Six Centuries of the Lyons Line.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 44, 22 February 1927, Page 9

Six Centuries of the Lyons Line.

Ancestral House of the Duchess of York Dates from the Fourteenth Century.

(By LINDSAY OGILVY.)

Roman. Norman and Celtic origins have oeen suggested for the family of Lyon. but these are based on the merest conjecture. There is nothing to prove that any early member of the family fought in the rinks of Caesars armies or came over -with the Conqueror. It is enough for our present purpose that the first of them to come into prominence *ras a certain Sir John de Lyon. who ab*nt the middle of the fourteenth century murried Lady Jean (or Johanna) Stewart, the youngest daughter of Bobert the Second —he was neither her first nor her last husband —and Tose to be Chamberlain to the King, the most important office in the disposal of the Sovereign. From hi 3 first dim appearance in charters imd other documents. Sir John seems to have beeft fully equipped from his career as r-ourtier, statesman and diplomatist, and from that fact, as veil as from his acceptance as a Royal son-in-<la"w, it may be assumed that he "was no "kinlei" loon" but belonged to what "was then recognised as a distinguished family- Thus the Duthess of York has Royal blood'in her veins and in their coat-of-arms the Strathmores have the r%ht to carry the "double tressurc flory-connter-ficfcry" as "well as the Royal supporters, "while their crest is "a lady to the girdle habited, and holding in her right band the Boval thistle, all in allusion to the alliance "with the* daughter of Robert II." So far as can be ma<te out through the mists of fire and a-half centuries* Sir John's marriage was the result and not the cfcuse of his public services, •which included an ambassadorship to England, and the giving of his son , an* his grandson as hostages for James I. "when he wa&i reelased from hie captivity in England. - How he wae esteemed by his day and generation appears from the rude lines in which a "makkar" or bard celebrated his virtues:— "Pleasand and peir add weill given in all thing, Lnstie and large; pleaeand of hyde and hew, Mansweit and nieik, richt-secret als and trew Full of vertu withouten any vice. "The King him lovet also ovir the lave And gaif him oucht that he pleised to haif For his vertu and fer his fairness als. So trew he was that he was nevir fund.fals Expert he was to dyte and -wryte richt fair Therefor the King made him his Secretaire' His public services were recognised by his appointment to the th»«age of "Glamuwyss"' in return for "the services nf one archer for the King's army," and he seems to have collected substantial tracts of land in about a dozen counties. The success of "the Whyte Lyon," aa he was called, gained him enemies and according to *ne account awakened the envy of his former friend and neighbour Lindsay (from whom the Earls dt Crawford are descended), and he fell in a duel with him at the Moss of Balhall in 1383. Anotfctr version is that he was attacked when "in bed and unsuspecting." His position as a member of the Royal family was recognised by his interment in the Royal buryingplace at Scone. His grandson became the first Lord Glamis, and the father of the Duchess is the twenty - second bearer of the title, although it is now submerged in other and higher distinctions and has become the courtesy designation of the family heir.

The Devious Byways of Scottish History. To go into details of the family record would take me into the devious and slippery ways of Scottish history. It is sufficient to say that the Lyons and the numerous families of cadets bore their full share in the turbulent days of their country. Three sons of the third lord, who was Privy Councillor to James IV. and Justice-General of Scotland, fell at Flodden; the eighth lord, Chancellor of Scotland, from 1575 to 1575, was killed during a skirmish between his followers and those of the Earl of Crawford, and though the affair was described as an accident, it embittered the feud which for nearly four hundred years prevailed between the families. According to his friend, Andrew Melville, it involved the loss of "a learned, godly and wise man," in the time when the King and country stood most in need of his services. The ninth peer, the first to be raised to an earldom, was captain of the guard of King James VI. His son, an exception to the generally Royalist character of the family, was an enthusiastic Convenanter, and in spite of the appeals of his friend Montrose declined to transfer his support to the King. On the contrary he pledged the family resources to such an extent that, coming to his inheritance as one of the wealthiest peers in Scotland, he left it one of the poorest. The third earl (the great builder of the family) had to sell many of the outlying estates in order to save the rest and to finance his costly schemes of reconstruction at Glamis. He took part in public life between the Restoration and the Revolution, to which he was passively hostile. The fourth so strongly opposed the Act of Union and was so much suspected of Stuart sympathies that "it was accounted a ferlie that he was allowed to go about." His brother was killed at Sheriffmuir, as was also his successor in the peerage, according to a contemporary "the young men of all I ever saw who approached the nearest to perfection." That event must have cast a shadow over the visit a few months later of the young chevalier to Glamis Castle, where "over eighty beds were provided" for him and his suite, and whence he issued a grandiloquent appeal to his supporters. The sixth earl met an inglorious end in a scuffle at the neighbouring town of Forfar, but James Carnegy of Finavon, a neighbour who did the deed was acquitted of a charge of murder. He had refused to take the oath of allegiance to the House of Hanover and it may be that his death avoided some awkward questions about the retention of the family estates. In any case, by- the time another generation had arrived, the family was sending its sons into the army and the public service again. A son of the ninth earl, when in the service of the East India Company, was murdered at Patna by the order of the Nabob,' at ■ the age of 25. After that most of the Lyons seemed to have died in their beds, though many of them were soldiers, till the European War called upon the family, like so many others, rich and poor, to make its contribution to the great cause. Burned at the Stake. 1 must go back for a moment to tell the most tragic story in the annals of the family. It concerns Lady Janet Douglas, wife of the sixth Lord Glami*-. Being a Douglas, she shared in the hatred with which James V. regarded her house, and after the death of her husband she was made the object of a series

