Lewis Bellenden

Sir Lewis Bellenden of Auchnole and Broughton, Knt., (c. 1552 – 27 August 1591, in Edinburgh), knighted about 1577, was the eldest son of Sir John Bellenden of Auchnole & Broughton, whom he succeeded as Lord Justice Clerk on 15 March 1577.

On 1 July 1584 he was promoted as a Lord Ordinary as a Senator of the College of Justice, in place of Sir Richard Maitland of Lethington. In 1586 he was Keeper of Blackness Castle, and on 22 November 1587 was appointed Keeper of Linlithgow Castle. On 24 December 1587 he was appointed (with Patrick Bellenden of Evie) Clerk of the Coquet of Edinburgh.

He was not averse to the conspiracies of the period and was one of the conspirators involved in the notorious Raid of Ruthven, and Godscroft represents him as extremely violent on the occasion. Sir Lewis does not seem, however, to have shared in the ruin which attended his co-conspirators, joining the College of Justice in 1584.

He bore a principal part in the downfall of the Earl of Arran, and the return of the banished Lords, although he was despatched by the former, then ignorant of his intentions, to accuse the latter at the court of Queen Elizabeth I of England. He was in Stirling in November 1585 when the banished Lords surprised James VI and Arran there. The latter intended to have slain Bellenden, the Master of Gray, and the Secretary, "but they drew to their armes and stude on their awn defence," and Arran had too much on his hands with his enemies without the walls to attack them.

Sir Lewis Bellenden seems to have been useful in procuring the consent of the clergy to the Act whereby the temporalities of the prelacies were annexed to the Crown in 1587, and was the same year named one of the Commissioners "for satisfying the clergy of the lyferents."

In 1589 he accompanied King James VI in his matrimonial excursion to Norway. James VI wrote from Oslo on 1 December 1589 to John, Lord Hamilton asking him to conclude a law suit with Bellenden, who the king described as "a man here that I am so much beholden to at this time".

He was sent the following spring as Ambassador to the court of Elizabeth, probably to announce the wedding. He was given 666 Danish dalers from the queen's dowry to fund this diplomatic mission.

Lewis Bellenden died on 27 August 1591 after eight days of deadly fever, and was buried at Holyrood Abbey on 8 September.

The English ambassador in Edinburgh, Robert Bowes, wrote that his office of Justice Clerk would probably be given to the young laird of Whittingehame, his place in the Court of Session to Richard Cockburn, and the role of Master of Ceremonies at court to William Schaw.

Sir Lewis Bellenden married, by contract dated 4 July 1581, Margaret Livingstone daughter of William Livingstone, 6th Lord Livingston and Agnes Fleming. They had three sons and two daughters, of whom his son and heir was Sir James Bellenden of Broughton. Two other sons went to Ulster.

Margaret attended Anne of Denmark at her coronation. After Lewis' death, she was a gentlewoman in the households of Anne of Denmark and Prince Henry. She married Patrick Stewart, 2nd Earl of Orkney on 19 August 1596, on the day that Princess Elizabeth was born.