Mark Alexander Boyd was born on 13 January 1563 in Penkill, Ayrshire. He was educated under the care of his uncle, the Archbishop of Glasgow, and removed to France in 1581 to study law, also pursuing a career as a soldier of fortune in the army of Henri III during the French civil war. He returned to Scotland in 1596, and died back in Ayrshire on 10 April 1601.

Boyd wrote his poetry in Latin, except for one poem in Scots, the beautiful and much-anthologised sonnet 'Fra banc to banc'.