James Livingston, 1st Earl of Callendar

Who was James Livingston, 1st Earl of Callendar?

James Livingston, 1st Earl of Callendar, army officer who fought on the Royalist side in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.

Livingston was the third son of Alexander Livingston, 1st Earl of Linlithgow and was probably born during the 1590s. Around 1616 he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Dutch army under the command of his brother, Sir Henry Livingston. By 1629 he was an experienced soldier and lieutenant-colonel of one of the three regiments of the Scottish brigade. By 1633 he was a full colonel in the Dutch army. During the same period he also served both James VI and Charles I receiving both a pension and a knighthood for his services to the Crown. During a royal visit to Scotland, Livingston was created Lord Livingston of Almond on 19 June 1633 by Charles I.

During the opening phases of the Bishops' War, Livingston at first appeared to support the King by supporting a rival to the National Covenant called the King's Covenant, but then declared that it too upheld Presbyterianism. Pleading the need to go abroad for treatment of gallstones, he avoided any further entanglement in the war.