Proper Address for Scottish Barons

A Scottish Baron is referred to as “The Baron” / “The Baroness”

• Third person introduction The Baron (of Inverness and Lady Inverness)
• In person: Baron or simply ‘Inverness’ may be used
• In person: Baroness or Lady Inverness

It is incorrect to refer to them simply by their surname or without the baronial designation, e.g., “Mr / Mrs Smith” or “Esq.” is certainly incorrect. Some wives of highland clan chief-barons prefer Madam.

“Your Honour” is the old formal address of a baron, the spoken counterpart of the written prefix “The Much Honoured”.

Used to barons from the 1620s to the 1770s (“May it pleas your Honour”, the tenants of Glenshee to the Laird of Invercauld, 1776) and recorded in Titles and Forms of Address (1955): “The prefix of Chiefs and Laird-Barons was, in writing, The Much Honoured; in address, Your Honour”. See Where “The Much Honoured” comes from. A baron’s forms run parallel to a duke’s, each at its own level; the duke’s are as the same guide gives them:

When addressing a Scottish Baron in writing, for some barons they hold a territorial designation and the correct format for the envelope or any formal correspondence would be the full territorial title:

(The Much Hon.) [First Name] [Surname] of [TD], Baron of [Barony]

Some barons with a territorial designation choose not to use their baron title. However, most barons do not hold a territorial designation and just the title is normally the preferred format, for example (brackets are optional):

• (The Much Honoured or The) Baron of Inverness

Also correct: if the title is Pledged (a lifelong, hereditary honour rather than a temporary office), the title can replace the second name for daily or professional use; John, Baron of Inverness or John Inverness. The holder may also retain their family name, with or without TD, but is not typically used for daily life.

Where the territorial designation and the barony differ, both are written, as the Lyon Court’s Gazette notices do: “[Surname] of Kildonan, Baron of Inverness”. They may also be joined socially: Lord Lyon Innes of Learney, writing in 1945, called the petitioner in the Esslemont case, Gordon of Hallhead, “The Baron of Hallhead-Esslemont”, though the Lyon Register records him as “Baron of Esslemont”. The recorded title stays “Baron of [Barony]”; the wife takes the designation, as a laird’s wife always has.

• Formal: [Surname] of Kildonan, Baron of Inverness
• Joined, social: The Much Honoured Baron of Kildonan-Inverness
• Wife: Lady Kildonan

Authority & sources

A Scottish barony is a personal dignity held legally by the baron (or baroness in her own right). It does not create a separate legal title for a spouse. However, under British social custom, a wife is the legal and social equal of her husband in style and title. She shares his rank and assumes the feminine form of his title by courtesy but does not hold it in her own right. Upon marriage, she takes his style; if widowed or divorced, her title use follows convention, not entitlement. As titles of nobility are considered part of a person’s name and identity, her title is reflected in a British passport as her legal name.

Wives or female barons are entitled to Lady or Baroness of

• (The) Lady Inverness or Jane, Lady Inverness
• (The Much Honoured / The) Baroness of Inverness or (The Much Hon.) Jane Smith, Baroness of Inverness

“Lady Jane” is incorrect and should never be used — this is the title for daughters of a senior peer: a Duke, Marquis, or Earl. Forms such as “Lady Jane Inverness” or “Baron John of Inverness” are often seen, but are still socially incorrect. The phrase “Lady of Inverness” is wrong unless the lady in question is a laird in her own right.⁴

In cases where the Baron is entitled to post-nominal letters, these should follow³, such as:

• The Baron of Inverness, CBE

A title granted by the Crown, such as a Scottish Barony, supersedes academic titles like Professor or Doctor and generally should not be used. The baronial title takes precedence and should stand alone due to its higher rank. However, if an individual insists on including their academic title, it must appear in a subordinate position. Here’s the correct format if an academic title is included:

• The Baron of Inverness, Professor John Smith or Prof Baron of Inverness or Prof Inverness
• Dr The Lady Inverness (Jane Smith, 5th baroness) or Dr Lady Inverness

For official and ceremonial purposes, the baronial title alone is the correct form, preserving the dignity and precedence of the Crown-granted rank.

