page_title: Thomas Livingstone, 1st Viscount Teviot
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Thomas Livingstone, 1st Viscount Teviot / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: 1690 painting of General Hugh MacKay (c.1640–1692) by Nicolaes van Ravesteyn (II); a Scottish Williamite general.
context_page_description: Sir Thomas Livingstone, Viscount Teviot was an military officer of Scottish descent who was born in the Netherlands and spent his career in the service of William of Orange.
  Following the 1688 Glorious Revolution, he was deputy to Hugh Mackay during the 1689-1692 Jacobite Rising in Scotland. He later succeeded Mackay in November 1690 as Commander-in-Chief, Scotland, which he retained until the end of the Nine Years' War in 1697.
  Promoted Lieutenant-General in 1703, he retired from military service in 1704 and died in London on 14 January 1711.
context_section_description: As a result of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, many in both Scotland and England strongly opposed standing armies. Those seeking a military career often served in foreign armies and formed a small and tight-knit group of professionals. During the 1689-1692 campaign in Scotland, Livingstone's former Scots Brigade colleagues included his commander, Hugh Mackay, and his opponents Alexander Cannon, Thomas Buchan and Viscount Dundee.
  Livingstone's father was an officer in one of three Scottish regiments in the Dutch Anglo-Scots Brigade, a mercenary formation whose origins went back to 1586. He and his brother Alexander were junior officers in the same unit and when the elder Livingstone died in 1673, Thomas inherited his position. The Brigade fought throughout the 1672-1678 Franco-Dutch War, including Cassel in 1677, where Thomas was wounded and Saint-Denis in 1678, just before the war ended.
  The 1678 Treaties of Nijmegen were widely viewed as a pause and the Brigade's regiments kept on a war-footing; in 1684, Livingstone was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of Balfour's Regiment. When William III invaded England in the November 1688 Glorious Revolution, the Brigade went with him. James II went into exile after his army deserted him and Livingstone replaced Lord Charles Murray as Colonel of one of the dragoon regiments; its existing Lieutenant-Colonel was his relative William Livingston (sic), Viscount Kilsyth. As Livingstone's Regiment of Dragoons, they joined Mackay in Scotland in April 1689 during the First Jacobite Rising. They were employed securing the roads between Inverness and Stirling and so were not present at the Jacobite victory of Killiecrankie in July. 
  Despite this setback, Mackay and Livingstone gradually gained control; in 1690, they led separate forces in a co-ordinated campaign that ended in Livingstone's victory at Cromdale in May. They appear to have written to each other in Dutch, probably a precaution against interception by the Jacobites. Livingstone took over from Mackay in Scotland on 10 November 1690 and appointed to the Privy Council of Scotland. 
  The next 18 months were spent reducing Jacobite strongholds in the Highlands and policing actions, one being the February 1692 Massacre of Glencoe. There was little sympathy for the MacDonalds, although 19th century biographers often tried to exonerate their subjects from any responsibility.  In a letter to Lord Hamilton, Livingstone commented; 'It's not that anyone thinks the thieving tribe did not deserve to be destroyed but that it should have been done by those quartered amongst them makes a great noise.' The 1693 Commission focused on whether orders had been exceeded, rather than their legality and Livingstone was cleared in their report of 10 July 1695.  
  Livingstone remained in Scotland for most of the 1688-1697 Nine Years' War; in 1691, a group of Jacobite prisoners on Bass Rock overpowered their guards and were only subdued in 1694, while a Scottish rising was part of the proposed invasion of England in 1692. However, by 1696, it was clear the war was coming to an end, with James allegedly telling his confessor that 'God does not want to restore me.'
  In December 1696, Livingstone was made Viscount Teviot and Lord Livingstone of Peebles, although 'Peebles' was already claimed and he later changed it to 'Hyndford' as a result. He was promoted Major General and took over a Brigade in the Netherlands, shortly before the Treaty of Ryswick in 1697. 
  Although he was automatically promoted Lieutenant-General in 1703, this marked the end of his active service. He sold his Colonelcy in 1704 to Lord John Hay, which may have been connected with the Court ruling in favour of  his ex-wife. He purchased lands in East Lothian and based on surviving correspondence, was an associate and neighbour of Sir William Bennett, who served in his regiment from 1690-1696. From 1693-1707, Bennett was Commissioner for Roxburgh in the Scottish Parliament and manager for the Duke of Roxburghe, a primary sponsor of the 1707 Acts of Union.
caption: Hugh Mackay (1640-1692), Commander in Scotland 1689-1690 and a long-time colleague in the Scots Brigade
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