He was succeeded by his sister Anne, wife of Robert Abercromby, who in 1685 was created Lord Glassford for life.

In 1688 she obtained a new charter settling the lordship of Sempill in default of male issue, upon her daughters without division by her then and any future husband.

Her younger son, the twelfth Lord, commanded the left wing of the government army at the Battle of Culloden in 1746.

His son, the nineteenth Lord, is known as an aviation pioneer who sold state secrets to the Japanese prior to World War Two and was also a Scottish Representative Peer between 1935 and 1963 (when all Scottish peers gained an automatic seat in the House of Lords).

After a two-year legal dispute to determine if he was a legitimate male successor, the nineteenth Lord's younger sibling, a trans man who had changed his legal gender from female to male in 1952,[1] succeeded in the baronetcy as Sir Ewan Forbes, 11th Baronet.

As of 2017[update] the title is held by Lady Sempill's eldest son from her second marriage, the twenty-first Lord, who succeeded in 1995.