchange for the
barony of Ochiltree in Ayrshire, and in consequence of this
exchange, on the 15th March 1543, the earl of Arran, governor of
the kingdom, with consent of parliament, ordained that Andrew lord
Avandale should in future be styled Lord Stewart of Ochiltree. By
his wife, Lady Margaret Hamilton, only child of James, first earl
of Arran, he had a son, Andrew Stewart, who became second lord
Ochiltree. (See OCHILTREE, Lord.)
