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- BIOGRAPHY
Though a capable lawyer who contributed much to the regularisation of the Scottish legal system, John Knox nevertheless referred to him as 'Blasphemous Balfour' and, according to a later writer, 'the most corrupt man of the age'. He was an associate, with other local lairds, of the murderers of Cardinal Beaton at St. Andrews Castle. Later he assisted with the defence of that castle against the French but, when it was captured, was sent to the galleys with John Knox but was released, or escaped, about two years later.
In July 1565 he was appointed Privy Councillor and became one of the middle-class men on whom Mary, Queen of Scots, was forced to rely on after she had alienated so many of the nobility. Although not a party to the plot against Rizzio, he was at Holyrood on the night of the murder and escaped from the palace with Bothwell and others. When MacGill, the Lord Clerk Register, was deprived of his office for alleged involvement, Balfour succeeded to the vacancy.
In February 1567 Balfour was widely believed to have been involved in the plot against Darnley and probably drew up the bond signed by the conspirators. Soon after the murder, he was appointed Captain of Edinburgh Castle at the instance of Bothwell. However, a few months later he changed sides and refused to let Mary and Bothwell take refuge there.
He fought at the battle of Langside in the regent's army but, in June 1569, changed sides again and was one of only nine out of forty-nine at the Perth convention to vote for Mary's return to Scotland. In the 1570s he came to terms temporarily with Regent Morton; but late in the decade he had to withdraw to France, not to return until Morton's fall in 1580. During this period he took part in attempts to revise and codify Scots law. He died peacefully in 1583.
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