He studied music, and is reported to have possessed the genteel accomplishment of dancing, to no inconsiderable degree. After a long stay of eight years abroad, he returned again to his native country, where a civil war was ready to break out. He then found that as he could be of no service by his action, he might at least by his retirement, and during the confusion, he went to the feat of his Brother-in-law, Sir John Scott, of Scotts Tarvat, a man of learning and good sense. In this interval it is supposed he wrote his History of the Five James's, successively Kings of Scotland, which is so excellent a work, whether we consider the exact conduct of the story, the judicious reflections, and the fine language, that no Historian either of the English or Scotch nation (the lord Clarendon excepted) has shewn a happier talent for that species of writing, which tho' it does not demand the highest genius, yet is as difficult to attain, as any other kind of literary excellence. This work was received in England with as much applause, as if it had been written by a countryman of their own, and about English affairs. It was first published six or seven years after the author's death, with a preface, or introduction by Mr. Hall of Grays-Inn, who, tho' not much disposed to think favourably of the Scotch nation, has yet thus done justice to Mr. Drummond; for his manner of writing, says he, "though he treats of things that are rather many than great, and rather troublesome than glorious; yet he has brought so much of the main together, as it may be modestly said, none of that nation has done before him, and for his way of handling it, he has sufficiently made it appear, how conversant he was with the writings of venerable antiquity, and how generously he has emulated them by a happy imitation, for the purity of that language is much above the dialect he wrote in; his descriptions lively and full, his narrations clear and pertinent, his orations eloquent, and fit for the persons who speak, and his reflections solid and mature, so that it cannot be expected that these leaves can be turned over without as much pleasure as profit, especially meeting with so many glories, and trophies of our ancestors." In this history Mr. Drummond has chiefly followed bishop Elphiston, and has given a different turn to things from Buchanan, whom a party of the Scotch accuse of being a pensioner of Queen Elizabeth's, and as he joined interest with the earl of Murray, who wanted to disturb the reign of his much injured sister Mary Queen of Scots, he is strongly suspected of being a party writer, and of having misrepresented the Scotch transactions of old, in order to serve some scheme of policy.