LORD LINDSAY OF TIM BYRES, VISCOUNT GARNOCK.—Sir William Lindsay, younger brother of the first earl of Crawford, acquired extensive estates with his wife, a daugh ter of sir William Mure of Abercorn. He TtraS hereditary bailie and seneschal of the regality of the archbishopric of St. Andrews, an office which remained in his family till the middle of last century. His grandson was made lord Lindsay of the Byres, county Haddington, in 1445. The lords Lindsay of the Byres were sturdy champions of popu lar rights and of the Presbyterian faith; their principal residence was Struthers castle ix Fife. The fourth lord endeavored in vain to dissuade James IV. from his fatal expe dition to England in 1513; in consequence of which, James vowed that, on his return, lie would hang him on his own gate, a threat, of course, rendered futile by the fatal result of Flodden. The fifth lord was one of the four noblernen to whom the charge of the infant queen Mary was committed on the death of her father. The sixth lord, the fiercest and most bigoted of.the lords of the congregation, was deputed by the rest to .obtain Mary's compulsm7 resignation at Lochleven, an office which he is said to have discharged in a severe and repulsive manner; and the seventh lord bearded James VI. in the presence-chamber regarding the changes lie was effecting in ecclesiastical polity. The tenth lord Lindsay of the l3yres was in 1644 created earl of Lindsay; and in virtue of Charles L's above-mentioned patent, he became 17th earl of Crawford, a dignity enjoyed by his descendants till their extinction. He held the offices of high treasurer of Scotland, and an extraordinary lord of session; and though a warm partisan of the cove nant, he was a loyal and consist2nt adherent of the Stuarts. In 1648 he entered with
zeal into the proposal to raise an army to effect the king's rescue; and in 1657, while for wardino. Charles IL's plan of marching into England, he was arrested, carried to Lor don, atid detained a prisoner in the Tower and Windsor castle. He was released by the " long" parliament in 1660, on the recall of the secluded members, and was reinstated in his offices and dignities at the restoration. We find him afterwards making a strong effort to dissuade Charles from introducing episcopacy in Scotland. The treasurer's grandson by a younger son was created viscount Garnock in 1703. The fourth viscount Garnock succeeded as 21st earl of Crawfoni; his son. the 22d earl, was the last of the direct line of the Byres; and at his decease in 1808, the Crawford earldom returned, in terms of the patent of Charles I., to the line of Balcarres, while the Crawford Lindsay estates went to heirs-female. A claim by an alleged descendant of this branch of the house to both peerage and estates, was long a matter of public interest and notoriety; it eventually collapsed from the discovery that the principal documents founded on were ingeniously contrived forgeries.
Sir David Lindsay of the Mount, lion king of arms, the courtly knight, poet, and philosopher, and friend of the reformation in its earlier stages, was descended from a natural son of the first sir William Lindsay of the Byres.