Anne Lyon, Countess of Kinghorne

Anne Murray Lyon, Countess of Kinghorne (1579 – 27 February 1618), Scottish courtier said to be the mistress of James VI of Scotland.

Fair Mistress Anne Murray

Anne Murray was the daughter of John Murray, 1st Earl of Tullibardine, Master of the King's Household and Catherine Drummond. Her name was sometimes written "Agnes", in correspondence and in anonymous verses in her praise which include anagrams such as the acrostic sonnet "AMAGEMURNSAYAM", and a sonnet with the anagram "AGE MURNES AYE".

Her sister Lilias Murray married John Grant of Freuchie in June 1591. James VI and John Wemyss of Logie attended the wedding at Tullibardine, and performed in a masque. On the same day the Earl of Bothwell escaped from Edinburgh Castle.

Anne Murray was said to be the mistress of King James VI. This identification comes from poems written by the king, given titles "A Dreame on his Mistres My Ladie Glammis" and "A Complaint on his Mistressis Absence from Court". Her husband's aristocratic title was "Lord Glamis".

The "Complaint" poem compares her absence from court to a garland missing its flower, and a button or a jewel, a "chatton" missing its gemstone (lines 50-51);

The court as garland lacks the cheefest floure
The court a chatton toome that lacks her stone
(modernised)
The court is a garland missing her chiefest flower
The court is an empty button that lacks her gemstone.

The "Dream" poem includes the imagery of gifts of an empty gold locket, a "tablet" and an amethyst. In the dream, the amethyst with its traditional healing powers will encourage the king's unswerving devotion. The locket is the "chasteness", the chastity of the king's mistress, and her wandering thoughts are like the trails of enamel on the case. On one leaf of the case there is a picture of a naked man sheltered from the sun in a green forest. This image represents the pleasure his mistress's singing voice brings the court. The other leaf shows the sun amidst the stars, as his mistress is the first among the ladies of the court. Inside the locket there is an image of cupid with his bow, but as yet, no picture of the king's mistress. By these two dream tokens the king imagines their love is knit together until cut by the fate "Atrope", Atropos.

A letter from John Carey, son of Henry Carey, governor of Berwick-upon-Tweed to Cecil, 10 May 1595, discussing her marriage calls her "fayre Mistris Ann Murray the Kinges Mistris". Carey's letter shows that Anne Murray was known as the king's mistress in London, and perhaps the poem "A Dreame on his Mistres" had circulated in manuscript at the English court.

Marriage

In May 1595, she married Patrick Lyon, 9th Lord Glamis who would later become the Earl of Kinghorne, at Stirling. John Carey thought the wedding was at Linlithgow. Lyon was the son of John Lyon, 8th Lord Glamis and Elizabeth Abernethy. Neither James VI or Anne of Denmark attended the wedding because Anne was ill at Linlithgow. The king and queen also planned to come to the wedding banquet on 1 June, to be celebrated with "great triumph" at Stirling Castle, but Anne of Denmark was ill again, rumoured to have suffered a miscarriage.

Anne Murray was reported in May as trying to make the wedding a peaceful occasion. The marriage was of political and factional significance in Scotland, controversially arranged by the Earl of Mar without the knowledge of Patrick's uncle, Thomas Lyon, Master of Glamis. The Master of Glamis had wanted Patrick to marry a sister of the Laird of Cessford. Mar's actions were part of his feud with the Chancellor of Scotland, John Maitland of Thirlestane.

James VI and Euphemia Douglas

In 1593 James VI was linked with another member of the Lyon family, Eufamia Douglas, daughter of Sir William Douglas of Lochleven, Earl of Morton and Agnes Leslie. She married the Master of Glamis in 1586. She and her sisters were sometimes called the "seven pearls of Lochleven", and she may also have been known as "Lady Glamis".

Dr Tobias Matthew, Bishop of Durham wrote of the "king's affection to the Lady Morton's daughter", and that she might be connected with the Earl of Bothwell's schemes, and draw a person of "greater estate" into Elizabeth's devotion. In a second letter Matthew mentioned a mystery concerning the "king's love" Lady Morton's daughter and letter intercepted by Bothwell concerning the succession to the English throne intended for the person of "great estate". Euphemia Douglas however, was not the king's mistress mentioned in Carey's letters. Matthew's story may concern another of the seven Douglas of Lochleven sisters.

Family

Children of Anne and Patrick Lyon, 1st Earl of Kinghorne were:

• James Lyon (d. August 1641)
• Patrick Lyon
• Frederick Lyon (d. 1660)
• Anne Lyon (d. 8 February 1637), who married William Hay, 10th Earl of Erroll.
• Jean Lyon (d. 2 February 1618)
• John Lyon, 2nd Earl of Kinghorne (13 August 1596 - 12 May 1646), a direct male-line ancestor to Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (1900–2002), mother of Queen Elizabeth II.

She died on 27 February 1618.

Sources and external links

• The Peerage .com
• Allan Westcott, New Poems by James I of England (New York, 1911).
• J. Bain, Calendar of Border Papers, vol. 1 (Edinburgh, 1894).
• J. Bain, Calendar of Border Papers, vol. 2 (Edinburgh, 1894).