"Richardson, Robert (d. 1578), prior of St Mary's Isle and administrator, was
the son of Robert Richardson, burgess of Jedburgh (d. c.1556). The historian
George Crawfurd asserts that he was descended ‘of a stock of ancient and opulent
burgesses of Edinburgh’ (Crawfurd, 383), but there is little to connect him with
the city before 1553, when he was made a burgess at the request of the fourth
earl of Huntly. He matriculated at St Salvator's College, St Andrews, in 1531,
and graduated MA in 1532. Nothing is known of his early career except that in
April 1544 (along with the earl of Lennox) he was involved in armed opposition
to the regent Arran at Glasgow, for which he later received remission. He was
presented to the vicarage of Dunsyre in 1549 and held the vicarage of Eckford by
1552. In that year he was provided by the pope to the archdeaconry of Teviotdale,
which heheld until 1565 along with the appropriated parsonage of Morebattle. In
1558 he obtained crown presentation to the priory of St Mary's Isle, near
Kirkcudbright, which he also resigned in 1565, retaining the usufruct.
Richardson's career as a royal official began around 1549 when he was
comptroller clerk. In November 1552 he was an auditor of the treasurer's
account. Gilbert Kennedy, third earl of Cassillis, appointed lord treasurer in
April 1554, delegated the entire conduct of business to Richardson as treasurer
clerk. After Cassillis's death in November 1558 Richardson continued as
treasurer clerk and acting treasurer. It was probably in this capacity, rather
than as ‘Maister of the Cunze-hous’ (Works of John Knox, 1.372), that he held
the coining irons of the mint. In July 1559 the lords of the congregation seized
these, along with great sums of money, claiming that they had done so to stop
corruption of the coinage and that they had returned what they had seized, the
irons being restored to him under an agreement between the lords and Mary of
Guise.
Richardson sat as a prelate in the Reformation Parliament of 1560 and is listed
by Knox among those ‘that had renunceit Papistrie and oppinlie profest Jesus
Chryst with us’ (Works of John Knox, 2.88). Finally appointed lord treasurer on
5 March 1561, he sat in the privy council from 1561 to 1576. In 1562 he was
named as one of the commissioners for receiving rentals of benefices and in
October of that year was granted a pension of £1000 Scots from the thirds of
benefices pending provision to a benefice of equal or greater value. The
Reformation gave him further opportunities to add to the landed estate he had
been acquiring since 1552, mainly in Haddingtonshire and Edinburghshire. Three
charters by the commendator and convent of Dunfermline on 28 July 1563 conveyed
to him extensive lands, mainly in Haddingtonshire,
Edinburghshire, and Fife, amounting to no fewer than seventy-seven farms and
scattered holdings. From September 1565 onwards he disposed of a large part of
this property to the tenants, no doubt profitably. He retained lands and
coalmines around Musselburgh, including Smeaton, where either he or his son
built what in 1577 was described as a new house. He also acquired some small
properties belonging to Jedburgh Abbey. Crawfurd wrote of Richardson:
He appears to have been a very wise moderate man; for so far as I can observe
from the history of these times, he kept himself more in a neutrality, and was
less a party-man than any other that held any great office about the court. He
was never violent against the Queen, tho' he complied with the Government under
the young King. (Crawfurd, 383)
Richardson attended James VI's coronation in 1567, and in 1569 voted to refuse
Mary's divorce from Bothwell. His support for the new regime is evidenced by a
loan of £3000 to the regent Moray on 17 September 1567, secured on the royal
jewels. In the following year, as he was ‘greitlie superexpendit’ as treasurer
and unable to pay his creditors (Livingstone and others, 6, no. 259), Moray gave
him the revenue arising from wards and marriages and vacant benefices. In
January 1571 the lease of the mint which he had held since 1566 was renewed for
three years, half the profits to be applied to paying off his ‘superexpenses’ as
treasurer. According to a contemporary source, John Cunningham of Drumquhassle
had been made ‘half thesaurer, with Mr Robert Ritchartsone that wes thesaurer of
befoir’ (Thomson, Diurnal, 180) in July 1570, but Richardson remained in sole
charge until 24 June 1571, when he was replaced by William, Lord Ruthven. He
retained control of the mint until March 1573, his share of the profits
amounting to more than £5400 Scots. Thereafter he continued to receive money
from the mint to redeem the royal jewels that had been pledged to him, further
payments being made to his sons after his death, which probably took place
between May and November 1578.
Richardson was unmarried but his four children, James, Robert, Stephen, and
Elizabeth (*) were legitimated in 1552; another child may have been born in
December 1563, when Randolph reported to Cecil that Richardson was to do public
penance for getting a woman with child and Knox was to ‘mayke the sermonde’
(Works of John Knox, 6.527) **. James Richardson of Smeaton, the eldest of
Richardson's children, received most of his father's lands; he married Elizabeth
Douglas, and their second son, Sir Robert Richardson of Pencaitland, was created
a baronet in 1630. {emphasis added}
Athol Murray
Sources
J. B. Paul and C. T. McInnes, eds., Compota thesaurariorum regum Scotorum /
Accounts of the lordhigh treasurer of
M. Livingstone, D. Hay Fleming, and others, eds., Registrum secreti sigilli
regum Scotorum / Theregister of the privy seal of
G. Crawfurd, Lives of the officers of state in
T. Thomson, ed., A diurnal of remarkable occurrents that have passed within
the country of
J. M. Thomson and others, eds., Registrum magni sigilli
regum Scotorum / The register of the great seal of
J. M. Anderson, ed., Early records of the University of St Andrews, Scottish History Society, 3rd ser., 8 (1926), 231, 128
M. H. B. Sanderson, Scottish rural society in the sixteenth century (1962)
Protocol book of John Wilson, Jedburgh, 1550–72, NA Scot., B.38/1/1
C. B. B. Watson, ed., Roll of Edinburgh burgesses and guild-brethren, 1406–1700, Scottish RS, 59 (1929)
CSP Scot., 1547–74 [my note: J. Bain, W. K. Boyd and others eds. Calendar of
the papers relating to
GEC, Baronetage, 2.380–03 [my note: G. E. Cokayne, Complete baronetage. 6 vols. (1900-09)]
All rights reserved: see legal notice Oxford University Press
Athol Murray, ‘Richardson, Robert (d. 1578)’, Oxford
Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004
[http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/23578, accessed
(*) An error was found in the Oxford Bio. Dictionary based upon a review of
the original Latin documents. It stated instead that the daughter who was
legitimized was Janet not
[1552 AD] p268 "1643 Apund Abirdene, 4 Jul
Preceptum Legitimationis JACOBI RECHERTSOUN, ROBERTI RECHERTSOUN, STEPHEANI
RECHERTSOUN et JONETE RECHERTSOUN, bastardorum, filorum et filie natrualium
dicti4 Magistri Roberti Rechertsoun, vicarii de Hecfund : in communi forma,
etc. Per Signetum. xxv. 7."
Translation: At
[**] David Tweedie "David Rizzio & Mary Queen of Scots Murder at
Holyrood" (2006) Sutton Publishing Ltd.