Sir William Balfour of Pitcullo, Lieutenant of the Tower of London

SIR WILLIAM BALFOUR OF PITCULLO

Sir William Balfour (died 1660), of the family of Balfour of Pitcullo, Fifeshire, Scotland, was a general of the parliamentary forces during the English Civil War.

Balfour appears to have been born before the accession of James I to the English throne in 1603, for in 1642 he obtained a naturalisation bill. He entered Dutch service during the Thirty Years' War fighting with the Scottish brigade until 1627. In that year he became lieutenant-colonel in the Earl of Morton's regiment, took part in the expedition to the isle of Rhé in order to relieve the Siege of La Rochelle, and was noticed as being one of the officers most favoured by the Duke of Buckingham.

In January 1628 he was charged by Charles I, in conjunction with Colonel Dalbier, to raise 1,000 horse in Friesland, but the suspicions this project aroused in the House of Commons of England obliged the king to abandon the plan, and to assure the house that these troops were never meant to be employed in England. On the death of Sir Allen Apsley in 1630, Sir William, who is described as one of the gentlemen of the king's privy chamber, was appointed Lieutenant of the Tower of London.

In October 1631 he was employed on a confidential mission to the Netherlands. He also received many other marks of the king's favour, including the grant in 1633 of a lucrative patent for making gold and silver money in the Tower. Nevertheless Balfour, "from the beginning of the Long parliament, according to the natural custom of his country, forgot all his obligations to the king, and made himself very gracious to those people whose glory it was to be thought enemies of the court". Perhaps religious motives had something to do with this change of parties, for Balfour was a devout Presbyterian and a violent opponent of popery (as Roman Catholicism was called in England at the time), and had once beaten a priest for trying to convert his wife.

Strafford was entrusted to Balfour's keeping, and though offered £20,000 and an advantageous match for his daughter, he refused to connive at the earl's escape, or to admit Captain Billingsley and his suspicious levies to the Tower The King, therefore, persuaded or obliged Balfour to resign his post in December 1641. The accounts given of the causes of this resignation differ considerably.

When the parliament raised an army Sir William was appointed lieutenant-general of the horse, under the nominal command of the Earl of Bedford. He commanded the reserve at the Battle of Edgehill, broke several regiments of the king's foot, and captured part of his artillery. Ludlow describes him spiking the king's guns with his own hands, and all accounts agree in praise of his services. He did not take part in the First Battle of Newbury, having gone abroad to try the waters on account of his health. In the spring of 1644 he was detached from the army of Essex with 1,000 horse to reinforce Waller, and shared the command at the victory of New Alresford. His letter of 30 March 1644 to Essex, relating the battle, was ordered to be printed. He then rejoined Essex, accompanied him into Cornwall, and took Weymouth and Taunton (June 1644). When the infantry was forced to surrender, he broke through the king's lines, and "by an orderly and well-governed march passed above 100 miles in the king's quarters", and succeeded in joining General Middleton.

At the Second Battle of Newbury he commanded the right wing of the parliamentary horse. This was Balfour's last public exploit; with the organisation of the New Model Army he retired from military service. The House of Commons appointed a committee "to consider of a fit recompense and acknowledgment of the faithful services done by him to the public" (21 January 1645), and the House of Lords voted the payment of his arrears (£7,000) and specially recommended him to the Commons (21 July). But some intercepted correspondence seems to have awakened suspicions and caused delays in this payment. Sir William Balfour's will was proved in 1660.

Evidence from the National Records of Scotland

                   1

3 August 1682: Notarially executed copy of disposition and assignation of writs dated 20 March 1665 by Charles Demancell in Carniephlappitt to John, Lord Burghly [Burghley], of the lands and barony of Duncrub in the sheriffdom of Perth, and the lands of Tullicutrie [Tillicoultry] in the sheriffdom of Clackmannan following on a bond dated February 1647 by the deceased Archibald Campbell Marquis of Argyll, as principal, and deceased John, Earl of Loudoun, Chancellor of Scotland, and James, Lord Rollo, then Sir James Rollo fiar of Duncrub, as cautioners, to deceased Sir William Balfour of Pitcullo, whom failing to Susanna Balfour, his youngest daughter, for £12,000; an assignation thereof dated 20 March 1652 by William Balfour to John, Lord Burghley, then Master of Burghley; a translation by Lord Burghley 3 February 1658 in favour of the above Charles Demancell; a decreet of apprising dated 20 January 1664 later approved by the Court of Session 18 March 1664, of the above lands from James, Lord Rollo, in favour of the said Charles Demancell and a Crown charter, precept under the Quarter Seal and instrument of sasine of the said lands dated 20 March 1674. National Records of Scotland, Papers of the Rollo family of Duncrub, Perthshire, reference GD56/85

                   2

1718: Petition by Robert, Lord Rollo, to John, Duke of Argyll, narrating that the deceased James, Lord Rollo, had engaged as cautioner for Archibald, Marquis of Argyll, his father-in-law, greatgrandfather of the above John, Duke of Argyll, to Sir William Balfour of Pitcullo for the sum of £12,000 Scots in a bond dated 2 February 1647, assigned 20 March 1652 by the said Sir William Balfour to John, Lord Burleigh, transferred 3 February 1658 to Charles De Mancell at whose instance an apprising was raised on 20 January 1664 against the estate of the said James, Lord Rollo, as cautioner aforesaid, which debt and apprising were redisponed 20 March 1665 to the said John, Lord Burleigh and made over by him to the deceased Andrew, Lord Rollo, father of the petitioner, in liferent, and to the deceased John, Master of Rollo, elder brother of the petitioner, in fee, by a disposition in 1673 and which now pertained to the petitioner as heir and executor of his brother; further narrating that payment of the above debt had obliged the petitioner's father as heir of the above cautioner, to sell his estate of Bannockburn, that the debt, which at the time of the said apprising amounted to £18,060 Scots, now extended with annualrents to £73,782 Scots and that the disadvantageous sale of the estate of Bannockburn for payment of the above debt and cautionry had laid the petitioner under great debts for which his estate had been sequestrated; and finally petitioning the said John, Duke of Argyll, to take measures for the relief of the said Robert, Lord Rollo, the petitioner. National Records of Scotland, Papers of the Rollo family of Duncrub, Perthshire, reference GD56/104

Biographical Accounts

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Balfour_(general)
2. http://bcw-project.org/biography/sir-william-balfour