Helen Leslie, Lady Newbattle

Helen Leslie, Lady Newbattle (1520-1594) was a Scottish aristocrat and supporter of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Helen Leslie, by Willem Key, Scottish National Portrait Gallery

She was a daughter of George Leslie, 4th Earl of Rothes and Agnes Somerville, a daughter of John Somerville of Cambusnethan (d. 1513) and widow of John Fleming, 2nd Lord Fleming. The surname is sometimes spelled "Lesley".

She first married Gilbert Seton of Parbroath, and secondly, Mark Ker of Newbattle.[1] In early modern Scotland married women did not change their surnames.[2][3]

During the "Lang Siege" of Edinburgh Castle, in January 1572 she loaned money to William Kirkcaldy of Grange to pay the wages of soldiers fighting for the cause of Mary, Queen of Scots. She took a packet of gold buttons from the jewels of Mary, Queen of Scots as a pledge from James Mosman. After the castle fell in June 1573, she brought the queen's buttons to the English commander William Drury at his lodging in Leith. He took the buttons and paid her back.[4]

Figure from the Prestongrange painted ceiling dated 1581

From 1577 Helen Leslie and her husband rented a house on the High Street of Edinburgh from James Marjoribanks. She was involved in the management of her husband's estates, and went to law to try to terminate the lease of the coal mines at Prestongrange held by the Laird of Cockpen.[5]

Esmé Stewart, the favourite of James VI, gave Helen Leslie and her husband Mark Kerr a "buffet" or cupboard for their hall at Prestongrange House.[6] The ceiling of the hall was painted in 1581 with vivid emblems, ornament copied from the prints of Cornelis Bos, and comic figures copied from a French illustrated book Richard Breton's Songes drôlatiques de Pantagruel. The ceiling was removed and installed in Merchiston Tower for Napier Technical College in 1964.[7]

Helen Leslie kept up a correspondence with John Lesley, Bishop of Ross, who had been secretary to Mary, Queen of Scots. In June 1590 he replied to her from Rouen, hoping her son George Leslie could forward the relief of his debts and his credit and rehabilitation in Scotland.[8]

She died on 26 October 1594.[9] She made her will at Prestongrange in September 1594 in the presence of "hir gude friend" Alexander Seton, Lord Urquhart.[10]

Marriages and children

Her first husband was Gilbert Seton of Parbroath. Their children included:

She married secondly, Mark Kerr (died 1584), Commendator of Newbattle.

Their children included:

References
  1. Margaret Sanderson, Mary Stewart's People (Mercat Press: Edinburgh, 1987), p. 169.
  2. Jenny Wormald, Court, Kirk, and Community (London, 1981), p. 30.
  3. History Workshop, What's in a Surname? Rebecca Mason
  4. Joseph Robertson, Inventaires de la Royne Descosse (Edinburgh, 1863), p. cl.
  5. Margaret Sanderson, Mary Stewart's People (Mercat Press: Edinburgh, 1987), p. 174.
  6. Margaret H. B. Sanderson, A Kindly Place? Living in Sixteenth-Century Scotland (Tuckwell: East Linton, 2002), p. 93.
  7. Michael Bath, Renaissance Decorative Painting in Scotland (Edinburgh, 2003), pp. 236-8.
  8. HMC Salisbury Hatfield, vol. 4, p. 43-4.
  9. David Laing, Correspondence of Sir Robert Kerr, first Earl of Ancram, and his son William, first Earl of Lothian, vol. 1 (Edinburgh, 1875), table III.
  10. National Records of Scotland, 1596 Leslie, Helene (Wills and testaments) CC8/8/29 pp. 559-563.
  11. Margaret Sanderson, Mary Stewart's People (Mercat Press: Edinburgh, 1987), p. 175.
  12. Margaret Sanderson, Mary Stewart's People (Mercat Press: Edinburgh, 1987), p. 176.
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