James Balfour of Pittendreich

James Balfour, Lord Pittendreich (c.1525–1583) was a Scottish legal writer, judge and politician.

The son of Sir Michael Balfour of Montquhanny, he was educated for the legal branch of the Church of Scotland.

Balfour was involved in the murder of Cardinal Beaton and the Siege of St Andrews Castle. In June 1547, following the capture of the castle by French forces he was condemned to be a galley-slave rowing galleys together with John Knox and others captured at St Andrews, Fife. He was released in 1549, denounced Protestantism, entered the service of Mary of Guise, and was rewarded with important legal appointments.

He subsequently joined the Lords of the Congregation, a group of Protestant nobles who opposed the marriage of the young Mary, Queen of Scots, to the Dauphin of France (later to become Francois II of France), but betrayed their plans.

After Mary's arrival in Scotland he became one of her secretaries, in 1565 being reported as her greatest favourite after David Rizzio. He obtained the parsonage of Flisk in Fife in 1561, was nominated an Extraordinary Lord of Session, and in 1563 one of the commissaries of the court which now took the place of the former ecclesiastical tribunal. In 1565 he was made a privy councillor, and in 1566 Lord Clerk Register, and was knighted.

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