in Yorkshire early in the sixteenth century. He entered at Queen's College, Oxford, but migrated to Magdalen, where at some uncertain date he was elected demy. He graduated B.A. on 18 March 1520–1, and M.A. on 5 July 1525. He was by this time, according to Wood, ‘a great vilifier of the Questionists in the university,’ that is to say, he opposed the scholastic teachers of theology. In 1526 he became master of Magdalen College school, succeeding not John Stanbridge [q. v.], as Mr. Sommer says, but the less celebrated Thomas Byshoppe. About this time also he was elected fellow of Magdalen. He continued at the school till 1534, and established his reputation as a teacher; Henry Knowles and Bishop Parkhurst bore testimony to his merits (Parkhurst, Epigrammata Juvenilia, 1573, p. 28). John Longland [q. v.], bishop of Lincoln, spoke in his favour to Cromwell in 1537, saying he had long been his chaplain. He was one of the divines who signed the preface to the ‘Institution of a Christian Man’ in 1537, and on 3 July 1539 he became B.D. He was then said by Wood to be ‘Flos et decus Oxoniæ.’ On 30 Oct. 1540 he was collated treasurer of Salisbury Cathedral; he held this office till May 1548. He took part in the discussions as to Anne of Cleves' divorce. On 19 Feb. 1540–1 he was collated archdeacon of Leicester, then in the diocese of Lincoln; he continued archdeacon till his resignation in December 1560. He became vicar of Wakefield in 1546. At one time and another he held various prebends in Lincoln Cathedral, and he took part in many ecclesiastical commissions during the reign of Edward VI (Dixon, Church Hist. vol. ii. passim). Robertson took part in the drawing up of the prayer-book of 1548, but was dissatisfied with the result. Accordingly he welcomed the advent of Queen Mary, and was on 23 July 1557 made dean of Durham. After Elizabeth's accession he refused the oath of supremacy and resigned his deanery. In 1561 he was described as ‘one thought to do much harm in Yorkshire.’
Robertson took part in the composition of Lily's ‘Latin Grammar.’ He also published ‘Annotationes in librum Gulielmi Lilii de Latinorum nominum generibus,’ &c., Basle, 1532, 4to, a collection of four grammatical tracts. Printed among Burnet's ‘Records,’ at the end of his ‘History of the Reformation,’ are ‘Resolutions of some Questions relating to Bishops and Priests,’ &c., and ‘Resolutions of some Questions concerning the Sacraments,’ both by Robertson.
[Bloxam's Mag. Coll. Reg. vol. ii. p. xli, iii. 80 n., 81–7, 108, iv. 21, 51; Reg. Oxf. Univ. (Oxf. Hist. Soc.) i. 118; Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, xi. 60, vol. xiii. pt. ii. p. 662; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1547–80 p. 104, 1581–90 pp. 92, 296; Add. 1547–65 p. 524, 1566–79 p. 233; Le Neve's Fasti, ed. Hardy; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib.; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714; Bale, xi. 91; Pits, De Angliæ Scriptt. p. 732; Wood's Athenæ, ed. Bliss, i. 320–1.]
ROBERTSON, THOMAS (d. 1799), divine and author, was licensed probationer of the church of Scotland by the presbytery of Lauder on 3 Jan. 1775. In the same year he was presented to the parish of Dalmeny by the Earl of Rosebery, and ordained on 26 Oct. In 1784 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, almost immediately after its foundation; and in 1792 received the honorary degree of D.D. from the university of Edinburgh. In the following year he was appointed one of his majesty's chaplains in ordinary. He died in Edinburgh on 15 Nov. 1799. By Jane Jackson, whom he married in 1775, he had, besides a daughter Janet, three sons: John; William Findlay, lieutenant in the East India Company's service; and Charles Hope, a writer in Edinburgh.
Robertson was author of ‘An Enquiry into the Fine Arts’ (Edinburgh, 1784, 4to), of which only the first volume was published. It contains an elaborate treatment of the history and theory of ancient and modern music. He also published a ‘History of Mary Queen of Scots’ (Edinburgh, 1793), in which he endeavoured to distinguish Mary's authentic writings from the forgeries assigned to her, and published facsimiles of both classes of documents in an appendix. An essay by him on the character of Hamlet appears in the ‘Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh’ (ii. 251).
[Scott's Fasti Eccl. Scot. I. i. 183; Biogr. Dict. of Living Authors, 1816; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
ROBERTSON, THOMAS CAMPBELL (1789–1863), Indian civil servant, born at Kenilworth on 9 Nov. 1789, was youngest son of Captain George Robertson, R.N., who was offered the honour of knighthood by George III for his intrepid conduct at the battle of the Dogger Bank in 1781, and of Anne, daughter of Francis Lewis of New York, formerly of Llandaff, North Wales. On the death of his father in 1791, the family removed to Edinburgh, where Thomas was educated at the high school. In 1805 he obtained a writership in the Bengal civil service, and, although he had no influence, his promotion was fairly rapid. In 1810 he
