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 October 1651 (ib. i. 277). After fighting a duel with Major Nicholas Armorer in Brabant (ib. i. 303), he was sent in June 1652 by Buckingham to London with a sealed letter directed to Cromwell. The council of state refused to listen to him, gave him back the letter, and ordered him to leave the country within a certain time (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1651–2, pp. 299, 302, 315, 317, 324). Elsewhere he is reported to have had a two hours' interview with Cromwell, who ‘used him with more than ordinary courtesy’ (Nicholas Papers, i. 304). After his return to Antwerp he had a bad illness, became temporarily insane, and on his recovery turned Roman catholic (ib. i. 321; Clarendon State Papers, ii. 162). In June 1656 he deserted Buckingham on the pretext that the duke did not ‘rightly submit to the king’ (ib. iii. 137). He subsequently became secretary to the Duke of York, and was knighted at Brussels in April 1659 (, Pedigrees of Knights, Harl. Soc., p. 41). At the Restoration he made his peace with Buckingham, and was indebted to him for much preferment. He persuaded Lord Aubigny to recommend his elder brother, Robert [q. v.], for a bishopric in 1661. On 28 April 1664 he was made one of the secretaries of the prize office (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1663–4, p. 571). Charles also recommended him to the university of Cambridge for the degree of LL.D. on 19 May 1665 (ib. Dom. 1664–5, p. 371). He was appointed one of the king's counsel in the admiralty court on 15 June of that year (ib. Dom. 1664–1665, p. 427), and was admitted a civilian on 3 April 1666 (, English Civilians, p. 91). He made a very indifferent advocate (, Diary, ed. 1848–9, iii. 436–437). When John, lord Berkeley of Stratton [q. v.], went to Ireland in 1670 as lord-lieutenant, he chose Leighton for his secretary. Leighton contrived to turn out of the Dublin corporation the recorder and several of the principal aldermen who were known to be opposed to the Romish party. His ‘Speech at the Tholsell of Dublin’ was printed in 1672; a copy is in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. He then contrived his own appointment as recorder, and received a present of money from the citizens (, Life of William III, pp. 98–9). In 1675 he accompanied Berkeley on his embassy to France, and, while arranging for the restitution of vessels captured by French privateers, took bribes from every quarter. A warrant was issued for his arrest, but he managed to evade it. He died in the parish of St. Andrew, Holborn, on 9 Jan. 1684–5 (Probate Act Book, P. C. C., 1685, f. 30 b), and was buried in the church of Horsted Keynes, Sussex, leaving a daughter Mary (will, P. C. C., 23 Cann;, Life of R. Leighton, p. 46).

North (Examen, p. 480) and Burnet (Own Time, Oxf. edit. i. 232) give Leighton a most unfavourable character. Pepys speaks of him, at second hand, as having been ‘a mad freaking fellow,’ though he found him ‘one of the best companions at a meal in the world’ (Diary, ii. 389, 426, iii. 137). He had a turn for mechanics, and became F.R.S. on 9 Dec. 1663, but was expelled in 1677 (, Hist. of Roy. Soc., Append. iv; Lists of Roy. Soc. in Brit. Mus.). Evelyn went to see his ‘project of a cart with iron axle-trees’ in September 1668 (Diary, ed. 1850–2, ii. 35). He apparently euphonised Elisha into ‘Ellis.’ 

LEIGHTON, LICHTON, or LYCHTON, HENRY (d. 1440), bishop successively of Moray and Aberdeen, was the son of Henry and Jonet de Lichton, and belonged, it is said, to the Leightons of Usan, Forfarshire. Before 1414 he was parson of Duffus, Elginshire, and canon and chanter (precentor) of Elgin Cathedral. Leighton, now described as ‘legum doctor et baccalaureus in decretis,’ was elected bishop of Moray, and was consecrated 8 March 1414–15 at Valentia by Benedict XIII, being the third bishop of Moray in succession consecrated by the same pope. On the death of his predecessor Bishop John Innes [q. v.] the chapter had resolved that the new bishop should devote a third of his revenues to the restoration of the cathedral, which had been burned in 1390 by Alexander Stewart, the Wolf of Badenoch. While still bishop of Moray Leighton presented to the cathedral of Aberdeen two pairs of episcopal gloves and jewelled images of St. James and St. John. Translated to Aberdeen, probably in 1423, he soon displayed similar munificence there. Besides bestowing on his church many books and costly ornaments, recorded in its inventories, he was the builder of by far the greater part of the existing cathedral. The nave with its south aisle, fine porch, still finer west window (the ‘Seven Sisters’), and western towers, not the spires, were his work; and, plain as the cathedral is, its size and the admirable suitability of its style to the intractable granite of which it is composed fairly entitle him to a place among the great church-builders of Scotland. He made other additions to the episcopal residence, em-