Robert Aytoun

Aytoun was the son of Andrew Ayton of Kinaldie Castle, in Fife, Scotland, and Mary Lundie.[2]

Aytoun and his elder brother John entered St Leonard's College in St Andrews in 1584.[3] After graduating MA from St Andrews in 1588, he studied civil law at Paris.[4][5]

He appears to have been well known to his literary contemporaries in Scotland and England. He became a groom in the privy chamber of King James in succession to Laurence Marbury, was knighted and became a gentleman of the bedchamber in 1612.[6] He became secretary to Anne of Denmark in succession to another Scottish poet, William Fowler.[7] He was sent as ambassador to Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor in 1609. He was later secretary to Henrietta Maria.[8]

He wrote poems in Latin, Greek, and English, and was one of the first Scots to write in standard English. His major work was Diophantus and Charidora.[5]

Inconstancy Upbraided is perhaps the best of his short poems. He is credited with a little poem, Old Long Syne, which probably suggested Robert Burns's famous Auld Lang Syne.[5]

Aytoun died at Whitehall Palace and is buried in the south ambulatory area of in Westminster Abbey.[4] The monument includes a bronze bust, attributed, variously, to either Hubert Le Sueur or Francesco Fanelli.[9][10] Amongst his bequests, Aytoun gave a diamond hatband to William Murray and his French bed to Jane Whorwood.[11]

He is also the author of a ballad called "Bothwell" about the battle fought by James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell with the border reiver, John Elliot of Park, also known as Little Jock Elliot or Little Jock of the Park. The ballad recounts how Bothwell, in attempting to arrest Little Jock Elliot, suffers life-threatening wounds, though he ends by slaying his foe. Ayton was eight years old at the time Bothwell perished in a dungeon in Denmark, and hence must have heard about the attempted arrest of Elliot by people familiar with the story, particularly as Bothwell was a figure of national renown.

The Border ballad "Little Jock Elliot" celebrates (among other events) the achievements of Little Jock Elliot on this occasion and has the refrain "My name is little Jock Elliot and wha daur meddle wi' me!". This latter ballad (of indeterminate age) also implicitly states that Little Jock Elliot survived the encounter with Bothwell.

• Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Aytoun, Sir Robert" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 77.

Attribution:

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Cousin, John William (1910). "Ayton, Sir Robert". A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London: J. M. Dent & Sons – via Wikisource.

• Baynes, T. S., ed. (1878). "Ayton, Sir Robert" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (9th ed.). New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 165.
• Grosart, Alexander Balloch (1885). "Ayton, Robert" . In Stephen, Leslie (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 2. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 300–302.
• Law, M.D. (1961). "Aytoun, Sir Robert (1570-1638)". Chambers's Encyclopædia. Vol. 2. London: George Newnes. p. 15.
• Chambers, Robert; Thomson, Thomas Napier (1857). "Ayton, (Sir) Robert" . A Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen. Vol. 1. Glasgow: Blackie and Son. pp. 83–86 – via Wikisource.
• Smith, Sydney Goodsir (1961), review of Helena Mennie Shire (ed.), Poems and Songs of Sir Robert Ayton, in Gordon, Giles and Scott-Moncrieff, Michael (eds.), New Saltire: Summer 1961, The Saltire Society, Edinburgh, pp. 83 & 84.

Wikisource has original works by or about:
Robert Aytoun

• "Bothwell"
• Works by or about Robert Aytoun at Internet Archive
• Works by Robert Aytoun at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)