Blazon of Arms:
Shield: Quarterly, 1st & 4th: Argent, on a chevron sable, an otter’s head erased of the first (Balfour of that Ilk); 2nd & 3rd: Or, a saltire and a chief gules, the latter charged with a mullet argent (Bruce)
SOURCES, NOTES & CREDITS: The illustration for background and the text are from the article by Wikipedia.
Lord Balfour of Burleigh, in the County of Kinross, is a title in the Peerage of Scotland. It was created in 1607 for Sir Michael Balfour. He was succeeded by his daughter, Margaret, his only child. She married Robert Arnot, who assumed the surname of Balfour and sat as Lord Balfour of Burleigh in the Scottish Parliament in right of his wife. Their son, the third Lord, fought with the Covenanters at the Battle of Drumclog.
His grandson, the fifth Lord, was tried and convicted of the murder of schoolmaster Henry Stenhouse at Inverkeithing in 1709. He was sentenced to death in 1710 but escaped to freedom by dressing in his sister’s clothes. He was primarily known as Master of Burleigh, the title for the heir to the peerage, as he never took his seat in Parliament when his father died in 1713. He took part in the Jacobite rebellion in 1715 and was attainted for his role. He died childless in 1757. The lordship had been created by charter, a copy of which exists only in the family archives. The original charter did not specify right of succession.
In 1868, the House of Lords ruled in favour of the Bruces, determining that the original lordship was created with the remainder to heirs general (as evidenced by it being inherited by the original lord’s daughter). On 19 March 1869, the attainder was reversed by Act of Parliament.
Since then the lordship has been held by the Bruce family. As of 2019, the title is held by Victoria Bruce-Winkler, 9th Lady Balfour of Burleigh who has an heiress.
The artwork is an interpretation of John Hamilton Gaylor.
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