Lord chancellors of Scotland in the Oxford DNB

The Scottish chancery is first recorded in the early twelfth century and appears to have been imported from England, albeit on a smaller scale than its prototype. The earliest identifiable chancellor is found in the service of Alexander I (r. 1107–24), but so deficient are the sources that little can be said of him or of most of his successors before the fourteenth century, and the sequence of known office-holders has many gaps.

As in England, the chancellors were keepers of the great seal and all were ecclesiastics until the mid-fourteenth century. From the mid-fifteenth century incumbents were increasingly likely to be laymen, invariably so (except for a single exception under Charles I) after 1546. The office of chancellor of Scotland was absorbed into that of the chancellor of England in 1707, to constitute the dignity of chancellor of Great Britain.

All the Scottish chancellors from September 1483 are included in Oxford DNB, but only a relatively small proportion of their predecessors. This list therefore provides details of chancellors with entries in the Oxford DNB. In addition it includes the keepers of the great seal (later styled lord keepers), who performed the duties of the lord chancellor but without enjoying the latter's dignities and emoluments.