List of extant baronetcies
King James I created the hereditary Order of Baronets in England on 22 May 1611, to fund the settlement of Ireland.
King James VI announced his intention of creating 100 baronets, each of whom was to support six colonists for two years (or pay 2,000 merks in lieu thereof) and also to pay 1,000 merks to Sir William Alexander, to whom the province had been granted by charter in 1621.
[4] James died before this scheme could be implemented, but it was carried out by his son Charles I, who created the first Scottish baronet on 28 May 1625, covenanting in the creation charter that the baronets of Scotland or of Nova Scotia should never exceed 150, that their heirs apparent should be knighted on coming of age (21), and that no one should receive the honour who had not fulfilled the conditions, viz, paid 3,000 merks (£166, 13s.
[5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] Four years later (17 November 1629) the king wrote to the contractors for baronets, recognising that they had advanced large sums to Sir William Alexander for the plantation on the security of the payments to be made by future baronets, and empowering them to offer a further inducement to applicants; and on the same day he granted to all Nova Scotia baronets the right to wear about their necks, suspended by an orange tawny ribbon, a badge bearing an azure saltire with a crowned inescutcheon of the arms of Scotland and the motto Fax mentis honestae gloria (Glory is the torch that leads on the honourable mind).
As the required number, however, could not be completed, Charles announced in 1633 that English and Irish gentlemen might receive the honour, and in 1634 they began to do so.
In 1638 the creation ceased to carry with it the grant of lands in Nova Scotia, and on the union with England (1707) the Scottish creations ceased, English and Scotsmen alike receiving thenceforth Baronetcies of Great Britain.
They were first created in 1619, and were replaced by the Baronetage of the United Kingdom in 1801, after the Acts of Union 1800 came into force..
