LYON,
a surname doubtless originally assumed from the heraldic device of a
lion, indicating courage or magnanimity.
The noble family of Strathmore, whose patronymic it is, are
descended from the ancient house of de Leonne in France, which
derived their origin from the noble race of the Leones of Rome. One
of the French Leonnes came over to England with William the
Conqueror. His son, Roger de Leonne, accompanied King Edgar, son of
Malcolm Canmore, to Scotland about 1091, and for his services
against Donald Bane, the usurper, he obtained lands in Perthshire,
which from him are said to have been called Glen-Lyon. The river
Lyon, which traverses the district, seems more likely to have given
its name to it. this Roger de Leonne is witness to a charter of King
Edgar to the monastery of Dunfermline dated in 1105. From him was
lineally descended Sir John Lyon, in the reigns of Robert I. and his
son David II., who had a charter, without date, supposed to be about
1342 or 1343, of the lands of Forteviot and Forgandenny in
Perthshire, and Curteton and Drumgowan in Aberdeenshire. He had also
from David II. a charter of the thanedom of Thanedes, now Tannadyce,
in Forfarshire, and the reversion of the thanedom of Glammis in the
same county.
His son, Sir John Lyon, obtained from King David II., for
faithful services, an annuity of ten merks, during his life, out of
the proceeds of the justice eyres north of the river Forth. He was a
man of great abilities, and a favourite with Robert II., to whom he
was secretary, and from whom he got a charter, under the great seal,
of the whole lands and thanedom of Glammis in Forfarshire, dated
March 13, 1372. In 1376 he married the second daughter of his
sovereign, the princess Jean Stewart, with whom he obtained the
barony of Kinghorn in Fife, and was allowed to wear in his armorial
bearings a lion rampant, within the double treasure of Scotland;
and, in commemoration of that alliance, for his crest he assumed a
lady from the waist upwards, encircled with a garland of laurel,
holding in her right hand a thistle proper. In 1378 he was appointed
great-chamberlain of Scotland. Between 1380 and 1382, he got no less
than eight different charters under the great seal of lands in the
shires of Banff, Perth, Fife, Forfar, and Aberdeen, in all of which
he is styled by the king , filius noster carissimus. Being
appointed, in the latter year, ambassador extraordinary to the court
of England, he obtained a safe-conduct for himself and forth
horsemen in his retinue. He was killed in a duel in 1383, at the
Moss of Balhall, near Forfar, by James Lindsay, lord of Crawford,
nephew of the king, and was interred in the royal burial-place at
Scone, by the king’s express orders.
His only son, John Glammis of Forteviot, a minor at his
father’s death, was served heir to him in 1396. He behaved gallantly
in the battle of Harlaw, fought between the royal army under the
earl of Mar and Donald lord of the Isles, in 1411, but appears to
have been afterwards taken by the English, as John Lyon was one of
the Scots prisoners released from the Tower of London, 12th
April, 1413. He was one of the commissioners appointed to negotiate
the liberation of James I., and on 13th December 1423, he
had a safe-conduct to Durham, to meet that monarch. In the following
year he and his eldest son, Patrick, became hostages for James on
his being set at liberty, when his annual revenue was estimated at
600 marks, and his son’s at 300.
The latter was released on 9th June 1427. He
succeeded his father, and was created a peer, by the title of Lord
Glammis, before 1450. He was one of the privy council of James II.,
and grand-master of his household. He was appointed one of the
ambassadors extraordinary to the court of England, when a truce was
concluded in 1454, on which occasion he was one of the hostages for
keeping it. He died in 1459. With one daughter, Elizabeth, married
to Alexander Robertson of Strowan, chief of the clan Robertson, he
had three sons; Alexander, second Lord Glammis, who died without
issue in 1485; John, who succeeded his brother; and William, of whom
are descended the Lyons of Ogil in Forfarshire.
John, third Lord Glammis, a privy councillor to James IV., was
appointed justiciary of Scotland in 1489. He had a safe-conduct as
ambassador to England 14th June 1491, and obtained a
charter, 20th October of that year, making the town of
Glammis a free burgh of barony. He died in 1497. With three
daughters he had four sons. The three youngest, David, first of the
house of Cossans, William, and George, were all killed at Flodden.
John, the eldest son, fourth Lord Glammis, died in 1500, leaving
three sons; George fifth lord, who died in his minority in 1503,
John, sixth lord; and Alexander.
