He himself was attainted and was lying a prisoner in the Tower, doomed to die in the morning, on the night of the death of Henry VIII.
He was educated at Loretto, Eton and Oriel College, Oxford, and in 1869 was restored by Act of Parliament to the barony of Balfour of Burleigh, to which he was entitled by his descent from the 5th baron, who was attainted after the Jacobite rebellion of 1715.
On the passing of the Act of Supremacy (November 1 534), in which the saving clause of convocation was omitted, he was attainted and deprived of his see.
In the reign of Edward the Confessor, Doncaster, as a berewic of the manor of Hexthorp, belonged to Earl Tostig; but before 1086 it had been granted to Robert, earl of Mortain, whose successor William was attainted for treason in the time of Henry I.
Bolingbroke in July entirely identified himself with the interests of the Pretender, whose secretary he became, and on the 10th of September he was attainted.