BALMERINO, JAMES ELPHINSTONE, 1ST BARON (c. Scottish politician, was the third son of Robert, 3rd Lord Elphinstone (d. 1602). Rising to power under James VI. he became a judge and a royal secretary; he accompanied the king to London in 1603 and was made Lord Balmerino, or Balmerinoch, in 1604. In 16o5 he became president of the court of session. In 1599, on the king's behalf, but without the king's knowledge, he had sent a letter to Clement VIII. in which he addressed the pope in very cordial terms. A copy of this letter having been seen by Elizabeth, the English queen asked James for an explanation, whereupon both the king and the secretary declared it was a forgery. There the matter rested until 16o8, when the existence of the letter was again referred to during some con troversy between James and Cardinal Bellarmine. Interrogated afresh Balmerino admitted that he had written the compromis ing letter, that he had surreptitiously obtained the king's signa ture, and that afterwards he had added the full titles of the pope. In March 1609 he was tried, attainted, and sentenced to death, but after a brief imprisonment he was released.
Balmerino's elder son JOHN (d. 1649) was permitted to take his father's title in 1613. In 1634 he was imprisoned for his opposition to Charles I. in Scotland, and by a bare majority of the jury he was found guilty of "leasing-making" and was sentenced to death. But popular sympathy was strongly in his favour; the poet Drummond of Hawthornden and others inter ceded for him, and after much hesitation Charles pardoned him.