Robert Sempill (the elder) (c. 1530–1595), in all probability a cadet of illegitimate birth of the noble house of Sempill or Semple, was a Scottish ballad-writer and satirist.
Very little is known of Sempill's life. He was probably a soldier, and must have held some office at the Scottish court, as his name appears in the Lord Treasurer's books in February 1567 – 1568, and his writings show him to have had an intimate knowledge of court affairs. Sempill was present at the siege of Leith (1559-1560) and at the siege of Edinburgh Castle, serving with the army of James Douglas, Earl of Morton. He was in Paris in 1572, but fled the country after the massacre of St Bartholomew. Anonymous printed ballads such as The tressoun of Dumbertane, Robert Lekprevik, Edinburgh (1570), have been attributed to Sempill. The Tressoun describes Lord Fleming's failed ambush of the English commander William Drury at Dumbarton Castle.
See Chronicle of Scottish Poetry (ed. James Sibbald, Edinburgh, 1802); and Essays on the Poets of Renfrewshire by William Motherwell, in The Harp of Renfrewshire (Paisley, 1819; reprinted 1872).
Modern editions of Sempill are: Sege of the Castel of Edinburgh, a facsimile reprint with introduction by David Constable (1813); The Sempill Ballates (T. G. Stevenson, Edinburgh, 1872) containing all the poems; Satirical poems of the Reformation (ed. James Cranstoun, Scottish Text Soc., 2 vols, 1889-1893) with a memoir of Sempill and a bibliography of his poems.