When beginning a letter to a Scottish Baron, the salutation should reflect the dignity of the title. The correct salutation is:

• Dear Baron of Inverness or Dear Baron
• Dear Lady Inverness or Dear Baroness of Inverness or Dear Baroness

Alternatively, only the barony can be used: Dear Inverness, but this format is never for a lady.

The heir may be addressed with the courtesy title “Younger of Barony”:¹

• Younger of Barony or Mr John Smith, Younger of Barony or Barony yr (spoken Barony)
• Wife of heir: Mrs Smith, Younger of Barony

Where there is no son and a daughter is the heir, some families style her “Maid of Barony”, a usage best kept where the family already has it:

• Maid of Barony or Miss Jane Smith, Maid of Barony (some prefer Maiden)

Unmarried daughters otherwise use the designation, as shown below.

If a baron holds a territorial designation, the TD typically takes precedence:

• Mr John Smith of TD, yr
• Wife of heir: Mrs Smith of TD, yr
• Daughters: Miss Mary Smith of TD

If the Baron holds additional titles or ranks, the baronial title should take precedence in most forms of address. However, in cases where the Baron is also a peer, baronet, or knight of the realm, that title would take precedence. For example:

• The Rt Hon The Lord Inverness (if a Scottish Baron is also a Peer)

For example, if the Baron is also a knight, they would be addressed as:

• Sir John Smith or Sir John Smith, Baron of Inverness

For military titles, military titles go before the title, or for maximum formality:

• Major (The Baron of) Inverness
• Major The Much Honoured Baron of Inverness DL (John Smith, 5th baron) — post-nominals after title

The following section applies only to Pledged bloodline titles; as the title of honour always remains within the family. However, if a non-Pledged title is disponed to another family, the honour ceases for all connected family members, meaning there can be no dowager or continued courtesy titles. Upon the death of a Scottish Baron, the widow retains the style of “Lady [Barony]” unless the new Baron is married. New baron must be related to the dowager. In such cases, she may choose to be styled as:

• The Dowager Lady Inverness
• Margaret, Lady Inverness

If she remarries, she would take her style from her new husband, forfeiting her previous title. However, by long-standing social convention in Great Britain, a divorced wife who does not remarry may choose to retain her former husband’s title, minus the prefix—no longer “The Much Honoured.”

A baron, a lord, earl or marquis in the baronage of Scotland are all barons of the Kingdom of Scotland, the higher ranks being, in the words of Viscount Stair, “but more noble titles of a barony”,¹ and the Parliament of Scotland declared in 1567 that “the barons of this realm ought to have vote in parliament as a part of the nobility”, an Act which, in the words of Lord Lyon Innes of Learney, “clarifies the (obvious) nobiliary fact, that the Barons are a part of ‘The Nobility’ in its constitutional sense, and as an ‘Order’ or ‘Estate’”.¹⁰

Over 90% of titles in the Baronage of Scotland are Baron of; a small number of very rare titles are the nobler titles of lord, earl and marquis. Baron of somewhat distinguishes from peers (there are not many titles in the peerage that use of for baron, for example many Irish peers are baron of). However, to distinguish Earl of or Marquis of which could be confused with the peerage the prefix honorific style The Much Hon. (The Much Honoured) can be put before the name, this prefix honorific is used to distinguish Scottish Barons from honourifics attaching to peers. In Scotland marquis follows the French spelling as a rule.

The Roll of Scottish Barons styles the holder of an earldom in the form the Lyon Court has used for that holder. Where a Lord Lyon has recognised a holder of the earldom in an earl’s style, the style continues to the successor; otherwise the holder is styled Baron of the Earldom, the form the Lyon Court used for Annandale in 1983⁸ and the ceiling Lord Lyon Sellar set in 2010.⁹

Earldom example:

• Where a Lord Lyon has recognised the earldom’s holder as Earl: The Much Honoured Earl of Lochaber in the baronage of Scotland (spoken Lochaber)
• Otherwise: The Much Honoured Baron of the Earldom of Lochaber (spoken Lochaber)
• Peer: The Right Honourable The Earl of Lochaber (spoken Lord Lochaber or The Earl)

