Patrick Stewart, 2nd Earl of Orkney

PATRICK STEWART, EARL OF ORKNEY, LORD OF SHETLAND

Patrick Stewart, Earl of Orkney, Lord of Zetland[nb 1] (c. 1566[1] – 6 February 1615) was a Scottish nobleman, the son of Robert, Earl of Orkney, a bastard son of King James V. Infamous for his godless nature and tyrannical rule over Orkney and Shetland, he was executed for treason in 1615.

The young Robert Stewart was hanged for treason in Edinburgh on 1 January 1615. Patrick Stewart was beheaded, also in Edinburgh, on 6 February 1615: only after his efforts to evade execution by blaming his son for the uprising had failed. At the time the most damning indictment of his character was that his execution had to be deferred in order to give him time to learn the Lord's Prayer, which he didn't know. The Earldom of Orkney was extinguished with Patrick's death.

family

Patrick was the second of five sons born to Earl Robert and his wife Lady Jean Kennedy.

Patrick Stewart, Earl of Orkney, married Margaret Livingston, the wealthy widow of Sir Lewis Bellenden and a daughter of the Lord Livingston. After squandering her fortune, Patrick left her to die in poverty. They had no children, though Patrick did have several bastards:

• Robert Stewart, son of Marjorie Sinclair (who was present with her son at the siege of Kirkwall and was wounded in the hand)
• Mary Stewart
• Catherine Stewart, married John Sinclair of Ulbster

notes

From Earl Patrick Stewart - 'Black Patie'

In 1593, the “iron grip” of the Stewart earls passed from Earl Robert to his second son, 28-year-old Patrick Stewart.

Like his father before him, Patrick’s rule over Orkney was not a particularly pleasant one, earning him the nickname "Black Patie". Patrick's reputation for extravagance, arrogance and greed was matched only by his love of finery - exemplified in the magnificent Earl's Palace in Kirkwall.

Patrick Stewart held the native Orcadians in very low regard. When not bickering with his own family, his time was spent feuding with the more powerful local families.

It was Earl Patrick that initiated Orkney's first recorded prosecution for witchcraft. In 1594, less than a year after coming to power, Alison Balfour was burned at Gallow Hill in Kirkwall.

Unofficially, the accusation of witchcraft had become a particularly convenient way of depriving people of their land - in the following century there were many trials, often beginning in St Magnus Cathedral and ending at the stake.

In 1610, at the age of 35, Earl Patrick Stewart was indicted on seven charges of treason, on the ground of usurping royal authority. He remained in Edinburgh Castle, despite pleading justification for his actions on the islands' County Laws.

While incarcerated, Patrick appointed his illegitimate son, Robert, as his deputy in Orkney. Robert had instructions to regain his father's "houses" and to collect rents to prepare for his hoped-for restoration to the Earldom.

Robert's attempt to comply with his fathers orders resulted in what amount to a rebellion against royal authority. Earl George Sinclair of Caithness - who had a score to settle with the Stewarts - came to the King's aid, volunteering to lead and pay for an expedition to Orkney to quash Robert Stewart's rebellion.

After a long siege of the Kirkwall Castle, the Bishop's Palace and St Magnus Cathedral - where supporters were garrisoned - the Stewart rebellion was brought to its knees by the work of a traitor working from the inside.

Robert Stewart was convicted of treason and hung in January 1615.

Earl George threatened to demolish St Magnus' Cathedral as a reprisal against the Orcadians who had nearly ruined him but fortunately Bishop Law persuaded him otherwise.

Patrick Stewart, the man destined to become Orkney's most despised earl, was found guilty of treason in 1615, and subsequently beheaded. And according to tradition, so wicked was he that his execution had to be delayed for several days to give him time to learn the Lord's Prayer.

