Colville was involved in pawning the jewels of Mary, Queen of Scots, with Edinburgh merchants, including William Birnie, to raise money for the King's party.
[4] At the funeral of Regent Moray, Colville was a chief mourner with William Kirkcaldy of Grange, and trappings and mantles of mourning black cloth were bought for their horses.
[5][6] Colville brought instructions from the leaders of the King's Party to the English soldier Nicolas Errington, for the Earl of Sussex in May 1570.
The Scottish lords wanted an English army to enter Scotland and subdue the supporters of Mary, Queen of Scots.
[7] In February 1572, during the Marian Civil War, Regent Mar sent him and the Justice Clerk John Bellenden to greet two English ambassadors, Thomas Randolph and William Drury, in Edinburgh and invite them to supper.
[10] This earned him a mention in a satirical poem of the period, The Answeir to the Englisch Ballad, "And Cleisch quhom to the gold the wes gevin".