Agnes Keith, Countess of Moray

Lady Agnes Keith
Countess of Mar
Countess of Moray
Countess of Argyll
Agnes Keith by Hans Eworth, 1562; this is a detail from her wedding portrait
Spouse(s) James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray (m. 1562–1570) «start: (1562)–end+1: (1571)»"Marriage: James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray to Agnes Keith, Countess of Moray" Location: (linkback:http://localhost../../../../articles/a/g/n/Agnes_Keith,_Countess_of_Moray_4972.html)
Colin Campbell, 6th Earl of Argyll (m. 1572–1584) «start: (1572)–end+1: (1585)»"Marriage: Colin Campbell, 6th Earl of Argyll to Agnes Keith, Countess of Moray" Location: (linkback:http://localhost../../../../articles/a/g/n/Agnes_Keith,_Countess_of_Moray_4972.html)
Issue
Elizabeth Stewart, 2nd Countess of Moray
Annabel Stewart
Lady Margaret Stewart
Hon. Colin Campbell of Lundie
Lady Jane Campbell
Archibald Campbell, 7th Earl of Argyll
Noble family Keith
Father William Keith, 4th Earl Marischal
Mother Margaret Keith
Born c.1540
Dunnottar Castle, Aberdeenshire, Scotland
Died 16 July 1588
Edinburgh, Scotland
Burial St. Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh, Scotland

Agnes Keith, Countess of Moray (c. 1540 – 16 July 1588) was a Scottish noblewoman having been the eldest daughter of William Keith, 4th Earl Marischal. She was the wife of James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray, Regent of Scotland and the illegitimate half-brother of Mary, Queen of Scots, making her a sister-in-law of the Scottish queen. As the wife of the regent, Lady Moray was the most powerful woman in Scotland from 1567 until her husband's assassination in 1570.[1][2]

She was married secondly to Sir Colin Campbell, heir presumptive to the earldom of Argyll. When he succeeded his brother as the 6th earl in 1573, Agnes was henceforth styled Countess of Argyll. During her second marriage, Lady Argyll became embroiled in a litigation over Queen Mary's jewels which had earlier fallen into her keeping. It was her refusal to hand the jewels over to the Scottish Government that sparked a feud between the Earl of Argyll and the Regent Morton.

Contents

Family

Lady Agnes Keith was born in Dunnottar Castle, Aberdeenshire, Scotland[2] in about 1540, the eldest daughter of William Keith, 4th Earl Marischal and Margaret Keith. Her paternal grandparents were Robert Keith, Master of Marischal, and Lady Elizabeth Douglas, and her maternal grandparents were Sir Wiliam Keith and Janet Gray. Agnes was a descendant of King James I of Scotland and his consort Jane Beaufort, who was in her turn the great-granddaughter of King Edward III of England.

She had two brothers, William Keith, Master of Marischal (died 1580), and Hon. Robert Keith, 1st Lord Altrie (died 1596); and six younger sisters. These were Elizabeth, wife of Sir Alexander Irvine of Drum; Alison, wife of Alexander, Lord Salton; Mary, wife of Sir John Campbell of Calder; Beatrice, wife of John Allardice of Allardice; Janet, wife of James Crichton of Frendraght; and Margaret, wife of Sir John Kennedy of Balquhan.[3] Her aunt was Elizabeth Keith, wife of George Gordon, 4th Earl of Huntly who would lead an unsuccessful rebellion against Mary, Queen of Scots in 1562. Her first cousin was Lady Jean Gordon, the first wife of James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, who himself would become the third husband of Mary, Queen of Scots. Agnes's father was a member of Queen Mary's Privy Council; he had fought at the Battle of Pinkie when she was about seven years old. He died in 1581.

