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William Lindsay, 18th Earl of Crawford

Scottish noble and politician

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 18, 2025
Entity authorityQ16853352 ↗
Source-derived summary

William Lindsay, 18th Earl of Crawford and 2nd Earl of Lindsay (April 1644 – 6 March 1698) was a Scottish noble and politician.

Lindsay was the eldest son of John Lindsay, 10th Lord Lindsay of the Byres, 17th Earl of Crawford, and 1st Earl of Lindsay, by his wife, Lady Christian Hamilton, daughter of the Earl of Haddington. William succeeded to the earldoms in 1678. He was a zealous Presbyterian, president of the Convention parliament in 1689, a commissioner of the treasury in 1690, and one of the commissioners for settling the government of the Church of Scotland.

He married firstly Lady Mary Johnstone, daughter of 1st Earl of Annandale and Hartfell, in 1670. They had one son:

John Lindsay, 19th Earl of Crawford and 3rd Earl of Lindsay (1672–1713)

Colonel James Lindsay (died 1707), was killed at the Battle of Almansa

Patrick Lindsay, DSP

His second marriage was to Lady Henrietta Fleming, daughter of Charles Seton, 2nd Earl of Dunfermline and widow of 5th Earl of Wigtown, and had further issue.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “William Lindsay, 18th Earl of Crawford” is scottish noble and politician. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through William, Lindsay and 18th, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1644, 1698, 1678, 1689—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, William, Lindsay and 18th is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “scottish noble and politician” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 18, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q16853352. The first chronological checks are 1644, 1698, 1678 and 1689.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “William Lindsay, 18th Earl of Crawford”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow William Lindsay, 18th Earl of Crawford primary sources, William Lindsay, 18th Earl of Crawford archive and William research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “William Lindsay, 18th Earl of Crawford”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “William Lindsay, 18th Earl of Crawford” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.