Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Colyear, David
COLYEAR, Sir DAVID, first Earl of Portmore (d. 1730), was the elder son of Sir Alexander Robertson, of the family of Strowan, Perthshire, who settled in Holland, where he acquired a considerable property, and adopted the name of Colyear. The son entered the army of the Prince of Orange as a volunteer in 1674, and ultimately obtained the command of a Scotch regiment in the Dutch service. At the revolution he accompanied William to England, and for his distinguished services in the Irish campaigns of 1689 and 1690, and afterwards in Flanders, he was, 1 June 1699, created a peer of Scotland by the title of Lord Portmore and Blackness to him and his heirs male. Macky in his 'Memoirs' thus describes him: 'He is one of the best foot officers in the world; is very brave and bold; hath a great deal of wit; very much a man of honour and nice that way, yet married the Countess of Dorchester, and had by her a good estate; pretty well shaped; dresses clean; but one eye; towards fifty years old/ In 1702 he obtained the rank of major-general, and on 27 Feb. 1703 received the command of the 2nd regiment of foot. On 13 April of the latter year he was raised to the dignities of Earl of Portmore, Viscount of Milsington, and Lord Colyear, to him and heirs male of his body. In the war of succession in Spain he served under the Duke of Ormonde as lieutenant-general. In 1710 he was appointed commander-inchief of the forces in Scotland, and in January of the following year was raised to the rank of general. In 17 12 he served under the Duke of Ormonde in Flanders, and the same year he was named a member of the privy council and made a knight of the Thistle. In August 1713 he was constituted governor of Gibraltar, and in October of the same year he was chosen one of the sixteen representative peers of Scotland. When Gibraltar was besieged by the Spaniards in 1727, he embarked for that place to assume command, but on the approach of Admiral Wager with eleven ships the siege was raised. He died 2 Jan. 1790. He married Catherine, daughter of Sir Charles Sedley of Southfleet, Kent, and mistress of James II. She was created Countess of Dorchester and Baroness of Darlington for life, 20 Jan. 1685, and had a pension of 5,000l per annum on the Irish establishment. She died at Bath 26 Oct. 1717. By King James she had a son, who died young, and a daughter, Lady Catherine Darnley, who was married first to James, earl of Anglesea, and secondly to John, duke of Buckingham. By the earl of Portmore she had two sons, David, viscount of Milsington, who died in 1729, and Charles, second earl of Portmore, born 27 Aug. 1700, died 5 July 1785, a great patron of the turf, and conspicuous in London society by the magnificence of his equipages. The peerage became extinct on the death of the fourth earl in 1835.
[Macky's Memoirs; Douglas's Scotch Peerage {Wood), ii. 371-2.]