Agnes was also known as Annabel[4] or Annas.[5]

First marriage

At St. Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh on 8 February 1562, Agnes was married to James Stewart, the illegitimate half-brother and chief adviser of Mary, Queen of Scots, who had been created Earl of Mar the previous day. The ceremony was magnificent, attended by many of the nobility, with John Knox having preached the sermon.[6] The lavish wedding was followed by three days of festivities and banqueting at Holyrood Palace, the frivolity of which was subsequently denounced by Knox with the words: "the vanity used thereat offended many godly".[7] Queen Mary made much of the new Lady Mar and regarded her as a close member of her family.[8] Having been well-educated, Lady Mar was described by author Antonia Fraser as having had "genuine intelligence and spirit".[9] Keith M. Brown, Professor of Scottish History at the University of St. Andrews, called her "clever, acquisitive and steely".[10]

The Earl and Countess of Mar together had three daughters:[4]

The queen had secretly given her half-brother the title of Earl of Moray in January 1562. This title belonged to George Gordon, 4th Earl of Huntly, himself married to Lady Mar's aunt, Elizabeth. James later agreed to give up the title of Earl of Mar, it being an Erskine family perquisite, but retained the earldom of Moray. This provoked the Earl of Huntly to lead a rebellion in the Scottish Highlands against the queen. The rebellion was encouraged by Agnes's aunt. Huntly and his rebels were soundly defeated by James's troops at the Battle of Corrichie on 22 October 1562. Some of Huntly's forfeited belongings were sent to furnish the Morays' new castle of Darnaway.[12]

The Earl of Moray and his half-sister became enemies following Mary's marriage to Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley in 1565, a man to whom Moray was fiercely opposed. It does not appear, however, that his wife shared the same hostility towards the queen.[13] Due to her advanced stage of pregnancy, Lady Moray was unable to join her husband, who was in exile in England. This was in consequence of Moray having been declared an outlaw following his rebellion, known as the "Chaseabout Raid", against his sister in August that same year. She remained behind at their home at St. Andrew's Priory; on an unknown date late in 1565, Lady Moray gave birth to a daughter, Elizabeth. Upon recovery from her confinement, she resumed the successful management of the Moray estates. Her husband returned to Scotland following the murder of Queen Mary's secretary David Rizzio in March 1566 and was pardoned by the queen.

It was recorded that in August 1566 following the birth of Prince James, the future King James VI of Scotland, Lady Moray was one of the ladies with whom the queen kept the most company.[14] In early February 1567, Lady Moray suffered a miscarriage, which provided her husband with an excuse to hastily depart from Edinburgh; thus he was away when Lord Darnley was murdered at Kirk o'Field.[15]

Most powerful woman in Scotland

Moray was proclaimed Regent of Scotland for the infant King James VI on 22 August 1567 following the abdication of Queen Mary on 24 July.[16] While her husband held the regency, the Countess of Moray was the most powerful woman in Scotland.[2][17] She was a very intelligent and intimidating politician,[18] and many people were afraid of incurring her wrath. In May 1568, before the Battle of Langside, she coldly informed her frightened cousin, George Gordon, 5th Earl of Huntly, "ye haf mad me angary".[18] Huntly had indicated that he would support Mary rather than Regent Moray.[19]

Moray was assassinated at Linlithgow in January 1570,[20] by James Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh, a supporter of Queen Mary. Hamilton, using a pistol, fired at James from a window as the latter was passing in a cavalcade in the main street below, fatally wounding him; and making James Stewart, Earl of Moray, the first recorded person in history to be assassinated by a firearm.[21] Lady Moray was pregnant at the time of her husband's murder and delivered a daughter, Margaret, shortly afterwards.[22] She spent the two years following his assassination managing the family estates and fighting a series of legal battles in which she sought to obtain financial compensation for the time he acted as regent.

