John Lauder, Lord Fountainhall

After some travels, he lived at Poitiers from 28 July 1665 until 24 April 1666, following which he proceeded to Paris, Brussels, Antwerp, and Leyden, Holland, where he matriculated at Leiden University on 27 September 1666.

[2] Lord Fountainhall was admitted as an Advocate on 5 June 1668, and on 10 October 1681 infamously sentenced five men to death for witchcraft: Garnock, Foreman, Russel, Ferrie and Stewart.

The five were executed at the Gallow Lee on Leith Walk and their bodies interred there and their heads placed on pikes at Cowgate Port.

[4] In 1692 he was offered the post of Lord Advocate but declined because the condition was attached that he should not prosecute the persons implicated in the Glencoe Massacre.

Lord Fountainhall left a large collection of legal opinions and papers, including some that record Court of Session proceedings from 1678 to 1712, which also note the transactions of the Privy Council of Scotland, and those of the Courts of Justiciary and Exchequer, works compiled with anecdotes of the times and much characteristic ingenuity of observation, to which professional lawyers still turn today.