An early historian David Calderwood wrote:Captain James Stewart, after that he was made tutor to the Earl of Arran, he grew so familiar with the Countess of March that he begot upon her a child.
[6] She wrote to Janet Scott, Lady Ferniehirst in October 1583 asking her to solicit the support of Mary Queen of Scots and the Hamiltons for her and her husband.
[7] Elizabeth Stewart and Arran resided at Holyrood Palace, where their lodgings included the "Balling House", a hall for dancing.
[9] In August William Davison heard that she and Arran had made a list of 60 people to forfeit in parliament, so that she might collect the dowries of several noble ladies, and that she had sat in the meetings of the Privy Council.
[10] Davison reported that the Countess of Arran had new keys made for the coffers containing the jewels and clothes of Mary, Queen of Scots.
[11][12] The Earl and Countess of Arran invited the English diplomat William Davison and a French envoy Albert Fontenay, sent by Mary, Queen of Scots, to a banquet at Edinburgh Castle.
[13] Fontenay was promoting a scheme for Mary to return to Scotland and rule jointly with James VI, called the "association".
[18] It was said that Elizabeth Stewart was made "lady comptroller", and held courts and had people hanged who could not pay their compositions or fines, saying "What had they been doing all their days that had not so much as five pounds to buy them from the gallows?
"[19] In 1584 she extracted £3000 from the Laird of Haggs and restored the living of Robert Crichton, Bishop of Dunkeld a professed Catholic, held by the Earl of Argyll.
[20] Someone wrote to Mary, Queen of Scots, of the rumour that James VI was governed by Arran's lies and "bewitched by the diabelerie of his wicked and audacious wife".
[23] An English border warden John Selby reported that on 23 June 1585 that she had built a barrier in front of Edinburgh Castle but the townspeople had promptly demolished it.
[25] In September 1585 the countess and her husband received a royal grant of properties in Ayr and Ayrshire, including the baronies of Colvill, Barnweill, and Symontoun, some of which had belonged to William Cunningham of Caprinton.
They had occupied his Castle of Sanquhar and had obtained from James VI letters exempting them from "horning", a legal process where debtors lost their credit.