Dance Galloway House 2389

Galloway is an historic, rather than a civil district in the southwest of Scotland that looks out across the North Channel to Ireland and the Isle of Man and over the Solway Firth to Cumberland in England. It is composed of the two counties of Kirkcudbright, meaning the church or cell of St. Cuthbert, and most often referred to as the “Stewartry”, and Wigtown. This land of hills and lochs, dairy farms of black belted cattle, historic towns and ancient castles and abbey churches was once in the possession of the Bruce lords of Galloway, but for many centuries a branch of the Stewart family have been the lords and, since 1623, the Earls of Galloway.

Alexander (1214–1283), 4th Great Steward of Scotland, married Jean, the granddaughter of Somerled (1164–1207), King of the Isles and Lord of Argyle and Kintyre, and thus inherited the islands of Bute and Arran. Alexander had two sons, James, 5th Great Steward, and John of Bonkyl. James’s son, Walter, 6th Great Steward, who married Marjory Bruce (See “Falkland Beauty”), established the line of Royal Stewarts. It was John, however, who had seven sons, some of whom founded many of Scotland’s great dynasties: Alexander, whose grandson George became Earl of Angus; Alan was the ancestor of the Earls and Dukes of Lennox; Walter, by obtaining the Barony of Garlies in Wigtown from his uncle, John Randolph, the Earl of Moray, was the ancestor of the Earls of Galloway; from John came the Lords of Lorn whose descendents were the Earls of Atholl, Buchan and Traquair and through them the Stewarts of Appin, Argyll and Grandtully.

The Earls of Galloway are considered the representatives in the male line of the Great Stewards of Scotland. Lord Galloway still holds the Barony of Garlies which was granted to Alexander, 4th Great Steward.

The original stronghold of the Stewart lords of Galloway was Garlies Castle, a ruin consisting of a 15th or 16th century tower and 17th century additions, near Newton Stewart, a town founded by William Stewart, third son of James, 2nd Earl of Galloway (1627–1671) on a charter from Charles II.

Galloway House was built in 1740 in that part of Wigtownshire known as “The Machars” that juts out into the Solway Firth between Luce Bay and WIgtown Bay. The seat of the Earls of Galloway until 1909 when it was sold, the mansion was built by Alexander, 6th Earl, who died in 1773.

James Boswell in his Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides wrote: “Here (Oban) we found a newspaper, in which I read an account of the death of Alexander, Earl of Galloway, which affected me in a pretty sensible manner, as I had from my early years viewd him as a Great Man who had seen much of the world; and when I came to be well acquainted with him, had found him to be remarkably knowing in the affairs of life, lively, and like a man of fashion.”

Galloway House is just south of the small port of Garlieston which was founded in 1760 by John Stewart, Lord Garlies (1736–1806), who succeeded his father as seventh Earl of Galloway. From 1774 until 1790 Lord Galloway was a Representative Peer for Scotland in Parliament. He was a Tory and as such was held in much disfavour by Robert Burns who satirised the earl in “Ballad Third: John Bushby’s Lamentation”. Burns also wrote “Epigrams on the Earl of Galloway” to which the earl quite naturally took exception.

What dost thou in that mansion fair?
   Flit, Galloway and find
Some narrow, dirty, dungeon cave,
   The picture of thy mind.

No Stewart art thou, Galloway:
   The Stewarts all were brave.
Besides, the Stewarts were but fools,
   But none of them a knave.

Bright ran thy line, O Galloway,
   Thro’ many a far-famed sire!
So ran the far-famed Roman way,
   And ended in a mire.

Spare me thy vengeance, Galloway!
   In quiet let me live:
I ask no kindness at thy hand,
   For thou hast none to give.

It would seem that the poet let his pen run away with him.

The seventh earl was married twice, first to Lady Charlotte Mary, daughter of Francis Greville, Earl Brooke and 1st Earl of Warwick, and, second, to Anne, daughter of Sir James Dashwood of Kitrlington, by whom he had sixteen children. The enmity of Burns made little impression for his obituary creates the image of a perfect 18th century gentleman.

Lady Susannah Stewart was the daughter of the sixth earl and sister of the seventh earl. In 1768 she married, as his third wife, Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Marquess of Stafford (1721–1803). The marquess’ son by his first marriage was George Granwille Leveson-Gower (1758–1833), 2nd Marquess of Stafford, who married Elizabeth, Countess of Sutherland. (See “The Countess of Sutherland’s Reel”) Lady Susannah’s son was Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Earl Granville (1773–1848) who was British Ambassador to Russia in 1804 and, later, to France.

The Marchioness of Blandford was another Susan Stewart, tenth of the sixteen children of the seventh Earl of Galloway. On 15 September, 1791, she married George Spencer Churchill, Marquess of Blandford (1766–1840) who succeeded his father as fifth Duke of Marlborough in 1817. The grandson of the seventh Duke of Marlborough, John WInston Spencer Churchill (1822–1883), was Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (1874–1965) who became Prime Minister in 1940.