Robert Pitcairn

Robert Pitcairn (1520?–1584) was a Scottish administrator, diplomat and judge, secretary of state and commendator of Dunfermline.

Early life Born about 1520, he was the son of David Pitcairn, of Forthar-Ramsay in the barony of Airdrie, Fife, and his wife Elizabeth Dury or Durie. On 22 January 1552 his father sold to him the lands of Forthar. He was a cousin of George Durie, Abbot of Dunfermline.

He was educated for the church, and became Archdeacon of St Andrews Cathedral, and commendator of Dunfermline Abbey.

In politics and diplomacy Pitcairn was summoned on 19 July 1565 to a meeting of the Privy Council as an extraordinary member, to consider a declaration of the Earl of Moray on a conspiracy against his life, at Perth. On 19 October of the same year he was appointed keeper of the havens of Limekilns and North Queensferry. After the surrender of Mary Queen of Scots at Carberry Hill on 15 June 1567, he was chosen a lord of the articles; and on 29 July he was present at the coronation of the young king James VI, in the kirk of Stirling. On 2 June 1568 he was appointed an extraordinary lord of session; and in September of the same year was chosen one of the principal commissioners to accompany the Regent Moray to the conference with the English commissioners at York on the charges against Queen Mary. He was present in the same capacity at Westminster and Hampton Court.

Along with other leading figures of the realm, he signed the second confession of faith, called the "king's confession" or "negative confession", at Edinburgh, 28 January 1581. He was one of a commission appointed on 15 July following to hear the suit of Sir James Balfour. On 23 September he was set at liberty on caution to remain in or near Dunfermline.

Death Pitcairn is supposed to have been the author of this inscription on the abbot's house, Dunfermline on the south side of Maygate Street, the tag "Sen vord is thrall and thocht is free,/Keep veill thye tonge, I counsel the".

During the winter of 1583/4 Pitcairn set sail to Flanders. He returned to Scotland in weak health on 12 September 1584, and obtained license to remain in Limekilns, near Dunfermline.

He died on 18 October in his 64th year. He was buried in the north aisle of Dunfermline Abbey, where he was commemorated in a Latin epitaph as the "hope and pillar of his country". After the extrusion of the Master of Gray from the abbacy in 1587, Henry Pitcairn his nephew entered into possession of it.