There are two theories as to the ancestry of the
Stewarts. One is Scottish and the other Breton/Norman.
The Scottish Version is recounted below:
"FROM THE STORY OF THE STEWARTS
by The Stewart Society
PRINTED FOR THE STEWART SOCIETY
EDINBURGH:
GEORGE STEWART & CO.
1901
Of the origin of this race, destined to give so many
warriors, statesmen, and Kings to Scotland, and whose
descendants are yet to be traced not only in the noblest
families in this country and on the Continent, but
in practically every reigning house in Europe, various
accounts have been given, and over it much disputation
has taken place.
For all practical purposes however, these accounts
may be resolved into two, the old and the new---the
former assigning to the Stewarts a native Scottish
origin, and the latter a Norman or Breton one.
The ancient traditions of Scotland and all the older
Scots historians confer on this family a purely native
or Scottish origin, tracing their descent from Banquo,
Shakespeare's "Thane of Lochaber," and through
him from the ancient Kings of Scotland.
According to these accounts, Banquo, Thane of Lochaber,
was the son of Ferquhard, Thane of Lochaber, who,
again, was the son of Kenneth III, King of Scots.
Banquo flourished in the reign of King Duncan, and
along with his sovereign was murdered by Macbeth in 1043, leaving an only son, Fleance, who, to escape
a like fate, fled to the Court of Llewellin ap Griffith,
Prince of Wales, only, however, to meet at other hands
the doom he had sought to shun at home. He is said
to have fallen a victim within a few years of his
arrival 1045 or 1047 to the jealousy of some of the
Welsh lords whose ill-will he had incurred by his
success in the favours of the Princess Nesta, the
daughter of the Welsh Prince.
Walter, the son of Fleance by this lady, spent his
youth at his grandfather's court, but, as he grew
up, the animosity which had taken the father's life
extended to the son, and Walter in his turn had also
to seek safety in a foreign land. Travelling first
to the Court of Edward the Confessor, and next to
that of Alan "the Red," Earl of Brittany,
he ultimately attached himself to that Prince, to
whom his mother Nesta is said to have been distantly
related. There, following the example of his father,
he won the favour of his protector's daughter, whom
he married, and by whom he had a son, Alan. Walter
thereafter accompanied his father-in-law, the Earl
of Brittany, to the invasion of England, but having
for some reason incurred the displeasure of the Conqueror,
he retired into Scotland, where he was received with
favour by King Malcolm, who made him his Steward or
Cup-bearer.
Walter is said to have died in 1093, and to have
been succeeded by his son Alan, who, according to
the same traditions, accompanied Godfrey de Bouillon
to the Holy War, and was present at the capture of
Jerusalem in 1099. Returning to Scotland in the reign
of King Edgar, he was made Lord High Stewart, and
dying in 1153, was succeeded by his son Walter, the
first ancestor of the Stewarts who passes out of the
region of tradition or hypothesis into the realm of
sober and authentic History."
The ancestry through
the Kings of Scotland if this story is true
Banquo was also claimed to be the tenth generation in descent
from Cork,
King of Munster.
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