Leighton, Robert

a Scottish theologian, the son of a Puritan clergyman in London, who wrote a book against prelacy, and suffered cruelly at the hands of Laud in consequence; studied at Edinburgh; entered the Church, and became Presbyterian minister at New battle in 1641, but resigned in 1653; was made Principal of Edinburgh University; reluctantly consented to accept a bishopric, and chose the diocese of Dunblane, but declined all lordship connected with the office; was for a time archbishop of Glasgow; retired to England in 1674, and lived ten years afterwards with a widowed sister in Su ex; he was a most saintly man, and long revered as such by the Scottish people; his writings, which are highly imaginative, were much admired by Cole ridge (1611-1684).