COLVILLE, JOHN, of the family of Colville, of East Wemyss, county of Fife, was some time minister of Kilbride, and chanter of Glaegoes of which latter office the church of Kilbride was the appro priate prebend; but disliking the poverty which, on the Reformation, had become incident to the condition of a Scots clergyman, he abate Boned that profession about the year 1578, got introduced to court, and the following year we find him attending the Privy Council as Master of Requeets. (' Act Parl.' iii. 150.) lie was soon afterwards engaged in the treasonable conspiracy of the Raid of Ituthven, when be was sent by the party that had seized the king, as ambassador to Queen Elizabeth. On the king recovering his liberty, Colville was seized at the instance of Arran, the king's adviser, and imprisoned in Edinburgh Cantle. He was probably restored to royal favour not long after; for on the 2nd of June 1537 he was appointed by the king a lord of session in the room of his uncle, Alexander Colville, cornmendator of Culross. Bnt un the 21st of the same month he gave up the place again in favour of his uncle, and got some appointment, as It seems, in relation to the supply granted by parliament for the king's marriage expenses. About the same time oleo he sat in parliament for the burgh of Stirling. Soon afterward] he joined the Earl of Bothwell in his attack upon the king in December, 1591, for which be was again forfeited in parliament. The next year ho accompanied Bothwell to Hulyrood House in a new attack upon James. But the party being discovered and defeated, Bothwell was
obliged to flee; and Colville, by betraying his obtained a pardon. Bothwell afterwards fled to Orkney, and thence to France, whither Colville also proceeded. Colville, in the hope of obtaining perwiesion to return, used various arts to ingratiate himself with the king. In the year 1600 ho published at Edinburgh a treatise entitled 'Ilia Palinode,' which he represented as a refutation of a former treatise of his own sgainat James's title to the Ensrli.h crown, which, "in malice, in time of his exile, lie had penned ; " whereas, in fact, no such treatise was ever penned by him. (Spottiew. 457.) All his aria to obtain his recall to his native country proving uneuc ceisful, he at length professed himself a Roman Catholic, and became a keen writer against the Protestant faith. In 1601 he wrote a ' Pararnesis ad blittiatroe Scotos super sue Convereione,' ,which was translated and printed at Paris the following year. He wrote also 'Capita Controversa,' and •I/e Came% Comitie Bothwelli,' who, like himself, had turned Roman Catholic. Charter's (' Lives of Scots Writers ') mentions another work of hi., ' ()ratio Funebris Exequlie Elizabethte destinata ; and the author of the ' History of Sutherland' speaks of a manuscript left by him touching the &flair. of Scotland. lie died while on a pilgrimage to Rome in the year 1607.