royal letter 20 Jan. 1610 (Reg. P. C. Scotl. viii. 815). On 18 Sept. 1616 he was created Earl of Roxburgh and Lord Ker of Cessfurd and Caverton. He was, however, disappointed at not obtaining the place of chamberlain to the prince, and about the same time his lady lost the favour of the queen and left the court (Cal. State Papers, Dom. Ser. 1611–18, p. 415). In the parliament which met at Edinburgh on 25 July 1621 he was chosen a lord of the articles, and in the same parliament he voted for the confirmation of the five articles of Perth. He was a member of the committee appointed by King James, 19 May 1623, to sit every week for the purpose of hearing grievances (Calderwood, vii. 576). In 1637 he was made lord privy seal of Scotland. After the afternoon service in St. Giles's Church on 23 July of this year, which followed the disturbance caused in the forenoon by the reading of the service, Roxburgh drove the bishop to his lodgings in his carriage amidst the stone-throwing of an enraged mob (Gordon, Scots Affairs, i. 11; Spalding, Memorials, i. 80). Subsequently he favoured a conference with the ministers in order that the matters in dispute might be arranged, although he was supposed to be a secret supporter of episcopacy. In November he was sent from London by the king with secret instructions for the council to take decisive action (king's letter in Balfour, Annals, ii. 237), the result being that all meetings held in opposition to the service-book were discharged under pain of treason (Gordon, i. 32). Roxburgh was one of those who, on 22 Sept. 1638, subscribed the king's covenant at Holyrood (ib. p. 108). He was one of the six assessors named by the king to sit in the general assembly held at Glasgow in November (ib. p. 144; Spalding, p. 118), but not allowed by the assembly to take part in the business. On the outbreak of the civil war in 1639 he joined the king, but his son having joined the covenanters, he himself was for security committed on 15 May to the mayor's house at Newcastle (Cal. State Papers, Dom. Ser. 1639, p. 173). In June he, however, again kissed the king's hands (ib. p. 265), and a little later was received into great favour (ib. p. 268). After the pacification of Berwick he returned home. As he had not subscribed the covenant, he was not permitted to enter the Scottish parliament when it was opened by the king in 1641, but, along with other noblemen under similar disabilities, ‘stayed in the next room’ (Balfour, Annals, iii. 44). Having, however, subscribed on 18 Aug., he took his seat (ib. p. 45), and besides having his office of privy seal confirmed to him, served on several important committees. He also took a prominent part in most of the discussions, supporting so far as possible a policy consonant to the wishes of the king. When Charles in 1642 attempted the arrest of the five members, Roxburgh kept the door of the house open that members might see the inadvisability of resistance. In the following year he was stated to have been concerned in the writing of a letter to the queen from Derby, informing her of the intention of the Scots to take up arms. He remained, however, practically neutral until in 1648 he supported the ‘engagement’ for the king's rescue. For doing so he was on 13 Feb. of the following year deprived of the office of privy seal. He died 18 Jan. 1650, in his eightieth year, at his house of Floors (now known as Floors Castle), near Kelso, and was buried in Bowden Church on 20 March.
Roxburgh was thrice married. By his first wife, Margaret, only daughter of Sir William Maitland of Lethington, he had one son, William, lord Ker, who graduated at Edinburgh University 28 July 1610 and died while travelling in France in 1618; and three daughters: Jean, married 1655 to Sir William Drummond, fourth son of John, second earl of Perth; Isabel, married to James Scrimgeour, second viscount Dundee; and Mary, married first to James Halyburton of Pitcairn, and secondly to James, second earl of Southesk. By his second wife, Jean, third daughter of Patrick, third lord Drummond, he had a son, Harry, lord Ker, who died in January 1643, and whose daughter, Margaret, wife of Sir James Innes, third baronet, was ultimately great-grandmother of James Innes-Ker, fifth duke of Roxburgh [q. v.] By his third wife, Isabel Douglas, fifth daughter of William, earl of Morton, Roxburgh had no issue. Having no heirs male, the titles and estates, in accordance with a new destination obtained in 1643, renewed by charter under the great seal 31 July 1646, and executed 23 Feb. 1648, passed to Sir William Drummond, the husband of Roxburgh's eldest daughter, Jean.
[Reg. Mag. Sig. Scot. vols. ii–iii.; Reg. P. C. Scotl. vols. v–ix.; Cal. State Papers, Dom. Ser. reigns of James I and Charles I; Hist. James the Sext, Sir James Melville's Memoirs, Robert Baillie's Letters and Journals, and Moysie's Memoirs (last four Bannatyne Club); Gordon's Scots Affairs and Spalding's Memorialls of the Trubles (both Spalding Club); Sir James Balfour's Annals; Calderwood's Hist. of the Church of Scotland; Sir Robert Carey's Memoirs; Douglas's Scottish Peerage (Wood), ii. 447–8.]
