Robert Anstruther (soldier)

Robert Anstruther (floruit 1550-1580) was a Scottish soldier in the service of Mary of Guise and Mary, Queen of Scots.

Robert Anstruther was probably a son of John Anstruther of Anstruther in Fife and his second wife, Elizabeth Spens. James Anstruther of that Ilk was his nephew.[1]

He wrote a letter to Mary of Guise regarding the service of two soldiers and a recommeded promotion. The letter is not dated, but probably was written during her Regency between 1554 and 1560.[2]

On 14 August 1561 Captain Robert Anstruther arrived in Edinburgh. He brought news from the French court that Mary, Queen of Scots was returning to Scotland after 13 years in France. He had travelled from Mary's household at Méru north of the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye where the French court was staying. Anstruther had Mary's commission to be captain of the island fortress of Inchkeith and Dunbar Castle.[3]

Anstruther went to Inchkeith on 12 September 1561 to repair the fortress on the island, which had been constructed for Mary of Guise in 1555.[4] He brought the Master of Work William MacDowall and craftsmen and gunners including David Rowan, the metal-workers Adam Hamilton and John Biccarton, and the glazier Steven Loch who provided a window for Anstruther's chamber. Workmen were equipped with spades, picks and mattocks, and chisels to unspike the cannon left on the island.[5] His lieutenant was John Beaton of Balfour. Two senior soldiers were on double pay, and three boatmen were retained to serve the island, Captain Lumsden, and Thomas and Alexander Northgate. There was a prisoner on Inchkeith, George Laidlaw.[6]

In April 1562, Anstruther was made captain of Dumbarton Castle.[7] He travelled to Dumbarton from St Andrews and was installed by the Marchmont Herald, Adam McCulloch. He employed five watch men at Dumbarton.[8]

Inchkeith usually had a garrison of forty soldiers. It was provisioned and reinforced with extra artillery in 1565 and 1566. Surplus provisions were returned to Tantallon and to Leith but failed to find buyers. One of the Leith sea captains who made trips to Leith for Robert Anstruther was John Downie.[9] In 1580 Downie brought plague to Edinburgh from Denmark in his ship the William and his crew was quarantined on the islands of Inchcolm and Inchkeith.[10] His son John Downie, who was also a skipper in Leith, presented James VI of Scotland with a porcupine.[11]

Anstruther continued at Inchkeith under Regent Moray and received wages for soldiers there in June 1568 including Bartraham Companye, William Lowriestoun, Julian Rowan, David Scraling, George Lafont, John Carruthers, and Archie Blackwood.[12]

References
  1. A. W. Anstruther, History of the family of Anstruther (Edinburgh, 1923), pp. 75, 78-9.
  2. HMC Laing Manuscripts at the University of Edinburgh, vol. 1 (London, 1914), pp. 14-5.
  3. Joseph Bain, Calendar State Papers Scotland: 1547-1563, vol. 1 (Edinburgh, 1898), p. 544.
  4. Michael Pearce, 'A French Furniture Maker and the 'Courtly Style' in Sixteenth-Century Scotland', Regional Furniture, 32 (2018), pp. 129-30.
  5. James Balfour Paul, Accounts of the Treasurer, vol. 11 (Edinburgh, 1916), pp. xxxiii, 114-6.
  6. James Balfour Paul, Accounts of the Treasurer, vol. 11 (Edinburgh, 1916), pp. 75, 85, 104.
  7. Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 72: Gordon Donaldson, Thirds of Benefices (Edinburgh, 1949), p. 287.
  8. James Balfour Paul, Accounts of the Treasurer, vol. 11 (Edinburgh, 1916), pp. 161-2, 198.
  9. James Balfour Paul, Accounts of the Treasurer, vol. 11 (Edinburgh, 1916), pp. 515-22.
  10. Robert Chambers, Domestic Annals, vol. 1, pp. 140-1: David Masson, Register of the Privy Council of Scotland: 1578-1585, vol. 3 (Edinburgh, 1880), pp. 313, 330-1.
  11. James Thomson Gibson-Craig, Papers Relative to the Marriage of King James the Sixth of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1828), p. 18, payment to Bessie Irvine widow of John Downie.
  12. Charles Thorpe McInnes, Accounts of the Treasurer: 1566-1574 (Edinburgh, 1970), p. 129.
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