Talk:John Stewart, Earl of Buchan

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Early life

This section seems to perpetuate a myth that appears throughout a number of pages on wikipedia regarding the Earldom of Ross. The claim on these sites suggest the reason for Donald's insurrection and the Harlaw campaign is based on the assignment of the Earldom to the Regent's son John. But this assignment happened in 1415 and 4 years after Harlaw and 3 years after Donald resigned his claim at the treaty of Loch Gilp.

Thus the statement that: His father, Robert Stewart, Duke of Albany, was grandfather to Euphemia II, Countess of Ross and persuaded her to resign her rights to his son. ^{[citation needed]}Stewart appears as Earl of Ross for a time, until his right was challenged by Domhnall of Islay, Lord of the Isles, for his wife, who successfully became known as Mariota, or Mary Leslie, Countess of Ross.^{[citation needed]} is misleading.

My thought: His father, Robert Stewart, Duke of Albany, was grandfather to Euphemia II, Countess of Ross and held the Earldom in ward. After his loss in the Harlaw campaign Donald, Lord of the Isles, was forced to retreat to Islay, abandoning Inverness and Dingwall. By early spring 1412, the Regent was ready to take the battle to Donald and he advanced on Donald's lands in Argyll in the early summer. There is no record of Donald being able to put an effective force into the field to challenge the Regent and there is no record of any fighting. Donald gave his submission to the Regent at Polgilbe, on the banks of Loch Gilp, in Argyll, in which he abandoned his claim to the earldom of Ross and made submission to the Scottish Crown, swearing fealty. He was required to give hostages for surety.

While this treaty has not survived the records of the Exchequer show that the Regent was there, at Loch Gilp, in 1412, and with an army “for the pacification of the ketherans against the Kingdom”, and Donald dropped the double tressure, of the Earldom of Ross, from his seal in the years after Harlaw. The damage done to Donald and the clans at the battle of Harlaw was such that, Donald was never again a threat against Scotland.

After this the Regent made attempts to settle the issue of the Earldom and made attempts to marry Euphemia, whom he held in ward. On 3 June 1415, when Euphemia was about 20, he made attempts to marry her to Thomas Dunbar, 6th Earl of Moray, the son of a strong supporter of the Regent. However it seems to have been rejected, possibly on account of her disability (she was thought to have been "hunchback") and the lack of potential for an heir. Later that month, it seems that the Regent “suggested” that she resign her lands and titles. Although often criticised, this action; to resign and then have reassigned under a “new grant”, was common practise. Thus she resigned them in favour of the crown, represented by the Regent. The Regent then conveyed them back to her but with the remainder, mainly the lands, to her maternal uncle, and the Regent's son, John, Earl of Buchan. Euphemia left to become a nun at the St. Mary's Priory in North Berwick. Donald contested the distribution suggesting that as a nun she was effectively dead and thus her component should pass to his wife, but, to Donald's disgust, all titles and claims were passed to the Earl of Buchan who henceforth calls himself the Earl of Buchan and Ross.

However it didn't stop Donald coveting the title. When the Regent died in 1420 and the focus went off the claim to the title, Donald, in a document addressed to the Pope in Rome, in 1421, styled himself as Lord of the Isles and of the Earldom of Ross. However there is no evidence he was open to this assumption within the courts of Scotland. History later records that on the death of John Stewart, Earl of Buchan and Ross, in 1424, at the Battle of Verneuil in Normandy, him being an illegitimate son, his estates passed to the crown, James I, as was usual. Donald had gone to great lengths to befriend James in the period after Harlaw and had convinced him of the validity of his claim. Mariota was now the last heir to the claim on Ross and thus Earldom of Ross reverted to Mariota. Donald's and Mariota's son, Alexander, became Earl of Ross. Family locator (talk) 00:50, 7 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]