From then on the names of clerics and knights called Bethune occur increasingly in Scottish records, mainly in the counties of Angus, particularly at Ethiebeaton in the parish of Monifieth and at Westhall in the parish of Murroes, and also in Fife, but it is not possible to link the scattered references into a coherent family tree.

For that one has to wait until the knight Sir Alexander de Bethune who, according to Hector Boece, in 1314 sat in the Parliament of Scotland held at Cambuskenneth and in 1332 died fighting for the Bruce legitimists against the Balliol rebels at Dupplin Moor.

[8][1] The man in question is named as Jacques de Béthune, also known as Jacotin, whose father Jean died at Agincourt in 1415.

[9] Descent through females brought Balfour in 1836 to Eleanor, wife of John Drinkwater, who both changed their last names to Bethune.

When they became Advocati of the Abbey of Saint-Vaast, they adopted new arms suitable to their higher status, which were Bends or, on a field azure.

[1][3] When knights of the Bethune family started affixing their seals to documents in Scotland, they used the same fesse as their relations in France.

By a law that year, all Scottish arms had either to be matriculated by the Court of the Lord Lyon or forfeited.

However, when Eleanor Bethune of Balfour matriculated her arms in 1837, Lyon changed them back to the original Azure, a fesse between three mascles or.

Many of the people covered in his work were members of the Beaton medical kindred, an unrelated Scottish family commonly confused with the Bethunes of Balfour.