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STEWART. Steuart, Stuart.

In O.E. the original sense of the word stiward (from older stigeweard, “sty-warden”) was one who looked after the domestic animals; hence by extension of meaning, one who provides from his master’s table. The vowel change of y is due to the following w and the earliest instance of the final letter of the name being t instead of d occurs in the Armorial de Gelre (c.1370-88). By the 11th century the word had come to mean one who superintended the household affairs of another, and was therefore a title of honour. In Scotland the Steward was not only chief of the Royal household, but his power extended to the collection and management of the crown revenues, to the administration of justice, and in time of war he took first place in the army next to the king. In early charters and kindred documents steward, seneschal (from the old Gothic word sinaskalks, meaning ‘old servant’), and dapifer (‘food bringer’) are practically synonymous terms. There are four ways of spelling the surname—Stewart, Steuart, Stuart, and Steward, besides the borrowed Gaelic form Stiubhard. The fame of Mary, queen of Scots (who spelled her name Stuart, after the French manner, there being no w in that language) and of the Young Pretender has made the French form more popular. The Scottish royal family of Stewart descended from a family of Breton nobles, who were hereditary seneschals of Dol. The first recorded is Alan Dapifer [Dolensis], who flourished about the middle of the 11th century. His son, also named Alan, appears several times in Breton history. A grandson of this second Alan, also named Alan, became lord of Oswestry and appears as witness to a grant by Henry I of England to the monks of Marmoutier, c. 1100-08. Walter, one of the four sons of this Alan, was the first of his family in Scotland. He first appears in 1142 when he attests a charter of David I, the ‘soir sanct for the crown’ to Melrose Abbey. He also appears as witness in other royal charters, and King David, before his death in 1153, made a grant to this Walter of the office of Steward of Scotland. No original record of this grant now exists, but its bestowal is proved by a charter of Malcolm IV, granted to Walter in 1157 confirming to him and his heirs the donation which King David gave him, namely, the lands of Renfrew, Paisley, etc., and also gives to him and his heirs the royal stewartry (senescallia) as ‘King David gave the same’. Walter the sixth Steward fought at Bannockburn, 1314, and in 1319 he successfully defended Berwick against the English led by Edward III in person, and was one of the signers of the Scottish declaration of Independence in 1320. In 1315 he had married Marjory, daughter of King Robert the Bruce, who bore him a son, Robert, afterwards Robert II, first of the royal line of Stewart, crowned in 1371. Many people imagine that all persons bearing the name Stewart (or its variants) are of royal descent, but it must be borne in mind that there were stewards and stewards, as King James the Sixth emphasised when he said that all Stewarts were not ‘sib’ to the king. Every bishop, every earl had his steward, who in his own particular domain was simply ‘John the steward’. Thus, for example, in a charter of Richard, bishop of St Andrews, granted between 1163-73, among the witnesses we find ‘Galfridus dapiferus episcopi’ and ‘Odone senescallus Gospatrici de Rirais’. Phelippe Styward of Roxburghshire and William le fiz le Stywarde of the counte of Berewyk rendered homage, 1296. John Stywarde was one of an inquest at Roxburgh, 1357, Richard Stiward was in the king of England’s service, 1371 and John Stywarde of Ennermethe (Invermeath) was a knight of Scotland. To the Gaels, the Stewarts are known as “The race of kings and tinkers”, Stiubhairtaich cinne nan rig’s nan ceard. Robert Stuart (1785-1848), American explorer and ’friend of the Indians’ was born in Callander. In the seventeenth century an East Anglia family named Styward put forward a story that they were originally Stewarts. Oliver Cromwell’s mother was one of them, and on the strength of this it was claimed that Cromwell was descended from the royal family.

(Extract from “The Surnames of Scotland” by George Black)

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