John Campbell, 1st Earl of Loudoun
1598–1662
Lord Chancellor of Scotland; senior Covenanter statesman.
Biography
Chief of the Campbells of Loudoun and Lord Chancellor of Scotland from 1641. Loudoun was the senior political figure on the Scottish commission to Westminster — the parliamentary counterpart to Henderson on the ministerial side. He led the Scottish commissioners to Westminster and signed the Solemn League and Covenant. He sat at the Assembly only occasionally — official duties in Edinburgh and at the king's court (in Newcastle and at the Newport negotiations) kept him much abroad — but his weight as Lord Chancellor mattered to the Anglo-Scottish coordination. After the Engagement (1647-48) and Cromwell's defeat of the Scots at Dunbar (1650) and Worcester (1651), his political fortunes declined; he was ejected from the chancellorship after the Cromwellian conquest, and lived under house arrest until the Restoration. He died at Edinburgh in 1662.
Scottish Commissioner
Under the Solemn League and Covenant (1643) the Church of Scotland sent commissioners — ministers and ruling elders — to sit with the Assembly. They had voice in debate but no formal vote, yet their influence on the Standards, especially on worship and presbyterian polity, was decisive. Alexander Henderson, Samuel Rutherford, George Gillespie, and Robert Baillie were the leading ministerial commissioners.