What a popular subject the Tudors are all over Britain! Henry VIII, Bloody Mary, Elizabeth I – there seem to be just as many books about them in Waterstones in Edinburgh as in Waterstones in London. Not many people realise that we had members of the family in Orkney as well.

James V of Scotland was the nephew of Henry VIII of England. His mother was Henry’s sister, Margaret Tudor.  So genetically he was half-Tudor himself. James appears to have closely resembled his uncle in that he was a great man for the ladies, but unlike Henry, he was fertile, and managed to father not one but nine known illegitimate children by different noblewomen of his court, as well as his legitimate daughter and heir, Mary Queen of Scots. One of James’ natural children ended up in Orkney.

Robert Stewart (1533 – 1593) was the illegitimate son of James V and Euphemia Elphinstone, who had a brief fling with the king before going on to marry someone else. There is very little evidence about his youth and education, but it seems that after he left the nursery he was educated as a nobleman with several of his illegitimate half-brothers in St Andrews. All of James’ bastard sons were taken care of, usually by having them educated and given the revenues of various abbeys and priories as ‘commendators’. Commendators were laymen in charge of the administration of an abbey, who during the 16^th century increasingly took over the direction of these abbeys from the abbots themselves. Robert Stewart was made commendator of Holyrood Abbey in 1539 – i.e. when he was six years old. Hmmm… It must be supposed that he couldn’t have done anything to earn his money at that age.

His father died when he was nine years old, and his infant half-sister became queen. After a few years in France in his teens, completing his education, he returned to the Scottish court and took up the life of a minor noble. He seems to have made himself rather unpopular from the start.

Robert’s official connection with Orkney began in 1564, when his half-sister, Mary Queen of Scots, made him sheriff of Orkney (the role was taken away from him shortly afterwards), and granted him lands in the islands. At this point he was not an earl, just plain Sir Robert Stewart of Strathdon. He arrived in Orkney for the first time in 1567, after his half-sister had lost her throne. He now took back the sheriff’s role, and seized both Kirkwall Castle and Noltland Castle on Westray. He consolidated his Orkney landholdings in 1568, when he forced the bishop of Orkney to exchange his estates in Orkney for the commendatorship of Holyrood.

This included the land in Birsay in West Mainland where Sir Robert built the ‘Earl’s Palace’ between 1569 and 1574. It lies close to the sea in Birsay village.  It had two storeys and was built around four sides of a central courtyard with a well. The kitchen and other domestic facilities were on the ground floor, while the bedrooms and great hall were upstairs. Although the upper storey had large windows, the ground floor had small ones and holes to fire muskets through, and there were three towers, so it was clearly built for defence as well as a palace for a Renaissance prince.

There is a 17^th century line drawing (see “Orkney A Historical Guide” Caroline Wickham-Jones 2015, page 162 figure 55, referenced The Stationary Office) with a plan of the palace, showing all the proper facilities for a nobleman’s residence of the time: walled flower, herb, kitchen and plant gardens on the east side of the palace buildings, as well as a bowling green, archery butts, rabbit warrens and a deer park to the north.

I wish there was more information about the gardens, especially the flower garden or pleasaunce. Earl Robert was following in the footsteps of his father, James V, and his grandfather, James IV, who embellished their palaces at Holyrood and Stirling Castle with formal gardens. Measured from the copy of the 17^th century plan given in Wickham-Jones, the flower garden appears to be approximately 50 feet by 35 feet, i.e. 0.04 acres, i.e. quite small.   Since it was walled, there were probably trees, as there are today in the walled gardens attached to Orkney gentry houses or in towns wherever there is shelter from the wind. Maybe it had gravelled walks, flower beds in geometric patterns, a stone sculpture or two, maybe a sundial and a fishpond, perhaps an arbour draped with honeysuckle or roses over a seat. One can imagine the earl, dressed in silk and velvet with gold embroidery, leaning against a tree sniffing at a flower, à la Nicholas Hilliard. Or exercising with a game of bowls or practicing his archery. Very suitable exercise for a semi-royal prince – both his sister Mary and his cousin Elizabeth enjoyed bowls and archery.

Sir Robert was a married man, with nearly 20 children. In 1561 he had married Lady Jean Kennedy, the daughter of the Earl of Cassilis. Contemporary comment was that he was really in love with her, and they had nine children. However, his wife never came to Orkney, preferring to stay in the centre of civilisation in Edinburgh, which didn’t please Robert at all. Following in the tradition of his royal father and great-uncle, he is also said to have had at least ten children out of wedlock.

Uncle Robert went on to ingratiate himself with his nephew James VI, who reinstated the earldom of Orkney for him in 1581, and also made him Lord of Shetland. He is therefore usually referred to as Earl Robert Stewart. However he later fell out with him. Earl Robert had several terms of imprisonment, on charges of treason and misuse of power, but he managed to duck out of them.  He had a bad reputation for untrustworthiness, land-grabbing, and mistreating the islanders. But he died peacefully in his bed in 1593. The earldom of Orkney was forfeited in 1614 when Robert’s son Earl Patrick, who built the even bigger and better Earl’s Palace in Kirkwall and was even more unpopular, overreached himself and was executed for treason.

By the mid-17^th century Earl Robert’s castle in Birsay had fallen into disrepair. The ruins still stand and are well worth a visit.