Francis Stewart, 5th Earl of Bothwell, was Commendator of Kelso Abbey and Coldingham Priory, a Privy Counsellor and Lord High Admiral of Scotland. He was a notorious conspirator who led several uprisings against his first cousin, King James VI, all of which ultimately failed, and he died in poverty in Italy after being banished from Scotland. Francis's maternal uncle, the 4th Earl of Bothwell, was the chief suspect in the murder of James VI's father, Lord Darnley.

Kelso Abbey is a ruined Scottish abbey in Kelso, Scotland. It was founded in the 12th century by a community of Tironensian monks first brought to Scotland in the reign of Alexander I. It occupies ground overlooking the confluence of the Tweed and Teviot waters, the site of what was once the Royal Burgh of Roxburgh and the intended southern centre for the developing Scottish kingdom at that time. Kelso thus became the seat of a pre-eminently powerful abbacy in the heart of the Scottish Borders.