While still a student of law at the Temple, Peter Saltonstall visited Scotland with the poet
Benjamin Rudyerd, a friend from the
Middle Temple in October 1601. The border official
John Carey heard that Saltonstall assumed the name "Courtney" when he passed through
Berwick-upon-Tweed and wore mean clothing, but carried a "very rich suit of apparel". Rudyerd called himself "Davis". The pair were tricked, and marked to be robbed, then imprisoned. Saltonstall and Rudyerd wrote to the resident diplomat in Edinburgh,
George Nicholson, explaining their predicament. They had come to Scotland as innocent tourists. They crossed the border with a potential thief Robert Bruce
alias Peter Nerne without any licence or passport.
Sir Robert Ker arrested them and held them at his house, Friars, near Kelso for a few days. The English border official at Berwick,
John Carey was sceptical about the news and it was thought the pair might be
Jesuits on a secret mission. They were freed and met
James VI in Edinburgh, who "used them with good countenance". Nicholson sent them back to London to see
Sir Robert Cecil. Carey heard that Saltonstall was in love with Rudyerd's sister, and a love rival had organised his troubles in Scotland. His father had been involved with Scots in London in the 1590s, "Alderman Salkingstone" delivered letters from
Colonel William Stewart to
Archibald Douglas in September 1590. In 1602 the lawyer
John Manningham met the Scottish refugee
Barbara Ruthven and wrote, "I sawe this afternoone a Scottishe Lady at Mr. Fleetes in Loathebury; shee was sister to
Earl Gowre, a gallant tall gentlewoman, somewhat long visage, a lisping fumbling language. Peter Saltingstone came to visit hir". He was knighted in October 1605 at
Windsor Castle. At court he became an
equerry, escorting diplomats and ambassadors. His sister Anne Saltonstall married
James Douglas, a grandson of
George Douglas of Parkhead. King James sent Saltonstall to the
Duke of Savoy in Turin in 1612 accompanying the ambassador
Henry Wotton with a gift of ten ambling gelding horses. On the way, near Lyon, one of the horses injured a hoof on a pruner's sickle. Wotton was in no hurry to return from Turin, and according to
John Chamberlain Saltonstall got back to London first and delivered his messages, so doing the "best part of his errand for him". A list of equerries to King James in 1625 includes Peter Saltonstall with a fee of £20. The other equerries were; Robert Osbourne, Thomas Metham,
Sigismund Zinzan, John Carelton, George Digbie, Roger Fielding, Gabriel Hippisley, and William Sanderson. The equerries of the late
Anne of Denmark were Edward Bushell (who married a sister of
Mary Gargrave), John Gill, Gregory Fenner, and Maurice Drummond. His sister Elizabeth Saltonstall married
Richard Wyche. Their son
Peter Wyche was ambassador in Constantinople. A well-known anecdote concerns his wife's
farthingale. It was said that in 1628 she astonished
Ayşe Sultan, wife of
Murad IV, with her costume and she wondered if all English women had such an unusual shape. This story may have been composed in condemnation of the fashion of wearing fathingales. ==Marriage and family==