he might aid in furthering the purposes of the king of England, he was allowed to return to Scotland on parole. But on 19 June 1543 Sadler, English ambassador in Scotland, wrote that Sinclair was ‘fourscore miles northward,’ and that he saw not how he could keep his day (ib. p. 545; Sadler State Papers, i. 220). Sinclair was then, it seems, in Orkney, for a summons was about this time issued against him at the instance of the queen mother to deliver up the castle of Orkney (Acta Parl. Scot. ii. 431a, 432b, 442b). Sadler also stated in his letter that he could not find that since Sinclair's return to Scotland ‘he was either well dedicate to the king's majesty, or to the advancement of any of his highness's godly purposes, or yet to the wealth and surety of the governor’ (Sadler State Papers, i. 220). On 22 Nov. Sadler, who had been compelled for safety to take refuge in Tantallon, wrote that he was informed that Sinclair ‘lay at a little house within two miles of Tantallon with three score horsemen’ to catch up him or any of his servants ‘if we stray too far out of the bounds of this castle’ (ib. p. 333). On 12 Jan. 1544–5 he was ordered to enter himself a prisoner into England (Hamilton State Papers, ii. 193), and to this he replied, 16 Feb. 1544–5, that he would, but neglected to say when (ib. p. 553). There is no further account of him, but Knox while writing his ‘History’ refers to him as ‘still remaining enemy to God’ (Works, i. 67).
[Reg. Mag. Sig. Scot. 1513–46; Hamilton State Papers; Sadler State Papers; Knox's Works; Froude's Hist. of England, iii. 530.]
SINCLAIR, Sir Robert, Lord Stevenson (1640?–1713), Scottish judge, born about 1640, was second son of John Sinclair the younger of Stevenson, Haddingtonshire, and Isabel, daughter of Robert, sixth lord Boyd. His elder brother John succeeded his grandfather, Sir John Sinclair, as second baronet of Stevenson, and, as John died without issue, Robert became third baronet on 5 July 1652. Robert obtained a confirming charter of the barony of Stevenson on 4 June 1663, and a charter of the lands of Carfrae, Haddingtonshire, on 28 June 1670. He was one of the counsel for the defence at the trial of the Marquis of Argyll in 1661; and in 1670 he was dean of faculty, and expected to succeed Nisbet of Dirleton as lord-advocate, though in this hope he was disappointed. According to Lauder of Fountainhall, Sir Robert was charged before the privy council on 29 July 1680 with having resisted an order to levy 5,500 men for the militia, and was rebuked. He supported the Orange party at the Revolution of 1688, and in November of the following year he was appointed a lord of session, with the title of Lord Stevenson, and also sheriff of Haddington. He represented Haddington constabulary in the convention of 1689 and in the parliament of 1689–1702. In May 1690 he was made a privy councillor and nominated a baron of exchequer. Through his ‘uncommon modesty,’ he never took his seat on the bench of the court of session, and finally resigned the office on 29 Dec. 1693. He was nominated a privy councillor to Queen Anne in 1703. He died in July 1713. Sir Robert was married twice: first, to Helen, daughter of John Lindsay, fourteenth earl of Crawford, on 10 Sept. 1663; and, secondly, to Anne, daughter of Sir William Scott of Ardross, and widow of Sir Daniel Carmichael. By his first wife he had six sons and three daughters. By his second wife he had no issue. Sir Robert's daughter Margaret married Robert Dundas, second lord Arniston [q. v.], and was mother and grandmother to the two successive lord presidents of the court of session who bore that title [see Dundas, Robert, (d. 1783), and Dundas, Robert, (d. 1787)]. Sir Robert Charles Sinclair, now (1897) ninth baronet of Stevenson and Murkle, is Sir Robert's lineal descendant.
[Douglas's Baronage, p. 89; Brunton and Haig's Senators of the College of Justice, p. 441; Fountainhall's Decisions, i. 111; Omond's Lord-Advocates of Scotland, i. 195, 196, 201, 209; Foster's Members of Parl. for Scotland, p. 317.]
SINCLAIR, Sir WILLIAM, or William de Saint Clair (fl. 1266–1303), of Roslin, Scottish baron, was descended from a line of Anglo-Norman barons, one of whom, William de Sancto Claro, obtained from David I the barony of Roslin in Scotland, and was the progenitor of
The lordly line of high Saint Clair
in Scotland, represented by the earls of Orkney and the earls of Caithness. The father of Sir William Sinclair, also named William, is said to have died about 1270. Either the father or the son was sheriff of Haddington in 1264 (Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, i. 32), and sheriff of Linlithgow and of Edinburgh in 1266 (ib. p. 34). In 1279 (Cal. Documents relating to Scotland, 1272–1307, No. 156) and also in 1281 (ib. No. 204) he is mentioned as guardian of Alexander, prince of Scotland, who made use of his seal. He sat in the parliament of Scone, 5 Feb. 1284, when the succession to the crown of Scotland was determined in the event of the death of Alexander III, and
