Matthew Stewart
1516 – 1571 · Generation XXIII · Earl of Lennox, regent of Scotland · House of Stuart
Matthew Stewart (1516–1571). Earl of Lennox, regent of Scotland. Married Margaret Douglas in 1544. Earl from boyhood, he was sent to France and enrolled in the Garde Écossaise. He returned after James V’s death to rival the Earl of Arran — both descended from a daughter of James II — and held the sceptre at the infant Mary’s coronation at Stirling in 1543. When the Scottish Parliament rejected the English marriage treaty, he went over to Henry VIII in the Rough Wooing, raiding Arran, Bute and Kintyre with English ships before withdrawing to England, where his marriage to Henry’s niece followed. Back in Scotland from 1564, he helped bring about his son Darnley’s marriage to Mary, Queen of Scots, and after Darnley’s murder pursued the conspirators more ardently than anyone. Regent for his grandson James VI from 1570, he was fatally shot when the queen’s party raided Stirling in September 1571.
Place in the family
- Matthew Stewart was a 8× great-grandfather of Queen Victoria.
- The archive records 108 of his descendants, across 17 generations.
One of 17 people of House of Stuart (from 1371) in this archive. Scotland’s royal house for three centuries before James VI inherited England and wore both crowns.
Partners
- Married Margaret Douglas (1515 – 1578) in 1544 — one child together
Children
- Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley (1546 – 1567)
Life
- 1516 — Born
- 1544 — Married Margaret Douglas
- 1571 — Died