While the Countess was at Dunnotar, her mother-in-law, Margaret Erskine, looked after her second eldest daughter, Annabell at the New House of Lochleven Castle. Although Annabell was described as 'merry and lusty' in April 1570, some months later Margaret had to write to Agnes describing her death. She told Agnes that, 'God sall send your Ladyschip barnis efter this, for ye ar young aneuch.'[23]

Second marriage and excommunication

Between 13 January 1571 and 26 February 1572, the Dowager Countess of Moray became the second wife of Sir Colin Campbell, the son of Archibald Campbell, 4th Earl of Argyll, and Lady Margaret Graham, and heir presumptive to the earldom of Argyll, by whom she had another three children:

Agnes was excommunicated by the Church on 25 April 1573 for non-adherence to her husband.[4] He was, in fact, said to have been "much advised by Agnes";[18] in another document it was recorded that Sir Colin was "overmuch ledd by his wyf".[24]

Upon the death of her brother-in-law Archibald Campbell, 5th Earl of Argyll on 12 September 1573, Agnes, as the wife of Sir Colin who had succeeded his childless brother as the 6th earl, was henceforth styled as Countess of Argyll. It was noted by scholar Jane E. A. Dawson of the University of Edinburgh that Annas (Agnes) and her husband had been journeying to Darnaway Castle in Moray where they had planned to spend the winter when news reached them of the 5th earl's death. They stopped instead at Dunnottar Castle and made alternative plans.[25]

Queen Mary's jewels

Lady Argyll had obtained most of Queen Mary's jewels which were left behind in the Earl of Moray's custody when the queen was removed to Lochleven Castle in 1567.[16] Mary, Queen of Scots, had written to Agnes from Tutbury Castle soon after Moray's assassination on 28 March 1570 regarding these jewels. Mary wanted them sent to her in England including a piece made up of diamonds and rubies called the "H".[26] This was the "Great Harry", a diamond given to Mary on the occasion of her first marriage by her father-in-law, King Henry II of France.[27] The Earl of Huntly asked for the jewels on Mary's behalf on 1 November 1570, and Mary herself wrote again for them on 27 January 1571. However, the Regent Lennox had also asked for them on 13 September 1570.[28] Facing a dilemma between handing the jewels over to Mary or the Scottish government, (knowing also that Moray had sold some of the crown jewels to Elizabeth I of England to fund the civil war),[29][30] Agnes chose to hang onto the jewels.

It was Lady Argyll's desire to hold onto these valuable jewels which provoked a feud between her second husband and the Regent Morton,[17] who demanded their return on behalf of King James VI of Scotland, threatening the couple with arrest if they failed to deliver the jewels which he insisted belonged to the Scottish Crown. When Lady Argyll and her husband failed to hand them over, they were both "put to the horn" (declared rebels) on 3 February 1574.[31] Lady Argyll appealed to the Scottish Parliament, and wrote several articulate, formal letters to Queen Elizabeth requesting her intervention which would permit Lady Argyll to retain the jewels. This resulted in a lengthy litigation with the Regent over the custody of the precious stones,[32] that ended on 5 March 1575, when the earl, in his own name and that of Lady Argyll, surrendered them to the Regent.[27]

The Earl of Argyll would later be partly responsible for Regent Morton's fall from power and loss of the Regency in 1578.

Lady Argyll was believed to have been the power behind the throne during her second husband's tenure as the 6th Earl of Argyll and through the important political offices he held as Lord Chancellor of Scotland and Lord Justice General from 1579 until his death. She continued to enjoy this surreptitious influence over the King when her son Archibald succeeded his father as the 7th earl in 1584.[2]

Death and legacy

Lady Argyll died on 16 July 1588 in Edinburgh and was buried in St. Giles Cathedral inside the tomb of her first husband, James Stewart, Earl of Moray. The tomb is located in St. Anthony's aisle and was carved by John Roytell and Murdoch Walker. Her will was probated on 9 August 1591.

Through her eldest daughter Elizabeth, 2nd Countess of Moray, Lady Agnes Keith was an ancestress of Diana, Princess of Wales; and by extension, The Duke of Cambridge, second in the line of succession to the British throne, descends from her.

