Colt was a Calvinist, born in Arras apparently as Maximilian Poultrain, who settled in England in the closing years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.
When King James I came to the English Throne, Colt was commissioned to produce an extravagant monument to the memory of Queen Elizabeth.
[4] Colt also produced fine sepulchral monuments for many of the English nobility and gentry, for example Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury at Bishop's Hatfield in Hertfordshire, whose adjoining house he also decorated, and the Countess of Derby at Harefield in Middlesex.
For Scottish patrons, he designed the tomb of Viscount Stormont at Scone Palace and George Home at Dunbar.
[2] By his wife, Susan, Maximilian had at least two sons, John (also a sculptor) and Alexander, and a daughter who died young.