Captain James Stewart, Earl of Arran (died 1596) was created Earl of Arran by the young King James VI, who wrested the title from James Hamilton, 3rd Earl of Arran. He rose to become Lord Chancellor of Scotland and was eventually murdered in 1596.
Captain James Stewart of Bothwellmuir was the second son of Andrew Stewart, 2nd Lord Ochiltree, by his wife Agnes, daughter John Cunningham, 5th of Capringtoun, Ayrshire. Stewart's sister, Margaret, was married to the reformer John Knox.
In April 1573, James was sent as a 'pledge' or hostage to England for the security of the English army and artillery sent to the 'Lang Siege' of Edinburgh Castle. (The Castle was held by supporters of Mary Queen of Scots). Regent Morton gave him £55 for his expenses in England.[1]
Stewart's professional life started as a mercenary in the service of France and Sweden. As a Captain in the King's Guard he was introduced to King James VI, and quickly became a firm royal favourite. It was at Stewart's instigation that James Douglas, 4th Earl of Morton was arrested for complicity in the murder of the King's father, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley.
Whilst still a Captain in the King's Guard, the ambitious James Stewart took over the management of the lands of the insane James Hamilton, 3rd Earl of Arran, and contrived to have himself elected a Privy Counsellor. Not content to stop there, in 1581 he persuaded the King, with a dubious genealogical argument, to grant him Hamilton's title of 'Earl of Arran'. Stewart held the title until it was restored to Hamilton in 1585.
He married a woman as daring and ambitious as himself, Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of John Stewart, 4th Earl of Atholl. Her first husband was Hugh Fraser, 5th Lord Lovat. A year after he died she married the elderly Earl of Lennox, but on meeting James Stewart she quickly divorced him on the grounds of his impotence and, three months pregnant, married James Stewart in 1581.
Stewart had formed a powerful alliance with Esmé Stewart, 1st Duke of Lennox, the King's first cousin, but he had also created many enemies during his rise to power.