LATITL See AsTnosomy, and I. is a tonal burgh of Scotland, in the county of .1 it L. It is the river Leader, which runs in a Twice d below Melrose. The town consists in in up t R one long street, which contains sonic goad houses, hut it I no public buildings deserting of notice, and no u de CI Is by the town, on the banks of the Leader, sta tt hTiiiikstare Castle, or Lauder Fort,a handsome build ing, which Was erected by Edward 1. of England, and is now one of the seats of the Earl of Lauderdale. Lauder unites with Jedburgh, Haddington, Dunbar, and North B •rwick, in sending a member to parliament. The popu bunt, of the town and palish in 1811 was 336 houses, and inhabitants.
SIR :roux, Lord Fountainhall, was born at E ni no gli in 16.16, of the family of Lauder of Lauder Tow er, 01 whi It he ,d'erwards became the representative. He was the eldest son of John Lauder of Newington, merchant, and bailie of Edinburgh. Having eat ly displayed a predi lection for the bar, he went abroad to finish his education at Leyden, and, after visiting Paris, he returned to his na ti‘e country, to prepare himself for the profession he had chosen, and passed advocate in 1668. There is reason to that his talents as a pleader were of no mean cha racter, and that his practice soon became considerable, for he seems to have appeared in causes of importance not long after he had put on the gown. 1 lc was one of those fifty advocates, who, disgusted with the partiality of the judges at that time composing the court of session, and more par ticularly with their arbitrary endeavours to crush appeals from their sentences to the king and parliament, were so spirited as to desert the court in a body, in February, 1678; and who were, in consequence of this determined step, de prived of the power of exercising the functions of their pro fession. lle was afterwards restored, along with his com panions, in January, 1679. Soon after this he had the ho nour of knighthood conferred upon him. Upon the oc casion of Argyle's trial for the alleged treasonable inter pretation of the test, in 1681, Lauder, with seven others of his brethren who formed the earl's counsel, had nearly been subjected to imprisonment by the tyrannical Scotch admi nistration of the time, for having, merely as an ordinary piece of duty to their client, signed a favourable opinion as to the meaning of his expressions.
In 1685, he was returned to the Scotch parliament as member for East Lothian, in which county his father had purchased the (state of Fountainhall ; and he represented shire for twenty-two years. When James II. made his attempt, in 1686, to pave the way for the introduction of popery, by endeavouring to procure l'rom his Scottish par hament the repeal of all penal laws and tests relating to religion, Sir John Lauder made a vigorous stand in the house against the loyal party, and seems to have materially contributed to their defeat, in regard to the chief object of their unanmuvres. lie was created a lord of session, un der the title of Lord Fountainhall, by King William and Queen Mary, in 1689. In the saute year he had a pension of L.100 Sterling granted to him ; and, in 1690, he was made one (Attie lords of justiciary.
I lis father, when in his outage, having married for his third wife Margaret Ramsay of ldington, a designing woman, she had succeeded in persuading hint to apply for a baro net's patent from James II. which she had also managed, by her clandestine intrigues, and without her husband's knowledge, to get constructed in such a manner as to make the title descend to his son by her, instead of to his proper heir. Lord Fountainhall, however, raised an action of reduction, and obtained its annihilation ; and another. running in the proper line, being granted by William and Mary, he soon afterwards succeeded to it. At that period, the office of lord advocate was frequently held in conjunc tion with a seat on the bench. This situation was offered to Fountainhall in 1692, and was refused by him, because he was denied permission to prosecute the inhuman perpetra tors of the diabolical massacre of Glenco.