Lord Forbes is the senior Lord of Parliament

Lord of Parliament

A Lord of Parliament was the lowest rank of nobility automatically entitled to attend sessions of the pre-Union Parliament of Scotland. Post-Union, it is a member of the lowest rank of the Peerage of Scotland, ranking below a viscount...

 in the Peerage of Scotland

Peerage of Scotland

The Peerage of Scotland is the division of the British Peerage for those peers created in the Kingdom of Scotland before 1707. With that year's Act of Union, the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England were combined into the Kingdom of Great Britain, and a new Peerage of Great Britain was...

. The title was created sometime after 1436 for Alexander de Forbes, feudal baron of Forbes. The precise date of the creation is not known, but in a Precept dated July 12, 1442, he is already styled Lord Forbes. Brown's 1834 Peerage of Scotland gives a creation year of 1440. The first Lord's great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson, the twelfth Lord, served as Lord Lieutenant of Aberdeenshire

Lord Lieutenant of Aberdeenshire

The Lord Lieutenant of Aberdeenshire, is the British monarch's personal representative in an area consisting of the county of Aberdeen as it existed immediately prior to abolition for local government purposes by the Local Government Act 1973 except that part within Aberdeen City.The office was...

 and Kincardineshire

Lord Lieutenant of Kincardineshire

This is a list of people who have served as Lord Lieutenant of Kincardineshire.*Anthony Adrian Keith-Falconer, 5th Earl of Kintore 17 March 1794 – 30 August 1804*John Arbuthnott, 8th Viscount of Arbuthnott 5 October 1804 – 1847...

. His great-grandson, the seventeenth Lord, was a General

General

A general officer is an officer of high military rank, usually in the army, and in some nations, the air force. The term is widely used by many nations of the world, and when a country uses a different term, there is an equivalent title given....

 in the Army and sat in the House of Lords

House of Lords

The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....

 as a Scottish Representative Peer

Representative peer

In the United Kingdom, representative peers were those peers elected by the members of the Peerage of Scotland and the Peerage of Ireland to sit in the British House of Lords...

 from 1806 to 1843. His son, the eighteenth Lord, fought at the Battle of Waterloo

Battle of Waterloo

The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815 near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands...

 in 1815.

He was succeeded by his son, the nineteenth Lord. He was a Scottish Representative Peer from 1874 to 1906. His nephew, the twenty-first Lord, served as a Scottish Representative Peer between 1917 and 1924. the title is held by the latter's son, the twenty-second Lord, who succeeded in 1953. He sat in the House of Lords as a Scottish Representative Peer from 1955 to 1963, when all Scottish peers were given an automatic seat in the House of Lords, and served in the Conservative administration

Conservative Government 1957-1964

In January 1957 Sir Anthony Eden resigned from his positions of Leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. This was mainly a consequence of the Suez Crisis fiasco of the previous autumn but also due to his increasingly failing health...

 of Harold Macmillan

Harold Macmillan

Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC was Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 10 January 1957 to 18 October 1963....

 as Minister of State for Scotland from 1958 to 1959. Lord Forbes is Chief of Clan Forbes

Clan Forbes

Clan Forbes is a Lowland Scottish clan from Aberdeenshire, Scotland.-Origins:Concerning the origin of this Scottish clan, John of Forbes, the first upon record, seems to have been a man of importance in the time of William the Lion, and was the father of Fergus, from whom the clan are descended....

.

Hon. Patrick Forbes, third son of the second Lord Forbes, was the ancestor of both the Earls of Granard

Earl of Granard

Earl of Granard is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1684 for Arthur Forbes, 1st Viscount Granard. He was a Lieutenant-General in the army and served as Marshal of the Army in Ireland after The Restoration and was later Lord Justice of Ireland...

 and the Forbes Baronets of Craigievar

Forbes Baronets

There have been five Baronetcies created for people with the surname Forbes, four in the Baronetage of Nova Scotia and one in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom...

. Also, the Lords Forbes of Pitsligo

Lord Forbes of Pitsligo

Lord Forbes of Pitsligo was a title in the Peerage of Scotland. It was created on 24 June 1633 for Alexander Forbes. He was a descendant of Sir William Forbes, brother of Alexander Forbes, 1st Lord Forbes...

 were descended from Sir William Forbes, brother of Alexander Forbes, 1st Lord Forbes.

Forbes Castle

Forbes Castle

Castle Forbes is a 19th-century Scots Baronial country house near Alford in Aberdeenshire, Scotland.The Vale of Alford estate has been home to the Forbes' for over 600 years. The original house was named Putachie...

 is owned by the family.

Lords Forbes (c. 1444)

• Alexander Forbes, 1st Lord Forbes
  Alexander Forbes, 1st Lord Forbes
  Alexander de Forbes , 1st Lord Forbes , also feudal baron of Forbes, was a Scottish nobleman.-Life:He was the eldest son of Sir Alexander de Forbes Alexander de Forbes , 1st Lord Forbes (c. 1380-1448), also feudal baron of Forbes, was a Scottish nobleman.-Life:He was the eldest son of Sir Alexander...
  
   (1380–1448)
• James Forbes, 2nd Lord Forbes (d. 1462)
• William Forbes, 3rd Lord Forbes (d. 1483)
• Alexander Forbes, 4th Lord Forbes (d. 1491)
• Arthur Forbes, 5th Lord Forbes (d. 1493)
• John Forbes, 6th Lord Forbes (1475–1547)
• William Forbes, 7th Lord Forbes (d. 1593)
• John Forbes, 8th Lord Forbes (1561–1606)
• Arthur Forbes, 9th Lord Forbes (1581–1641)
• Alexander Forbes, 10th Lord Forbes (d. 1672)
• William Forbes, 11th Lord Forbes (d. 1697)
• William Forbes, 12th Lord Forbes (1656–1716)
• William Forbes, 13th Lord Forbes (d. 1730)
• Francis Forbes, 14th Lord Forbes (1721–1734)
• James Forbes, 15th Lord Forbes (1689–1761)
• James Forbes, 16th Lord Forbes
  James Forbes, 16th Lord Forbes
  James Forbes, 16th Lord Forbes was the son of William Forbes, 14th Lord Forbes.In 1760, he married Catherine Innes and they had six children:*Mary Elizabeth Forbes *Marjory Forbes...
  
   (b. before 1749–1804)
• James Ochoncar Forbes, 17th Lord Forbes (1765–1843)
• Walter Forbes, 18th Lord Forbes
  Walter Forbes, 18th Lord Forbes
  Walter Forbes, 18th Lord Forbes was a Scottish peer. He was the son of James Ochoncar Forbes, 17th Lord Forbes and Elizabeth Hunter. He served as one of the youngest officers, of the line during the Battle of Waterloo as a member of the Coldstream Guards...
  
   (1798–1868)
• Horace Courtenay Gammell Forbes, 19th Lord Forbes (1823–1914)
• Atholl Monson Forbes, 20th Lord Forbes (1841–1916)
• Atholl Laurence Cunyngham Forbes, 21st Lord Forbes (1882–1953)
• Nigel Ivan Forbes, 22nd Lord Forbes (b. 1918)

The heir apparent

Heir apparent

An heir apparent or heiress apparent is a person who is first in line of succession and cannot be displaced from inheriting, except by a change in the rules of succession....

is the present holder's son the Hon. Malcolm Nigel Forbes, Master of Forbes (b. 1946). The second heir apparent is his son Neil Forbes (b. 1970).