Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pringle, Andrew
PRINGLE, ANDREW, Lord Alemoor (d. 1776), solicitor-general for Scotland and lord of session, was eldest son of John Pringle, lord of session, under the title of Lord Haining, by his wife Anne, eldest daughter of Sir John Murray of Philiphaugh. He was admitted advocate at the Scottish bar in 1740, appointed sheriff of Wigton in 1750, and in the following year was named sheriff of Selkirk. On 5 July 1755 he was named solicitor-general, and on 14 June 1759 he was raised to the bench as Lord Alemoor, the title being taken from a property which he had acquired in Selkirkshire. He was also at the same time appointed a lord of justiciary.
Pringle was a lay elder of the general assembly of the kirk in 1757, when John Home [q. v.] was libelled on account of the performance of his play of ‘Douglas,’ and he spoke in Home's favour. He also spoke in favour of Dr. Alexander Carlyle [q. v.] when he was cited before the synod of Lothian and Tweeddale for his attendance at the performance of Home's play in the Edinburgh Theatre (Alexander Carlyle, Autobiography, p. 321). He died at Hawkhill, near Edinburgh, on 14 Jan. 1776. As he was unmarried, he was succeeded in his estates by his second brother, John Pringle of Haining, who had purchased Haining on the death of his father, and cleared off the encumbrances on it.
Lord Alemoor had in his day an unrivalled reputation as a lawyer and pleader. Dr. Alexander Carlyle expresses the opinion that he ‘was the most eloquent of all the Scottish bar’ in his (Carlyle's) time (ib.); and the character of his eloquence is described in some detail by Dr. Somerville, who states that he was the most admired speaker at the Scottish bar in the middle of last century, and that he had never been surpassed by any one at the bar or on the bench since that period. ‘His language,’ says Somerville, ‘was pure and nervous, his argument the most sound and substantial, shortly and distinctly stated, and strictly applicable to the point under discussion. Nothing appeared to be studied for effect; he used no action nor artificial embellishment, but the native dignity of his manner and the force and perspicuity of his reasoning always commanded attention’ (Own Life and Times, p. 108).
[Brunton and Haig's Senators of the College of Justice, p. 523; Dr. Carlyle's Autobiography; Dr. Somerville's Own Life and Times; Craig-Brown's Hist. of Selkirkshire, ii. 309–10.]