• Balfour Paul, Sir James, in The Scots Peerage, Volume VI (Edinburgh, 1909),  pp. 575-7
• http://www.orkneyjar.com/history/historicalfigures/patrickstewart/i...
• Patric Stewart, 2. Jarl av Orknøyene, pantsatte titelen som Jarl. Se også
• http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarl_av_Orkney
• Patrick Stewart, 2. jarl av Orkeney ble henrettet 6. februar 1615 på Market Cross of Eidenburgh.
• Kilde: The Moodie Book side 20. http://archive.org/stream/moodiebookbeinga00ruvi#page/n61/mode/2up
• http://www.orkneyjar.com/history/historicalfigures/patrickstewart/
• http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/usbiography/s/patrickstewarto...
• https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Stewart,_Robert_(d.1592)_(DNB00)
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Stewart,_1st_Earl_of_Orkney

Patrick Stewart, 2nd Earl of Orkney

Patrick Stewart, Earl of Orkney, Lord of Zetland[nb 1] (c. 1566[1] – 6 February 1615) was a Scottish nobleman, the son of Robert, Earl of Orkney, a bastard son of King James V. Infamous for his godless nature and tyrannical rule over Orkney and Shetland, he was executed for treason in 1615.

Patrick was the second of five sons born to Earl Robert and his wife Lady Jean Kennedy. On the death of his uncle Lord Robert[nb 2] in 1581, he was given the gift of the Priory of Whithorn.[2] On the death of his elder brother Henry around 1588, he became heir to the Earldom of Orkney. In his youth Patrick was a good friend of his cousin James VI; however, their relationship became strained in the 1590s after Patrick succeeded his father as Earl of Orkney. An early example of his rapacity occurs in 1594, when he was accused of spoiling a Danzig ship; however he was absolved of this crime.[3] The same year he accused three of his younger brothers of conspiring to kill him, after he caught one of John's servitors with poison on him. The servitor was tortured and executed, along with Margaret Balfour, a witch who supposedly aided in the conspiracy; the brothers, however, were later acquitted.[4]

Patrick became a prominent figure at Court, and served as a "sewer" (assistant) to the King at the baptism of his son Prince Henry Frederick in 1594.[3] He ruled Orkney and Shetland in the manner of an independent sovereign, severely oppressing the islanders and getting into massive debt.[3] In 1599 he built Scalloway Castle on the Mainland of Shetland, partly to strengthen his power there against his half-uncle Laurence Bruce, who had been appointed Sheriff of Shetland by the deceased Earl Robert. Patrick also feuded with George Sinclair, the Earl of nearby Caithness. In March 1599, James VI ordered Patrick and George to furnish their strongholds against the possibility of an invasion by the exiled Earl of Bothwell. This scare was renewed in July 1601. In 1607 Earl Patrick began the construction of the Earl's Palace in Kirkwall, the capital of Orkney.

Patrick joined the King in a hunting trip in Teviotdale in the Scottish borders in March 1600. The hunting party was shadowed by an agent of the English border warden who noted the Earl's presence.[5]

Earl Patrick's financial mismanagement and his brutality against the local population led to him being summoned before the Privy Council in 1609, and then imprisoned, firstly in Edinburgh Castle and then in Dumbarton Castle.[3]

After Earl Patrick's imprisonment, he sent his illegitimate son Robert Stewart to raise a rebellion in Orkney in his favour.[3] Robert seized the Palace of Birsay with thirty companions in May 1614, then occupied the Earl's Palace, the castle and St Magnus' Cathedral in Kirkwall. As many as 700 rebels subscribed to a band which claimed their action was restoring royal justice in Orkney under the direction of Robert Stewart during the Earl's absence. Robert was defeated by a force commanded by the Earl of Caithness at the end of September, after a five-week siege of the Earl's Palace. The Earl of Caithness battered the Palace with 140 cannon shot; he said the castle was so strong that some of his cannonballs broke in two like golf balls. Twelve of Robert's men were hanged at the castle gate.

Robert was taken to Edinburgh, put to trial, and hanged with five others. Robert and his father denied they had planned the rebellion together but Robert's accomplice, Patrick Halcro, insisted he had acted on Earl Patrick's instructions. Evidence was taken in Orkney from a servant Margaret Buchanan who claimed she had read instructions for Halcro written by the Earl. She said that Halcro showed the paper to Robert who tore it into pieces and they both told her it were better so, that it could do no hurt in time coming, and "the Earl of Orkney should not want his head for it." '[6] Robert's execution evoked much sympathy from the people, due to his young age, around twenty-two, and his "tall stature and comlie countenance".[3]

