whereby he had the right to represent it in the rector's court, the governing body of the university. This honour was conferred on him on many later occasions—on 27 Aug. 1558, on 10 Feb. and 27 Oct. 1560, on 21 Oct. 1568, and on 14 Jan. 1571. About this latter date he obtained the degree of doctor of theology. He preached during several years in Paris. Jean de Rouen, privy councillor, royal almoner, rector and censor of the university, in his treatise on the Sorbonne, mentions Laing in very laudatory terms. He was a violent enemy of the Reformation, and very abusive in his personal attacks on the reformers. In 1581 he wrote ‘De Vita et Moribus atque Rebus Gestis Hæreticorum nostri temporis.’ The notices of Calvin are translated from the French of the earlier treatise of Bolsec. Laing's first sentence regarding Knox concludes, ‘ab initio suæ pueritiæ omni genere turpissimi facinoris infectus fuit.’ In 1585 he wrote a second treatise of a similar character, ‘De Vita et Moribus Theodori Bezæ, omnium hæreticorum nostri temporis facile principis, et aliorum hæreticorum brevis recitatio. Cui adjectus est libellus de morte Patris Edmundi Campionis et aliorum quorundam Catholicorum qui in Anglia pro fide Catholica interfecti fuerunt, primo die Decembris, anno Domini 1581. Authore Jacobo Laingeo, Doctore Sorbonico,’ Paris, 1585. The book is dedicated conjointly to Queen Mary Stuart and to James VI. He is said to have written other unpublished works of a less polemical nature, including a commentary on Aristotle's philosophy, which Dempster relates he saw in manuscript with the author. His name is appended to a document drawn up in the form of an oath of fealty signed and addressed by the principal members of the Paris faculties to Henry IV on his accession, 22 April 1594. He died during this year, and was buried, according to his wish, in the chapel of the Sorbonne.
[Du Boulay's Histoire de l'Université, tome vi.; Dempster's Hist. Eccl. Gent. Scot.; Conæus's De Stat. Religione apud Scotos, ii. 167; Beza's Life of Calvin; Hist. de la Vie, Actes, Doctrine, et Mort de Jean Calvin, par Bolsec, Paris, 1582.]
LAING, JOHN (d. 1483), bishop of Glasgow and chancellor of Scotland, was a native of Edinburgh, and belonged to the family of the Laings of Reidhouse, Midlothian, whose last male representative was John Laing, Lord Reidhouse, lord of session under James VI. As he inherited a house in the High Street of Edinburgh, and his kinsmen held property within that city, his father was probably a wealthy burgess. The earliest notice of him in public documents is in a charter of 1463, in which he is described as secretary to Mary of Gueldres, queen-dowager of James II. At this time he probably held the office of rector of Tannadyce in Forfarshire. According to Crawfurd (Officers of State, p. 39), he was ‘preferred to the treasurer's place in 1465.’ The evidence on which this statement is founded is a charter dated 13 Oct. 1465, but Dr. Thomas Dickson has shown that the true date of this charter is 1472, and there is proof extant to show that the office of lord high treasurer was held by Sir David Guthrie [q. v.] of Kincaldrum in 1465 (Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer, Preface, p. xxx). On 12 Feb. 1470 Laing's name first appears as ‘Rector of Tannadyce, Treasurer.’ In several charters dated September 1470 he is described as ‘Vicar of Linlithgow, King's Treasurer,’ and he was at that time engaged in administering the affairs of the late queen. The rectories of Southwick and of Newlands were conferred upon him in 1472, at which date he was treasurer and clerk of the king's rolls and register. The oldest extant rolls of the treasury were written by Laing while he was in that post. He appears to have resigned his office of treasurer on 1 Dec. 1474, having then been promoted to the see of Glasgow. Crawfurd's theory that Laing was reappointed to the office of treasurer is not supported by documentary evidence, but he still took an active part in state affairs, and it is said that the reconciliation between James III and the Duke of Albany was effected principally through Laing's intercession. In 1476 he founded the Franciscan monastery or ‘Greyfriars’ of Glasgow, in conjunction with Thomas Forsyth, rector of Glasgow. So highly was he esteemed by the king that when the office of lord high chancellor became vacant at the close of 1482, through the resignation of Lord Evandale, Laing was chosen as his successor. He held office till his death on 11 Jan. 1483.
[Registrum Magni Sigilli; Origines Parochiales Scotiæ; J. F. S. Gordon's Scotichronicon, ii. 511.]
LAING, JOHN (1809–1880), bibliographer, was born in 1809 at Edinburgh, but spent his early youth at Dalmeny, where his father was for many years factor to the Earl of Rosebery; his mother was Mary Fyfe, of a Banffshire family. After the usual course at Edinburgh University in arts and theology, he was in 1842 ordained assistant and successor to John M. Robertson, minister of Livingston, Linlithgowshire. At the disruption in the following year he withdrew from the establishment, joined the newly formed free church, and for a time continued his ministry
