Sir James Balfour, 1st Baronet of Denmilne and Kinnaird

Sir James Balfour, 1st Baronet of Denmilne and Kinnaid (c. 1600 – 1657), of Perth and Kinross, Scotland, was a Scottish annalist and antiquary.[1]

Sir James Balfour, c. 1640

Biography

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

Balfour was well acquainted with Sir William Segar and with William Dugdale, to whose Monasticon he contributed. He was knighted by King Charles I in 1630, was made Lord Lyon King of Arms in the same year, and in 1633 baronet of Kinnaird. He was arbitrarily removed from his office of Lord Lyon by Oliver Cromwell and died in 1657.[1]

Some of his numerous works are preserved in the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh, 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.[1]

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.[2]

Arms
Coat of arms of Sir James Balfour of Denmilne and Kinnaird
Escutcheon
Or on a chevron sable between three trefoils slipped vert an otter's head erased argent.[3]
Previous versions
His arms were also blazoned as: Or, on a chevron sable between three cinquefoils vert an otter's head erased of the field.[2]

Library

Balfour was an avid manuscript collector.[4] Many of his manuscripts was purchsed by the Faculty of Advocates in 1698 and are now in the National Library of Scotland.[5]

References
  1. Chisholm 1911.
  2. Burke, John (1832). A General and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire. H. Colburn and R. Bentley. p. 73. Retrieved 30 September 2017.
  3. "Sir James Balfour of Denmylne and Kinnaird – and his Coronation as Lyon King of Arms of Scotland, 1630". The Heraldry Society. 1 March 2018. Retrieved 12 November 2018.
  4. "Pont maps of Scotland, ca. 1583-1614 - Biographies - National Library of Scotland". maps.nls.uk. Retrieved 15 July 2023.
  5. Cunningham, I.-C. (1973). "Latin classical manuscripts in the National Library of Scotland". Scriptorium. 27 (1): 64–90.
Attribution

Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Balfour, Sir James, Bart. (antiquary)" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 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

Further reading


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