Robert Balfour, 5th Lord Balfour of Burleigh

Robert Balfour, 5th Lord Balfour of Burleigh († 1757 ) was a Scottish lord , Jacobite and murderer .

Life

Robert Balfour, Master of Burleigh , was the son of Robert Balfour, 4th Lord Balfour of Burleigh († 1713), and Lady Margaret Melville, daughter of the 1st Earl of Melville . Much to the displeasure of his family, he fell in love as a young man with a pretty but not befitting young woman whose name has not been passed down, and - in the hope that he would forget his love - went on the grand tour abroad cleverly. Before leaving, he explained to his lover that he would kill her husband on his return if she should marry someone else while he was away.

Despite this announcement, the woman married Henry Stenhouse, schoolmaster in Inverkeithing , who knew of the threat. Balfour's first question after his return was about his lover, and when he found out that she was married, he rode to Stenhouse with two companions and shot him down (April 9, 1707). Stenhouse succumbed to his injury twelve days later (April 21).

Balfour was arrested, charged with murder, found guilty and sentenced to death by beheading ( High Court of Justiciary , Edinburgh, August 1709) but was able to get out of prison with the help of his sister, with whom he had swapped clothes ( “the heart of Midlothian " ).

He then hid for some time in the vicinity of Burleigh , where a weeping ash tree with a hollow trunk was shown as his hiding place for a long time . At a meeting of the Jacobites in Lochmaben on May 29, 1714, Balfour - since the death of his father last year, Lord Balfour of Burleigh - appeared again in public and prophesied eternal damnation to everyone who did not look to the pretender ( James Francis Edward Stuart , son of James II) wanted to drink. Because of his participation in the rebellion of 1715, he was declared forfeited of his rights by parliamentary acts ( Act of Attainder ), and his property was confiscated in favor of the crown.

Balfour died in 1757 with no heirs. His claims passed to his sisters, Mary and Margaret. In 1868 their descendants, Alexander Bruce, succeeded in getting the parliamentary resolution repealed.

literature

• John Maclaurin: A Collection of Criminal Cases . Edinburgh, 1774.
• [Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe] / Sir Walter Scott (attributed to): Criminal trials, illustrative of the tale entitled 'The heart of Mid-Lothian' . Archibald Constable & Co., Edinburgh 1818.
• William Anderson: The Scottish Nation: Or the Namen, Families, Literature, Honors and Biographical History of The People of Scotland . A. Fullerton & Co, Edinburgh and London 1863.
• Margaret D. Sankey: Balfour, Robert, fifth Lord Balfour of Burleigh (d. 1757) . Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004.

predecessor	Office	successor
Robert Balfour	Lord Balfour of Burleigh 1713-1715	Title forfeited