5C5 



BALGUY, JOHN. 



BALIOL, JOHN. 1 



trusting his safety in Scotland. When the youug king assumed the 

 reins of government, Balfour returned to his native country, and joined 

 the party who watched for the destruction of the yet formidable 

 Morton. The same year he was one of the arbiters chosen by the 

 enrls of Argyll and Athol in the attempt then made to effect a recon- 

 ciliation. On the 5th of February 1578, we find him at the bar, as 

 one of the advocates, or 'prolocutors,' for the prosecution in the 

 criminal trial of one Thomas Turnbull for murder. The following 

 year Morton recovered his authority, and Balfour again fled from 

 before him. An act wag thereupon passed in parliament, renewing 

 the forfeiture which had been pronounced in 1571, a proceeding against 

 which Balfour afterwards protested on the ground of his restoration 

 in 1573; and his plea, though not immediately, was ultimately suc- 

 ce;gful. The death of Morton, whose enemies daily increased both in 

 number nnd power, was now to be accomplished; and as Balfour had 

 taken care to preserve the bond by that nobleman and others in sup- 

 port of Bothwell in the murder of Darnley, a plan was speedily 

 devised : Morton was accused of treason, tried, convicted, and beheaded. 



Tlii* was Balfour's last public act, and it too clearly shows that age 

 hud in no degree dulled his capacity for intrigue or his thirst for 

 revenge. He (lied soon after, in the year 1583. After his death, he 

 was restored, against the forfeiture of 1579, by act of parliament; 

 but acts of pailiament can wipe off those taints only which human 

 laws have created : they cannot remove the stains of profligacy, nor 

 wash away infamy from the memory of the corrupt. 



(Knox, Hist, of the Reformation ; Keith, Hitt. of the Reformation ; 

 Goodal, Preface to Batfour's Practicki ; Tytler, Life of Craig; His- 

 torical Account of the Senators of the College of Justice.) 



BALQUY, JOHN, an eminent divine of the Church of England, 

 was born August 12th, 1686, at Sheffield; and was educated in the 

 grammar school of that place, partly under his father and partly under 

 the instruction of a Mr. Daubuz, who had succeeded his father as master 

 there. He became a member of St. John's college, Cambridge, in 1 702, 

 and in 1706 was admitted to the degree of B.A. ; after which he ceased 

 to reside in the university, and for awhile taught in the grammar 

 .school at which he was brought up. For some tiuie he was private 

 tutor to Joseph Banks, Esq., grandfather to Sir Joseph Banks, Bart., 

 President of the Royal Society. Mr. Balguy took orders in 1710; in 

 1711 he became private tutor in the family of Sir Henry Liddell, of 

 Ravensworth Castle, Durham, who afterwards bestowed upon him the 

 donative of Lamesly and Tanfield in that county; and he married 

 in 1715. 



Mr. Balguy's publications were chiefly controversial Several of the 

 earliest of them were directed against Mr. Stebbing and Bishop Sher- 

 lock, and in defence of Bishop Hoadly, in the Bangorian controversy; 

 others were written in reply to deistical works. In 1726 ha took the 

 degree of M.A.. and in the same year published ' A Letter to a Deist 

 concerning the Ueauty and Excellence of Moral Virtue, and the Sup- 

 port and Improvement which it receives from the Christian Revelation.' 

