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George Bethune (c1635-), the last name pronounced and sometimes written as Beaton, was a Scottish soldier, businessman, and politician from Fife whose public career was curtailed by his Jacobitism.
The son of John Bethune, 12th of Balfour, and his wife Catherine Haliburton, he was a younger brother of James Bethune (1620-1690), 13th of Balfour, and the uncle of David Bethune (1648-1708), 14th of Balfour. [1]
In the Scots Army he served as a Lieutenant in The Blues under Colonel Sir William Lockhart of Lee and then went into business in the burgh of Kilrenny, where he was admitted as a burgess. In the Parliament of Scotland convened in 1689, he was elected for the constituency of Kilrenny, [2] but was unseated on 25 April 1693 after failing to take the oath of loyalty to King William II and Queen Mary II. [3] The date of his death has not been traced. Kilrenny was later represented by his great-nephew, James Bethune (1671-1719), 15th of Balfour.
No record of marriage or children has been found.
Fife is a council area, historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries with Perth and Kinross and Clackmannanshire. By custom it is widely held to have been one of the major Pictish kingdoms, known as Fib, and is still commonly known as the Kingdom of Fife within Scotland. A person from Fife is known as a Fifer. In older documents the county was very occasionally known by the anglicisation Fifeshire.
David Beaton was Archbishop of St Andrews and the last Scottish cardinal prior to the Reformation.
Anstruther is a coastal town in Fife, Scotland, situated on the north-shore of the Firth of Forth and 9 mi (14 km) south-southeast of St Andrews. The town comprises two settlements, Anstruther Easter and Anstruther Wester, which are divided by a stream, the Dreel Burn. With a population of 3,500, it is the largest community on the Firth of Forth's north-shore coastline known as the East Neuk. To the east, it merges with the village of Cellardyke.
James Ogilvy, 4th Earl of Findlater and 1st Earl of Seafield, was a Scottish politician, prominent during the reign of Queen Anne. He was created Earl of Seafield in 1701 and was an active supporter of the 1707 Act of Union although by 1714 his opinion of the Union had changed and he proposed the first Self Government for Scotland Bill to end the Union.
Anstruther Burghs was a district of burghs constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of Great Britain from 1708 to 1800 and of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1832.
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David Stewart, Prince of Scotland, was a 14th-century Scottish magnate. He was the eldest son of the second marriage of King Robert II with Euphemia de Ross. King Robert, on 26 March 1371, the day of his coronation, created him Earl of Strathearn, and on the following day his son David performed homage to his father as of Earl of Strathearn.
Bethune of Balfour is an ancient Scottish family who from about 1375 to 1888 were lairds of Balfour in Fife, an estate in the Lowlands parish of Markinch. Originating before the year 1000 in the town of Béthune, then in the county of Flanders, over the centuries the pronunciation of the family name shifted from the original French bay-tune to the Scots bee-t'n, usually written Beaton. From about 1560, members of the family started using the French spelling again.
The Cunninghams of Drumquhassle were a family of the landed gentry in Scotland from the early 16th century to the mid-17th. They are linked to the Cunninghams of Kilmaurs in Ayrshire, being descended through junior lines via the Cunninghams of Polmaise. At their greatest extent, their lands included Mugdock-Mitchell and the house at Killermont, covering the part of parishes of Strathblane and New Kilpatrick. John Cunningham, the third laird held several positions of responsibility within the Scottish court, including Master of the Royal Household for James VI and a Collector General of tax during the regency of the Earl of Lennox, but his involvement in the power struggles between the Scottish nobility and the court of Elizabeth I of England also led to his demise and he was executed for treason in 1585. Over the next century, the family lost its land and power – in the mid-17th century, the Cunninghams sold their country house in Drumquhassle in rural Stirlingshire and it passed to the Govane family.
Before the Acts of Union 1707, the barons of the shire of Fife elected commissioners to represent them in the Parliament of Scotland and in the Convention of the Estates. The number of commissioners was increased from two to four in 1690.
Kilrenny in Fife was a royal burgh that returned one commissioner to the Parliament of Scotland and to the Convention of Estates.
Before the Acts of Union 1707, the barons of the shire of Kinross elected commissioners to represent them in the unicameral Parliament of Scotland and in the Convention of the Estates.
Sir Thomas Livingstone, Viscount Teviot was a military officer of Scottish descent who was born in the Dutch Republic, and spent his career in the service of William of Orange.
Sir Charles Erskine, 1st Baronet, of Alva, Fife, was a Scottish politician who sat in the Scottish Conventions in 1665 and 1667 and in the Parliament of Scotland from 1689 to 1690.
James Oswald was a Burgh Commissioner of the Parliament of Scotland, 1703-1707, representing Kirkcaldy and, later, the Member of Parliament for Dysart Burghs in the House of Commons of Great Britain.
John Bethune of Craigfoodie (1670–1734), pronounced and sometimes written as Beaton, was a Scottish landowner and politician who later became a clergyman in England.
David Bethune of Balfour (1648–1708), his last name pronounced and sometimes written as Beaton, was a Scottish landowner and politician from Fife who opposed the Union of 1707.
David Bethune, 8th of Creich (c.1605–1660), his family name pronounced and sometimes written Beaton, was a Scottish landowner and politician from Fife.
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