John Stewart of Baldynneis

John Stewart of Baldynneis (c. 1545–c. 1605) was a writer and courtier at the Scottish Court. he was one of the Castalian Band grouped around James VI.

He was the son of Elizabeth Beaton, a former mistress of James V, and John Stewart, 4th Lord Innermeath.[1] His nephew, John Stewart was 6th Lord Innermeath and Earl of Atholl.

He was known as "John Stewart of Redcastle and Laitheris", and also as "Stewart of Baldynneis".[2]

In 1579, James Gray, son of Patrick Gray, 4th Lord Gray, married Elizabeth Beaton, who owned the Red Castle, Angus. They quarreled and Gray (with his brother Andrew of Dunninald) occupied the castle. James VI ordered John Erskine of Dun and his son Robert to bring siege engines and eject Gray, with the help of the townspeople of Dundee. Erskine was asked to make an inventory of the goods in the castle and give safe conduct for Elizabeth Beaton's son, John Stewart the poet, to the king's presence.[3]

He was the translator of Ariosto's Orlando Furioso producing an abridgement in twelve cantos in 1590 preceding Sir John Harington's translation the following year.[4] The translation appeared with some of his own poems in a volume bearing the title Ane Abbregement of Roland Fvriovs, translait ovt of Aroist: togither vith sym Rapsodies of the Avthor's yovthfvll braine, and last ane Schersing ovt of trew Felicitie; composit in Scotis meiter be J. Stewart of Baldynneis[4] a copy of which is preserved in the Advocates Library, Edinburgh.

This may well have been the 'propyne' of verse which Stewart gave to James VI as a new year present in 1584. Stewart wrote of the king deserving a "doubill croune and moir", not just referring to the likelihood of James inheriting the English throne, but also to coronation of Petrarch as poet-king in Rome in 1341, or that of Conrad Celtes in 1487.[5]

References
  1. Donna Heddle, John Stewart of Baldynneis Roland Furious: A Scots Poem in its European Context (Leiden, 2007), pp. 1-2.
  2. Balfour Paul, Sir James. The Scots Peerage: founded on Wood's ed. of Sir Robert Douglas's Peerage of Scotland; containing an historical and genealogical account of the nobility of that kingdom, vol. 5 (Edinburgh, 1904), p. 5
  3. HMC 5th Report: Erskine (London, 1876), pp. 636, 640.
  4. Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Stewart, J." . Encyclopædia Britannica. 25 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 914.
  5. Jenny Wormald, Court, Kirk, and Community: Scotland, 1470-1625, p. 186.


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