Tilda Swinton: The great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great granddaughter of Robert the Bruce…

Published on Friday 18 September 2009 22:11

ONE of Britain's leading actresses is a descendant of Robert the Bruce – through both her mother and father.

Researchers at Scotland's main family history centre found Oscar-winner Tilda Swinton is 19 generations removed from Bruce.

The Nairn-based actress has been revealed to have centuries of links to Scotland which will be featured in a major new exhibition in Edinburgh about her family tree.

The star is also the descendant of a renegade preacher, an Archbishop of Canterbury, an early pioneer of television and a professional singer.

And she has links with the military, the worlds of botany, politics and geology, and the medieval Earls of Orkney.

Ms Swinton, who lives in Nairn but was born in London and partly raised in Germany, is the daughter of Sir John Swinton, a former British Army officer, who can trace his ancestors back to Robert II, the grandson of Robert the Bruce, who masterminded Scotland's victory over the English at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, which secured Scotland's independence.

Several generations of Sir John's family have lived at Kimmerghame, the Berwickshire estate bought by his great, great, great uncle Archibald in the 19th century.

The Swintons descend from Robert II's illegitimate son, the Duke of Albany, while Sir John's Australian-born wife can trace her family tree back through her Balfour ancestors to Mariotta Cardney, one of Robert II's favourite mistresses.

Ms Swinton may have inherited her stage talents from her great-grandmother, singer and society hostess Elizabeth Ebsworth.

The Swinton family tree also features scientist Alan Archibald Campbell Swinton, who took the first X-ray pictures in Britain, and Major General Sir Ernest Swinton, who helped develop the tank.

Ms Swinton's family tree has been exposed as part of a series of celebrity exhibitions at the new ScotlandsPeople Centre, in Princes Street, which have also featured Billy Connolly and singer Shirley Manson.

The actress – who lives in Nairn with her artist and playwright husband John Byrne and went to school at Edinburgh's Fettes College – is one of Scotland's best-known showbusiness personalities, and has been patron of the Edinburgh International Film Festival for more than two years.

Ms Swinton – who is best known for her roles in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, Vanilla Sky, Michael Clayton and Young Adam – is yet to visit the exhibition, but has been invited in to take a closer look at her ancestors.

Her father yesterday told The Scotsman she was "fairly knowledgeable" about her family tree going back to the ninth century because of extensive records that he had kept.

"I'm actually not too surprised to hear that I'm directly related to Robert the Bruce.

"We know we've got an absolutely enormous family tree, which included ancient royalty, but didn't realise it went back that far. However Tilda will have no idea at all that she's a descendant of Robert the Bruce."