Robert Stewart, 1st Earl of Orkney and Lord of Zetland (Shetland) (spring of 1533 – 4 February 1593) was a recognised illegitimate son of James V, King of Scotland, and his mistress Eupheme Elphinstone. Robert Stewart was half-brother to Mary, Queen of Scots and uncle to James VI and I of Scotland and England. Biography In 1539 Robert Stewart was made Commendator of Holyrood Abbey, and Commendator of Charlieu Abbey in France by 1557. In 1550, after the conclusion of the war known the Rough Wooing, he accompanied his step-mother Mary of Guise on a visit to the French court. During the Reformation Crisis, on 9 February 1560 he testified against the Hamiltons, the Duke of Châtellerault and Earl of Arran, and the Protestant Lords of the Congregation to James MacGill and John Bellenden of Auchnoule. They were collecting evidence for Henri Cleutin and Jacques de la Brosse, the French advisors of Mary of Guise who planned to have the Hamiltons charged with treason against his half-sister, Mary, Queen of Scots and France. Robert himself had signed some of the letters that were to be cited as evidence. Mary, Queen of Scots returned to Scotland on 19 August 1561, arriving unexpectedly at Leith at 10 o'clock in the morning with her entourage of 60 companions in two galleys. Lord Robert welcomed her at Holyrood Palace. Robert, his half-brother Lord John, the Marquis of Elbeuf and others performed at the sands of Leith in a tournament in December 1561. There was "running at the ring" on the sands of Leith, with two teams of six men, Robert's team dressed as women, the other as exotic foreigners in strange masquing garments. Robert's team were the winners. There was a similar tournament in 1594 at the baptism of Prince Henry at Stirling Castle. The ambassador of Savoy, Monsieur de Moret, watched the tournament at Leith, and he was lodged in Lord Robert's house at Holyrood. He was knighted as Sir Robert Stewart of Strathdon on 15 May 1565, as part of marriage celebrations of Mary, Queen of Scots and Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. In 1581 he was made Earl of Orkney by James VI, the first Earl in a second creation of the Earldom of Orkney. The new earldom replaced a short-lived Dukedom of Orkney, which had been awarded in 1567 by Mary, Queen of Scots, to her notorious third husband James Hepburn,