Robert Fleming the elder

Robert Fleming the elder (1630 – 25 July 1694) was a Scottish Presbyterian Minister. Following the Restoration of King Charles II, he declined to accept bishops in the Kirk. He was therefore ejected as Minister at Cambuslang.

He was born at St Bathens, near Dunbar, the son of the Minister of Yester Parish Church, James Fleming, whose first wife (not Robert’s mother) had been Martha Knox, eldest daughter of John Knox. Robert was educated first at Edinburgh University, where he excelled at the sacred languages, then at St Andrews University where he studied Calvinist Theology under Samuel Rutherford. When he was only 20 he had joined the Covenanting army under David Leslie at The Battle of Dunbar (1650).

Following the defeat and execution of King Charles I, and the conquest of Scotland, by the New Model Army of Oliver Cromwell, Fleming was called to be Minister of Cambuslang, when only 24. He remained there until the Restoration, when King Charles II re-established episcopacy in the Church of Scotland. Fleming declined to accept this and in 1673 was summoned to explain himself at the Privy Council in Edinburgh. He did not appear but was later apprehended and imprisoned in Edinburgh Tollbooth. He was later liberated and made his way to London. From there he was called to become the Minister of the Scots Kirk in Rotterdam in the Netherlands.