A friend said of him, with perhaps some exaggeration, that he was more eloquent in French than in his native tongue; and Livingstone tells us that he spoke Latin with perfect fluency, but that he had heard him say, if he had his choice, he would rather express himself in Greek than in any other language.

When Robert was three, his father died and Margaret took him and his brother Thomas to live on an estate in Ayrshire, variously spelled Trochrig, Trochridge, and Trochorege.

He married at Saumur, May 1611, Anna, daughter of Sir Patrick Maliverne of Viniola, knight and they had children — Robert; John of Trochrig; Anne; Margaret and Janet.

[2] Saumur was the centre of Amyraldism, a distinctive form of Calvinism taught by Moses Amyraut but inspired by John Cameron (1580–1625), a Scot from Glasgow.

[11] However, the Church of England was very different from the kirk in both governance and doctrine and even Scottish bishops viewed many English practices as essentially Catholic.

[12] Despite his father being an archbishop, Boyd was opposed to any form of Episcopalianism; in 1610, he visited Scotland and in a letter dated 12 July to a colleague in France, wrote that James' decision to establish the Episcopall hierarchy throu all his countreys (sic) would ...force in Popery, Atheisime, ignorance and impiety.

[13] Although friends and relatives urged him to return to Scotland, Boyd decided to remain in France but in 1614, James asked him to become Principal at the University of Glasgow and he felt obliged to accept.

[6] Shortly after his arrival in Glasgow, religious tensions were raised by the public execution on 10 March 1615 of the Jesuit convert, John Ogilvie.

Ogilvie, who was ostensibly tried for treachery, was of particular concern since he came from an upper class, Calvinist Scots family and studied at the Protestant University of Helmstedt before his conversion.

[19] He was related to the Abercorns, and some years previously had been a frequent visitor at the Place of Paisley, but was far from sure as to how his acceptance of the appointment would be taken by the Earl and his mother, Marion Boyd, the Dowager Countess, who had recently become a Catholic.

[6] Later, when Boyd was leaving, "the rascally women of the town not only upbraided Mr. Robert with opprobrious speeches, and shouted and hoyed him, but likewise cast stones and dirt at him."

The Greek and Latin Fathers; the writers of the dark ages; the Protestant and Romish theologians of his own time; Justin and Irenaeus; Tertullian and Cyprian; Clement and Origen; Augustine and Jerome; Gregory Nyssen and Gregory Nazianzen; Anselm, and Bonaventure, and Bernard; Calvin and Rollock; Bellarmine and Pighius, — are all at hand to render aid or to receive replies.

The Trinity, the Incarnation, Original Sin, Baptism, Arianism, Ubiquitarianism, the Nature and Extent of Redemption, are all fully handled.

One can only regret that a selection of these separate essays or discussions was not published, rather than the huge indiscriminate mass, which has led to the calamitous result of a great divine being buried under his own erudition.