Livingston was the only son of Sir John Livingstone of Kinnaird and his wife Jane Sproxton, daughter of Richard Sproxton of Wakefield, Yorkshire. His father was a page of the bedchamber to James VI and I. He succeeded his father as 2nd Baronet in 1628. He matriculated at Merton College, Oxford on 17 December 1638, aged 16 and travelled abroad in France from about 1642 to 1646. When he joined King Charles at Newcastle in 1646, he was created Viscount of Newburgh in the Peerage of Scotland. He and his wife made plans in December 1648 to rescue the King before his trial but nothing came of it and they fled to the Netherlands. In 1650 he went with Charles II to Scotland, subscribed to the Covenant, and took his seat in the Scottish House of Lords. He was a lieutenant colonel in the Life Guards at the Battle of Worcester and after the battle he fled abroad again where he spent his time duelling and corresponding with the Scottish Royalists. From 1656 to 1658 he was a colonel of horse in the Spanish army and commanded a Scottish Royalist regiment which fought at the Battle of the Dunes (1658).