Lancelot Errington

Lancelot Errington, also Launcelot or Lancelott, (1657–1745) was a master mariner noted for his capture of Lindisfarne during the Jacobite rising of 1715.

Background After the Glorious Revolution of 1688–89 resulted in the Roman Catholic Stuart king, James II of England and VII of Scotland, fleeing to exile in France, James' daughter and her husband, William III and Mary II, ascended the British throne as joint sovereigns, and were succeeded by the Protestant House of Hanover. In 1715, James II's son James Francis Edward Stuart, also known as the Old Pretender, attempted to regain the throne by launching a Jacobite rising in Scotland.

Lancelot Errington is known to have come from Denton in Newburn, an "ancient and respectable family in Northumberland." His parents were Major Gilbert Errington and Margaret Babington, and he married his cousin, Catherine Errington. Lancelot was one of a number of locals who supported the Jacobite cause, led by Thomas Forster, Member of Parliament for the county of Northumberland. Their first objective was to gain a landing site in Northumberland, and Lindisfarne was selected. Some sources say that he gave brandy to the soldiers in order to incapacitate them. A pardon was issued and he was able to live out the rest of his life as a publican in Newcastle upon Tyne. long enough to witness the final Jacobite rising of 1745. His widow Catherine died at Cramlington in 1756.