Clan Bethune

Electric Scotland treats them as forms of one surname, "Bethune, Beaton, or Beton", of French origin from Bethune in French Flanders. A separate Hebridean kindred of physicians, including Fergus Beaton of Mull and Islay, also used the Beaton name.

No. The Standing Council of Scottish Chiefs lists no Bethune chief, and COSCA's Bethune entry names no chief or commander.

David Beaton, third son of John Bethune of Balfour in Fife, was advanced to cardinal by Pope Paul III in December 1538, succeeded his uncle as Archbishop of St Andrews in the autumn of 1539, and was murdered in St Andrews Castle on 28 May 1546.

A Hebridean medical kindred who used the Beaton name and practised in Mull and Islay. Fergus Beaton, called the Mull Doctor, wrote the Gaelic charter of lands in Islay in 1408. The Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh records that Beaton influence waned after the final disappearance of the Lordship of the Isles in the mid-16th century, and that the last recorded royal physician of the line, Fergus Beaton of Islay, died in 1628.

The Scottish Register of Tartans lists one tartan with Bethune in its name: "Bethune (Personal)", reference 257, category Name, with a design date of 1 January 1997.