Note that for Lords in the Baronage of Scotland a baron is a lord and a lord is a baron: “Lord of X” and “Baron of X” are interchangeable, as the holder prefers, and both are correct, a lordship being, in Stair’s words, one of the “more noble titles of a barony”.¹ A Scots baron who is not a lord is only ever called a baron. “Lord Baron of X” is an ancient combined form.² Non-peerage lords have been written both “Lord X” and “Lord of X” since the Middle Ages, in the most formal documents including Crown charters, as Borthwick’s examples below show: William Lord Graham in 1416 and William Lord of Graham in 1420, before he received the Lord of Parliament honour of 1445.³ The medieval sheriff-court rolls entered a lord as “Intrat A, Dominus de B” and a baron as “Intrat A, Baro de B”.⁴

Both forms remain in use. “Lord X” asserts no rank by itself: it is the spoken form of peers, but equally of judges of the Court of Session and courtesy lords, and it is the male counterpart of “Lady X”, the form the baronage has always used for a baroness or a baron’s wife. So “The Much Honoured Lord Lochaber” and “The Much Honoured Lord of Lochaber” are equally correct, the prefix marking the baronage, while a baron remains “Baron of Inverness”. “Baron X” is different. In Britain it is the formal designation of one thing only, a peer of the rank of baron, the form the Esslemont Memorial of 1934 noted is “preferred for formal purposes by English and British lords”; no one else uses it, and the Scottish form has always been “Baron of X”. That is the line not to cross: a Scots baron is “Baron of X”, never “Baron X”, though Innes of Learney notes “Baron McCorquodale” as a non-peerage description in 1427.⁵

Lordships, earldoms and marquisates are nobler titles of a barony, so their holders are barons whose barony carries the nobler name, and typically only the senior rank is referenced. “Earl in the baronage of Scotland” names the class; a holder’s style follows the rule above: Earl where a Lord Lyon has recognised a holder of that earldom in an earl’s style (at present Crawfurd-Lindsay, Rothes and Breadalbane, recognised under Lord Lyon Blair in 2006–07), otherwise Baron of the Earldom, the form the Lyon Court used for Annandale in 1983, unless the Lyon Court gives that holder another style.⁶ Some earldoms were erected by the Crown as an earldom, lordship and barony in one unit; others sit on a barony of another name.⁷ For the history of these words see Lairds, lords and barons and the glossary.

William Borthwick, 1775 — An inquiry into the origin and limitations of the feudal dignities of Scotland

1416 William Lord Graham >
1420 William Lord of Graham

By definition a feudal lordship, as the additional Lord of Parliament honour was not created for Lord Graham until 1445.

