Sir Robert Gordon, 1st Baronet of Gordonstoun

Sir Robert Gordon, 1st Baronet (1580–1656) was a Scottish politician and courtier, known as the historian of the noble house of Sutherland.

Born at Dunrobin Castle, Golspie, Sutherland, on 14 May 1580, he was the fourth son of Alexander Gordon, 12th Earl of Sutherland, by his second wife Jean Gordon, Countess of Bothwell. In 1598 he was sent to the university of St. Andrews, where he remained six months, and then finished his education in Edinburgh. In January 1603 he went to France to study civil law, and remained there until October 1605.

Gordon was appointed a gentleman of the privy chamber to James I in 1606, and was knighted. On 16 July 1614 he received a grant of holdings in Ulster. In March 1614-15, having attended the king to Cambridge, he was created honorary M.A. On the death of his brother John, (twelfth or) thirteenth earl of Sutherland, in September of the same year, he became tutor at law of his nephew John Gordon, 13th Earl of Sutherland.

In 1617 King James visited Scotland for the first time after his accession to the English throne. Among the entertainments was a competition of archery in the garden of Holyrood Palace, at which Gordon gained the prize, a silver arrow. He remained in Scotland for some time, and having settled his affairs in Sutherland, he returned with his family to England in November 1619, and in the succeeding May revisited France, when he disposed of his property of Longorme to Walter Stewart. In 1621 he returned to Sutherland, when he relieved the estates of the earl of a heavy burden of debt.

In 1623, when the Earl of Caithness was proclaimed a rebel, and fled to the Orkney Islands, Gordon received a commission from the privy council to proceed with fire and sword against him, and took possession of Castle Sinclair, the earl's residence. Having subdued the county of Caithness, he returned with his troops into Sutherland, and soon after went back to the court in England (and probably on to France).

In 1624 Gordon was appointed one of the commissioners of the estates of the young Duke of Lennox, and two years later one of the duke's curators. On 28 May 1625, then a gentleman of the privy chamber to Charles I, he was created premier baronet of Nova Scotia, with remainder to his heir male whatsoever; and he obtained a charter under the great seal granting to him sixteen thousand acres on the coast of Nova Scotia, which were erected into a barony. He assisted under agreement Sir William Alexander of Menstrie in the plantation of a colony in Nova Scotia. A favourite of King Charles, he was employed as confidential messenger to Henrietta Maria.

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