1667. He was 'admitted' as an advocate in 1668. He was married in 1669 to
Janet, daughter of Sir Andrew Ramsay of Abbotshall,[18] Provost of
Edinburgh, afterwards a Lord of Session. In 1674, along with the leaders of
the bar and the majority of the profession, he was 'debarred' or suspended
from practising by the king's proclamation for asserting the right of
appeal from the decisions of the Court of Session, and was restored in
1676. He was knighted in 1681. In the same year his father, who was then
eighty-six years old, purchased the lands of Woodhead and others in East
Lothian. The conveyance is to John Lauder of Newington in liferent, and Sir
John Lauder, his son, in fee. The lands were erected into a barony, called
Fountainhall. In 1685, he was returned as member of Parliament for the
county of Haddington, which he represented till the Union in 1707. In 1686
his wife, by whom he had a large family, died. In 1687 he married Marion
Anderson, daughter of Anderson of Balram. He was appointed a Lord of
Session in 1689, and a Lord of Justiciary in 1690. He resigned the latter
office in 1709, and died in 1722. His father had been made a baronet in
1681 by James VII. The succession under the patent was to his son by his
third marriage; but in 1690, after the Revolution, a new patent was granted
by William and Mary to Sir John Lauder, senior, and his eldest son and his
heirs. The first patent was reduced in 1692, and in the same year
Fountainhall succeeded on his father's death.

[17] 'Sir John Lauder of Fountainhall is deschended of the Lauders of
that ilk, and his paternall coat is immatriculate and registrate
in the Lyons Book of Herauldrie.'--Unprinted MS. by Lauder, in
possession of Sir T.N. Dick Lauder. A Genealogical Roll in MS., of
the Lauder Family, compiled by Sir T. Dick Lauder, also in the
present baronet's possession, has afforded much useful
information; and for Lauder's family connections, I have also
consulted Mrs. Atholl Forbes's _Curiosities of a Scottish Charter