| He was educated first at the school of Dornoch till 1596, then, two years later, at the University of St. Andrews, whence he went to Edinburgh, where he remained three years. In May 1602 he received permission to travel abroad for seven years, but he returned to Scotland in 1605. He entered the service of King James VI, and rose rapidly in favour, the honour of knighthood having been bestowed on him in 1609, and in March 1615 he had the degree of M.A. conferred upon him by the University of Cambridge. He contributed largely to Sir William Alexander's Nova Scotia colonisation scheme, and received a charter of 16,000 acres of land on the east side of the bay called Port de Mouton. He was also, on 28 May 1625, created a Knight Baronet, becoming the premier Baronet of Nova Scotia. For fifteen years, from 1615 to 1630, Sir Robert was tutor and guardian of his nephew the thirteenth Earl of Sutherland, a duty which he fulfilled to the utmost of his power. His most memorable work, however, was his "Genealogie of the Earls of Sutherland", in which he gave the history of the Earls, and chiefly of his own family of Gordon. The work was finished in MS. in 1630, and remained in MS. till it was printed with a continuation in 1813. A full account of Sir Robert is given by Sir William Eraser in his "Sutherland Book".7 |