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James Foulis was a man of relatively humble beginnings, for his father was James de Foulis, described as a skinner, of Edinburgh. He trained as a lawyer, a profession which afforded the best chance for an ambitious man. It gave him that chance for he married the daughter of Sir James Henderson of Fordell in Fife, who was Advocate to James IV.

In 1519 he acquired the lands of Colinton, Edinburgh, from the Master of Glencairn, and thereafter used that description – of Colinton. In 1526 he was M.P. for Edinburgh and was made a Lord of Session. The following year he was appointed King’s Advocate and by 1529 Secretary to King James V. He was knighted in 1539.

The next great step was as a Commissioner to negotiate marriage between Mary and Prince Edward of England. Mary was months old and Edward was five years old. This came to nothing.

The legal tradition he had begun continued in the family.