Colyear, David, 1st Earl of Portmore -1730)

Sir David Colyear was the elder son of Sir Alexander Robertson, alias Colyear, 1st Baronet, and Jean, daughter of Lieutenant Colonel Walter Murray. His father was said to be of the family of Robertson of Struan, who settled in Holland, where he acquired considerable property and adopted the name of Colyear, Sir David entered the army of the Prince of Orange as a volunteer in 1673, and rose to be Colonel of Wauchope's Regiment of Scots Foot, and accompanied William of Orange to Britain, where he distinguished himself in the reduction of Ireland, and afterwards in Flanders. Naturalised by Act of Parliament in 1699, he was created Lord Portmore and Blackness in the Kingdom of Scotland 1 June 1699, Major General in 1702, Earl of Portmore, Viscount Milsington, and Lord Colyear 13 April 1703, a General in 1711, a Knight of the Thistle in 1713, and Governor of Gibraltar in 1718. He married, shortly after 20 August 1696, Catherine, suo jure Countess of Dorchester, daughter of Sir Charles Sedley Bart, of Southfleet in Kent, and mistress of James II. The peerage became extinct at the death of the fourth Earl in 1835.