24 Facts About William Schaw

William Schaw was the second son of John Schaw of Broich, and grandson of Sir James Schaw of Sauchie.

The Schaw family had links to the Royal Court, principally through being keepers of the King's wine cellar.

The Broich family was involved in a scandal in 1560, when John William Schaw was accused of murdering the servant of another laird.

William Schaw's father was denounced as a rebel and his property forfeited when he and his family failed to appear at court, but the family were soon re-instated.

Name "William Schaw" appears again in a 1580 note about courtiers made by an informant or spy at the royal court, the letter was sent to England.

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William Schaw was described as the "clock-keeper" amongst followers of the King's favourite Esme Stewart, 1st Duke of Lennox, while another man John Hume was the keeper of "ratches", an old word meaning a kind of tenacious hunting scent hound.

William Schaw signed the negative confession whereby courtiers pledged allegiance to the Scottish Reformation.

William Schaw returned in the winter of 1584, and became involved in building work for the Seton family.

In 1588 William Schaw was amongst a group of Catholics ordered to appear before the Edinburgh Presbytery, and English agents reported him as being a suspected Jesuit and holding anti-English views during the 1590s.

Some payments for William Schaw's building work, at Falkland Palace and Stirling Castle are documented by exchequer vouchers in the National Records of Scotland.

William Schaw signed off the account weekly with his name, or as "Maistir of Wark".

In 1589 William Schaw was amongst the courtiers who accompanied James VI to Denmark to fetch his new queen Anna of Denmark.

William Schaw brought with him a Danish carpenter or woodturner called Frederick who would join the queen's household.

William Schaw busied himself repairing Holyrood Palace and Dunfermline Palace which had been assigned to the queen.

William Schaw was given £1,000 Scots from tax money raised in Edinburgh for the royal marriage to spend on the repairs at Holyroodhouse.

William Schaw was responsible for the elaborate ceremony greeting her arrival at Leith and the decoration of St Giles' Kirk with tapestry for her coronation.

William Schaw subsequently became Master of Ceremonies to the court, as his epitaph carved on his tomb states.

William Schaw was said to have built a steeple, and a porch at the north door, added some of the external buttresses and fitted the interior for Presbyterian worship as a burgh and Parish church between 1594 and 1599.

William Schaw spent other sums of money on the palaces allocated from the subsidy Elizabeth gave to James VI.

William Schaw's niece married Robert Mowbray, a grandson of the treasurer Robert Barton, and following his death she married James Colville of East Wemyss in 1601, which caused a family feud between Francis Mowbray, Robert's brother, and Schaw and Colville.

William Schaw was succeeded as King's Master of Works by David Cunninghame of Robertland.

William Schaw was born to do good offices, and thereby to gain the hearts of men; now he lives eternally with God.

David Stevenson argues that the Second William Schaw statutes dealt with the response from within the craft to his first statutes, whereby various traditions were mobilised against his innovations, particularly from Kilwinning.

Once again it would suggest that William Schaw's proposed reorganisation of the craft had encountered some problems.