ABERDEEN, _Sept. 5, 1637_.
CCXXXI.--_To the Right Honourable my_ LORD LINDSAY.
[JOHN, TENTH LORD LINDSAY, resided at Byres, a house near _Balgonie_, which in old charters is mentioned along with _Pitcruvie_ as belonging to the Lindsays. He was the son of Robert, ninth Lord Lindsay, by his wife Lady Christian Hamilton, eldest daughter of Thomas, first Earl of Haddington. (See Letter LXXVII.) He was born about 1596, and was created Earl of Lindsay, 8th May 1633. On the 23rd of July 1644 he was constituted Lord High Treasurer of Scotland; and on the forfeiture of Ludovick, Earl of Crawford, he had the title and estate of that nobleman conferred on him by Act of Parliament, 26th July the same year, so that he was thereafter designed Earl of Crawford and Lindsay. Having entered with zeal into the "Engagement" for raising an army to attempt the rescue of the King in 1648, he was deprived of his offices by the Act of Classes, and excluded from Parliament till King Charles II. came to Scotland in 1650, when a coalition of parties took place. For the same reason, he fell under a censure of the church; but was restored in July 1650. On the Restoration, he was reinstated in his offices of High Treasurer of Scotland and Extraordinary Lord of Session. He warmly opposed the Act Rescissory, annulling all the Parliaments since 1633, as a terrible precedent, destroying the whole security of government. In 1633, scrupling to take the declaration, he resigned his situation as Lord High Treasurer for Scotland. Next year he gave up his place of Extraordinary Lord of Session, and retired to his country seat. "He was a man of great virtue, of good abilities, and of an exemplary life in all respects. He died at Tyninghame in 1676, aged about eighty" (Douglas' "Peerage"). Rutherford's treatise, entitled "A Peaceable and Temperate Plea for Paul's Presbytery in Scotland, printed at London in 1642," is dedicated to this nobleman.]