Baron of Renfrew (title)
title of the heir apparent to the British throne
Baron of Renfrew (Scottish Gaelic: Baran Rinn Friù) is a dignity in the Baronage of Scotland held by the heir apparent to the British throne, currently Prince William, Duke of Rothesay. It has been held by the Scottish heir apparent since 1404. It is closely associated with the title Duke of Rothesay. An act of the Scottish Parliament passed in 1469 confirmed the pattern of succession. Renfrew, a town near Glasgow, is sometimes called the "cradle of the royal Stewarts".
In Scotland, barons hold titles in the Baronage of Scotland, not peerages: a Scottish Lord of Parliament equates to an English or British baron. Some, however, claim that the Act of 1469 effectively elevated the Barony of Renfrew to the dignity of a peerage. Others suggest that the barony became a peerage upon the Union of the Crowns in 1603. Finally, some scholars argue that the uncertainty surrounding the text of the 1469 Act leaves the barony as only a baronage dignity, not a peerage dignity. The official position is given in Hansard (House of Lords – written answers) for 18 May 1999: "The Barony of Renfrew is not a peerage dignity at all; it is a feudal or minor barony of Scotland." Note that since the abolition of feudalism in 2004 these feudal titles became personal baronage titles.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4862955. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1404, 1469, 1603 and 1999.
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This entry incorporates text from “Baron of Renfrew (title)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.