The trial of Earl Patrick followed that of his son. His titles were forfeited and he was sentenced to death, but his execution was postponed after a plea from the chaplains, who, finding him so ignorant he could barely recite the Lord's Prayer, wanted time to educate him and give him Communion.[3] The execution eventually took place on 6 February 1615, when he was taken to the Market Cross in Edinburgh and beheaded.[3]

In 1595 King James suggested the Earl's marriage to Emilia, a sister of Count Maurice of Nassau. An envoy, Colonel Stewart, proposed the plan to the States to cement a league between Scotland and the Netherlands, but objections included the earl's doubtful title to Orkney and Shetland, and that Emilia was not willing to dwell so far from her home and family. Patrick had partly funded the Colonel's mission, which was resented by the Scottish resident ambassador-lieger and consul to the States General, Robert Deniston.[7]

Patrick instead married Margaret Livingston, the wealthy widow of Sir Lewis Bellenden and a daughter of the Lord Livingston. After squandering her fortune, Patrick left her to die in poverty. They had no children, though Patrick did have several bastards:[3]

• Robert Stewart, son of Marjorie Sinclair (who was present with her son at the siege of Kirkwall and was wounded in the hand)
• Mary Stewart
• Catherine Stewart, married John Sinclair of Ulbster

From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Stewart,_2nd_Earl_of_Orkney

