A physician at court accepted the impossible task of teaching a donkey to speak. Other doctors had failed and been executed. This doctor told the King it would take ten years and be very expensive. Why would you accept such a task, asked the court jesters? In ten years, I, the donkey, or the King might be dead, but I will have made good money. Sir Robert Richardson laughed at the story, just as I his descendent.

Sir Robert Robertson is my 12th great grandfather, on my maternal tree. It was the King who collected taxes and called men into battle; however the ordinary person owed their allegiance to the Catholic faith in Scotland. Sir Robert was well educated. King James IV was a wise and effective ruler of Scotland. The King built Holyrood Palace (where Queen Elizabeth…