Depiction in art

Celebrated Flemish artist Hans Eworth painted portraits of Agnes and her first husband, the Earl of Moray in 1562 to commemorate their marriage.

Ancestry

References

  1. ^ Brown, Keith M. (2003). Noble Society in Scotland: Wealth, Family and Culture from the Reformation to Revolution. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. p. 180. ISBN 978-0748612994. 
  2. ^ a b c d "Lady Agnes Keith". Undiscovered Scotland. http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/usbiography/k/agneskeith.html. Retrieved 1 June 2010. 
  3. ^ Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 30, Keith, William (d.1581), by Thomas Finlayson Henderson
  4. ^ a b c "Lady Anne Keith". thepeerage.com. http://www.thepeerage.com/p10961.htm#i109603. 
  5. ^ Dawson, Jane E. A. (2002). "The Politics of Religion in the Age of Mary, Queen of Scots: The Earl of Argyll and the Struggle for Britain and Ireland". Cambridge: The Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge. p. 26. http://assets.cambridge.org/97805218/09962/sample/9780521809962ws.pdf. Retrieved 2011-01-25. 
  6. ^ Fraser, Antonia (1993). Mary, Queen of Scots. New York: Dell Publishing Company, Inc. p. 215. ISBN 978-0385311298. 
  7. ^ Fraser, p.215
  8. ^ Fraser, p.306
  9. ^ Fraser, p. 168
  10. ^ Brown, p.180"
  11. ^ Thomson, Thomas, ed., A diurnal of remarkable occurrents that have passed within Scotland since the death of king James IV till 1575, Bannatyne Club (1833), 132
  12. ^ Fraser, p.231
  13. ^ Fraser, pp.306, 312
  14. ^ Fraser, p.312
  15. ^ Fraser, pp.342–343
  16. ^ a b Fraser, p.402
  17. ^ a b Brown, p.180
  18. ^ a b c Brown, p.140
  19. ^ Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, 6th Report and Appendix, Earl of Moray, (1877), p.649.
  20. ^ Fraser, p.486. The date Fraser gives for the assassination is 11 January, however, this may have been an error as the Calendar State Papers Scotland vol. 3 (1903), 56 note that a letter was written by James Stewart, Earl of Moray at Stirling on 20 January 1570. John Spottiswoode, in his History of the Church of Scotland, vol. 2 (1851), p.120 gives the assassination date as 23 January 1570.
  21. ^ "James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray". Undiscovered Scotland. http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/usbiography/s/jamesstewartmoray.html. Retrieved 27 March 2009. 
  22. ^ Cawley, Charles. "Scotland, Kings". Medieval Lands. Foundation for Medieval Genealogy. http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/SCOTLAND.htm. 
  23. ^ Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, 6th Report & Appendix, Earl of Moray, (1877), pp.651–652.
  24. ^ Maclean-Bristol, Nicholas (1999). Murder Under Trust: the crimes and death of Sir Lachlan Mor Maclean of Duart, 1558-1598. East Linton, East Lothian: Tuckwell Press. p. 57. ISBN 978-1862320161. 
  25. ^ Dawson, p.26
  26. ^ Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, 6th Report & Appendix, Earl of Moray, (1877), p.638.
  27. ^ a b Dictionary of National Biography, Vol. 8, p.347
  28. ^ Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, 6th Report & Appendix, Earl of Moray, (1877), pp.638, 653.
  29. ^ Labanoff, A, ed (1844). Lettres de Marie Stuart. 7. London: Dolman. pp. 129–132. 
  30. ^ Fraser, pp.402–403
  31. ^ Thomson, Thomas, ed (1815). A Collection of Royal Inventories. Edinburgh. pp. 195–200. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=mfEHAAAAQAAJ&source=gbs_navlinks_s. 
  32. ^ Crown, Samuel (2005). Mary, Queen of Scots and Who Wrote the Casket Letters. Kessinger. pp. 150–163. ISBN 9781417971015. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=gpQqfQgtDgkC. Retrieved 10 February 2011. 

Further reading and sources