a younger son of an ancient Scottish family settled in Lincolnshire. He was some time a student of Lincoln College, Oxford, and removed from thence to the Inner Temple, where he applied himself diligently to the study of the law, and became a barrister. In 1582 he was made lord chief justice of the common pleas, and in the year following was knighted. He held his office to the end of his life in 1605. His works are,

1. Reports of many principal Cases argued and adjudged in the time of Queen Elizabeth in the Common Bench, Lond. 1644, fol.; 2. Resolutions and Judgments on the cases and matter agitated in all courts of Westminster in the latter end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Lond. 1655, 4to.