John Stewart, Earl of Carrick

Margaret was executed along with John's servitor Thomas Papla, but both left depositions renouncing their testimonies on the account that they had been extracted by torture, meaning the prosecution of the brothers failed and they were acquitted.

On 6 August 1600 he rode with James Sandilands to Dirleton Castle to arrest William and Patrick Ruthven, brothers of the Earl of Gowrie but they had fled, being forewarned by a man called Kennedy.

Lady Anne Clifford wrote that in July 1603, "Now was the Master of Orkney and the Lord Tullibardine much in love in Mrs Cary and came thither (to Norbury, where they were isolated because of suspected plague) to see us with George Murray in their company who was one of the King's bedchamber.

[6] Their argument followed on an incident when Somerset accompanied the Duke of Holstein and the Master of Orkney to the Queen's apartments, and as the gentlemen were at the door of her Privy Chamber, accused each other of pushing and shoving.

[8] King James granted him a pension of £3,600 Scots in 1621, but the Privy Council pointed out that Orkney and Shetland crown income could sustain such a sum.

He married at Chelsea in 1604 Lady Elizabeth Howard (d. 1646),[14] daughter of Charles, Earl of Nottingham and widow of Sir Robert Southwell of Woodrising.

Carrick also had two natural children: a son, Henry Stewart, who received a grant from his father of certain lands on Eday, and a daughter (name unknown), who married William Craigie of Gairsay.

Carrick House on Eday , built by the Earl of Carrick.
The Earl's coat of arms showed the Scottish royal arms surmounted by a ribbon, a symbol of bastardy, quartered with the earldom of Orkney (although his family no longer held that earldom).