Robert Leighton (1611 – 25 June 1684) was a Scottish prelate and scholar, best known as a church minister, Bishop of Dunblane, Archbishop of Glasgow, and Principal of the University of Edinburgh from 1653 to 1662.

His grandfather was a Pre-Reformation Catholic; his father, Doctor Alexander Leighton, was tortured during the reign of King Charles I for his Presbyterian beliefs after authoring a pamphlet, Zion's Plea against Prelacy, in which he criticised the church, condemning bishops as "anti-christian and satanic".

In 1627 (before his father published his pamphlet) at the age of sixteen, Robert Leighton went to study at the University of Edinburgh, graduating with an MA in 1631.

Following his graduation, his father sent him to travel abroad, and he is understood to have spent several years in France, where he acquired a complete mastery of the French language.

Throughout, however, they bear the marks of a deeply learned and accomplished mind, saturated with both classical and patristic reading, and like all his works they breathe the spirit of one who lived very much above the world.

[3] While at the university and afterwards he wrote commentaries on New Testament books and his theological and expository lectures were also published, notably An Exposition of the Creed, Lord's prayer and Ten Commandments, Rules and Instructions for a Holy Life and A Modest Defence of Moderate Episcopacy.

The Puritan Party gained such popularity that Leighton retired from the Ministry at Newbattle, citing the introduction of the Cromwellian ideas as to doctrine and ritual, as his main reason.

After leaving his position as archbishop in 1674, Leighton retired to the mansion of his widowed sister Sapphira (Mrs Edward Lightmaker), and her son, at Broadhurst near Horsted Keynes in Sussex.

Leighton died suddenly on 25 June 1684 during a trip to London, in an inn in the shadow of a partly finished St Paul's Cathedral.

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