B A L 



B A L 



Bald'.viv, archbilTiop of Canterbury, wasboni cif obfcure 

 parents at Exeter, where lie received the nulimcnts of a 

 clafTical education, and taught fehoul ; and afterwards he 

 took orders, and was preferred to the ar( lideaconry ot his 

 native place. But changing his courle of aitvancenitiit, he 

 affumcd the monalUc liabit in the Ciilercian order, and role 

 through the abbacy of his rr.onaRery to the epiieopal fee ot 

 Worcefter, and from thence, in 11S4, to the metropolitan 

 fee of Canterbury'. From the monks he met w'ith fouie ob- 

 llruftion in this lall ftage of his preferment; and therefore, 

 in order to counteradt their intered and power, he formed a 

 plan for eftablifhing a church and moiiallcry at Hackingtou 

 near Canterbury, for the reception of fecular pritlls; but 

 the monks, by their intereil with the pope, difconcerted the 

 defign. Under the next pope the proiedt was refumed, and 

 Baldwin purchafed a manor at Lambeth, where, upon the 

 fpot where the archbifliop's palace now ilauds, he began to 

 build his college, with the materials collected at Hacking- 

 ton ; but he did not live to complete his defign. In i 189, 

 he performed the ceremony of coronation for Richard I. at 

 Wellminfter; and upon the tranflation of the bifliop of Lin- 

 coln to the fee of York, he took occafion to eflablidi the pre- 

 eminence of tlie archbilhop of Canterbury, by forbidding 

 any Englifh bilhop to receive confecration from any other 

 hands than thofe of this metropolitan. Archbifliop Bald- 

 win took a part in the crufade for the recovery of the holy 

 land, and when Richard L conducted an army into Paleftine, 

 this prelate appeared in his train; and by his private contri- 

 butions and pious exhortations encouraged the enthufiallic 

 adventurers to perfevere. At the fiege of Acre or Ptole- 

 mais, or, as fome relate, at Tyre, the bilhop was feizcd with 

 a violent diforder, which terminated in his death, A.D. 

 1 191, or A. D. 1193. During his illnefs, he direfted his 

 executor, the bifliop of Salifbury, to dillribute, at his dif- 

 cretion, all his effefts among the foldiers. He was diflin- 

 j^uiflied by his humanity and generolity; but the mildnefs 

 €)f his temper betrayed him into remiffnefs in his palloral 

 offices; fo that a letter was addreffed to him by pope 

 Urban HL with this fuperfcription ; " Urban, bifliop, fer- 

 vant of the fervants of God, to Baldwin, a moll zealous 

 monk, a fervent abbot, a lukewarm billiop, and a negligent 

 archbiftiop." Baldwin wrote feveral tradl:s, chiefly theolo- 

 gical, which were colledlcd and pnblifhed by father Tiffier, 

 and which may be found in the fifth volume of the " Bib- 

 liotheca Ciftercienfis." Cave, H. L. vol. ii. p. 250. Biog. 

 Brit. 



Baldwin'^ Phcfphorus, in Ale^icitie, a pliofphorefcent 

 fubllance, formed by calcining the nitrat of lime in a low red 

 heat. See Phosphorus, Bali!iuin\. 



BALE, John, in Latin Baleiis, in Biogrnphy, an Englifh 

 divine and hillorian, was bcrn at Cove, near'Durwich, in 

 Suffolk, in the year 1495. From the monaltery of Car- 

 melites at Norwich, where he was entered at the age of 

 twelve years, he was fent to Jefus college in Cambridge. 

 Bale, probably illuminated by lord Wentworth, and partly 

 conceiving a diflike to celibacy, abandoned the church of 

 Rome in which he was educated, and became a zealous 

 proteftant. The acrimony and vifulence with which his 

 v.ritings againft popery were tindfnn.d, expofed him to a 

 variety of fw.vere perlecution ; and after the death of lord 

 Cromwell, whofe protection he enjoyed in early hfe, he was 

 tinder a neceffity of Peeking an afylum in the Netherlands. 