of the most diabolical persecutions. She was first charged in 1530 with treason in assisting her brother, ■J he Earl, of Angus against the King. She did not appear, and in the following year she was convicted in her absence. A little later she was accused at a .lustice-ayre at Forfar of poisoning her late husband, but the jury. Wing her neighbours, declined to convict her. though they were smartly fined for their refusal. Five years later she was charged with "couspirinjr the King's death by poison," and also of treasonable correspondence, and arrested along with her s-econd husband. Archibald Campbell, of Skipness. and her son. Lord Glaniis. then a boy of sixteen. She was condemned and burned at the M-ake on the Castlehill of Edinburgh, where, according to a contemporary record, she died "with manlike courage." Her husband, attempting to escape next day from the castle, fell and was dashed to piece?- on the ri«cks. Her son. from whom a sort of confession had been extracted by torture, was also .sentenced to death but respited. Meanwhile, the greedy King had seized the family estates and distributed most of them among his favourites. But Glamis Castle he retained for himself, embellished it at the public expense, and during tie few years before his death, he was a frequent visitor there. Cltimately the accuser confessed that his story was an invention and the young Lord Glamis was lil**rate<l. and after much trouble had his estates restored to him. A Robust Personage. \<i account of the Lyons can omit a reference !<> that robust personage who figured in Scottish hir-tory as (he master of Glamis. He was one of the leaders of the "Raid of Ruthven/ , which was made for the purpose of abducting James the Sixth. When the young sovereign, a boy of IC. was whimpering at the sight of the rude noble*, armed to the teeth, the master grimly commented "Better bairns greet than bearded men." , a phrase which sticks in the mind of every Scottish child when names and dates arc forgotten. Another episode of the family is that connected with the lady who gave it its hyphenated name—Mary Eleanor Bowes, daughter and heir of George Bowes. M.P.. of Streatlam Castle, Durham. She became the wife of John, the seventh Earl, and according to the Annual Register for 1767, "her present fortune is £1.040,000, besides a great jointure on the death of her mother and a large estate on the demise of an uncle." How much of the ready money, the equivalent of an enormous sum. at the present day, came the way of her husband's family is doubtfuL She was left a widow before she was thirty and had many suitors, for she was charming, as well as rich. The unfortunate lady, whose story furnished Thackeray with' the theme of '"Barry Lyndon," was bullied into her second marriage with an adventurer and eventually, had to save her life by flight. The story of the disappearance of her son, who ;. •urned after many years, is, I believe, substantially true, as told by the novelist. It is interesting to note that the first wife of John Knox belonged to the Streatlam family, an odd link of a Royalist and episcopalian family with the great Presbyterian. Streatlam remained in the possession of the Lyons for 150 years, but I believe that most of the property has now been sold. During recent generations the lairds of Strath - more, who received a United Kingdom peerage at the ISB7 jubilee, have been noted for the shrewd and generous management of their estates, and especially for the encouragement they have given to agriculture. They are justly proud of having on their lauds some of the most skilful and prosperous farmers in the whole of Scotland, for the broad fertile Strath produces both crops and herds of the highest standard. The present Earl (who is one of a family of seven eons and three daughters) beare the titles of F-arl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, Viscount Lyon, Baron Glamis, Tannadyce, Sidlatr and Strathdichtic.