Robert Colville of Cleish (1532–1584) was a Scottish courtier.
Family background He was the eldest son of Robert Colville of Cleish (1508–1560) and Francesca Colquhoun. His father was master of household to Lord James of St Andrews in the 1550s and was killed on 7 May 1560 at the Siege of Leith.David Laing ed, Original letters of Mr. John Colville, 1582–1603 (Bannatyne Club, 1858), p. xiii.Pamela E. Ritchie, Mary of Guise in Scotland, 1548–1560: A Political Study (Tuckwell, 2002), p. 252. His grandfather was Sir James Colville of Easter Wemyss (d. 1540).
His younger brother was John Colville, the political intriguer.David Laing ed, Original letters of Mr. John Colville, 1582–1603 (Bannatyne Club, 1858). Colville's family home was Cleish Castle in Kinross which he rebuilt and extended.
Career Colville was Master of Household to Regent Moray.Thomas Thomson, Diurnal of Occurrents (Edinburgh, 1833), p. 158. He was involved in negotiations with England after the abdication of Mary, Queen of Scots. Colville was involved in pawning the jewels of Mary, Queen of Scots, with Edinburgh merchants, including William Birnie, to raise money for the King's party.HMC 6th Report: Moray (London, 1877), p. 644. At the funeral of Regent Moray, Colville was a chief mourner with William Kirkcaldy of Grange, and trappings and mantles of mourning black cloth were bought for their horses.HMC 6th Report: Moray (London, 1877), p. 646.David Laing, "Notice respecting the monument of the Earl of Moray", Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, vol. 6 (Edinburgh, 1866), p. 52.
Colville brought instructions from the leaders of the King's Party to the English soldier Nicolas Errington, for the Earl of Sussex in May 1570. The Scottish lords wanted an English army to enter Scotland and subdue the supporters of Mary, Queen of Scots.William Boyd, Calendar State Papers Scotland: 1569–1571, vol. 3 (Edinburgh, 1903), pp. 156–7 no. 214.
In February 1572, during the Marian Civil War, Regent Mar sent him and the Justice Clerk John Bellenden to greet two English ambassadors, Thomas Randolph and William Drury, in Edinburgh and invite them to supper.William Boyd, Calendar State Papers Scotland: 1571–1574, vol. 4 (Edinburgh, 1905), p. 130. Cleish carried letters for the Regent and his wife Annabell Mar.William Boyd, Calendar State Papers Scotland: 1571–1574, vol. 4 (Edinburgh, 1905), p. 289.
Colville managed the rendition of the Earl of Northumberland, who had been involved in the English rebellion known as the "Rising of the North".Krista Kesselring, The Northern Rebellion of 1569: Faith, Politics and Protest in Elizabethan England (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), pp. 93–97. He brought the Earl from Lochleven Castle to Coldingham Priory and delivered him to Lord Hunsdon at Eyemouth on 28 May 1572.William Boyd, Calendar State Papers Scotland: 1571–1574, vol. 4 (Edinburgh, 1905), p. 313.Cuthbert Sharp, Memorials of the Rebellion of 1569 (London, 1840), pp. 329–330. This earned him a mention in a satirical poem of the period, The Answeir to the Englisch Ballad, "And Cleisch quhom to the gold the wes gevin".James Cranstoun, Satirical Poems of the Time of the Reformation, 1 (Edinburgh: STS, 1891), p. 244; 2 (Edinburgh: STS, 1893), p. 164.
Colville was clerk to the Treasurer of Scotland from 1571 and collected taxes for Regent Morton. Colville obtained a gift of wardship of some lands without paying a duty called "composition" directly to the treasury, but apparently paying Morton an equivalent sum by bond. This may be evidence of unusual practice or corruption of the finances of Scotland in Morton's favour.Charles Thorpe McInnes & Athol Murray, Accounts of the Treasurer: 1574–1580, vol. 13 (Edinburgh, 1978), pp. ix, xi. In November 1573, he was granted lands on the island of Gairsay in Orknay which came to the crown after the suicide of James Sinclair of Sanday.Gordon Donaldson, Register of the Privy Seal: 1567–1574, vol. 6 (Edinburgh, 1963), p. 413 no. 2182.
At the end of Morton's regency, Colville was Master and Commander of Stirling Castle during a crisis in August 1578, which involved him taking artillery from the castle to Bannockburn where there was a stand-off with Morton's enemies.Charles Thorpe McInnes & Athol Murray, Accounts of the Treasurer: 1574–1580, vol. 13 (Edinburgh, 1978), p. 215.
In July 1583, he fell out of favour with the Earl of Gowrie and was ordered to go to confinement in Dumbarton Castle. His brother John Colville was to go to Edinburgh Castle. Instead, Robert Colville went to James VI to declare his innocence. After receiving little comfort from the young king, he secretly went into exile in England. He met Francis Walsingham at Durham in September.William Boyd, Calendar State Papers Scotland: 1581–1583, vol. 6 (Edinburgh, 1910), pp. 541, 565, 621.
His brother Harry Colville became minister of Orphir and Stenness on Orkney, and Provost of Orkney.Gordon Donaldson, Register of the Privy Seal, vol. 7 (Edinburgh, 1966), nos. 1229, 1928, 2027, 2051, 2376. He was involved in the trial and torture of Allison Balfour and her family at Kirkwall Castle for witchcraft in 1594.Pamela Giles, 'Lindsay, Christian', Elizabeth Ewan, Siân Reynolds, Rose Pipes, Jane Rendall, New Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women (Edinburgh, 2018), p. 27. He was murdered in 1596.Peter Anderson, Stewart Earls of Orkney (Edinburgh, 2012), p. 163.
Marriage and family He married Margaret Lindsay (d. 1601), daughter of John Lindsay of Dowhill and Marjorie Stewart. Their children included: Robert Colville of Cleish (d. 1634), who married Beatrix Haldane, daughter of John Haldane of Gleneagles. This Robert Colville, as Baillie of the Lordship of Culross, with other lairds and officials of Culross burgh, convened a witch trial in 1621 to investigate the case of Christiane Cooper, accused of using charms.David Masson, Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, vol. 12 (Edinburgh, 1895), p. 472. Elizabeth Colville, who married James Lindsay of Dowhill and Kinloch.Margaret Sanderson, A Kindly Place?: Living in Sixteenth-Century Scotland (Tuckwell Press, 2002), p. 125. Grissel Colville, who married Henry Echlin, Laird of Pittadro.Memoirs of the ancient familie of the Echlins of Pittadro, by George Crawford, 1747 (not dated), p. 12 Echlin was Constable of Edinburgh Castle at the time of the "lang siege" of Edinburgh Castle in 1573. He negotiated the return of the Honours of Scotland to Regent Morton.Joseph Robertson, Inventaires de la Royne Descosse (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1863), p. cliii: William K. Boyd, Calendar of State Papers relating to Scotland, 1571-1574, vol. 4 (Edinburgh, 1905), p. 585 no. 691.
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