Stuart dynasty

THE STUAET DYNASTY.
CHAPTER I.
THE STEWARDS OF SCOTLAND.
1124-1370.
The founder of the Stuart family, first known as the Stewards
of Scotland, is said to have been Fleance, son of the Banquo
who is believed to have been murdered by Macbeth a.d.
1043 ; but the tradition has no sure foundation.*
Lord Hailes, perhaps better known as Sir David Dal-
rymple, the distinguished student of antiquities, exploded this
theory early in the eighteenth century, and at the same time
showed several fabulous narratives concerning this family to
be incompatible with ascertained facts.
Walter, son of Fleance, and Alan his successor, assumed to
have been the earliest of these shadowy Stewards of Scot-
land, were — the former a courtier at Edward the Confessor's
court, the latter a Crusader under G-odfrey de Bouillon.f
In fact, the origin of the royal Stuarts cannot be traced on
firm ground further back than the reign of David I., who
governed Scotland between the years 1124 and 1153, but
from that epoch onward the path is safe and the tracks are
clear, the truth of the record being beyond all question. In
short, Walter Fitzalan, Steward of Scotland in this reign, is a
genuine historical personage.
Alan, the son of Flaald or Flathald, a Norman, obtained
from the Conqueror the casile of Oswestry in Shropshire.
He was a person of great consequence when Henry 1. came
to the throne in 1100. It is believed that he came over from
Normandy with William the Conqueror, and was one of his
leading men. Alan married the daughter of Warine, sheriff
of Shropshire, and had three sons : — (1) William, progenitor
* A. Stuart's ' Genealogical History of the Stewarts,' pp. 1, 2. f Ibid., p. 4.
B