John Byset
# John Byset

John Byset the Elder, Lord of the Aird (died 1257) was a Scoto-Norman nobleman who is the progenitor of the Bissett family of the Glens of Antrim in medieval northeastern Ireland, present-day Northern Ireland.

## Biography

Born in Scotland, certain details of what is known of his life are limited. John fled to Ireland and then to England, with his uncle Walter Byset, Lord of Aboyne after Walter had been complicit in the murder of Padraig, Earl of Atholl. They were received into the peace of King Henry III of England. Among these are the date of his death as recorded in the Annals of Ulster. His name has the distinction of being the ancestral element in the Gaelic style Mac Eoin (Bissett) of the Glens used by his descendants in Ireland into the 16th century.

He is known to have had a son John Bissett of Lovat.

According to some sources it was Byset who founded Beauly Priory in the year 1230.