• Patrick Stewart, 2nd Earl of Orkney, Lord of Zetland1
• M, #64966, d. 6 February 1615
• Father Sir Robert Stewart, 1st Earl of Orkney, Lord of Shetland b. c 1533, d. 4 Feb 1593
• Mother Jean Kennedy2 d. Sep 1598
• Patrick Stewart, 2nd Earl of Orkney, Lord of Zetland married Margaret Livingstone, daughter of William Livingstone, 6th Lord Livingston and Agnes Fleming, after 1591.1 Patrick Stewart, 2nd Earl of Orkney, Lord of Zetland died on 6 February 1615 at Mercat Cross, Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scotland; Beheaded.1
• Family Margaret Livingstone d. b 6 Feb 1615
• Citations
• [S11585] The Scots Peerage, Vol. VI, edited by Sir James Balfour Paul, p. 575-577.
• [S11585] The Scots Peerage, Vol. VI, edited by Sir James Balfour Paul, p. 573-575.
• From: http://our-royal-titled-noble-and-commoner-ancestors.com/p2162.htm#...
• Patrick Stewart, 2nd Earl of Orkney
• M, #25209, b. after 1568, d. 6 February 1615
• Last Edited=25 Sep 2015
• Consanguinity Index=0.02%
• Patrick Stewart, 2nd Earl of Orkney was born after 1568. He was the son of Robert Stewart, 1st Earl of Orkney and Lady Janet Kennedy. He married Margaret Livingstone, daughter of William Livingston, 6th Lord Livingston and Agnes Fleming.1 He died on 6 February 1615 at Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scotland, beheaded for treason.
• He gained the title of 2nd Earl of Orkney.
• Citations
• [S6286] Clan MacFarlane and associated clans genealogy, online http://www.clanmacfarlanegenealogy.info. Hereinafter cited as Clan MacFarlane.
• From: http://www.thepeerage.com/p2521.htm#i25209
• Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 54
• Stewart, Patrick by Thomas Finlayson Henderson
• STEWART, PATRICK, second Earl of Orkney (d. 1614), the second but eldest surviving son of Robert, first earl of Orkney [q. v.], by Janet Kennedy, eldest daughter of Gilbert, third earl of Cassilis, succeeded his father in 1592. On 11 July 1594 he was summoned before the council at the instance of the inhabitants of Danzig for the spoliation of a ship belonging to that town (Reg. P. C. Scotl. v. 153), but on 24 Dec. was absolved (ib. p. 195). While in Edinburgh he served the king as sewer at the great banquet on the occasion of Prince Henry's baptism on 23 Aug. (Calderwood, History, v. 342). On 1 March 1600 he had a charter of the earldom of Orkney and the lordship of Zetland (Reg. Mag. Sig. Scot. 1593–1608, No. 1022), and he was served heir to his brother Henry, master of Orkney, on 2 Oct. 1606. Already, however, he had, as Spotiswood states, ‘undone his estate by riot and prodigality’ (History, iii. 213); and in order to secure an income he had resort to the imposition of fines within his jurisdiction for a great variety of trivial or fictitious offences, among his enactments being the specially inhuman one which forbade the supply of relief to vessels in distress (ib.) Gradually he assumed a kind of independent sovereignty, with all its external formalities. While observing in his household the ceremonial of a prince, he never went abroad without a guard of fifty musketeers (History of James the Sext, p. 386), probably intended less as a mark of royal dignity than as a precaution against the ill-will aroused by his oppressions.
• Various complaints having been made to the privy council against his cruelty and tyranny without any action being taken against him, the king on 18 Sept. 1608 wrote a letter of expostulation on their remissness to the privy council, who excused their passivity from ‘want of forces;’ but added that if the king himself ‘put his hand thereto,’ they would gladly ‘follow’ (Reg. P. C. Scotl. viii. 531). Finally, on 27 Dec. 1608, Orkney was charged to appear before the council (ib. p. 214), and, having been denounced on 2 March 1609 for not appearing (ib. p. 255), did at last come to Edinburgh, when on 6 June David, earl of Crawford, became surety in 20,000l. that he should keep ward in Edinburgh and the Canongate until relieved (ib. p. 292). In 1609 he was committed to ward in the castle of Edinburgh on general evidence, the final sentence being postponed until special evidence was obtained (ib. pp. 312–13). On 18 July he was relaxed on finding sureties in 20,000l. and giving his great oath not to escape (ib. pp. 322–3); but on 7 Nov. a warrant was issued for keeping him a close prisoner (ib. p. 371), to be ready for his trial, which took place on 11 Dec., and resulted in his being detained a prisoner, while in May 1611 he was discharged of his office of justiciar within Orkney (ib. ix. 185). On 31 Aug. he was released on a band of 50,000l. to remain within four miles of Edinburgh; but in October he was again committed to ward for having sent a commission of justiciary within the bounds of Orkney to his natural son, Robert Stewart (ib. p. 257); and on 27 Feb. 1612 his ward was changed to Dumbarton Castle (ib. p. 346). On 11 June 1612 he was charged to give orders for the surrender of his castles of Orkney and Shetland (ib. p. 388); but although various endeavours were made to induce him to come to terms (ib. vol. x. passim), he utterly declined to do so. In June 1613 a more favourable method of treatment was adopted towards him, his allowance in prison being fixed at 4l. a day (ib. p. 90); but this proving of no avail, he was on 17 May 1614 transported again to Dumbarton (ib. p. 239). Learning that his principal castles had been surrendered to the sheriff, he resolved on measures to re-establish his power; and for this purpose despatched his natural son, Robert, to Orkney, who, gathering a band of the more adventurous spirits, succeeded in recapturing the castle of Orkney and other strongholds, but was finally defeated and taken prisoner by the Earl of Caithness. With five of his accomplices Robert was, on 6 Jan. 1613–14, hanged for rebellion at the market cross of Edinburgh, much ‘pitied,’ says Calderwood, ‘of the people for his tall stature and comely countenance’ (History, vii. 194). In October the earl himself had been brought back from Edinburgh (Reg. P. C. Scotl. x. 274), and on 1 Feb. he was put upon his trial for having instigated his son's rebellion. The main evidence was the confession of his son, who, however, also stated that Orkney had afterwards countermanded the order; but as Orkney himself had twenty days before his own trial confessed that he had instigated the rebellion, and had placed himself in the king's mercy, he was found guilty, and sentenced to be beheaded at the market cross. The ministers sent to wait on him, ‘finding him,’ says Calderwood, ‘so ignorant that he could scarce rehearse the Lord's prayer, entreated the council to delay the execution some few days till he were better informed, and received the Lord's supper’ (Hist. vii. 194). Their petition having been granted, he communicated on Sunday the 5th, and was executed on Monday the 6th. By his wife, Margaret, daughter of William, lord Livingstone, relict of Sir Lewis Bellenden of Auchinoull, lord justice clerk, he left no issue. [Reg. Mag. Sig. Scot.; Reg. P. C. Scotl. vols. v–x.; Hist. of James the Sext (Bannatyne Club); Histories of Scotland by Calderwood and Spotiswood; Pitcairn's Criminal Trials; Douglas's Scottish Peerage, ed. Wood, i. 216.]
• From: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Stewart,_Patrick_(DNB00)