Birth
John Stewart was a natural son of
Robert Stewart (
Robert II of Scotland). Tradition says that John's mother was Moira Leitch (de Leche), though there's room for confusion between the names Mure and Moira (Moira->Mora->Mure).
The Scot's Peerage (below) talks more about this.
Regarding John's year of birth:
- His father Robert was born in 1316, meaning John must have been born after 1332
- He was made sheriff in 1385, at which year he must have been at least 21, implying a birth year no later than 1364.
- John died between 1444 and 1449, so assuming a normal lifespan of 85 or less, he must have been born after 1360; however John's eldest son James was of age in 1390, meaning a birth date of 1369 or earlier, which in turn suggests that John himself could not have been born after 1353. If this was the case, then he would have been in his 90s when he died. Not impossible, but quite rare
Thus we narrow John's birth year to around 1355; he would have been 15 when his son James was born in 1369, and 90+ when he died in the late 1440s.
Life
From
The Scot's Peerage1:
John Stewart, also called 'The Black Stewart', first of the house of Bute, was a natural son of King Robert II.
He received from his royal father and his brothers, King Robert III and the Regent Albany, a 'fair estate' in the Principality and Stewartry of Scotland. In this way, by the gift of Robert II, he became the hereditary Sheriff of the islands of Bute and Arran, probably on their first erection into a sheriffdom, in 1385. From Robert III he received on 11 November 1400 a confirmation of the office of Sheriff, and a charter of the lands of Ardmulese and Grenane in Bute, and of Coregelle in Arran, and grants of annual rents of ten pounds a year out of the maills of the King's Bute lands, and of ten merks yearly from his lands in Arran. From the Regent, who like Robert III styles him his brother, John Stewart and his wife received, in 1418, a charter of the half lands of Fennok in the barony of Renfrew, which he had purchased from Richard de Barde and in the following year a charter, to himself and his wife, of the lands of Barrone in Bute, on the resignation of 'Agnes, daughter of Walter.'
Stewart received also from Robert III a charter of an annual rent of twenty merks out of the barony of Albernethy, in Perthshire, and in 1398 he paid into the Exchequer the ferms of the lands of Ormysdale. An expenditure of nine chalders of barley, which he had appropriated for the repair of Rothesay Castle, was repudiated by the Exchequer, and continued in the accounts against him, and, after his death, against his son.
He was one of the hostages for James I of Scotland in 1424.
Tradition says that the name of the Sheriff's mother was Leitch. A family of that name held property in the Island of Bute at a very early date, and probably derived its surname from its hereditary profession of medicine. It has also been stated that the mother was the lady named Mora, mentioned in several of Robert's charters, another person, however, from Elizabeth More.
John married
Jonet Sympil, daughter of
John Sympil of
Eliotstoun (in the
Barony of Semple, west of Glasgow), and named with him in charters of 1419 and 1444, and had issue:-
- James
- William of Fennock, b. c 1400 and who married Margaret Stewart
- Robert of Bute
- Andrew of Roslane
Death
John was living in 1444 when named in a charter, but his son James succeeded between 1445 and 1449.
Footnotes
[1]
The Scots Peerage, Vol. 2 (1905); Stuart, Marquess of Bute, pages 285-311
Est 1355 - 
