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- The most celebrated of the Halyburtons of Pitcur, was James Halyburton, provost of Dundee at the era of the Reformation in Scotland, and uncle and tutor (or guardian) of Sir George Halyburton of Pitcur. In 1558, he was one of the commissioners sent by the Estates of Scotland to France to negociate the marriage of the infant Queen Mary to the dauphin. He early joined the lords of the Congregation, and in 1559, when the queen regent began to persecute the preachers of the reformed doctrines, she desired him to apprehend Paul Methven, one of the leading reformers, but, instead of doing so, he sent the latter a secret message to that effect, that he might escape in time. [Calderwood's Hist. Vol. i. p. 439.] He was among the barons who went to St. Andrews on the 4th June of the same year, summoned there by the earl of Argyle and Lord James Stewart, afterwards the regent Moray, in consequence of the perfidious conduct of the queen regent towards the reformers. He had the command of the troops of the Congregation stationed on the high ground called Cupar moor, to oppose the army which the queen regent had marched from Falkland on the 13th of the same month, and he had so skilfully posted their ordnance as completely to command the surrounding country. To avoid bloodshed, however, a negociation was entered into, which led to a temporary truce. At the burning of Scone, soon after, he and his brother, Captain Alexander Halyburton, hastened with Knox and other leaders of the reformation to prevent acts of violence by the mob, but without effect, as the palace and abbey were entirely destroyed. Captain Alexander Halyburton was killed in a skirmish with the French soldiers at Leith in the following November. In 1560 the provost of Dundee was one of the leading reformers who met at Cupar for the purpose of electing commissioners to meet the duke of Norfolk at Berwick, to arrange the conditions on which Queen Elizabeth was to send an English army to their assistance. The instructions given them, signed, among others, by James Halyburton, are inserted in full in Calderwood's History. In 1564 he was one of the commissioners appointed by the General Assembly to present certain articles against popery to the lords of secret council. In 1565, after "the Round-about Raid," with the earls of Murray, Glencairn, and other leaders of the Reformed party, he took refuge in England, the queen and Lord Darnley being then too powerful for them. He afterwards fought at Langside on the side of the regent Moray. In 1570 he assisted the regent Lennox in dispersing the troops of the earl of Huntly at Brechin, when he appeared in arms on behalf of Queen Mary. In the subsequent skirmishes with "the queen's men," between Edinburgh and Leith, he was also actively engaged. He was with the earl of Morton, the leader of the king's army, when he attacked the lords of the queen's faction near Restalrig, on 16th June 1571. At this time he held the rank of colonel, and at a skirmish which took place on the evening of the last da of August of that year, he was taken prisoner by a party fro Leith, who had driven back to the Netherbow gate of Edinburgh a strong force of the opposite faction that had gone out to give them battle, but appears soon to have regained his liberty. In 1578 he was one of the commissioners who were directed by the king to hold a conference at Stirling castle, on 22d December, to settle the policy of the church, and in 1582, he and Captain William Stewart, brother of the notorious favourite, Colonel James Stewart, temporary earl of Arran, were commissioners from the king to the General Assembly which met on 9th October of that year. He was also one of the king's commissioners in the Assembly which met 24th April 1583. He seems for a time to have lost the king's favour, probably in consequence of having joined in the Raid of Ruthven, as, according to Calderwood, he was deprived of the provostship of Dundee, after he had held it for thirty-three consecutive years, when it was conferred on the earl of Crawford. In the Assembly of February 1588, he was again one of the king's commissioners, and in this and the next Assembly, in August following, he was nominated one of the assessors to the moderator. He died the same year, aged 70, and was interred in the South church, Dundee, receiving a public funeral, at the expense of the corporation. His monument remained under the floor of the lateran (the clerk's or precentor's desk) on the north side of the pulpit, till the churches of Dundee were destroyed by fire in 1841.
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Abt 1518 - 1588 (70 years)