Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Foulis, James (d.1688)

1044175Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 20 — Foulis, James (d.1688)1889John Andrew Hamilton

FOULIS, Sir JAMES, Lord Colinton (d. 1688), judge, was only son of Alexander Foulis, by Elizabeth, daughter of Robert Hepburn, esq., of Ford, and widow of Sir John Stuart, sheriff of Bute. His father was created a baronet of Nova Scotia 7 June 1634. James was knighted by Charles I 14 Nov. 1641, and represented Edinburgh in parliament in 1645–8 and in 1651. He was a commissioner to enforce the acts against runaways and deficients in 1644, and a member of the committee of estates in 1646–7. He warmly adopted the royalist cause, was taken prisoner at Alyth by a detachment of Monck's force, then besieging Dundee, 28 Sept. 1651, and long imprisoned for his royalist opinions. After the Restoration he became an ordinary lord of session (14 Feb.), and a commissioner of excise in 1661. He was commissioner to parliament for Edinburghshire from 1661 to 1681, and a lord of the articles in each parliament from the Restoration. When the court of justiciary was constituted in February 1671 he became a lord commissioner, and took his seat in parliament and the oaths in 1672, having the title of Lord Colinton. He was sworn of the privy council in 1674, and was a commissioner for the plantation of kirks in 1678. On 12 Dec. 1681, upon the trial of Argyll, he voted, old cavalier though he was, against the relevancy of the indictment, and it was only carried by Lord Nairn's casting vote. On 22 Feb. 1684 he was appointed lord justice clerk in succession to Sir Richard Maitland, and died at Edinburgh 19 Jan. 1688. He was twice married, secondly to Margaret, daughter of Sir George Erskine of Innertail, and had a son James (1645?–1711) [q. v.], who succeeded to the title, and was a member of parliament, and a daughter, who married James Livingstone.

[Acts Scots Parl.; Douglas's Peerage of Scotland; Brunton and Haig's Senators; Burke's Baronetage.]

J. A. H.