[1] Little is known of his family apart from the fact that he had an uncle, also surnamed Atkinson, who lived in Foster Lane and was close to Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, whom he termed his 'good Lord and friend'.
'[4] By a grant of the privy council of Scotland in 1616, confirmed by James I of England, he obtained leave to search for gold and silver in Crawford Muir, on paying the king one-tenth of the metals found.
This was edited by Gilbert Laing Meason for the Bannatyne Club in 1825, from a manuscript in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh.
The author proposes to the king 'the opening of the secrets of the earth—the gold mines of Scotland, to make his majesty the richest monarch in Europe, yea, in all the world.'
[6] Atkinson is often quoted for a story dating back 40 years before his time, during the regency of the Earl of Morton.