Royal Stewart Tartan Handfasting order Ribbon

The Clan Stewart is the clan of the royal Stewarts who ruled Scotland from 1371 to 1603. The progenitor of the clan was order a seneschal (a hereditary steward) of the Bishop of Dol in Brittany called Alan FitzFlaad. He came to England soon after the Norman Conquest in 1066 and the FitzAlan family quickly established themselves as a powerful Anglo-Norman nobles.

Alan's great grandson Walter FitzAlan helped David I become King of Scotland in 1124, and was made the first hereditary High Steward of Scotland with large estates in Renfrewshire and East Lothian. It was this hereditary role as stewards that led to the family taking the surname Stewart.

The Stewarts became the kings of Scotland in 1371 when the sixth High Steward of Scotland, Walter Stewart (1293–1326), married Robert the Bruce's daughter, Marjorie. When Bruce's son David II died childless in 1371, it was his nephew, the son of Walter and Marjorie, who inherited the Scottish throne as Robert II and the royal line of male Stewarts remained unbroken until the reign of Mary, Queen of Scots. Mary after a tumultuous reign, went into exile in England and was eventually executed for treason by Elizabeth I of England. However, in 1603, Mary's son James VI of Scotland became James I of England and Ireland in the Union of the Crowns when Elizabeth died childless. In 1688, following James II flights into exile and the Glorious Revolution which put Willian and Mary on the throne, two Stuart queens ruled: Mary and Anne however the crown passed to the House of Hanover on the death of Queen Anne in 1714. This wasn't the end of the Stuart claim to the throne. Since James II left for exile, his supporters had continued to fight for his return, they were known as Jacobites from the latin for James ‘Jacobus'. Over the years there were several Jacobite Risings starting in 1689 and culminating in the 1745 Rising when Bonnie Prince Charlie tried and failed to take back the throne for the Stuarts.

I make all of my handfasting cords myself in a smoke free home. I do, however, have a dog and she is with me constantly.