Archibald Stewart

Archibald Stewart (c. 1530–1584) was a Scottish merchant and Provost of Edinburgh. Career He was a younger brother of James Stewart, 1st Lord Doune. In 1569 he married Helen or Ellen Acheson, a daughter of the goldsmith and mint official John Acheson. She was the widow of another Edinburgh merchant, William Birnie, and had a daughter Margaret Fraser from a previous marriage. Margaret Fraser was married to Thomas Acheson, a master coiner in the Edinburgh mint. Birnie had been the richest merchant in Edinburgh. In May 1569 Regent Moray granted them the goods of the elder William Birnie and his daughter Margaret. In September 1569 he granted the couple the customs of the "New Haven of Preston" known as Acheson's Haven. The Canongate goldsmith James Gray made a cup for the couple, now known as the "Galloway mazer". It has their initials "AS EA". and the inscription, "Ane good mane is to be chosen above great riches, and loving favour is above silver and above most fyne golde, 1569".