John, sixth lord, married Janet Douglas, second daughter of
George, master of Angus, and sister of the sixth earl of Angus, then
in banishment, and died 8th August, 1528. By her he had a
son and a daughter. This unfortunate lady fell a victim to the deep
feelings of resentment entertained by James V. against all of the
name and house of Douglas. She took for her second husband,
Archibald Campbell of Skipnish, and with him and her son, Lord
Glammis, then in his 16th year, John Lyon, a relation,
and an old priest, she was, on 10th July 1537, arraigned
for conspiring the king’s death by poison, with the design of
restoring the house of Angus. Being found guilty, she was condemned
to the flames, and burnt on the Castlehill of Edinburgh on the 17th
of the same month, just a week after the beheading of the master of
Forbes, her brother-in-law, charged with the same crime. Her death
was much lamented by the people for her nobility, her youth, her
beauty, and her courage at her suffering, but most of all because it
was believed that hatred against her banished brother, rather than
any guilt of her own, had brought her to that end. Her son was also
convicted and condemned to death, on his own confession, of knowing
and concealing the conspiracy, and forfeited, but, on account of his
youth, the sentence was respited till he came of age, and in the
meantime he was ordered to be kept in prison. Her husband, Campbell,
in endeavouring to escape from the castle of Edinburgh, in which he
was confined, was dashed to pieces on the rocks on which that
fortress in built. John Lyon, the accomplice, was hanged, and Makke,
by whom the poison had been prepared, and from whim it was
purchased, had his ears cut off and was banished the realm. The
accuser, one William Lyon, touched with remorse, having declared
that the whole was a fabrication of his own, the young Lord Glammis
was released from prison, but his estates were annexed to the crown
by act of parliament of 3d December 1540. His forfeiture was not
rescinded till March 1543, when he was restored by act of parliament
to his title and estates. He had, with other charters, one of the
barony of Kinghorn, 12th September 1548, forfeited by Sir
James Kirkaldy of Grange, at one time lord-high-treasurer of
Scotland, and died in 1558. He had by his wife, Janet Keith, sister
of the fourth earl Marischal, two sons and a daughter.
The elder son, John, eighth Lord Glammis, was one of the
nobles who signed the bond, in April 1567, agreeing to support the
marriage of the earl of Bothwell to the queen, but in the following
June he joined the association for the protection of the young king.
In 1568 he was one of the lords of the secret council under the
regent Moray, and in 1571, nine days before the assassination of
that nobleman, he and other adherents of the king were forfeited by
the queen’s party, who held what was called the “rebels’ parliament”
at Edinburgh, on 26th August of that year. He was
admitted, under the regent Lennox, an extraordinary lord of session,
30th September 1570, and on 7th September 1571
he was sworn one of the privy council of the regent Mar. He was also
a privy councillor to the regent Morton, who was a kinsman of his
own. On 12th October 1573, he was appointed
lord-chancellor of Scotland.
In September 1577 he and Lord Herries were deputed by the
nobility convened at Stirling to desire the earl of Morton to resign
the regency, which he did, hoping to return to power with greater
force. The chancellor was accidently slain at Stirling 17th
March 1578, in a street rencontre between his own followers and
those of the earl of Crawford, as he was coming down from the castle
to his own lodging in the town, while the earl was going up to the
castle. They met in a narrow wynd, and both noblemen ordered their
followers and train to give way. The two last servants, however, as
they were going by jostled each other, on which they drew their
swords, and their masters turning, the brawn became general, and the
Lord Glammis, “being,” says Godscroft, “a tall man of stature, and
higher than the rest, was shot with a pistolet, and so died.”
Another author says, “The death of the chancellor was much lamented,
happening at a time when the king and country stood in much need of
his services. He had carried himself with much commendation in his
place, and acquired great authority; most careful was he to have
peace preserved both in the country and the church, and he laboured
much to have the question of church polity settled.” On the latter
subject he corresponded, in 1575, with Theodore Beza, the celebrated
colleague of Calvin, whereupon Beza wrote the book De Triplici
Episcopatu, ‘Of the Threefold Bishopric.’ the following epigram
was written on the chancellor by Andrew Melville after his death:
“Tu leo magne jaces inglorius: ergo,
manebunt
Qualia fata canes? Qualia fata sues?”
Thus translated by his nephew, James Melville, who styles the
chancellor “a learned and guid noble man;”
“Since lowlie lyes thow, noble Lyon fyne,
What sall betide, behind, the dogges and
swyne?”
Melville’s diary, p. 47.
He left a son, Patrick, ninth Lord Glammis.
