Life
He was the only son of Robert Scot the younger of Knights-Spottie in Perthshire, representative in the male line of the Scots of Buccleuch. Robert Scot succeeded to the office of director of chancery on the resignation of his father, Robert Scot the elder of Knights-Spottie, but, falling into bad health, resigned the office in 1582 in favour of his father, its former holder. Robert Scot the elder in 1592 again resigned the office to a kinsman, William Scot of Ardross, on condition that his grandson, John Scott (the subject of this article) should succeed to it on attaining majority, which he did in 1606. The Scottish chancery framed and issued crown charters, brieves, and other crown writs. The possession, loss, and efforts to regain this office played a large part in the career of Sir John.
He was educated at St. Leonard's College, St. Andrews, which he appears to have entered in 1600: he describes himself in the register of 1603 as in his third year. After leaving St. Andrews he went abroad to study, and on his return was called to the bar in 1606. In 1611 he acquired Tarvet and other lands in Fife, to which he gave the name of Scotstarvet, and six years later he was knighted and made a privy councillor by James VI, in whose honour he published a Latin poem, Hodœporicon in serenissimi et invictissimi Principis Jacobi Sexti ex Scotiâ suâ discessum.
In 1619 Scot had a license to go for a year to Flanders and elsewhere. He did not practise much, if at all, at the. bar, but recommended himself to Charles I by a suggestion for increasing the revenue by altering the law of feudal tenure. He became in 1629 an extraordinary, and in 1632 an ordinary, lord of session under the title of Scotstarvet.
He was one of many Scottish lawyers and lairds who accepted the covenant, which he subscribed at his parish kirk of Ceres, Fife on 30 April 1638, and in the following November he declined to sign the king's confession. In 1640 he served on the committee of the estates for the defence of the country. In 1641 he was, with consent of the estates, reappointed judge by a new commission. During the war between England and Scotland he served on the war committee in 1648 and 1649. He bought the Mill of Kinghorn and Inchkeith Island for 20,000 merks in 1649.
Under the Commonwealth he lost the office both of judge and director of chancery. He made many appeals to be restored to the latter as an administrative, and not a judicial, office; but, although he obtained an opinion in his favour by the commissioners of the great seal, Oliver Cromwell gave it in 1652 to Jeffrey the quaker, who held it till the Restoration. Scott, through George Monck, again appealed to Cromwell for the reversion of the office if Jeffrey died. Cromwell fined him £1,500 in 1654 for his part in the war. But his later correspondence with Cromwell did not improve his character with the royalists, and on the Restoration he was fined £500, and was not restored to the office of judge or that of director of chancery, which was conferred on Sir William Ker, who, he indignantly said, ‘danced him out of it, being a dextrous dancer.’ Sir James Balfour described Scott's public character in a few words: ‘He was a busy man in troubled times.’ But in spite of his misfortunes, Scot did not cease to be busy when peace came. He returned to Scotstarvet, where he engaged in literary work and correspondence. There he died in 1670.
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