 In 1728 Mr. Balguy was collated by Bishop Hoadly to a prebend in 

 the church of Salisbury. In 1727 or 1728 he preached an assize ser- 

 mon on the subject of ' Party Spirit,' which was printed by order of 

 the judges ; and in the latter year published a tract entitled ' The 

 Foundation of Moral Goodness,' in answer to Mr. Hutcheson's ' Inquiry 

 into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue ;' of this tract he 

 published a 'Second Part' in 1729. In 1729 he became vicar of 

 Northallerton in Yorkshire, in which preferment he continued to his 

 death. In 1729 he also published ' The Second Part of the Founda- 

 tion of Moral Goodness,' illustrating and enforcing the principles 

 contained in the former part, which had been answered in some 

 remarks written by Lord Darcy. His next publication was 'Divine 

 Rectitude ; or a Brief Inquiry concerning the Moral Perfections of th 

 Deity, particularly in respect to Creation and Providence." It was 

 followed by 'A Second Letter to a Deist concerning a late Book, 

 entitled " Christianity as old an the Creation," more particularly that 

 Chapter which relates to Dr. Clarke.' To this succeeded ' The Law of 

 Truth, or the Obligations of Reason essential to all Religion ; to which 

 are prefixed some Remarks supplemental to a late Tract entitled 

 " Jiivine Rectitude." ' 



Mr. Baluy collected his various treatises (except his assize sermon, 

 and the tracts on the Bangorian controversy), and published them in 

 one volume 8vo, London, 1734, with a dedication to Bishop Houdly. 

 In 1741 appeared his ' Essay on Redemption,' in which he explains 

 the doctrine of atonement in a manner similar to that of Dr. Taylor 

 of Norwich ; but Hoadly was of opinion that he had not succeeded. 

 This and his volume of sermons, including six which had been 

 published before, were the last pieces committed by him to the press. 

 A posthumous volume was afterwards printed, which contained 

 almost the whole of the sermons he left behind him. While in pos- 

 session of the donative of Lamesly and Tanfield, for the first four 

 years he never intermitted one week without composing a sermon ; 

 tint fearing that big son, who was afterwards in orders also, might not 

 follow his example, he destroyed almost his whole stock, and com- 

 mitted ai. one time two hundred and fifty sermons to the flames. 

 The third edition of Mr. Balguy'a 'S2rmons' (twenty in number) was 

 published in 2 vols. 8vo, London, 1790. He died at Harrogate. Sep- 

 tember 21st, 1748. 



(Life, communicated by his son to the Hioyraphia Brilannica.) 



BALGUY, THOMAS, D.D., ouly son of the Rev. John Balguy, was 

 born at Lamesly, in the bishopric of Durham, September 27th, 1716, 

 and was educated at the free school of Ripon in Yorkshire. In 1734 

 he was admitted at St. John's College, Cambridge ; took the degree of 

 BA., 1738; M.A., 1741; D.D., 1758. In March 1740 he had been 

 elected Fellow of his college, upon Mr. Platt's foundation, which he 

 vacated in 1748, upon being presented by his father (as prebend of 

 Salisbury) to the living of Stoke, near Grantham in Lincolnshire. He 

 was also for a time joint tutor of St. John's College. By the interest 

 of Bishop Hoadly he obtained a prebend in the cathedral of Win- 

 chester in 1757; became archdeacon of Salisbury in 1759; and 

 afterwards archdeacon of Winchester. In 1769 he published a sermon 

 preached at Lambeth at the consecration of Jonathan Shipley, D.D., 

 bishop of Llandaff, which was attacked by Dr. Priestley. In 1771 he 

 was presented by the dean and chapter of Winchester to the vicarage 

 of Alton in Hampshire, upon which he resigned the living of Stoke. 

 In 1772 he published 'A Defence of Subscription to Articles in Religion,' 