The younger son of the seventh lord, the Hon. Sir Thomas Lyon
of Balduckie and Auldbar, on the death of his brother, became tutor
to his nephew, the ninth lord, and was, as presumptive heir to the
title, designed master of Glammis. He was one of the principal
conspirators in the Raid of Ruthven. On the 30th of the
same month, when the king, then only fourteen years of age and in
the power of the confederated nobles, wished to ride from Stirling
to Edinburgh, the lords would not permit him, and, says Calderwood,
(vol. iii. p. 643,) “when he was to come furth at the doore, the
maister of Glames layed his leg before him. The king layed these
things up in his heart, and tooke them heavilie.” In August 1583, on
the return of the favourite Arran to power, the master of Glammis
was ordered to ward himself in Dumbarton, on which he fled to
Ireland.
In April of the following year he and the earls of Angus and
Mar returned to Scotland, and surprised the castle of Stirling, but
on the king’s marching from Edinburgh with a strong force, against
them, they made their escape into England, on which they were
forfeited in the parliament which met at Edinburgh 22d August 1584.
In October 1585, the banished lords returned, and at the head of a
strong body of their retainers, and being joined by others of the
nobility, besieged the king in Stirling castle, drove the favourite
Arran from his presence, and obtained the restoration of their
estates, and the reinstatement of their persons in the royal favour.
The master of Glammis was appointed captain of the guard and
lord-high-treasurer for life, with a salary of £1,000 Scots.
On 9th February 1586, he was admitted an
extraordinary lord of session, and at King James’ reconciliation of
the nobility, 15th May 1587, he and his feudal enemy, the
earl of Crawford, walked hand in hand before the king, to and from
the famous banquet at the Cross of Edinburgh. In 1589 he was one of
the commissioners nominated for the north to search for and
apprehend Jesuits, intriguing papists and other disaffected persons,
and having appointed a meeting of his friends at the church of
Meigie in Perthshire, to oppose Huntly and the other popish lords,
he was there surprised and chased to the house of Kirkhill, when,
refusing to surrender, fire was set to the house, and he was forced
to yield himself to Gordon of Auchindoun. He was conveyed a prisoner
to Gordon’s house, but on the king advancing in person against the
rebels, he was set at liberty. At the coronation of Queen Anne, 17th
May 1590, the master of Glammis was knighted. The year following he
was accused of entering into a plot, with others of the court,
against the Chancellor Maitland, and Lord Spynie was commissioned to
apprehend him, but did not succeed in taking him. He was afterwards
committed to ward in Blackness, but soon released. Deprived, 6th
Nov. the same year (1591), of his seat on the bench, he was
re-appointed March 8, 1593, and on May 28 admitted an ordinary lord
of session.
In the beginning of 1596, on the appointment of the eight
commissioners of the exchequer called the Octavians, he demitted his
office of treasurer. He died Feb. 18, 1608. He was the ancestor of
the Lyons of Auldbar in Forfarshire.
Patrick, 9th lord, had a remission under the great
seal, dated Sept. 15, 1601, to him and five servants, for the
slaughter of Patrick Johnstoun in Haltoun of Belhelvie. A privy
councillor of James VI., he was one of the Scots commissioners to
treat of a union with the English commissioners in 1604. He was
created earl of Kinghorn, and Lord Lyon and Glammis, July 10, 1606.
By his countess, Lady Anne Murray, eldest daughter of the 1st
earl of Tullibardin, he had, with one daughter, Lady Anne, countess
of Errol, 3 sons, 1. John, 2d earl of Kinghorn; 2. Hon. James Lyon
of Auldbar; 3. Hon. Frederick Lyon, ancestor of the Lyons of Brigton.
John, 2d earl of Kinghorn, the eldest son, was sworn a privy
councillor by the parliament of 1641, and appointed one of the
committee of Estates in 1644. A faithful adherent of Charles I., he
opposed his being delivered up to the English, Jan. 16, 1647. He
died May 12, the same year. He was twice married, but had issue only
by his 2d wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Patrick, 1st earl
of Panmure, an only son, Patrick, 3d earl of Kinghorn. This nobleman
obtained two important charters, the one dated May 13, 1672,
extending the reversionary limitation of the earldom of Kinghorn, in
failure of direct male issue, to any person or persons whom he might
name, and failing them, to his heirs and assignees whatsoever; and
the other, dated July 1, 1677, providing that he “and his heirs
male, or heirs whatsoever, should, in all future ages, be styled
earls of Strathmore and Kinghorn, Viscounts Lyon, and Barons
Glammis, Tannadyce, Sidlaw, and Strathdichtie.” (See STRATHMORE,
earl of.)