Authority & sources

1. James Dalrymple, Viscount Stair, The Institutions of the Law of Scotland (2nd ed., 1693), II.iii.45, p. 222 — archive.org.
2. William Borthwick, An Inquiry into the Origin and Limitations of the Feudal Dignities of Scotland (1775), p. 3 (“Lord Barons”; the term recurs at pp. 4, 16, 18 and 19) — archive.org; John Lodge, The Peerage of Ireland (rev. ed., 1789), vol. V, pp. 40–41, decree of 1634 on precedency between “the Lord Baron of Trimlestown and the Lord Baron of Dunsany” — archive.org.
3. Borthwick (1775), p. 21: “In the year 1416, William Lord Graham gets a charter of the barony of Mellenok, in which he is designed, Willielmo Domino Graham. And the same Lord gets a charter of the lands of Aldmontrose, dated the 4th August 1420, Willielmo Domino de Graham”, the charters being “on the record of the great seal” — archive.org. Patrick Graham was created Lord Graham, a Lord of Parliament, in 1445.
4. Sir Thomas Innes of Learney, “The Robes of the Feudal Baronage of Scotland”, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 79 (1944–45), pp. 111–163, at p. 158, citing the Additional Case for the Countess of Sutherland, p. 84, and Lord Hailes — journal PDF. Reproduced above.
5. Innes of Learney (1945), p. 158 and n. 7, citing Sir Bruce Seton’s Gordon Peerage Case, p. 15. Reproduced above. On “Baron of X” as the correct form, and “esquire” never added, pp. 161–163; the Esslemont Memorial’s words “preferred for formal purposes by English and British lords”, p. 163.
6. Annandale: Letters Patent of Lord Lyon Innes of Edingight, 4 February 1983, “Baron of the Barony of the lands of the Earldom of Annandale and Hartfell”, recorded in The Edinburgh Gazette, 17 January 1984, p. 51, and discussed in Lord Lyon Sellar’s Note in the Petition of Sturzenegger of Arran (c. 2010), pp. 19–22. Lord Lyon Blair’s recognitions: Crawfurd-Lindsay, Letters Patent 30 May 2007; Breadalbane, warrant 12 April 2006; Rothes, warrant 5 September 2006 and Letters Patent 6 August 2007 (Sellar, pp. 4–5). Sellar’s ruling that such an owner “has no claim to a style greater than that of baron”: the same Note. Full record in Non-peerage Earldoms.
7. One unit: Crawfurd and Lindsay, charter of 1 March 1648, ratified RPS 1648/3/234; Slains and Erroll, charter of 29 March 1699, ratified RPS 1700/10/253. A barony of another name: Rothes, whose Fife lands were erected “in liberam baroniam de Ballinbreich” (RMS VI, nos. 756–757, 1598); Wigtown, on the lordship and barony of Cumbernauld (1588/9).
8. Letters Patent of Lord Lyon Innes of Edingight, 4 February 1983, recognising Percy Wentworth Hope Johnstone of Annandale and that Ilk as “Baron of the Barony of the lands of the Earldom of Annandale and Hartfell” and Chief of Clan Johnstone; recorded in the Lyon Court’s notice in The Edinburgh Gazette, 17 January 1984, p. 51, Lyon Register 66/71 — The Gazette; discussed by Lord Lyon Sellar, Note in the Petition of Sturzenegger of Arran (c. 2010), pp. 19–22.
9. Lord Lyon Sellar, Note in the Petition of Sturzenegger of Arran (petition of 10 February 2006; Note c. 2010), reported as Sturzenegger, Petitioner (No 2) 2015 SLT (Lyon Ct) 2: of the passages in Stair and Erskine, “it suggests to me that in terms of the feudal grant the owner has no claim to a style greater than that of baron”; the petition for recognition as “Feudal Earl of Arran” was refused.
10. Act of the Parliament of Scotland, 20 December 1567, article 33: “the barons of this realm ought to have vote in parliament as a part of the nobility” — RPS 1567/12/45. Sir Thomas Innes of Learney, “The Robes of the Feudal Baronage of Scotland”, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 79 (1944–45), p. 132, quoting the Act: “This clarifies the (obvious) nobiliary fact, that the Barons are a part of ‘The Nobility’ in its constitutional sense, and as an ‘Order’ or ‘Estate’” — journal PDF. See Innes of Learney, 1945.

Formally for a lordship, as the Lyon Court has recorded it, the style is “Lord of X” or “Baron of X”; socially “Lord X” is also used, just as a baroness may be “Lady X”.

Lordship example:

• Scottish baronial lord: The Much Honoured Lord of Lochaber or Baron of Lochaber, never Baron Lochaber; socially also Lord Lochaber (spoken Lochaber)
• Baron without a lordship: The Much Honoured Baron of Lochaber, never Lord
• Peer: The Right Honourable The Lord Lochaber (spoken Lord Lochaber)

The heir to these higher dignities is the same as a baron’s: “Younger of Lochaber” for a son, and, where a daughter is the heir, “Maid of Lochaber”. Earls in the Baronage of Scotland, typically hold lordship or barony subsidiary titles. For Pledged title holders, the Roll recommends special disposition allowing their children use of their junior titles during their lifetimes, similar to courtesy titles in the peerage but more like the Spanish nobility’s practice of subtitle transfer during a lifetime. This is a one-time, irreversible process that lasts until death, after which the title reverts to the primary succession of the senior title. For advice, contact us.

When entering the title of a Baron into a digital system, it is important to ensure that the title is displayed correctly and with proper respect for its historical and legal significance. Below are recommended practices for filling out typical fields in computer systems, such as databases, online forms, and digital directories. Always think of how it will be presented in that system:

Field by field

By following these guidelines, you can ensure that baronial titles are correctly represented and respected in digital systems, maintaining the dignity and historical heritage of the title.