 Upon the acccfiion of Edward VL he returned to England, 

 and, diftinguifhed by his zeal for the reformation, he was 

 firft prefented to the living of Bifliop's Stoke in the county of 

 Soutlianipton, and afterwards obtained, by nomination from 

 tht crown, the bifiiopriek of OfTory in Ireland; and in 1553, 



confecvateJ by the archbilTiop of Dublin. In this fituation, by 

 his uttaclunent to the dodlrines of the teformation, he was fiib- 

 ject to C(MUtant terror, and his life was frequently in danger. 

 On occafion of one tumult, five of his domellies were killed 

 in his prefcnce, and he cfcaped by the fealoiiable, protedliou 

 of an armed force. Of his alarms and troubles in Ireland, 

 he has given a particular account in his " Vocacyon of John 

 Bale to the Billiopricke of Offory in Irelande, his Perfecu- 

 tions in the fame, and final Deliverance ;" printed in black 

 letter, folio, 1 553. In making his efcape, after temporary 

 concealment in Dublin, the trading veffel in which he was 

 conveyed away was taken by a Dutch man of war, and he 

 was llrippcd by the captain of all his money and cfFedls. 

 Being driven by llrefs of weather on the coall of Cornwall, 

 the bifliop was feized on fufpicion oftreafon, in confequence 

 of the accufation of a pilot, who u idled to fliare his money ; 

 and a fimilar charge was brought againd him at Dover, 

 whither he was conveyed in the fame (hip. Being removed 

 as a prifoner to Holland, he was under a neeelhty of pur- 

 chafing his liberty by a large ranlom; and after his libera- 

 tion he removed from Holland to Bafil in Swifferland, and 

 remained abroad till the end of queen Mary's reign. Upon 

 the acceffion of Eli/.abeth, he returned to England; and 

 fearful of encountering the difficulties and hazards of Ins 

 Irilh fee, he retired to a prebendal ftall in the church of 

 Canterbury, to which he was preferred in 1560; and here he 

 died in November 1563, in the fixty-eighth year of his ago. 

 Before his converfion from popery. Bale compofed many 

 fcriptural interludes, founded upon incidents recorded in the 

 New Tedamcnt; fuch as the life of St. John the Baptift, 

 Chrid in his twelfth year, baptifm, and temptation, the re- 

 furrediion of Lazarus, the council of the high-priefts, Simon 

 the leper, the Lord's fupper, and his wadiing the feet of his 

 difciples, Chrift's burial and refurredfion, the paffion of 

 Chrid, &c. His comedy of the three laws of nature, 

 Mofes, and Chriif, printed by Nicholas Bamburgh in 15 38, 

 was fo popular, that it was reprinted by Col well in 1562. 

 In his " Vocacyon to the Bifliopricke of Offory," he in- 

 forms us, that his comedy of " John the Baptift," and his 

 tragedy of " God's promifes to men," written in 1538, 

 and fird printed by Charlewood in 1577, 4to., were adled 

 by the youths upon a Sunday, at the market-crofs of Kil- 

 kenny. But the fadiion of adling niylleries fcems to have 

 expired with this writer. He fays that he wrote a book 

 of hymns, and another of jefts and tales, and that he tranf- 

 lated the tragedy of Pammachius, probably the fame that 

 was adled at Chritl's college in Cambridge in 1544, and 

 afterwards laid before the privy council as a libel on the re- 

 formation. After he renounced popery, the produdfions of 

 Ills pen, both in Latin and Enghfh, were very numerous. 

 Mod of his Englifh writings in profe were pointed againfl 

 popery; and lv,'o of his pamphlets againd the papifts, all of 

 whom he confidered as monks, are intitled the " Mafs of 

 the Gluttons," and the " Alcoran of the Prelates." Next 

 to expofing the impodures of popery, literary hiftory was 

 his favourite purfuit. His " Chronicle concerning fir John 

 Oldcaftle," was reprinted in 1729. The only work of 

 bifliop Bale, which has given him didindlion among authors, 

 is his " Scriptorum lUudrium Majoris Britannia Catalogus," 

 or, " An account of the lives of eminent writers of Great 

 Britain," commencing from Japhet one of the fons of 

 Noali, and brought down through a feries of 3618 years, 

 to the year of the Chriftian xra 1557, the period at which 

 the author was an exile in Germany. This work is com- 

 piled from various authors, and chiefly from the labours of 

 the eminent antiquary, John Leland. The bitternefs of his 

 iiivedtivcs againd popery and papifls gave great offence to 



Roinaa 



