Stewart of Darnley

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Stewart of Darnley" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (February 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's general notability guideline. Please help to demonstrate the notability of the topic by citing reliable secondary sources that are independent of the topic and provide significant coverage of it beyond a mere trivial mention. If notability cannot be shown, the article is likely to be merged, redirected, or deleted. Find sources: "Stewart of Darnley" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (October 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Stewart of Darnley, also known as the Lennox Stewarts, was a notable Scots family. They were a branch of the Clan Stewart, who provided the English Stuart monarchs with their male-line Stuart descent, after the reunion of their branch with the royal Scottish branch.

In 1565 the Darnley branch was re-united with the Royal House of Stewart when Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley married his half-first cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots. Despite what their common surname suggests, they were not related closely by virtue of both being Stewarts — being only ninth cousins once removed in the male line. It was rather through their shared grandmother, Margaret Tudor (daughter of King Henry VII of England) that they were related, and which gave both their claims to the English throne. The son of their union James VI of Scots succeeded to the throne of England and the throne of Ireland as James I.

Lord Darnley’s claim to the Scottish throne was also not by virtue of his being a Stewart, rather he derived it through his great grandmother, Elizabeth Hamilton, a granddaughter of James II.

The later English kings and queens of the House of Stuart, from James I and Charles I onwards, were more properly members of the Stewart of Darnley branch, and all drew upon their feudal heritage in Lennox.