| Lord Forbes | |
| Creation Date: | circa 1436 |
| First Holder: | Alexander de Forbes |
| Present Holder: | Malcolm Nigel Forbes, 23rd Lord Forbes |
| Heir Apparent: | Geordie Malcolm Andrew Forbes |
| Footnotes: | [1] [2] |
Lord Forbes is the senior Lordship of Parliament in the Peerage of Scotland.
The title was created sometime after 1436 for Alexander de Forbes, feudal baron of Forbes. The precise date of the creation is not known, but in a Precept dated July 12, 1442, he is already styled Lord Forbes. Brown's 1834 Peerage of Scotland gives a creation year of 1440. Alexander's descendant, the twelfth Lord, served as Lord Lieutenant of Aberdeenshire and Kincardineshire. His great-grandson, the seventeenth Lord, was a general in the Army and sat in the House of Lords as a Scottish representative peer from 1806 to 1843. His son, the eighteenth Lord, fought at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.[3]
He was succeeded by his son, the nineteenth Lord. He was a Scottish Representative Peer from 1874 to 1906. His nephew, the twenty-first Lord, served as a Scottish Representative Peer between 1917 and 1924. The latter's son, the twenty-second Lord, sat in the House of Lords as a Scottish Representative Peer from 1955 to 1963, when all Scottish peers were given an automatic seat in the House of Lords, and served in the Conservative administration of Harold Macmillan as Minister of State for Scotland from 1958 to 1959.[4] The title is currently held by his son, Malcolm Nigel, the twenty-third Lord Forbes, who succeeded in 2013. Lord Forbes is Chief of Clan Forbes.
Hon. Patrick Forbes, third son of the second Lord Forbes, was the ancestor of both the Earls of Granard and the Forbes baronets of Craigievar. Also, the Lords Forbes of Pitsligo were descended from Sir William Forbes, brother of Alexander Forbes, 1st Lord Forbes.
The family seat is Castle Forbes near Alford, Aberdeenshire.
John Forbes (1570–1606), the elder surviving son of John Forbes, 8th Lord Forbes, became a friar and seemingly abandoned his claim to the Lordship. He died later in the same year (1606) as his father and there would be dispute over whether to count his brief succession in the numbering of Lordships. The question was most recently settled in 1955, stating that he was not to be considered a Lord Forbes and his younger brother would be their father's immediate successor as Arthur Forbes, 9th Lord Forbes.[5]
The heir apparent is the present holder's grandson, Geordie Malcolm Andrew Forbes, styled Master of Forbes