ABERDEEN, _March 9, 1637_.
[Illustration: LOUDON CASTLE.]
CXVI.--_To the Right Honourable my_ LORD LOUDON.
[JOHN CAMPBELL, first Earl of Loudon, and the son of Sir James Campbell of Lawers, was a man of distinguished talents, and of a very decided character. In the history of his country he makes no small figure as a strenuous opponent of the attempts made by Charles I. to impose Prelacy and arbitrary power on Scotland. He was a member of the General Assembly which met at Glasgow in 1638, in the business of which he took an active part. When the King, dissatisfied with the proceedings of this Assembly, put himself at the head of an army to reduce his Scottish subjects to submission, Loudon had a leading hand in the measures then adopted for preserving the religion and liberties of Scotland, as secured by the ecclesiastical and civil laws of the kingdom. In the skirmish at Newburn, where the King's forces were defeated by the Scottish army, he commanded a brigade of horse. In 1641, when peace was restored between the King and his Scottish subjects, Loudon was made Lord Chancellor of Scotland, a situation which he held till after the execution of Charles I., and the calling home of Charles II. by the Scots in 1650. Malignants being again brought into places of power and trust, he demitted his office. He continued, however, strongly to adhere to the cause of Charles, in consequence of which he was excepted from Cromwell's act of indemnity, and his estates forfeited. But all that he had suffered for the royal cause did not recommend him to the favour of the unprincipled government of Charles II. His name is in the list of Middleton's fines (imposed upon the gentlemen of Ayrshire in 1662) for £12,000. He felt convinced that, should his life be spared, he would fall an early victim to the vengeance of his enemies, and often exhorted his pious lady to beseech the Lord that he might not live to the next session of Parliament, else he would share the same fate with the Marquis of Argyle. His wish was granted; for he died at Edinburgh, March 15, 1662. Rutherford's "Divine Right of Church Government and Excommunication," printed at London in 1646, is dedicated to this nobleman, who was then Chancellor of the University of St Andrews. His son James, second Earl of Loudon, was subjected to no small persecution under the dominancy of Prelacy; and, seeking refuge in Holland, took up his residence at Leyden, where he died on the 29th of October 1684.]