 in a charge delivered to the clergy of his archdeaconry. His sermon 

 at the consecration of Bishops Hurd and Moore, also published in 1775, 

 produced some ' Remarks by One of the Petitioning Clergy.' In 1775 

 he edited the sermons of Dr. Powell, master of Jesus College, Cam- 

 bridge, with a life of that divine prefixed. In 1781 the declining 

 state of his health, and particularly the decay of his sight, which ended 

 at last in total blindness, prevented his acceptance of the bishopric of 

 Gloucester, to which his Majesty, without any solicitation, had nomi- 

 nated him upon the death of Bishop Warburton. In 17t>2 he published 

 ' Divine Benevolence asserted and vindicated from the Reflections of 

 Ancient and Modern Sceptics," 8vo. In 1785 he republished his father's 

 ' Essay on Redemption," with a preface, seemingly intended to bring 

 his father's sentiments nearer to the orthodox belief. A collection of 

 his sermons and charges appeared the same year, under the title of 

 ' Discourses on Various Subjects,' Svo. These were again printed in 

 1822 at Cambridge, with additions, in two volumes, edited by the 

 Rev. James Drake. Dr. Balguy died January 19th, 1795, in his 

 seventy-ninth year, at his prebeudal house at Winchester, and was 

 buried in that cathedral. In 1831 a small portion of a course of 

 lectures on the feudal laws and the English constitution, which Dr. 

 Balguy had composed while resident at Cambridge as tutor of his 

 college, was published under the title of 1, ' Connected View of the 

 several Steps by which the Parliament of England obtained its present 

 Form ; 2, The Maxim that Power follows Property applied to the 

 History of the English Constitution." Svo. (Nichols, Life of Buwyer ; 

 Chalmers, Bioy. Diet. ; Memoir of Dr. Balguy, prefixed by Mr. Drake 

 to his edition of the Discourses, Svo, 1S22.) 



BALIOL, or BALLIOL, JOHN, the successful competitor with 

 Bruce for the crown of Scotland, was descended from an ancient 

 Anglo-Norman family that held large possessions in England, Nor- 

 mandy, and Scotland. He was the ouly sou of John Baliol, lord of 

 Galloway, and was born about the year 1259. In 1290 he first becomes 

 an object of historical notice, as one of the claimants to the then vacant 

 Scottish throne; claiming in right of his grandmother, the eldest 

 co-heiress of the only sou of David I., king of Scotland, that had issue 

 living. 



The recently-deceased king of Scotland, Alexander III., was married 

 to the daughter of Henry III. (father of Edward I.), then kiug of 

 England. In 1281 Alexander gave his only daughter Margaret in 

 marriage to Eric, the youthful sovereign of Norway ; and, by the 16th 

 article of the treaty of marriage, it was stipulated that the issue 

 should succeed to the throne of Scotland in the event of failure in the 

 male line. This failure shortly after took place by the death in 1284 

 of Alexander's only surviving son without issue; by which circum- 

 stance the only child of Erie and the Scottish princess, a daughter 

 also called Margaret, and known in Scottish history and ancient 

 ballads ^y the appellation of the 'Maid of Norway," became heir- 

 presumptive to the throne of Scotland. By the death of Alexander 

 himself in 1286 the Maid of Norway became rightful queen of Scot- 

 land. She was at this time but three years old, and a council of 

 regency was appointed to execute the duties of the sovereign. 



Edward I. of England, who had long regarded Scotland with the 

 eyes of a feudal superior, availed himself of the opportunity to assert 

 his claim. He was the nearest male relative on the mother's side of 

 the infant princess, who was his grand-niece ; and Eric, naturally 

 anxious for the interest of his daughter, solicited in her favour the 

 protection of the king of England. Jidward conceived that his long- 

 cherished design of uniting Scotland to the English throne might now 

 be realised by marrying the royal heiress to his eldest son, the Prince 

 of Wales. But the scheme when on the point of being carried out, as 

 far as the age of the children permitted, by the concurrence of the 

 father of the princess, the vote of the Scottish parliament, and the 

 sanction of the pope, was suddenly overthrown by the untimely death 

 of the young queen in 1290, which opened a new scene of strife and 

 calamity to Scotland. By this event the posterity of the three last 

 kings of Scotland became extinct, and the throne became the pos- 

 session of the next in kiu or law. Thirteen candidates presented 

 themselves, each asserting the claims of birth and consanguinity ; but 

 the pretensions of the majority were so utterly groundless, that the 

 contest was soon reduced to two competitors John Batiol, lord of 

 Ualloway, and Robert Bruce, lord of Annandale. The claims, relative 



