James Balfour, 1st Baronet of Denmilne and Kinnaird

Sir James Balfour, 1st Baronet of Denmilne and Kinnaid ( – 1657), of Perth and Kinross,

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

, was a Scottish

annal Annals ( la, annāles, from , "year") are a concise historical record in which events are arranged chronologically, year by year, although the term is also used loosely for any historical record. Scope The nature of the distinction between anna ...

ist and antiquary.

Biography

James Balfour was a son of Sir Michael Balfour of Denmilne, Fife, and Joanna Durham. Balfour was well acquainted with Sir

William Segar Sir William Segar (c. 1554–1633) was a portrait painter and officer of arms to the court of Elizabeth I of England; he became Garter King of Arms under James I. Like other artists of the Tudor court, Segar was active in more than one medium ...

and with

William Dugdale Sir William Dugdale (12 September 1605 – 10 February 1686) was an English antiquary and herald. As a scholar he was influential in the development of medieval history as an academic subject. Life Dugdale was born at Shustoke, near Coles ...

, to whose ''Monasticon'' he contributed. He was knighted by King Charles I in 1630, was made

Lord Lyon King of Arms The Right Honourable the Lord Lyon King of Arms, the head of Lyon Court, is the most junior of the Great Officers of State in Scotland and is the Scottish official with responsibility for regulating heraldry in that country, issuing new grant ...

in the same year, and in 1633 baronet of Kinnaird. He was arbitrarily removed from his office of Lord Lyon by

Oliver Cromwell Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English politician and military officer who is widely regarded as one of the most important statesmen in English history. He came to prominence during the 1639 to 1651 Wars of the Three K ...

and died in 1657. Some of his numerous works are preserved in the

Advocates' Library The Advocates Library, founded in 1682, is the law library of the Faculty of Advocates, in Edinburgh. It served as the national deposit library of Scotland until 1925, at which time through an Act of Parliament the National Library of Scotland ...

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...

, together with his correspondence, from which rich collection James Haig published Balfour's ''Annales of Scotland'' in four volumes (1824–1825). James Maidment also extracted papers from the collection in order to publish them. His arms were ''Or, on a chevron sable between three cinquefoils vert an otter's head erased of the field'' but also given as ''three trefoils slipped vert''.

Arms

References

;Attribution which in turn cites: * Sibbald, Robert (1699) ''Memoria Balfouriana; sive, Historia rerum, pro literis promovendis, gestarum a ... fratribus Balfouriis ... Jacobo ... et ... Andrea. Authore R.S.''. Edinburgi: Typis Hæredum Andreæ Anderson

External links

* * * * * 1600s births 1650s deaths Baronets in the Baronetage of Nova Scotia People from Perth and Kinross Scottish antiquarians 17th-century Scottish historians Lord Lyon Kings of Arms James, Denmilne {{heraldry-stub

Biography

Arms

References

Further reading

External links