What are Scottish Baronies?

A baron is the lowest form of minor nobility in Scotland, ranking above esquires and gentlemen but still below the more familiar titles of knight and baronet.  It is also very important to distinguish between the ranks of the Scottish baronage – of which a lordship such as the Lordship of Fentoun is an intermediate grade, being superior to “mere” barons but inferior to earls, marquises, or dukes in the baronage (which are in turn different from and lesser in status than their namesakes among the peerage) – and the much better known and higher ranking status of a Lord of Parliament, which is the Scottish version of an English baron, privileged to sit in the House of Lords in London. Lords in the Scottish baronage are not lords of that sort, and are distinguished by careful gradations of nomenclature: the titles Lord of Fentoun and Baron of Fentoun, for example – using the critical preposition “of” before the titular name as a nobiliary particle in rough equivalency to “de” in France or “von” or “zu” in Germanic states – are thus lesser titles of nobility in the Scottish baronage, whereas Lord Ruthven of Freeland is a Scottish Lord of Parliament and Baroness Ashton of Upholland an English baronial title, also of the peerage. Holders of any of the titles of the Scottish baronage are indeed minor nobles, but one should never mistake such minor titles such as the Lord of Fentoun for peerage titles.