Andrew Ker of Faldonside

His parents were George Ker of Faldonside and Margaret Haliburton. She was an heiress of Lord Haliburton of Dirleton and a sister of Mariotta Haliburton, Countess of Home. Faldonside or Faldonsyde is near Abbotsford in Roxburghshire, now the Scottish Borders.^[2]

Andrew Ker entered the apartments of Mary, Queen of Scots, at Holyrood on the night of the 9 March 1566 with Lord Darnley. David Rizzio was murdered. According to some reports, Ker threatened the Queen with a dagger and a companion Patrick Bellenden of Stenhouse pointed a pistol at her belly. Two English officials, Thomas Randolph and the Earl of Bedford, wrote that Mary said Ker "would have sticken her with a dagger".^[3][4]

Other accounts say that Ker had a pistol and Bellenden had the dagger. Anthony Standen, an English servant of Darnley, claimed to have disarmed Bellenden of his dagger, while another man threatened Mary with a snaphance pistol.^[5][6]

He was banished after Mary freed herself. According to a memoir of Mary's reign written by her secretary Claude Nau, Mary heard from John Schaw, chamberlain of Kelso, that Ker had returned to Scotland from England without permission and was still "horned as a rebel or outlaw". People refused to have him as a guest, and Ker declared that Mary's regime might end in a fortnight.^[7]

Ker was pardoned or given an individual remission for his part in the events at Holyrood on 24 December 1566.^[8] A large number of those present at the palace on 9 March or suspected of involvement were included in a general remission made on the same day and issued at Stirling Castle. Ker's remission was similarly worded to that of William White, a shoemaker in the Canongate.^[9]