| Administrative History | John Lauder was born in Edinburgh in 1646, the son of a Nova Scotian baronet, and educated in his home city. After his graduation in 1664 he travelled on the continent, before returning to be admitted to the Scottish Bar in 1668. He participated in a number of notable cases and was on several occasions censured for his opinions and decisions. He was a committed Protestant and opposed the pro-Catholic activities of James V, though he was also against union with England. He was appointed a Lord of Session in 1689 and was for seventeen years a member of the Scottish parliament. He wrote copiously on legal and historical matters and his works provide historians with a legal chronicle of his time. He died in 1722. |
| Source | The manuscript was bought by the library with the Carnegie Grant in 1929 from A. Brunton, bookseller, possibly as a result of the local connections of Donald Crawford, Sheriff of Aberdeen, who edited Lauder's Journals for the Scottish History Society in 'Journals of Sir John Lauder, Lord Fountainhall ... 1665-1676' (1900). |