Robert Barton of Over Barnton is Scottish example of a type frequent enough throughout western Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the middle-class adventurer, combining the careers of merchant, financier and royal servant. Son of a prominent Leith trader and brother of Andrew Barton, the better-known naval adventurer, Robert Barton in the course of an active career of half a century, which ended with his death in 1540, was variously merchant, fiscal agent, and money-lender to the crown, and in the trying years after Flodden, principal financial officer of the realm. With what was obviously major political skill, Barton kept afloat in the stormy politics of his age and amassed at least a comfortable fortune, which he invested in land and gentility for his son.