GEN-MEDIEVAL-L ArchivesArchiver > GEN-MEDIEVAL > 2001-10 > 1003797886
From: (Sam Sloan)
Subject: Re: Royal Family of Europe
Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 00:44:46 GMT
At 07:59 PM 10/5/2001 +0200, Frank W Bullen wrote:
>Apropos of the spelling of the name STEWART. Please correct me if I am
>wrong, but my understanding is that "STEWART" pre-dates "STUART", which is,
>I am told, the French version of the name. Does anyone know when the
>change took place?
>Frank W Bullen
>Johannesburg, South Africa
Mary Queen of Scots was born on 7 December 1542 and became the Queen
of Scotland when she was only seven days old. King Henry VIII of
England, who had just killed her father in battle, wanted for her to
marry his son, who later became King Edward VI. The English fought a
battle against the Scots at Pinkie near Edinburgh on 10 September
1547. Shortly thereafter, Queen Mary was sent to France for her own
protection. On 24 April 1558 at the ripe old age of 15, she was
married to a younger man, the Dolphin of France, Francis, son of King
Henry II of France and Catherine de Medici, who was 14. This was for
Mary's protection, because they were going to kill her back in
On 10 July 1559 at the age of 16, Mary became Queen of France, when
Henry II died. However, she was queen of France for only one and a
half years, because her husband died in December 1560 when she was 18.
The widowed Queen Mary returned to Scotland on 19 August 1561 and on
29 July 1565 was married to her cousin, Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley.
Henry Stewart was murdered at Edinburgh on 10 February 1566, leaving
an only child, who later became King James VI of Scotland.
During her years in France, Mary Queen of Scots changed the spelling
of her name Stewart to the French version, which is Stuart. After
returning to Scotland, she continued to spell her name Stuart and
gradually most of her family members adopted her custom and spelled
their names Stuart instead of Stewart.
Thus, anybody in England or Scotland with the name Stuart instead of
Stewart is likely to be a relative of Mary Queen of Scots.
One point of particular interest to me is I have a relative in my
family tree named Mary Stuart. She was born 1729 in Gabinheough,
Tyrone, Ireland and died in Chester County, South Carolina. She was
the mother of Margaret Coulter, the first wife of Andrew Graham, who
was my great-great-great-grandfather. Andrew Graham had either two or
three wives, nobody knows for sure, and all of them were named
Margaret, so I cannot say for sure whether or not Mary Stuart was my
great-great-great-great grandmother. In any case, Family Histories
have always said that Mary Stuart was a descendant of King James of
Scotland by his second wife, a commoner.
By "a commoner", what they really mean is that she was a bastard, but
this does not bother me, as everybody has always thought that about me
|Re: Royal Family of Europe by (Sam Sloan)|