Arthur Elphinstone, 6th Lord Balmerino and 5th Lord Cupar (1688 – 18 August 1746) was a Scottish nobleman and Jacobite, or supporter of the claim of the exiled House of Stuart to the British throne. As a military officer, he served in both the British and French armies, as well as taking part in Jacobite rebellions in 1715 and 1745, and spent nearly 20 years in exile on the Continent. He was pardoned some years after the first rebellion but following the failure of the latter at Culloden he was taken prisoner, charged with treason, and executed at Tower Hill. Historians of the 1745 rising often refer to him simply as Lord Balmerino, although he did not inherit the title until January 1746 and was for most of his life styled "the Hon. Arthur Elphinstone". Biography Arthur Elphinstone was the son of John Elphinstone, 4th Lord Balmerino and 3rd Lord Cupar, and of his second wife, Anne Ross or Rose, daughter of Arthur Rose, Archbishop of St Andrews. He was born in Balmerino House in Leith and lived there most of his life. The family descended from James (–1612), a younger son of Robert Elphinstone, 3rd Lord Elphinstone: King James VI and I granted the lands of Balmerino Abbey in Fife to James Elphinstone in 1605, though by the 18th century a series of lawsuits had reduced the family's properties to the barony of Restalrig in South Leith. The Elphinstones were prominent members of the Episcopalian minority within Scotland: the burying ground of the ruined church at Restalrig on their estate was used by local Episcopalians throughout the 18th century. Arthur had three half-brothers from his father's first marriage; Hugh, Master of Balmerino, who died in 1708 at the Siege of Lille, James (1675–1746), a lawyer and judge, and Alexander (d. 1733). He was not initially expected to inherit the family estate and embarked on a military career, being commissioned a captain in Lord Shannon's regiment in March 1714. As a north-eastern Episcopalian Protestant, Elphinstone has been described as epitomising the most "ideologically committed" Jacobite supporters. (Many Scottish Episcopalians were conservatives who believed the deposition of the Stuarts to have been a breach of natural order, and who also opposed the 1707 Union of England and Scotland.) During the Jacobite rising of 1715 he fought at the inconclusive Battle of Sheriffmuir on the government side but, reportedly finding this "against