From
TSP1:
Captain of Stirling Castle prior to 1435, and Keeper of the King's person in 1444, and before 29 June 1448 he was promoted to the office of Great Chamberlain of Scotland. Arrested along with his father and brother a few weeks after the marriage of James II, attainder of his estates was proclaimed 19 January 1450. His lands of Culter in Lanarkshire were granted to the Earl of Douglas, Calyn, and Callander in Menteith to the Earl of Craufurd, and Lenturk in Fife to the King's familiar esquire John Schereinwood. Livingston, however, soon made his peace with the King, and by Martinmas 1451 he is again found in a position of trust as Keeper of Urquhart and Inverness Castles. A further token of royal favour was his appointment in 1453 as one of the Commissioners to negotiate for the cessation of the war with England, and some time before July 1454 he was reinstated in the office of Great Chamberlain, with which he combined that of Master of the Household. A still higher honour was conferred upon him before 7 July 1455 by his creation as a Peer under the title of LORD LIVINGSTON OF CALLENDAR, and his estates having been restored to him along with those of his father, they were by a charter of confirmation, granted 30 April 1458, erected into a free barony.
Lord Livingston received a charter in 1464 of the lands of Baldoran in the county of Stirling, which was no doubt the Baldoran in the earldom of Lennox which he resigned at Inverness before 1 September of that year in favour of John, Lord Darnley. During the minority of James in. Lord Livingston was employed as one of the Commissioners in negotiating the prolongation of the truce with England, which was finally settled 12 December 1465 by a treaty signed at Newcastle-on-Tyne. On 9 July 1466 Lord Livingston joined Lord Boyd in a conspiracy to secure possession of the King's person in a way not unlike that by which he and his father obtained control over James II in
1439, and apparently with equal success. At the Parliament of 9 October 1466, it was agreed to direct the Scottish ambassadors then in England, of whom Lord Livingston was one, to treat for the marriage of the King. He witnessed a series of Boyd charters dated 26 April 1467, and died before 7 November of the same year, when his son was served heir to him.
His wife Marian, who survived him, has not been identified. From a claim by her to a terce of the lands of Hasilhead, 13 May 1471, it would appear that she was then the widow of a former owner of that estate. She died between 4 June 13 and 20 October 1478, at which latter date her daughter Lady Crichton and Sir Alexander Fraser are named as her executors. In the Comptroller's accounts for the period from 24 September 1449 to 7 August 1450, credit is taken for a sum of £66, 13s. 4d. received from Thomas of Berwick for a certain compensation for James of Livingston, his son-in-law, agreed upon between the Lords of Council and the said Thomas. This Thomas was one of the custumars of Edinburgh, but whether his son-in-law was James, afterwards Lord Livingston, is not certain. The date of the payment mentioned above corresponds with the sudden fall of the Livingstons, and that is all that can be said.
Footnotes
[1]
The Scot's Peerage, by James Balfour Paul; Livingston, Earl of Linlithgow; Volume 5, 1906, Pages 421-451
Abt 1400 - 1467 (~ 67 years)