Scottish Reformation
As acting treasurer, it was probably in this capacity, rather than as ˜Maister of the Cunze-house", that he held the coining irons of the mint at Holyroodhouse. In July 1559 the Protestant Lords of the Congregation who occupied Edinburgh seized these, along with great sums of money, claiming that they had done so to stop corruption of the coinage. The irons were returned to him according to the terms of the Articles of Leith between the lords and Mary of Guise.
After the siege of Leith, Richardson sat as a prelate at the Reformation Parliament of 1560 and was listed by Knox among those "that had renunceit Papistrie and oppinlie profest Jesus Chryst with us.". Finally appointed Lord Treasurer on 5 March 1561, he was a member of the privy council from 1561 to 1576. In 1562 he was named as one of the commissioners for receiving rentals of benefices and in October of that year was granted a pension of £1000 Scots from the thirds of benefices pending provision to a benefice of equal or greater value.
The Reformation gave him further opportunities to add to the landed estate he had been acquiring since 1552, mainly in Haddingtonshire and Edinburghshire. Three charters by the commendator and convent of Dunfermline on 28 July 1563 conveyed to him extensive lands, mainly in Haddingtonshire, Edinburghshire, and Fife, amounting to no fewer than seventy-seven farms and scattered holdings. From September 1565 onwards he disposed of a large part of this property to the tenants, no doubt profitably. He retained lands and coal mines around Musselburgh, including Smeaton, where either he or his son built what in 1577 was described as a new house. He also acquired some small properties belonging to Jedburgh Abbey. Crawfurd wrote of Richardson:
He appears to have been a very wise moderate man; for so far as I can observe from the history of these times, he kept himself more in a neutrality, and was less a party-man than any other that held any great office about the court. He was never violent against the Queen, tho' he complied with the Government under the young King.
Read more about this topic: Robert Richardson (Lord Treasurer)
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