Jean (Stewart) Campbell Countess of Argyll (abt. 1529 - 1588)

Born about 1529 in Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scotland

Ancestors

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Susan O'Carroll [send private message]

Biography

Jean (Stewart) Campbell Countess of Argyll is Notable.

Jean (Stewart) Campbell Countess of Argyll is a member of Clan Stewart.

Jean (Stewart) Campbell Countess of Argyll was born in Scotland.

Jean Stewart was born about 1529. She is the natural (illegitimate) daughter of James Stewart, James V, King of Scotland. ^[1] and Elizabeth Betune.

She married Archibald Campbell, 5th Earl of Argyll in April 1554. The contract was drawn up on 5th July 1553. The marriage was not a happy one and the Earl had several mistresses and 3 or 4 illegitimate children. He eventually succeeded in divorcing Jean on the grounds of desertion with the decree of divorce granted on 22nd June 1573. She was excommunicated from the church on 26th April that year. Jean bore no children.

Her husband remarried within weeks of their divorce being finalized. He married Jean Cunningham in August 1573 and he died about a month later in September 1573. His second wife bore a stillborn son in June 1574.

Jean died 7 January 1587/88, and was buried in the royal vaults in the Abbey of Holyrood, in Edinburgh. These were in the east bay of the south nave-aisle, and in an inspection in 1683, her remains were identified by "ane inscription in small letters gilded upon a square of ye lead coffin, making it to be the body of Dame Jean Stuart, Countesse of Argile, wt ye year of her death 1585 or so. I doe not well remember ye yeare". The royal vaults were violated in the revolution of 1688 and any leaden coffins that survived were stolen after the ruin of the church in 1768,^[2] so presumably her coffin is now missing.

Her will was proved at Edinburgh, 26 March 1588 (entered into the register as "Dame Jane Stewart, relict of Archibald, Earl of Argyle".^[3]

Sources

1. ↑ The house of Argyll and the collateral branches of the Clan Campbell, from the year 420 to the present time (1871), p 41, https://archive.org/stream/houseofargyllcol00glas#page/41/mode/1up
2. ↑ The Royal Commission on the Ancient Monuments of Scotland, An Inventory of the Ancient and Historical Monuments of the City of Edinburgh with the Thirteenth Report of the Commission (Edinburgh: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1951), available at https://scotlandsplaces.gov.uk/digital-volumes/rcahms-archives/inventories/edinburgh-1951/318 (Accessed: 28 May 2018).
3. ↑ The Commissariot Record of Edinburgh: Register of Testaments, Pt 1 1514-1606, ed. Francis J. Grant (Edinburgh: British Record Society - Scottish Section, 1897). Reprinted Nendeln, Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint, 1968. p. 263, available at https://archive.org/stream/commissariotreco16scot (Accessed 28 May 2018).

See also:

• Wikipedia: Lady Jean Stewart

• Wikidata: Item Q6470274, en:Wikipedia

• Sixteenth Century Scotland, Essays in Honour of Michael Lynch, edited by Julian Goodare and Alisdaire A MacDonald, Brill, 2008.