John Maitland, 2nd Earl of Lauderdale
1616–1682
Youngest elder commissioner; later notorious Restoration politician.
Biography
Maitland accompanied the Scottish ministerial commissioners to Westminster in his early twenties and supported the Solemn League. His later career — as Charles II's Secretary of State for Scotland and chief instrument of the Restoration's anti-Covenanter persecutions — would be hard to predict from his Assembly days. A man of considerable learning, fluent in Greek and Hebrew, but politically pliable.
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.