Stewart of Darnley Stewart of Darnley Stewart of Darnley was a notable Scots family, a branch of the Clan Stewart, who provided the English Stuart monarchs with their male-line Stuart descent, after the reunion of their branch with the royal Scottish branch, which led to the ultimate union of the two main kingdoms of Great Britain: England and Scotland. In 1565 the House of Stewart of Darnley was re-united with the Royal House of Stewart when Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley married his first cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots, both being grandchildren of Margaret Tudor, daughter of King Henry VII of England, and hence
House of Stuart usually rendering "w" as /v/. The spelling "Stuart" was also used by her second husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley; he was the father of James VI and I, so the official spelling "Stuart" for the British royal family derives from him. The ancestral origins of the Stuart family are obscure—their probable ancestry is traced back to Alan FitzFlaad, a Breton who came over to Great Britain not long after the Norman conquest. Alan had been the hereditary steward of the Bishop of Dol in the Duchy of Brittany; Alan had a good relationship with the ruling Norman monarch Henry I